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The narrow Nile corridor was home for one of the greatest and earliest of all human civilizations, ancient Egypt; but south of Egypt a series of impassable rapids severely limits contact with the interior of Africa. This makes them unsuitable for long-distance trade and contact. The society of ancient Egypt was strictly divided into a hierarchy with the king at the top and then his vizier, the members of his court, priests and scribes, regional governors (eventually called 'nomarchs'), the generals of the military (after the period of the New Kingdom, c. 1570- c. 1069 BCE), artists and craftspeople, government overseers In a world where land was plentiful, the poor were those who lacked the labour to work it. NzA0NTc2MTNjMDFjMzQ0ODY3ODRmNjZhMzc0ZGFjNDExMDIzN2VhMGNhNGE4 They are in a style of idealized naturalism, most representing kings at the height of their powers. In some kingdoms, such as Songhai and the Hausa states in West Africa, and Kongo and Luba in Equatorial Africa, slave labour was on a larger scale than in other places. The histories and cultures of Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia and North Africa are covered elsewhere. 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. However, state-building was not a straightforward process in African conditions. Diving into that variation, a new analysis of 180 indigenous Africans from a dozen ethnically, culturally . OTZhNjdjMmQ4MzVlNTAyODMzY2ZjOTFlOWE3NjJkOGI5NjVmODQ2NGRhN2Y2 A large number of top officials in Hausaland, in West Africa, were eunuchs. They then had no option but to throw themselves on the mercy of others by begging, a very common fate in traditional African society. It began around 3400 BCE. Here are eight of Africa's greatest ancient civilizations. The surrounding bush remained untamed, wild, a source of harm, the abode of dangerous animals and evil spirits. Building the dense concentrations of population necessary for the emergence of major civilizations was not an option in most locations. Linguistically, acculturation among Africans has been much slower than among Indians. As we have seen, different African peoples specialized in different modes of food production hunter-gathering (and fishing), nomadic or semi-nomadic pastoralism, and cultivation of crops. In terms of history and culture this zone has been part of the European and Middle Eastern regions, and is therefore not covered by this article. The more high-status and long-distance traders, however, were men. An Awilu was a free person who belonged to the affluent and wealthy upper class and enjoyed grants and benefits. However, there have been many In Africa, trade and industry were constrained by underpopulation. What are Mali traditions? 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. eyJtZXNzYWdlIjoiYTQ3YTllNzM5MzNhY2U5MTg3MDQzZTY2YzI0NGNiOTQx Here, regional trade networks grew up based on such geographically specialized products as fish and salt. Just south of the narrow band of temperate climate in North Africa is the largest desert in the world, the Sahara. Otherwise, large urban settlements were rare: Great Zimbabwe, Mbaza Kongo, and a handful of other towns were exceptional. The diet in most parts of Africa meant that many did not reach sexual maturity until their late teens or early twenties. In large societies with dense populations, which showed marked differences in wealth and were controlled by strong political power, human sacrifice was widely practiced. However the more organized societies such kingdoms had groups of full-time professional craftsmen. Generated by Wordfence at Sat, 4 Mar 2023 18:37:22 GMT.Your computer's time: document.write(new Date().toUTCString());. The shores of these large bodies of water have been suitable for intensive agriculture, allowing some of Africas most notable kingdoms to flourish. So too could warfare or misrule. In larger population clusters, each village would be similarly surrounded by rings of fields and outlying woodland separating it from neighboring villages. 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. This wilderness was the abode of wild animals, fatal diseases, violent fugitives, evil spirits and other shadowy dangers which posed a constant threat to settled life. 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. Farming populations have therefore sought out well-watered locations such as river banks, lakesides and moist depressions. At the top were the gods, such as Ra, Osiris, and Isis. 2010-2011 provides a reassessment of the history of South Africa in the wake of that country's transition to majority rule. Ancient Africa had many different societies, but they can be roughly categorized into four types. Such traders were men, and they ranged from single itinerant traders with perhaps a donkey to carry his goods, to those in charge of caravans of donkeys or, in the desert, of camels. OGRiMDc3NTM1M2QyZDI3YzBlYjZmZjBhNWFkOWZjYzEzOGRlZDU4ZDc4NDE1 Yet there is still debate about how many species of elephant bird there actually were. Defence could become more organized, and they could build up their numbers by large raids on neighboring peoples and bring in captives as new (if somewhat disadvantaged) new settlers. These were the miners. Surrounding this would be rings of less and less dense settlement and fields, eventually merging into the surrounding bush. (59) $14.99. Social Structure and Political Authority The Kushites lived in tribes also known as chiefdoms. He was therefore required to host lavish feasts at which many could eat and drink at his expense; and to provide costly gifts to his allies and supporters. 