Africa

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Africa

• Ashley J
• Erin A
• Kristy N
• Tiffany L
• Stephanie H
• Katie M

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Pre-HistoryBefore the Rise of Complex
Civilizations

• Humans evolved over several million years from
  primates in Africa
  
• 40,000 years ago - Neanderthals had modern human
  bodies with ape-like faces
  
• 10,000 years ago plant cultivation and
  domestication of animals led to permanent
  settlements
  
• Stone Age 1st appearance of stone tools 2
  million years ago appearance of metal tools
  4000 years ago
  
• 3 traits distinguish humans from apes
  Bipedalism, very large brain, and language
  
• Modern human great ape DNA is 98 identical
• Human tool making 1st recognizable cultural
  activity
  

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Stone Age

• Paleolithic
• (Old Stone Age)
• To 10,000 years ago
• Evolution of humans
• 2 million years ago 1st appearance of crude
  stone tools
  
• 1 1.5 million years ago began setting fires
• Homo habilis, Homo erectus

• Neolithic
• (New Stone Age)
• 10,000 4,000 years ago
• Agricultural Revolution began domesticating
  plants animals
  
• Began cooking foods
• Ecological crisis from over-hunting
• Homo sapiens

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Neanderthals
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The Rise of Complex Civilizations (3500 BCE
1000 BCE)
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Egypt
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Basic Chronology
3100-2575 BCE Early Dynastic 2575-2134 BCE Old Ki
ngdom Egypt 2134-2040 BCE First Intermediate Peri
od 2040-1640 BCE Middle Kingdom Egypt 1640-1532
BCE Second Intermediate Period
1532-1070 BCE New Kingdom Egypt
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Religion

• During the Old Kingdom, the principle was
  established that the king was a god come to
  earth, the reincarnation of the sun god Re
  
• Egyptians believed that their kings were put on
  earth to maintain maat, the divinely authorized
  order of the universe
  
• The pharaoh believed to be an indispensable link
  between the people and the gods
  
• Massive resources were poured into the
  construction of royal tombs to ensure the kings
  spirits wellbeing in the afterlife
  
• In 2630, a third dynasty king, Djoser, ordered a
  triangular building built for his burial instead
  of the flat toped one normally used, this became
  the pyramid Egypt is known so well for
• Required construction of pyramids considered a
  religious service that ensured Egypts prosperity
  
  
• Worshiped many gods some deities were depicted
  with animal heads while others were give human
  form
  
• Egyptians believed in the reality of the
  afterlife and made extensive preparations for a
  safe passage and a comfortable existence once
  they arrive

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Religion

• The Egyptian Book of the Dead presented the
  people with how to care for the dead and ensure
  their safe journey to the afterlife
  
• The last and most important obstacle for the dead
  was believed to be the weighing of the deceaseds
  heart ( the source of a persons intellect,
  personality, and emotion) in the presence of
  underworld judges to see if the deceased had led
  a good life and deserved to reach the ultimate
  blessed destination
• This obsession with the afterlife also created a
  concern about the physical condition about the
  body thus the process of mummification
  

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Political Structure

• Kingship Egypt was ruled by pharaohs and queens.
  
  
• Complex bureaucracy an extensive administration
  at village level, then the districts, which
  divided the country finally the central
  government, based in the citys capitol
• Bureaucrats, in the central administration, kept
  track of land, labor, products, people,
  extracting taxes
  
• Slavery existed on a limited scale rarely
  impacted the economy
  
• Queens queen-mothers played a significant role
  in behind-the-scenes politics royal courts
  
• Migration from the Sahara to the Nile Valley
  resulted in rise of Old Kingdom Egypt in 2500
  BCE
  
• 2134 BCE underlying tension between the
  centralized power of the monarchy forces
  created by the Egyptian bureaucracy broke down
  Egypts government
• 2040 BCE when the early monarchs reduced the
  power of the old elite and created a new middle
  class of administrators, resulting in the rise of
  Middle Kingdom
• 17th century BCE the Middle Kingdom slowly
  declined and fell into a period of political
  fragmentation and economic decline
  
