By taxing the trade as it passed through their territory and using the wealth gained to build up a body of warrior retainers, powerful chiefs were able to bring neighboring communities under their control and form the nucleus of a kingdom. The tsetse fly infested many wooded areas, especially along waterways, killing cattle and causing sleeping sickness amongst humans. Copper was also an important trade commodity, with trade routes running outwards from the copper belt in modern Zambia. The surrounding bush remained untamed, wild, a source of harm, the abode of dangerous animals and evil spirits. This arrangement had the double benefit of giving the group as a whole more security and leaving the older men at home in more secure possession of their wives. In more densely populated societies a number of such lineages might be clustered together to form a large village or small town. If another man, through skilled farming, plenty of children and a charismatic personality, attracted a following, he could lead his people out into some vacant land and establish his own group. Otherwise, large urban settlements were rare: Great Zimbabwe, Mbaza Kongo, and a handful of other towns were exceptional. There might also be slaves who had been reduced to their lowly status through some misfortune or other famine, debt or even captivity in war. Africa was not just the birthplace of humanity but also the cradle of early civilisations that made an immense contribution to the world and are still marvelled at today. OGJhZDA5YWFmYzE1NjI3OGEwZTY3MmE2NDFiYjllYjg5MDM2MGFmNmNiZWRm It was structured around a big man who was usually (by myth, at any rate) the man most directly descended from the founding ancestor. He was surrounded by his extended family his wives and children, his brothers and their families, more distant relatives, and unrelated families who had been separated from their own clans for various reasons and who looked to him for protection. Generated by Wordfence at Sat, 4 Mar 2023 18:37:22 GMT.Your computer's time: document.write(new Date().toUTCString());. When one of the regular famines struck, these individuals were the first to die. African societies were often fluid from one generation to another, however. However, state-building was not a straightforward process in African conditions. The difficulties of transport noted above acted to restrict trade, and thus to the emergence of centers of specialist production. To have children was essential to an individuals social standing, to their welfare in old age, to their survival as ancestors, and to their lineages existence as an independent group in competitive and often violent societies. Yet there is still debate about how many species of elephant bird there actually were. Except where influenced by Islam, most pre-modern sub-Saharan societies were non-literate. Those suspected of witchcraft were commonly relatives or neighbors who would benefit from a persons misfortune; and especially women whose age, childlessness, deformity or demeanor suggested bitterness. We learn about their beliefs and religion and the important structures that still stand in Egypt today. After about A.D. 500, several centrally organized, warring states appeared in parts of Africa. Privacy Policy Terms and Conditions. OGFiY2MzM2UxNTEyOTJjNWUxYWE1ZmEyODEwNDc0MzU5OTRkZmNhNThmOTM0 MzcwNTgyZmZmMzczNDJkYzBjMmNjNmRjNTg1N2I5ZjkyMjExNjNjOGY5NTFh Social structure is often treated together with the concept of social change, which deals with the forces that change the social structure and the organization of society. OWM2MGJhN2I4ZTEwYzE2ZWQ2NDg2N2UzNTJhMWExYjMzMDUxMzM2ZjYzZGU0 Learning support for teachers and students. The forests are very difficult to cut down, and it was only with the coming of iron implements, in the later first millennium BCE and the early first millennium CE, that people could properly start clearing areas of forest for agriculture. The resulting dissent, fueled by, The larger the state the more resources it could commit to defense and expansion. The Sahara desert forms a major barrier to contacts between the cities and states of the Mediterranean region and the peoples to its south. 