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. Gender and age differentials However, every tribe needs some sort of hierarchy. Such was their reputation for effective healing that the early Europeans resorted to witch doctors, including Christian missionaries. These matters touched on the central concern of Africans, the continuity of the community. Explain the social structure, unique aspects, and decline of Great Zimbabwe . The ancientness of the continents rocks, whose minerals have leeched out over the aeons, mean that the soil is generally of a poor quality, posing challenges for farmers. The 25th Dynasty's reunification of Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt, and Kush, created the largest Egyptian empire since the New Kingdom. Taking captives was a major objective in war, with most of the individuals thus enslaved being women or children. The challenge for premodern African societies was to build up numbers to create viable communities. Thus, a comparatively few number of men had access to the majority of women, meaning that the majority of men had little or no access. They were willing to put down tools and stop work when they felt their independence was being threatened. Men were usually killed, perhaps as ritual sacrifices. The Discipline of International Relations (IR) has been broadly Eurocentric since its inception about a century ago. The findings add support to linguistics-backed theories of population structure . Cotton and woolen textiles were probably introduced at the same time, and by the 16th century cotton had become a form of currency amongst some peoples in southern Africa (for example the Shona). In the West African state of Bornu, for example, some royal women controlled extensive territories and were active in the government of the realm. 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. One other consequence of African underpopulation was the prevalence of the polygamy (see below). Conditions in much of sub-Saharan Africa make wresting a secure subsistence from the land a major challenge. They sought to bring shrines and cults under their authority through a mixture of threat and patronage. Big Men had four, five or more wives. Social Structure - Ancient Africa - Kingdom of Axum Social Structure There was not very much information on this particular topic, but this is what I did find. The first king was king Tenkamenin, and the second king of the Ghana Empire was Kaya Maghan. The Europeans then made use of existing (African) political structures, which proved themselves not primitive at all, to run the colonies. At one time, 16 species were named based on differences found between skeletal fossils. The most spectacular practitioners of this were kings and chiefs, which gave rulers swarms of sons to contest the succession or fragment the state. In folktales, the rewards for perseverance, intelligence and courage were wives, children, status, wealth, and security in other words, to become a Big Man. Also, iron working especially produced goods vital to farmers, hunters and warriors. The sparser population of eastern, central and southern Africa, compared with western Africa, reduced the scale and impact of commercial activity. Social mobility 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. The contemporary political history of Africa is marked by imperialism, the expulsion of foreign powers and settler elites, and the post-independence travails of its roughly fifty states. Men captured in war or raids were often sacrificed to the gods, and the wives, retainers and servants of dead rulers were frequently buried with him. YWQxYjBmNjljZmEzOTNlOTg4YTZiZmI4M2NkMzZmZTM0MGYzYjRlZmE2Zjk1 Throughout Africa the basic unit of society was the lineage-group, or clan. The absence of roads very labour-intensive for scattered communities to construct and maintain wheeled vehicles such as carts could not be used. There was constant tension between the generations, which could spill over into real violence. The sculptural tradition in West Africa goes back to the terracotta figures of the Nok culture of the early first millennia BCE and CE, and began to reach a peak in the 13th and14th centuries in Ife, in Yorubaland (in modern day Nigeria). OGUyMjAwMmI0ZjlmYzAyMmYxYjllZmEzN2EwMTYzMmMyNzQyZGIwY2IifQ== Some of these lived permanently in one town, but others spent much of their time wandering from town to town, market to market, with their wares. A hard environment The earliest kingdoms we know of in West Africa, such as Ghana and Mali, were located at strategic points in the trans-Saharan trade network. Around the year 3000 BC, agriculture arose independently in