Jul 26, 2020

Article #1 >>>>> >Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota< >>>>> Volume VII, Number 2, August 2020


Article #1

African Origins

 

Africans:  Ancestors to All Humankind

               

The ancestors of all human beings were from Africa.

 

About 4 million years ago, the hominid Australopithecus dwelt in East Africa;  this creature had a much smaller brain than would be the case for homo sapiens (modern human), but its body featured many characteristics of the human.  Around 2.5 million years ago, the hominid homo habilis appeared alongside Australopithecus and put its larger brain to work fashioning tools of rock and wood.

 

Approximately 1.5 million years ago, the hominid homo erectus walked upright and put its still larger brain to work to produce fire for cooking food and generating warmth.  Homo erectus was the first hominid emigrant population, heading generally on a northeastwardly trek, into Southeast, South, Central, and East Asia.

 

Approximately 200,000 years ago the modern human, homo sapiens, with three-pound brain and the full physical and mental characteristics of humanity, appeared in places just a bit northward in the same general region of East Africa as homo erectus.   Homo sapiens became the second emigrant population to make its way out of Africa but followed a different trek than that of homo erectus, heading most notably to what we today know as Europe, encountering the creature homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthal human).  The Neanderthals coexisted with homo sapiens but by about 75,000 years ago had been variously absorbed or competitively overwhelmed by these true humans.  Human beings then spread out with remarkable swiftness over the globe:  Eurasia by about 150,000 B.C., Australia by 100,000 B.C. (BCE), the Bering Strait into the Americas by about 12,000 B.C. (BCE).

 

So by 12,000 B. C. (BCE), descendants of common African ancestors covered the globe.  The people who populated the globe developed many distinct cultures and many varieties of tools, diets, social arrangements, and early religious expression as they adapted to particular geographic settings and climatic demands.  Skin pigmentation developed in evolutionary fashion, according to the processes of natural selection, producing a range between the very light-skinned northern Europeans and dark-skinned Africans.

 

People on the continent of Africa were among the first to make tools.  They were the first to make bone tools, and they were among those producing tools in five main traditions:  Oldowan (simple chopping and flake tools), biface (hand axes chipped on both sides for cutting), flake (small cutting and flaking tools), single-stone blade (many usable blades from a single stone), and microlith (small tools used as projectile points and for carving softer materials).  Around 800,000 years ago fishers living in the basin of the Congo River invented sophisticated tackle to catch giant catfish.

 

In Africa, as elsewhere, people came to discover that implantation of certain seeds can produce a predictable crop, yielding the possibility of settled village life.  When this happened, humanity moved from the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) phase into the Neolithic (New Stone Age) phase.  People in Egypt were among the first to cultivate crops, doing so along the majestic Nile River.  Neolithic societies arose in sub-Saharan Africa during 6,000-3,000 B. C. (BCE), about the same time that agricultural societies were also developing in Europe.  

 

Classical Egypt

 

About 3100 B.C. (BCE), King Menes of Upper (southern) Egypt superintended victory over a competing kingdom in Lower (northern) Egypt, setting up a capital at Memphis, just south of the fertile Nile Delta region.  King Menes and his successors during an early stage lasting until about 2700 B. C. (BCE) were considered divine, the living embodiment of the falcon-god Horus.  Farmers tilling the rich soil along the Nile River irrigated their fields and used some of the world’s first plows.

 

During the period of 2686-2181 B. C. (BCE) known as the Old Kingdom, Egyptians constructed the pyramids.  Among the most notable of these were the first product of this kind of construction, the Step Pyramid in Memphis in honor of the pharaoh Zoser, designed by his vizier (prime minister), Imhotep;  and the multi-chamber Great Pyramid at Gaza, highly advanced in technique and intricacy, overseen by the pharaoh Khufu.

 

Internal rivalries and invasion by Asiatic tribesmen from the Sinai caused chaos, decline, and the eventual fading of the Old Kingdom into the First Intermediate Period (2181-2050 B. C. [BCE]).  The pharaoh Montuhotep II inaugurated a new dynasty that began the period of c. 2050-1786 known as the Middle Kingdom.   Montuhotep II and successors such as Amenemhat I and those in the familial line Senruset I, II, and III superintended military campaigns southward to Nubia and northeastward to Palestine and Syria.   Motivation for the pharaohs’ sponsorship of these campaigns focused on certain raw materials for which the Egyptians had more need than supply:   ivory, gold, and other precious metals in Nubia;  timber and precious stones and metals in Palestine and Syria. 

