Ancient Africa

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Ancient Africa
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Geography and Migration

• Tropical rain forests cover only 5 of land
• Sahara is worlds largest desert
• Desertification?
• Land becomes parched and desert spreads
• Forces migration
• Bantu?
• Root language that has helped trace movement of
  earliest peoples

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The West Africans who migrated south and east
spoke Bantu.
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The variety of climate and geography in Africa
influenced its diversity of culture.
As mentioned earlier, one of its most notable
geographic features is the vast Sahara Desert.
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African vegetation regions are wide bands across
the continent.

• The most populated regions are the savannas.
• Deserts, rain forests, and rivers with cataracts
  hindered easy movement.

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Nubia
Upper Nile

• What have we learned already?
• Competed with Egypt
• 750 BC overtook Egypt for a century
• 500 BC Meroe (mehr uh wee) was centralized
  capital, iron ore, river trade
• AD 350 taken over by Axum

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Trade

• Started by having a surplus of food
• Network linked savanna to forest land in south
  and even to Middle East
• Gold plentiful in (Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal),
  traded for salt from Sahara

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Ghana Land of Gold

• Located where Niger and Senegal rivers form V.
  King collected tolls on all goods entering or
  leaving

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• Capital was Kumbi Saleh, two separate walled
  towns 6 miles apart
• First was mostly royal palace where king was
  semidivine who kept order
• Second was prosperous Muslim merchants
• Islam never spread far here but culture and
  design did
• Overtaken by Mali

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Kingdom of Mali

• Sundiata, 1235, found empire
• Mali is Arab for where the king dwells
• Mansas?
• Kings
• Mansa Musa came to throne in 1312 and expanded
  borders, ensured peace and order in empire
• Adopted Islam but women had more rights
• Timbuktu went from salt center to center of
  learning and scholars

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Timbuktu
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Songhai Kingdom

• Gao, wealthy trading capital 1450
• Sonni Ali, soldier-king, brought trade routes and
  wealthy cities under his control
• Followed traditional religious beliefs
• Askia Muhammad set up Muslim dynasty and made
  kingdom even larger
• Set up bureaucracy with various departments
• Civil war erupted in 1586 while Morocco sent
  armies south to defeat but could not control
• West Africa splintered into many small kingdoms

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