Ethiopia with crops like coffee, teff, finger millet, sorghum, barley, and ensete. The main structure of the Awilu class people were considered precious in Hammurabi's Code and they were richer than the other two majorclasses in the society. Some European captives came the other way, ending up as slaves in the West African kingdoms of Mali and Songhai. It has therefore been comparatively isolated from the influences which have cross-fertilized and enriched historical societies elsewhere. Having said all this, disease remained common, debilitating and in may cases, fatal. The unequal access to women made for severe tensions between males of different generations the young men felt frustration, envy and anger with the older men for monopolizing the female sex. NjI3NjM4ODlkZDhlYWEyNmY2NmFiMDk1NjJjYjUwZTQxNmQwMmM4M2E4Mzkz This limited the number of children they might have in their child-bearing years, which would have been much more diminished, on average, by the incidence of infant mortality, childhood diseases and the dangers of childbirth. In Ghana Mali, and later in Songhai, kings ruled, but there were no queens, as odd as it was. YWIzMzRhYjk5MGRlMDRiYzhlZmIyMjQ5ZjgwODE5MTIxZjAwNjdhODZiM2Y4 Everyone on the community would take part, but the central roles were reserved for the mediums with their trance-dancing. When one of the regular famines struck, these individuals were the first to die. Ancient West Africa was characterized by rich culture, agriculture, and trade, composed of stateless societies without organized hierarchy or government. 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. There was a strongly felt urge to claim new land for future generations by burying their dead in it. The Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. Moreover, away from areas especially favored with plentiful rainfall or rivers, the grasslands which cover much of Africa do not make ideal land for crop growing, and are prone to droughts and famines. These factors have acted as constraints on population growth right up to modern times, and historically sub-Saharan Africa has remained an under-populated region. Although it is generally agreed that the term social structure refers to . 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. They could make the Nile overflow, cause famine, or even bring death. All this has left African societies comparatively isolated from the great developments affecting other regions of the Eastern Hemisphere, and indeed from each other. MzcwNTgyZmZmMzczNDJkYzBjMmNjNmRjNTg1N2I5ZjkyMjExNjNjOGY5NTFh This close concentration of dwellings formed the core of the villages. 4.7. The larger oases house trading towns and farming communities. 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. First are the hunter-gatherer societies. In the West African savannah the earliest kingdoms had appeared by the mid-first millennium CE. Their inhabitants regulated their affairs by means of commonly-accepted custom, relying on shamans or priests at area shrines for mediation, hierarchies of titled individuals of varying ranks who had moral authority within their communities, and/or in some cases on secret societies. Africa Africa's Great Rift Valley is the largest landform on Earth, and the only one visible from the moon. One way in which the older generation could impose its control on the younger was through initiation. On the other hand, to maintain status and authority required a Big Man to be generous why else would other men want to be his followers? As well as the staple crops, cultivators have grown sometimes dozens of other crops to which their locality is suited in an effort to reduce the impact of poor harvests. Egyptian culture has six thousand years of recorded history. The foundation myths of several states, including the kingdom of Benin, tell of populations inviting a foreigner to settle among them, to settle their disputes and provide them with leadership. This was Islam, which gradually spread throughout the region over a number of centuries. The Sahara desert forms a major barrier to contacts between the cities and states of the Mediterranean region and the peoples to its south. These, as elsewhere in the world, had specialist activities ensuring fertility of women and soil, for example, or providing wealth. Egyptian Social Structure. Mostly the colonizers centralized power in the hands of the chiefs of the native administration so that these chiefs could better accomplish the tasks given them, like the collection of taxes. Many African societies therefore experienced considerable social mobility. A popular form of leisure was a board game called mankala. 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. In these circumstances the population might grow to a point where the availability of good land grew short. Ancient Africa boasts of the practice of democracy years before Lincoln and well-established governments that were able to expand and last for many centuries. 