AFRICA REVIEW

World History Final December 18, 2008

Gold-Salt Trade

Cultural Diffusion& First Hominids

Found

Bantu Migration

AFRICA OVERVIEWHuman beings first emerge in East Africa. Due to the diverse environmental conditions and cultural interaction, the people of Africa adapted their skills to the lands they occupied and created various cultures. Eventually, powerful empires soon developed due to extensive trade networks that were created.

Agenda1. Hominid Development

2. Migration

3. Kingdoms & Societies

❖ Cro-Magnon (Communication & Art)

❖ Neanderthal (Religious Rituals)

❖ Homo erectus (fire)

❖ Homo habilis (stone tools)

❖ Australopithecine (Opposable thumbs & Bipedal)

Migration: Why do people move?

❖ Environmental Changes: Natural disaster, shift in climate, drought

❖ Economic Pressure: Increasing population, unemployment

❖ Political & Religious Persecution: Slave trade, war, genocide

❖ Technological Development: Tools, agriculture, transportation networks

Significance of African CivilizationsESSENTIAL QUESTION:

How did people adapt to their environment?

North AfricaAlmoravids (led by Ibn Yasin,

strict religious brotherhood, spread Islam through conquest, overran Ghana, and conquered parts of Spain where they were called the Moors.)

Almohads (another group of Berber Muslim reformers, located in the Atlas Mountains, conquered the Almoravids and continued to conquer Spain, united Maghrib for the first time.

Djenne-Dejenno (oldest known city south of the Sahara)

Nok (1st known civilization)

Ghana (Religious king controlled gold-Salt trade, Almoravids of the north disrupted trade and Ghana fell)

Mali (Sundiata found more gold reserves, delegated power, created Niani=new capital. Mansa Musa=next leader who was a skilled military leader, after visit to Mecca he built mosques in Timbuktu and many people traveled there. Trade declined & weak leaders=fall.)

Songhai (Gold-Salt trade, Sunni-Ali built strong army, but lack of sophisticated weaponry and were taken over by Moroccans=decline)

West Africa

East AfricaAksum

(now Eritrea and Ethiopia, migrants from Middle East, took control of Red Sea, hub for caravan routes, influenced trade on Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, King Ezana converts Aksum to Christianity, Islamic invaders burn chief seaport, Adulis, and Aksum falls)

South Africa❖ Great Zimbabwe (built on gold

and salt, suitable land for farming and cattle raising, trade lined gold fields with coastal trading city of Sofala, leaders taxed traders, Zimbabwe was abandoned)

❖ Mutapa Empire (Mutota left GZ to search for more gold, forced people to make payments to him for gold, conquered what was left of GZ, forced others to mine, Portuguese tried to conquer (1500s) and interfered w/politics, put their own ruler on throne, beginning of increasing interference of Europeans in Africa