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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