• 1532 under a native dynasty came the rise of a
  new civilization, the New Kingdom that lasted to
  1020

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Impact of Technology Demography

• One of the first civilizations to develop high
  levels of centralization, urbanization,
  technology
  
• 1500 BCE metallurgy hit Egypt once again making
  them a legitimate power with wealth control
  
• Weapons constructed mainly of stone
• 1500 BCE horses arrived horse drawn chariots
  became important weapon for war
  
• The Nile River caused predictable, gradual floods
  that rejuvenated fields agriculture was
  dependant on the river water for irrigation
  
• The Nile River a main resource for travel and
  communication
  
• Used math to survey the population measure
  dimension of fields
  
• Peasants did majority of farming maintained
  channels, basins, dikes for irrigations
  
• Hieroglyphics picture symbols standing for
  words sounds
  
• Methods of transportation included river barges,
  ships with oars sails, carts sleds pulled
  by draft animals
  
• Early tombs made of mud bricks later evolved to
  pyramids
  
• Learned about chemistry human anatomy through
  mummification
  
• Ancient Egypts population between 1 1.5
  million
  

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Interaction with Other Societies

• 1640 BCE The Hyksos took over Egypt
• 1610 BCE The Kamose the Ahmose ran the Hyksos
  out of Egypt extended north into Syria and South
  into Nubia
  
• 1460 BCE Queen Hatshepsut sent an expedition to
  Punt for goods such as live monkeys, ebony,
  ivory, young myrrh trees
  
• 1500 BCE Egypt became participant in a diplomatic
  and commercial system of trade with Asia
  
• 1285 BCE major battle between Egypt the
  Hittites over Syria battle was a draw
  
• 1250 BCE Egypt attacked by unknown invaders
  resulted in loss of territory in Syria,
  Palestine, Nubia
  
• 1220 BCE Libyans attacked Egypt they thwarted
  this attack
  

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Social Gender Structure

• The king high-ranking officials at the top of
  the social hierarchy
  
• Lower level officials, local leaders, priests,
  artisans, well-to-do farmers in middle class
  
• At the bottom were peasants, the vast majority of
  the population
  
• The people at the top of the social
  stratification had more wealth, power, status
  
• Marriage was not religious or legal could be
  absolved at any time by either party
  
• Women were treated more respectfully had more
  legal rights social freedom than any other
  society
  
• Women could own their own property, inherit from
  their parents, maintain the right to their
  dowry in a divorce

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Nubia

• 2300 500 BCE

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Social, Gender, Political Structure

• Social stratification based on wealth
• Women of royal family played important role
• Complex political organization
• Matrilineal system king succeeded by son of his
  sister
  
• Ruled by many queens, either by themselves or
  with their husbands
  
• More complex political entity was evolving from
  the chiefdoms of 3rd millennium BCE, named Kush
  
• 284 BCE-115 CE Women queens played an important
  part in warfare, diplomacy, and the building of
  great temples
  
• Kush Meroë powerful kingdoms
• 1200 BCE authority in Nubia collapsed

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Technology Demography

• Richly endowed with coveted natural resources
  gold semi-precious stones
  
• Metallurgy, monumental building, writing
• Meroë major center for iron smelting
• Nile River vital to trade transportation
• Only continuously inhabited stretch of territory
  connecting sub-Saharan Africa with North Africa
  
• 1750 BCE kings of Kush assembled organized
  labor to build monumental walls structures

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Interaction with Other Societies

• Passageway for trade between tropical Africa
  the Mediterranean
  
• 701 BCE sent rulers into Palestine Assyrians
  retaliated
  
• 660 BCE Assyrians pushed Nubians out of Egypt
• 4th century CE Meroe overrun by nomadic groups,
  causing its collapse
  
• 4th century BCE interaction with sub-Saharan
  Africa resulted in abandonment of Egyptian
  hieroglyphics adoption of Meroitic language

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Egypt Nubia

• 2300 BCE first enters historical record trading
  with Old Kingdom Egypt
  
• Egypt adopted aggressive stance towards Nubia
  during Middle Kingdom
  
• 1200 BCE Egypts authority in Nubia collapsed
• 712-660 BCE Nubian kings ruled all of Egypt as
  the 25th Dynasty
  