1. With the growing emphasis on cattle herding, infant survival must have profited from increased milk supplies, especially when cattle-keeping enabled their owners to colonize the malaria-free highlands which cover much of eastern and souther Africa. Come drought, famine or epidemic, however, clusters would contract again. OTBhNmZkZTE4ZDBjMTQzMTljMWY4NDIyMjYxZmIwY2JkZjc4OTk4ZGE1OWMx Heredity counted for much, as in most societies, premodern and modern; passing status down from father to son was an important dynamic. Pastoralist people such as the Khoisan of southern Africa are closely related to San groups who still maintain their traditional hunting and foraging economy. Even in West Africa, and certainly for Africa as a whole, salt was probably the most traded commodity, being an essential part of peoples diet, especially for those in regions where meat was hard to come by. Government and Economy. This was greatly feared, as it could spring up in communities and tear them apart. OGUyMjAwMmI0ZjlmYzAyMmYxYjllZmEzN2EwMTYzMmMyNzQyZGIwY2IifQ== 7. So too could warfare or misrule. Unlike in other parts of the world, temples and other religious buildings did not dominate townscapes the exception here being the large mosques of Muslim cities. - social STRUCTURE are sometimes defined by GOVERNMENTS all over africa. social structure, in sociology, the distinctive, stable arrangement of institutions whereby human beings in a society interact and live together. In some places, groups of skilled craftsmen had their own chiefs. In river floodplains communities have constructed mounds raised above the flood level from which to take advantage of the rich silt deposited by the river waters. (59) $14.99. The Europeans then made use of existing (African) political structures, which proved themselves not primitive at all, to run the colonies. The abundant insect life of the tropics makes for a very high prevalence of serious diseases, for both humans and their animals; this greatly constrains the rates at which populations can grow. ZDQwYTliY2VjMzM2YmIyZDM1ODQ4Zjc4NzY2ZWQ4NWU5YTliYzE4N2FhMTQw Younger men would set out to seduce or rape the young wives of their elders, and their elders would be determined to prevent this. The mysteriousness of such knowledge might be reinforced in societies where secret associations had a monopoly of spiritual activity. Some owed their rise to the wealth gained from long-distance trade. This meant that they usually lived in small and highly mobile bands, building temporary shelters as they move from place to place. This maximizes opportunities for violent clashes with other groups, and their societies tend to be more militaristic. Agricultural populations were driven by a need to humanize the landscape, to drive back the forest, where danger lurked, and to make the land productive. MTJmOWQxYjMzYzM3MzdkNTQ0ZDhiZWYzMWEzZThiZWJlOTZmODA5ZmM3ZDI0 But humans also were traded: it has been estimated that from the mid-second millennium CE perhaps seven thousand captives a year were taken north across the Sahara from the south, to the slave markets of North Africa and the Middle East. Many chiefdoms and kingdoms in all parts of sub-Saharan Africa have been formed by pastoral clans dominating agricultural populations. This makes them unsuitable for long-distance trade and contact. Stateless peoples NjI3NjM4ODlkZDhlYWEyNmY2NmFiMDk1NjJjYjUwZTQxNmQwMmM4M2E4Mzkz Equality was very important in these tribes and all people were treated equally. This was a strategy to counter a shortage of population, embarking on war and raids with the deliberate intention of taking captives to build up a concentration of unfree farmers under direct royal control. In West Africa, a new religious influence began to make itself felt in the later first millennium. The most spectacular practitioners of this were kings and chiefs, which gave rulers swarms of sons to contest the succession or fragment the state. Some cultures preferred more naturalistic depictions of human faces and other organic forms. Today they are confined to comparatively restricted areas in and around the Kalahari desert, or in the densest forests of the Congo basin; The transition to a settled, farming way of life is quite a difficult one for many hunter-gatherers, but some of them were able to adapt to keeping cattle. A womans standing and access to wealth was entirely dependent upon her husband. This bred a society in which extra-marital sex was common and accepted, and young men adopted an attitude of. The untamed forests have remained home to hunter-gatherer peoples, notably the pygmies. Egyptian culture has six thousand years of recorded history. These caste systems feature endogamy, hierarchical status, inherited occupation, membership by birth, pollution concepts and restraints on commensality.. In large societies with dense populations, which showed marked differences in wealth and were controlled by strong political power, human sacrifice was widely practiced. By utilizing this acronym, students can compartmentalize their findings and . Famine was another source of slaves, causing people to sell themselves, or their children, into slavery in order to survive. The more high-status and long-distance traders, however, were men. However, population pressures often forced farmers out onto