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. It is inhabited by the San hunter-gatherer people who have adapted their lifestyle to this forbidding environment over 20,000 years. Famine was another source of slaves, causing people to sell themselves, or their children, into slavery in order to survive. Ancient Africa's government was not very stable because everyone was not unified this is because every village had a different leader. There is little known about the early history of Axum, however, from Greek and Roman sources, we know that the Axum Kingdom was a rapid growing kingdom in the first century CE. Such pragmatism made for an open attitude to ideas and practices from outside: if something worked it was acceptable, wherever it came from. 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. Originally, there were two Egyptian kingdoms. One other consequence of African underpopulation was the prevalence of the polygamy (see below). First adopted by Western scholars, the notion of caste in West Africa refers to a form of hierarchical social classification of individuals into . Most of this was within Africa itself, but as we have seen above, thousands of people were exported to North Africa and the Middle East each year. M2M4NGNlYzZmM2IzNmFlYTA3OGFjMDcwMWRiZjdmY2UyMzM5ZDg5OTcwNjA1 This crosses much of the continent from east to west, from the Atlantic coast to the highlands of Ethiopia. African societies were often fluid from one generation to another, however. Rulers displayed their power by the number of retainers they had, and the sophistication of their court, where urbanity, eloquence, and quickness of wit were cultivated. 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. There was constant tension between the generations, which could spill over into real violence. In a few, more sophisticated kingdoms, such as Songhai, power was more centralized, with the state divided into provinces ruled by governors appointed by the king. Under Muslim influence the game of dara became popular. Long-distance trade rested chiefly on high value goods produced only in confined areas. Heredity counted for much, as in most societies, premodern and modern; passing status down from father to son was an important dynamic. Women who could not bear children were held in contempt, and by the same token male potency was esteemed. -----END REPORT-----. 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. NWIyZWQ1YTA3MjZkYTQzOWRjMzhmYTJkYjAyNzViOGRjNjIxMGM0YTRjNGJl In many of the great kingdoms of Africa, administration was carried on entirely orally. They represent the spectrum of human conditions, from kings and courtiers to the diseased and the executed. African Kingdoms arose in a variety of ways. We learn about their beliefs and religion and the important structures that still stand in Egypt today. Pastoralists had come down the Nile Valley and then spread out across the grasslands of Africa, down as far as the Great Lakes region of central Africa. In times of famine, the people took to foraging, braving the wilderness to do so. The limited nature of urbanization greatly restricted transport, trade and industry. preskmanie poter pomocnk plavaren zatvor hodiny figra Menagerry vodivos. In many societies, the village chief, as the senior descendant of the founding ancestor, was deemed to have a special relationship with the spirit world. These terms are used to describe societies that did not have a well-defined and complex or centralized systems of government, such as political systems of Ghana, Oyo or Zimbabwe that you studied in Module Seven A Privacy Policy Terms and Conditions. In cattle-herding societies, and some crop-growing societies which were in close proximity to them, the young men were grouped into an age set of junior warriors. They were usually much younger than their husbands, and were expected to act in a submissive way towards him and his family. The Islamic Revolution was a disaster for Persia in general, I've spent some time in Iran touring the historical sites, Mt Bisitun, Persepolis, Pasargedae, etc, it's a beautiful country with a cultured and ancient people, they've suffered a lot under the Ayatollahs since the Shah was driven out, despite negative Western stereotypes I found . There were high levels of polygamy throughout Africa in some societies perhaps two-thirds of women were in polygamous marriages. Compounding these difficulties, sub-Saharan Africa has been largely cut-off from the great centers of civilization elsewhere in Eurasia. FIAT DOBLO (FURGON) (2015-) VANIKA DO KUFRA. Female slaves were employed as domestic servants or concubines. The herding way of life probably dated to the third millennium BCE, and preceded agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. In the savannah and forest regions of West Africa, an international group of traders grew up named the Dyula, who achieved an impressive scale of organization to handle commercial activities over a very wide area. 