 

The period of the Middle Kingdom featured vigorous activity of many sorts:  A large-scale reclamation and irrigation project in the area of Fayum increased Egypt’s supply of food;  the development of the cuneiform writing system increase the efficiency of scribes in recording governmental decrees, religious events, and commercial transactions.  The creations of Egyptian statuary and jewelry conveyed a sense of the wide geographical universe inhabited by the Egyptians, whose artists and artisans used numerous materials of foreign origin.

 

By 1786, processes pf late dynastic decline set in, and Egyptian history entered the Second Intermediate Period, for the last half of which (1674-1570  B.C. [BCE]) the technologically advanced Hyksos people stormed across Central and West Asia to enter Egypt, utilizing their chariots and iron weapons to subdue the local Egyptian population.   They constructed a new capital named Avaris and for the most part satisfied themselves with rule of Lower (northern) Egypt, probably commanding tribute from but not exerting direct control over Thebes and other southern areas traditionally under the rule of the pharaohs. 

 

In 1570 B. C. (BCE), the locally powerful Theban ruler, Kamose, worked with his brother (Ahmose) to conquer Avaris, expel the Hyksos from Egypt, and inaugurate the first dynasty of the New Kingdom (c 1570-1085 B. C. [BCE]).  During the rule of the New Kingdom pharaohs, Egypt reasserted itself as one of the major powers of the ancient African and Mediterranean world, stretching territorially from the Sudan to Syria, and edging close to the Nubians of the Horn of Africa, conquering them for a time and gaining direct access to their gold mines   Religious focus was directed toward Amun-Re (Amon-Ra), conjoining the chief Theban deity Amun (Amon) with the sun god Re (Ra) long worshiped throughout the land of the pharaohs. 

 

Notable pharaohs of Egypt during the period of the New Kingdom included Hatshepsut (r. circa 1417-1379 B. C. (BCE), one of several female pharaohs who took power during a stretch of time when the line of male heirs ran thin;  Akhenaton (Ikhnaton, 1370-1362 B. C. [BCE]), a dynamic ruler who attempted to redirect worship toward Aton, the sun’s disk, and constructed a new city named after himself (on the site of the modern Tel el Amarna);  and Ramesses (Ramses) I, II, and III---  who during the decades after1320 (when Ramses I took power) expanded to areas, such as Palestine and Nubia, typically held when the power of the Egyptian pharaohs was greatest.

 

The last pharaohs of the New Kingdom were not as successful as had been earlier occupants of the throne in contending with Hittites to the east, Libyans to the west, piratical “sea peoples” to the north, and Nubians to the south.  The New Kingdom fell under pressure from such outsiders, and from internal divisions, in 1085 B. C. (BCE).  During much of the 9th and 8th centuries B. C. (BCE), Libyans controlled Egypt, at first in the dynastic style of the pharaohs and then as an array of city-states.  The Nubians controlled Egypt for several decades after 712 B. C. (BCE) and the Assyrians asserted dominance for a while before the pharaoh Psamtik I (r. 664-610 B. C. [BCE]) established a line of native Egyptian rulers.  Then, weakened by military confrontations with the Babylonians, the Egyptians submitted to conquest by the Persians, who controlled Egypt for most of the years from 525 until 323 B. C. (BCE).

 

In 323 B. C. (BCE), the forces of Alexander the Great smashed their way into Egypt to establish  the magnificent city of Alexandria and reorient Egyptian civilization towards that rich blend of Greek, Roman, and Arab influences known as Hellenistic civilization.  Then, some ten centuries later (7th century A. D. [CE]), another great invading force---  that of the Muslims---  reoriented Egyptian civilization once again, the Muslims were hugely important  for their intellectual prowess in incorporating the scholarly, literary,  and artistic works of Graeco-Roman civilization into a cultural realm that was dominated religiously by Islam.  

 

Kush, Meroe, and Axum

 

Under pressure from the Assyrians, the Nubian pharaoh Taharqa retreated southward in the 7th century B. C. (BCE) to Kush, where the Nubians (Kushites) mastered the iron-making skills learned from the Assyrians and built a stable and prosperous kingdom focused at the Fourth Cataract, in the great “S” bend of the Nile, and eastward into the regions that we today know as Ethiopia and Somalia.  This land at the time was very fertile and able to support large herds of cattle;  by the 6th century B. C. (BCE), the borders of Kush stretched to the south of present-day Khartoum.