drier land. Egypt and Nubia were both complex civilizations ruled by a monarchy and the leader was often considered the god on Earth In Africa it has become clear that characteristics depend on economic development. If the demands of royal authority became too onerous, in the form of heavy taxes, say, or the demands made for public projects or service in the royal army, people could (and did) simply up and leave. Conversely, most men could afford only one wife, if that. M2M4NGNlYzZmM2IzNmFlYTA3OGFjMDcwMWRiZjdmY2UyMzM5ZDg5OTcwNjA1 The great majority of this area is far too dry for agriculture whether crop cultivation or animal grazing of any kind. The General History of Africa ( Ki-Zerbo, et al. As warriors they would cultivate a military ethos and be sent out to military outposts to guard the groups cattle and territory. There are also some large mountain ranges, such as the Ruwenzori mountains in Uganda (the Mountains of the Moon). The sculptural tradition spread to other Yoruba cities in the form of wood carvings, where they continued to reveal an artistry and appreciation of human worth that marks them out as truly great works. It has been noted that herding peoples had a stronger tendency to believe in a high god, whilst cultivators were more likely to worship many gods. The magnificent sculptures of the West African societies of Ife and Benin, for example, depict human figures in an idealized yet deeply moving way, and possess a serene majesty unsurpassed in human art. However, state-building was not a straightforward process in African conditions. MzJiMzEwNzkwMzQ0MDVhMWZmOTU0NzM1MzMzMmE1ZDE4MGY5ZjkyNzY5ZDA2 Secondly there was the nobles, people who fought in the King's army and provided it with weapons. African farming has relied on a thorough understanding of local environments, to an extent which has astonished Western observers. Most weaving was done by women, but in some major textile centers weavers were full-time professional men. Such pragmatism made for an open attitude to ideas and practices from outside: if something worked it was acceptable, wherever it came from. This was Islam, which gradually spread throughout the region over a number of centuries. NzA0NTc2MTNjMDFjMzQ0ODY3ODRmNjZhMzc0ZGFjNDExMDIzN2VhMGNhNGE4 The beginning of the Atlantic slave trade in the late 1400s disrupted African societal structure as Europeans infiltrated the West African coastline, drawing people from the center of the continent to be sold into slavery. eyJtZXNzYWdlIjoiYTQ3YTllNzM5MzNhY2U5MTg3MDQzZTY2YzI0NGNiOTQx Much craft work in Africa, as in all pre-modern societies, was done on a part-time basis by farmers, particularly women. In the Great Lakes region, for example, the Lega people developed a distinctive and lively series of exquisite miniature sculptures. On the other hand, everyone, regardless of sex or age, was required to work in the fields in times of peak activity such as harvest, and in some societies men prided themselves in their diligence as farmers. The Awilu was the top most class in the social hierarchy of ancient Babylonia. The savannah regions of West Africa specialized in millet and fonio, and further south, where rainfall was sufficient, sorghum. All this has left African societies comparatively isolated from the great developments affecting other regions of the Eastern Hemisphere, and indeed from each other. Much religious activity, however, was in the hands of religious specialists adept at making contact with the spirit world in order to influence the forces of nature. However, there have been many As in other parts of the world, textile crafts were widespread. Agriculture spread to the northern grasslands of sub-Saharan Africa by the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE at the latest, and soon covered all of the West African savannah. Establishing a new settlement was not just about clearing forest or scrub and creating fields for crops; it was about taming the land, seeking the permission of the spiritual forces which controlled a patch to settled on it, and making a contract with them to bless them with protection and fertility. Surrounding this would be rings of less and less dense settlement and fields, eventually merging into the surrounding bush. Social Structure and Political Authority The Kushites lived in tribes also known as chiefdoms. In a world where land was plentiful, the poor were those who lacked the labour to work it. If they were too old, ill or handicapped to work effectively; or if through misfortune they had no children; or if they had no kinsmen to aid them clear land and tame fields, they were very vulnerable. Sub-Saharan Africa was therefore never able to develop an original civilization with the material culture on the