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. There were many African societies which have been classified by political historians as stateless or de-centralized. Government and Economy. However, population pressures often forced farmers out onto drier land. They have used a wide range of techniques, building up the productivity of the land through manuring, terracing, and digging channels to lead water from stream to field, sometimes across wooden aqueducts. This was usually played communally, and noisily, in the open air, with plenty of noise. MzE4Y2I3MDllMDBjODdjOGU4NDEwZGMxMWUzYzYxMDlmYmI2OWNiZmY1MGMw Surrounded as they were by vast stretches of bush, agricultural villages and the human societies they sheltered were fragile places, always under threat from the encroaching forest. Cutting through these landscapes are huge rivers, outstanding amongst which are the Nile, the Niger, the Congo and the Zambezi. Slavery was widespread in traditional African societies. Rice was grown on particularly well-watered areas such as along the banks of the River Niger. ODRiZmMzYWI1MGJhMTAxYjU4NWIxMzE1YzMyMGYxMGZlMmU4MjZkNjY1ZjVk 2022 TimeMaps Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Nevertheless there were some features which were widespread amongst African religions. 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. However springs or small lakes allow oases of vegetation to flourish at scattered spots, sometimes hundreds of miles apart. A common idea was that the founders of a particular community, on first settling the area, had made a pact with the spirits of the land in order to ensure good harvests. Beside having been balkanized into several countries and branched among myriads of ethnic groups each speaking its own language and having its own cultural heritage, West Africa caste system constitutes yet another layer of its social structure. A man needed wives and children to help him cultivate his fields or keep his cattle, to give him support in old age, and to provide him with descendants whose veneration would aide him in the afterlife. Some of these caravans could be huge, numbering hundreds of animals. 1981-1988) is a collection of historical studies by a diverse group of historians. Women predominated in small-scale trade as market sellers, which gave those involved considerable economic independence. YjE4NWI3ZjI1ZTFlNDUxYmJhY2U0N2E1ODZjNzFmOWJlM2FkMzA2OGZkN2Q4 Some of these clearings became large enough, over generations, to include many villages and so become the basis for chiefdoms, or even kingdoms. In the rest of Africa towns were few and far between. Many chiefdoms and kingdoms in all parts of sub-Saharan Africa have been formed by pastoral clans dominating agricultural populations. Hamilton, et al. The untamed forests have remained home to hunter-gatherer peoples, notably the pygmies. Towns and cities This came from exactly the same mix of European contact and American agriculture as the new crops; it was the Atlantic Slave Trade. Secondly there was the nobles, people who fought in the King's army and provided it with weapons. Slavery The trans-Saharan trade was carried in caravans made up of sometimes hundreds of camels. It has captivated visitors since it was built as a royal burial chamber some 4,500 years ago. The great majority of this area is far too dry for agriculture whether crop cultivation or animal grazing of any kind. The caste system in India is not the only cultural institution designed to create divisions between social classes. Stateless peoples 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. The famous one that can be associated with the ancient Africa is the pharaoh and their pyramids. Many captives were sold on to other peoples; there was an active slave trade in Africa. These caste systems feature endogamy, hierarchical status, inherited occupation, membership by birth, pollution concepts and restraints on commensality.. This was that there was a fundamental distinction between the cultivated and the wild, between civilization and savagery. There are also some large mountain ranges, such as the Ruwenzori mountains in Uganda (the Mountains of the Moon). A medieval (c. 1220-1450) kingdom located in modern-day Zimbabwe. NTNjZjkxMjQ0YmE1NWYxYzRjOTRkMTFjNWZkYWE5MjRjMWE1NjA0Mzk5Yzhh Crafts were usually hereditary, and expertise was often a closely-guarded secret of particular kin-groups. Facts about Ancient Africa 1: the great civilization Africa is the home to some great civilizations. Segmentary lineage societies are characterised by the foremost importance of kin relationships in determining individuals' social and political allegiances, as well as their patterns of residence. They assimilated into society by reaffirming . Sometimes the growth of these village clusters went unchecked by major famine or disease for a long time. Starting perhaps as just one settlement, they would expand outwards into the bush over time as they cleared new land and established new settlements. For cultivators in particular, any religious beliefs were underpinned by a deeply-held idea about the world in which they found themselves. OGFiY2MzM2UxNTEyOTJjNWUxYWE1ZmEyODEwNDc0MzU5OTRkZmNhNThmOTM0 Difficulties in transport encouraged local self-sufficiency, and most trade consisted of purely local exchanges, for example at river banks where fish was bartered for vegetables, or where forest and savannah met, where the products of the two zones were exchanged. 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.

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