Slide 1

Slide 2 Northeastern Africa Wadi Kubbaniya (Egypt) - wild grasses and grinding stones (18-17,000 BP) sickles (15-11,000 BP) for harvesting wild grasses Slide 3 Slide 4 Nabta Playa, Eastern Sahara Southern Egypt 9-8,000 BP early pottery making culture based on hunting and harvesting wild grasses (including sorghum); sorghum, at least, in possible early stage of domestication; Possible domesticated African cattle, or at least hard for wild cattle to survive independent of humans in this area (more clearly at Bir Kiseiba site, Egypt) Slide 5 Nabta Playa stone circle Neolithic Megaliths (astronomical alignment) ca. 7000 BP Slide 6 By ca. 8000 BP sheep and goats introduced from Near East and incorporated into Saharan Pastoral Neolithic Nomadic Pastoralism dependence upon domesticated stock and a mobile lifestyle Slide 7 Farming communities in lower Nile (Egypt) ca. 7000 BP Merimde (large site = 18 ha; 45 acres) and Fayum Near Eastern Complex of Wheat, Barley, Goats, and Sheep Slide 8 After ca. 5000 BP Spread of Pastoral Neolithic & Farming (?) into Sahel/E Africa (Following Tsetse Fly-free regions) Sahel Slide 9 WET DRY Modern Distribution of Tsetse Fly Slide 10 Distribution of wild ancestors of Sub-Saharan domesticated African Plants suggests one broad region encompassing 3 Domestic Complexes Savanna complex: sorghum, African rice, peanuts, millets, watermelon Forest margin complex: millets, beans, robusta coffee, oil palm, yams Ethiopian complex: millet, tef, noog, arabica coffee, enset (false banana), chat Forest margin savanna Ethiopian Slide 11 Root Crop Agriculture (yams) and Arboriculture (oil palm) in Tropical Forest and Woodland Areas of Western, Central, and Southern Africa Continuation of Hunting and Gathering in some areas until historic times (trade and colonialism) Slide 12 Yam barn in Nigeria forest region Oil palm Slide 13 Bantu-speakers Slide 14 1 2 3 Slide 15 Bantu farming people expanded relatively quickly into lands occupied by hunter gatherers, displacing or absorbing them and, in some areas, developing complementary trade relations between foragers and early farmers. Bantu speakers now number about 60 million, and most of sub-Saharan Africa now speaks some version of the Niger-Congo language family. Slide 16 Tropical linguistic diaspora (beginning ca. 1,000 BC) Arawak & others Austronesian Bantu Slide 17 Ancestral Bantu Society Economics: Food production (yams and oil palm), with hunted, fished, and foraged foods (livestock complex of Saharan Africa later in eastern and southern Africa) Technology: Ceramics, iron (later), settled villages Settlement: settled plaza villages composed of Houses (kingroups based on lineal descent), and organized into districts of related houses Social political organization: hierarchical (conical clan) chiefship, matrilineal descent groups, initiation and elite life crisis rites, in-law avoidance Slide 18 Chifumbaze ceramic complex of central and southern Africa (e.g., Urewe, Kwale, Matola wares); Spread by iron working farmers Modern Bantu pottery Pottery and iron artifacts used to track Bantu dispersals Slide 19 Terra-cotta statues, 500 BC-AD 200, made by early iron-working farmers Nok site, near Taruga, on western slopes of Jos plateau (Nigeria) Slide 20 Bantu homeland in Nigeria/Cameroon Slide 21 Kingdom of Kongo, 1711 Slide 22 Major Bantu-speaking urban settlement, after ca. AD 1200-1500 As many as 18,000 people Slide 23 Gedi, Kenya Origins of the urban sites on the Swahili coast and adjacent parts of the interior are clearly indigenous (Bantu) developments, but subsequent growth between AD 1000-1500 due to trade in Indian Ocean, which later involved conversion to Islam Slide 24 Niger-Congo Slide 25 Middle Niger (Inland Delta) Slide 26 Middle Niger Prior to 300 BC, higher annual floods in Inland Delta area of the middle Niger River in the Sahel, just south of Sahara, meant little high land for permanent occupations; Wetter conditions also meant insect-born diseases, especially tsetse fly, discouraged settled occupation; 200 BC to AD 100, region (Sahel) became drier and herders and farmers of southern Sahara desert moved into area; Initial occupation of important site of Jenn-jeno, which became important urban and trade center during first millennium AD. Slide 27 Jenn-jeno Large community (12 ha; 30 acres) of round houses with mud foundations by AD 100, reaching its maximum extent by AD 850, which included town area of over 40 ha (100 acres), with a mud-brick wall about 2km long Multi-centric urban settlement composed of occupation areas clustered around ecological features: rice-growing soils, levees for wet-season pasture, basins for dry-season pasture, access to major river channels for communication and trade. Evidence of North African or Islamic influences appears at Jenn-jeno in the form of brass, spindle whorls, and rectilinear houses, ca. AD 1200. After this point, Jenn-jeno begins decline and is abandoned by 1400, as neighboring historical city of Djenn becomes regional center. Slide 28 Multi-centric Urbanism Round house at Jenn-jeno Excavation of Jenn-jeno Mound Slide 29 Slide 30 Koumbi Saleh, Ancient Ghana, starting after AD 500 Slide 31 Timbuktu, Trans-Saharan caravan trade & Songhai empire, 1500s Slide 32 Benin empire, 16 th to 18 th century Slide 33 Brass portrait head Slide 34 Igbo-Ukwu, late 1 st millennium AD burial and related features of a priest-king, included 685 copper and brass wealth items and 165,000 stone and glass beads Trade was critical, which included ivory and slaves Slide 35