• 660 BCE Nubians forced out of Egypt
• 1070 BCE Egyptians penetrated deeply into Nubia
  destroyed Kush led to 500 years of Egyptian
  domination in Nubia
  
• Children of high-ranking Nubian natives held as
  Egyptian hostages
  

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• The Classical Period
• (1000 BCE 600 CE)

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Sub-Saharan Africa

• 300 BCE 1100 CE

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• Encompasses dramatically different environments
  semiarid steppes, tropical savannah, tropical
  rainforest, temperate highlands
  
• 1 CE became distinct cultural region not shaped
  by great traditions (written language, common
  legal belief systems)
  
• Over 2,000 languages spoken, corresponding to
  social belief systems
  
• External conquerors unable to penetrate regions
  natural barriers and impose a uniform culture
  
• Common ritual isolation of kings
• Societies organized themselves into social
  categories age groupings, fixed king divisions,
  distinct gender roles relations, occupational
  groupings
• Cultivation by hoe digging stick was a common
  agriculture technique
  
• Migration away from Sahara resulted in settling
  of the Nile Valley emergence of Old Kingdom
  Egypt

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• By 2nd millennium BCE agriculture common north of
  equator later spread southward displacing a
  hunter-gathering way of life
  
• 1st millennium BCE copper first mined in the
  Sahara
  
• 8th 9th centuries BCE gold first mined in
  Zimbabwe
  
• Early 1st millennium BCE iron smelting began in
  northern sub-Saharan Africa
  
• Many languages south of the equator belong to the
  branch of Niger-Congo family known as Bantu
  
• Original Bantu speakers fished, farmed, possessed
  domesticated animals, lived in permanent
  villages, made pottery cloth
  
• 500 BCE 1000 CE massive transfer of Bantu
  traditions practices southward, eastward,
  westward
  

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• Post Classical Era
• (600 1450 CE)

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Ghana6th 13th Centuries CE

• Earliest known sub-Saharan beneficiary of the new
  exchange system
  
• Established by the Soninke people
• Paganism religion worshipped idols
• King meted out justice, controlled trade,
  collected taxes on salt copper
  
• Large army of bowmen and cavalry made Ghana
  dominant power in region
  
• 1076 CE fell prey to new state formed by Muslim
  desert nomads resulted in conversion to Islam of
  majority of the population
  

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Saharan Africa
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• 2500 BCE Sahara reaches current state of dryness
• 300 BCE scarcity of water restricting travel
• 1100 CE trans-Saharan caravan routes transporting
  significant amounts of gold, slaves, tropical
  goods northward
  
• Cliffs caves of highlands preserve rock
  paintings engravings unable to be dated
  
• Artwork clearly indicates horse herders succeeded
  cattle herders
  

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• Camel not native to Africa domestication spread
  by Saharan trading
  
• Peoples in central southern Sahara used riding
  are depicted as fighting with sword spear on
  camelback
  
• Camel herding established in the south
• People of north Sahara developed camel harnesses
  for plows carts
  
• Southern traders concentrated on supplying salt
  to the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa
  
• Sahel played important role in trade
• Main North trade of Roman North Africa was
  supplying Italy with agricultural products
  (usually wheat olives)
  
• 7th century CE trade focus shifted from
  Mediterranean to the Middle East
  

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Overall Themes

• Trade The trade of gold, and precious natural
  resources such as myrrh tied all the
  civilizations of Africa together, and also
  connected them to the other ancient civilizations
  of the world like Asia and The Mediterranean.
• Religion The Civilizations in Africa from Egypt
  and Nubia to Ghana and sub-Saharan Africa all had
  major and devout beliefs in the afterlife and
  worship of many gods. These beliefs brought many
  similarities to their culture and the way the
  people lived.
• Impact of Geography on Civilization Africa had a
  very diverse geography - From the arid desserts
  to the tropical rainforests and the temperate
  highlands. The people all adapted to their
  environment and used it to their advantage
  whether it is for travel or communication.