scale of, say, an ancient Mesopotamia or Egypt. Many captives were sold on to other peoples; there was an active slave trade in Africa. To survive in these harsh conditions a person needed his kin around him. Ancient Africa's government was not very stable because everyone was not unified this is because every village had a different leader. All African towns, with but one or two exceptions such as Jenne in West Africa, were capitals of kingdoms. A larger group of non-farmers was made up of craftsmen. Just as there is great cultural diversity so there is diversity in belief systems. These occupied the grasslands around (and sometimes within) the Sahara and Kalahari deserts, and the more arid grasslands which covered so much of the continent. It was by no means uncommon for a brave young man to capture a young wife and run off with her. The African History is a number one educational website that features General history of Africa which include Ancient & Pre-colonial Africa, Ancient African civilizations, Empires/Kingdoms, Great Ancient African rulers, African Culture, global black history and news. Highly advanced and sophisticated African civilizations, cultures, societies, and statessuch as Ancient Egypt, Kush/Nubia, Axum, Ghana, Mali, and Asanteevolved throughout the continent from the ninth century before the Christian era (BCE) to the nineteenth century CE.African political systems and institutions were traditionally based on kinship and lineage (i.e., common ancestry . Crafts were usually hereditary, and expertise was often a closely-guarded secret of particular kin-groups. Ancient Egypt was among the earliest civilizations.For millennia, Egypt maintained a strikingly complex and stable culture that influenced later cultures of Europe, the Middle East and Africa.After the Pharaonic era, Egypt itself came under the influence of Hellenism, for a time Christianity, and later, Arab and Islamic culture. In many agricultural societies, however, the most important spiritual beings were the spirits of the land and, closely associated with these, ancestral spirits. MmYyNjc5MzNiN2Y1ZWY3NWJhMmMyZTBhZGE4YzI0OTI2MjAwZTRmODkwN2M1 The long-distance trade networks were in the hands of comparatively large and sophisticated commercial organizations. Farming populations have therefore sought out well-watered locations such as river banks, lakesides and moist depressions. Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, this often took the form of inter-generational tensions between elder males with multiple wives and younger males with no wives. In West Africa, the slow multiplication of population concentrations laid the basis for further expansion. Some towns specialized in a particular industry, such as leather-making, bead-making or metal-work, for which they were renowned over a large area. Starting perhaps as just one settlement, they would expand outwards into the bush over time as they cleared new land and established new settlements. The usual form of marriage was through bride-wealth a groom exchanged a portion for his wealth to a brides family in order to marry her. In general, work was divided equally among all people (other than slaves). MDg2MzFiMDZmODM4NDFlY2UyNjFkYzVlM2U3MWExNTI3ODU4YmEyZTM3NWYx This caused individuals to be very sensitive to attacks on their personal honor, real or imagined. Even the Swahili trading ports of East Africa such as Lamu, Mombasa, Kilwa and Zanzibar, home to a sophisticated Arab-African culture, were strung out along the coastline with great distances between them. These probably belonged mostly to hereditary groups, often closely associated with the monarchy they were sometimes high-status slaves who lived within the palace precinct; in other towns they were members of guild-like organizations under their own chiefs. Many African kingdoms had lineages of rulers who traced their origins to foreign lands. The larger the state the more resources it could commit to defense and expansion. States emerged in the forest regions to the south from the end of the first millennium, while in the equatorial forests and grasslands of central, east and southern Africa the state-building process did not start until the early- to mid-second millennium. The previously hidden corridor is the latest discovery of the ScanPyramids project, a mission made up of heritage experts from . They include the second largest freshwater lake in the world, Lake Victoria. Indeed, they even went on strike when a neighboring ruler attempted to convert them to Islam. They must also have all been centers of exchange, yet many African towns, especially outside West Africa (where commercial activity was a major function in urban settlements), seem to have had no markets. Gradually, the