 

As years of grazing depleted the soil, the people of Kush trended toward Meroe, south of the Atbara River’s confluence with the Nile.  The great state of Meroe had abundant resources in iron ore and the wood necessary to smelt it;  heaps of slag that to this day appear across this land bear witness to the thriving iron industry of Meroe.  Protected by a well-armed cavalry, traders of Meroe exchanged goods with counterparts in Egypt, Arabia, and India.  The empire’s artists and artisans blended influences from Egypt, the Hellenistic world, and India to produce works stunning in their adaptation of these diverse styles to themes appropriate to the geographical setting of Meroe.

 

Desiccation of the land induced a decline in the wealth and military might of Meroe, which left the land vulnerable to an attack from nearby Axum in 350 A. D. (CE).  Here the mostly black Africans of Meroe blended with a population that had in the 7th century B. C. (BCE) migrated from today’s Yemen across the Red Sea to the Horn of Africa.  The Axumite court was stage for ethnically diverse representatives from West Asian and the Mediterranean, bringing Hellenistic, Greek Orthodox, Arabian, Persian, and Indian influences.  The Muslim conquest of the Arabian peninsula and then Egypt disrupted the sea trade on which much of Axum’s power and prosperity had depended, precipitating a decline.  But from time to time the Axumite society reasserted the cultural greatness of the days of glory, and particularly during the medieval era underwent a renaissance.  The modern urban center of Axum is the holy city of the Coptic Christians.    

 

Great West African Empires

 

In the 8th century there arose in West Africa the first of three great empires that would for many centuries dominate the Sudan, the region south of the Sahara Desert and north of the tropical forests running from Senegal in the west to the Nile valley in the east.  This first of the three great West African empires was Ghana, which initially consolidated power among their own people, the Soninke, then asserting power over a strong and dynamic trading state stretching between the Senegal and Upper Niger Rivers.  Ghanaian traders bartered for gold with traders who lived intermediately between themselves and the gold miners who lived and labored to the far south.  The Ghanaians then sold the gold to merchants who crossed the desert and gathered in the southernmost oases at the northern edge of the Sudan and served as terminal points for caravans that gained fame for their journeys across the Sahara.

 

During 1076-1077 A. D. (CE) the Almoravids (a fierce Berber nomad configuration that typically guided trade caravans across the desert) broke out of the western Sahara desert to lead a holy war northward through Morocco and all the way to Spain (where they conquered the Umayyad Moors);  and southward to lands that included the Ghanaian empire.  Several smaller kingdoms survived the Almoravid invasion, among which was the well-organized petty kingdom of Mal.  Under the rule of three dynamic rulers---  Sundiata, Mansa Uli, and Mansa Musa---   Mali expanded in the course of 1220-1340 A. D. (CE)  to occupy an area in West Africa larger than had Ghana.  Ghana covered much of the western Sudan and featured one of the world’s most opulent and cultured cities, Timbuktu.   Sundiata, Mansa Ul, and Mansa Musa embraced Islam, which had become such a powerful cultural

force throughout West Asia, North Africa, parts of Southeast Asia, and into stretches of West and Central Africa.  In 1324, Mansa Musa made a pilgrimage to Mecca, carrying with him and spending so much gold in route that he upset the money market in Cairo and caused an inflationary period to ensue in the trade of the Mediterranean area that lasted for decades thereafter.

 

Mali continued strong until about 1450, at which time Songhai, the wealthiest and most powerful of these great West African empires, established rule over the region.  For at least a century and a half, Songhai featured one of the world’s greatest civilizations.  The heart of the empire nwas at about the midpoint alog the Niger River, where the kind of trade that had made Ghana and Mali such formidable forces in West Africa continued to flourish.  Songhai reached its height during the rule of Sonny Ali (r. 1464-1492) and Askia the Great (r. 1493-1528).  Urban life thrived on the basis of the region’s commercial vitality and on the elements of high civilization found in Islamic law, medicine, math, science, literature, architecture, art, and theology.  Djenne was on great city of Songhai.  Timbuktu was even greater.  To this latter scholars came from all over western Asia and Africa to exchange ideas, just as merchants exchanged goods and services.  Songhai’s great mosque of Sankore provided a fertile meeting ground for Muslim thinkers and people of all faith endeavoring to visit one of the world’s most important urban centers.  The mosque of Sankore represented a cultural continuity between the empires of Mali and Songhai, having been designed in the 14th century by As-Saheli, one of the Egyptians brought back to Mali by Mansa Musa after his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324.

 

Other Kingdoms and Societies of Africa

 

To the east of Songhai lay the Hausa states, including the notable Kano and Katsina, the development of which seems to have extended back into the 11th century.  Bu the 14th century, powerful kings ruled these domains, which feature substantial urban centers where craftspeople and merchants built prosperous livelihoods connected to the regional and trans-desert trade.  The Hausa states were particularly famous for their leatherwork, which yielded much sought-after items from the North;  European traders obtained these leather goods in the journeys to North African and came to them collectively as Moroccan leather.

 

In the central Sudan, around Lake Chad, lay another great state, Kanem-Bornu, the rulers of which had been Muslin from as early as the 11th century.  One of the oldest and largest of the African states, Kanem-Bornu retained its independent existence until the latter years of the 19th century, when European traders finally succeeded in bringing it under control. 

 

In the mountains toward the eastern end of the Sudanic belt lay Ethiopia, a Christian empire that was the successor state to Axum.   Monarchical states made a later appearance south of the Sudan, but empies such as the Benin and the Oro in Yorubaland (Nigeria), whose people produced some of the world’s great sculptures, flourished well before the arrival of the Europeans in the 15th century.  African peoples in other part of the continent also established kingdoms and empoires, especially in the expansive territory south of the equator into which the Bantu language had spread.  

 

Over several millennia, a cluster of kingdoms flourished between the great lakes of East Africa, including Rwanda and Buganda.  South of the Congo (Zaire) forests lived the peoples of the Luba-Lunda group of kingdoms, and the monarchical state of Kongo emerged as a dominant force south of the river estuary that in colonial times (from the late 19th century) would bear its name.

 

Much farther to the South, on the Zimbabwe-Rhodesian plateau, was the empire of Monomotapa, the wealth of which was derived from a lucrative trade in gold on the East African coast at sofala, a coastal outpost of the rich trading city of Kilwa.  Associated with this kingdom of Monomotapa was the Great Zimbabwe, a walled enclosure built mainly in  the 14th and 15th centuries n a site that ahd been used for ritual purpose since 1000 A. D. (CE).

 

General Characteristics of African Societies

 

Throughout these magnificent kingdoms and in those areas where a more decentralized style of governance prevailed, a wide variety of cultural styles described the lives of Africans.  West Africans were known for their skill as farmers and Artists.  They excelled in cultivating rice, building boats, and navigating along coasts.  Many were experts in producing textiles and baskets.  Others fashioned clothing from skins and fur.  Some became expert in producing weapons, utensils, and ceremonial objects from iron, copper, and precious stones.  Heights of artistry were reached by many West Africans who used these same materials to produce jewelry, metalwork, and sculpture.

 

The topography of Africa was and is enormously varied, featuring tropical forests, expansive deserts, and broad grassland.  Many African societies are matrilineal, with inheritance and property rights descended from the mother.  Many are also matrilocal, meaning that it is the groom who leaves his own family t live with or near the family of the bride.  Kinship was very important in traditional African society.  Ancestors are considered the links to the past, and descendants were considered the bridge to the future.  Both were part of the family broadly construed.  Typically hundreds of family members, including people of several generations, gathered together in clan associations to conduct common business and to maintain religious rituals preserving the lint to those who had lived before.

 

People in West African traditionally worshiped their ancestors, seen as the vital link between the supreme creator and the people of humankind and nature.  The indigenous religions of West Africa are animistic:  worshipers devote their ceremonies and ritual observations to spirits believed to dwell in animals, forests, rivers, and rocks.  Nature was and is seen as a thing worthy of respect, awe, care and caution.

 

The Enduring Legacy of Africa for African-Americans

 

The arrival of Europeans in the 15th century would eventually alter the course of African history in ways that would be important not only to the people of the vast continent, but for the entire world, as well.  Later, in the 19th and 20th centuries, almost all of Africa would come under the control of European colonial powers which exerted a might based on superior military hardware and oceangoing prowess.  More immediately important to the history of people of African origin in the Americas would be the slave trade that developed from the fifteenth century, following a pattern of commercial  interaction that included participants of four continents:  Africa, South America, North America, and Europe. 

 

Those people of African descent who were torn from their homeland came with a rich store of cultural treasure that people of European descent could not wrench from their brains, no matter how disrespectfully the slave traders abused African bodies.  The cultures of Africa, alive in the brains and bodies of those people brought to the American from Africa as slaves, would be one of the major cultural streams enriching the lives of people from the Western Hemisphere, including the United States.

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