hunter-gatherers were squeezed off the best lands by the incoming pastoralists and cultivators, who were able to live in larger groups. For cultivators in particular, any religious beliefs were underpinned by a deeply-held idea about the world in which they found themselves. The findings add support to linguistics-backed theories of population structure . Given the nomadic nature of these societies the spiritual power in question could not be tied to a particular area might, indeed, be a universal spirit who controlled all the land. 2022 TimeMaps Ltd. All Rights Reserved. They also applied a wide range of ointments, and practiced bone setting, surgery and skilled midwifery. The Rhodes-Livingstone Papers. Camels were employed in the long-distance trans-Saharan trade, and donkeys were the normal mode of transport in the West African savannah. Ancient Egypt is arguably the most well-known of Africa's ancient civilizations. Their streams water the surrounding areas and allow farming populations to thrive; and their different climate zones at varying altitudes encourage a localized exchange network to develop. Population growth, Gods and spirits A hard environment One group of industrial workers should be mentioned in this context, although they were not strictly speaking craftsmen in the normal use of the term. ZWQ2YjhiMDdhMDFlMTNjNjE4OWFkMjBlNjMwYzRjZDFhNjY5OGI2YjhmZDc0 They believed in both good and bad spirits. Village clusters would be located in areas suitable for intensive crop production river valleys, floodplains, lakesides and other well-watered places. This was almost universal throughout Africa, and was a painful, even traumatic ceremony by which boys entered adulthood. YWQxYjBmNjljZmEzOTNlOTg4YTZiZmI4M2NkMzZmZTM0MGYzYjRlZmE2Zjk1 Where there is a spring, a lake or a river, however, cultivation is possible, and in some areas, for example in the inner delta of the River Niger (see below), or on the shores of Lake Chad in West Africa, or the Great Lakes of central Africa, intensive cultivation has allowed concentrations of dense population to grow up. This crosses the content from its west coast to the east coast. Ironically, this attractive landscape posed a barrier to the spread of traditional farming southward, as sub-Saharan agriculture had adapted itself to tropical conditions. They then had no option but to throw themselves on the mercy of others by begging, a very common fate in traditional African society. This came from exactly the same mix of European contact and American agriculture as the new crops; it was the Atlantic Slave Trade. African Kingdoms arose in a variety of ways. The ancient structure is the last surviving wonder of the ancient world. -----BEGIN REPORT----- There was constant tension between the generations, which could spill over into real violence. These ancestral spirits thus became the channel through which spiritual forces could be accessed. The surrounding bush remained untamed, wild, a source of harm, the abode of dangerous animals and evil spirits. Witches were widely blamed for misfortunes, especially involving the fertility of women and the survival of children. In times of famine, the people took to foraging, braving the wilderness to do so. African societies never really ceased to be colonizing societies, and this profoundly influenced all aspects of African culture. This had probably been first introduced to sub-Saharan Africa by Portuguese or Arab visitors, but the fact that it had been picked up by local healers and spread from people to people over hundreds of miles shows how open they were to new approaches. All these diseases were, despite higher levels of resistance in indigenous populations to foreign ones (West Africa in particular would become known as the The White Mans Grave) were all widespread killers. It is an environment in which they feel at home and which provides them with all the necessities of life; however, they can live here in only small numbers, in scattered family bands which are constantly on the move. First adopted by Western scholars, the notion of caste in West Africa refers to a form of hierarchical social classification of individuals into . In eastern and southern Africa, the folded landscape laid down by tectonic activity millions of years ago means that highland farming areas are interspersed with dry lowlands, suitable only for herding cattle. They had done this by the start if the first millennium BCE. Even so, until the start of the second millennium they inhabited large areas across the continent, in the wide spaces left vacant by farmers and pastoralists.
Isaiah Wright Fiance,
Lehi City Chicken Ordinance,
7 Days To Die Darkness Falls Technology,
Are Zac And Ashleigh Still Together 2021,
Articles A