The great majority of this area is far too dry for agriculture whether crop cultivation or animal grazing of any kind. The ancient kingdom of Ethiopia was named after its capital city, Axum. This makes the huge effort of clearing even small areas of very dense forest worthwhile. The savannah regions of West Africa specialized in millet and fonio, and further south, where rainfall was sufficient, sorghum. Although the majority of Africans were farmers, at least from the late 1st millennium onwards, large tracts of land were inhabited by nomadic or semi-nomadic pastoralists. It was here our earliest ancestors evolved. Options include print, Easel Activities, Google Forms (passages), and Google Slides (Venn diagrams). Together, these might kill one third to one half of an affected population, nullifying the hard come by demographic gains of a generation. The exchange of salt for gold or grain was the foundation of the trans-Saharan trade, which had such a major impact on West African civilization. All this implies that womens status in African societies was low, and in some this was indeed the case, especially amongst cattle-herders. In Ghana Mali, and later in Songhai, kings ruled, but there were no queens, as odd as it was. Such pragmatism made for an open attitude to ideas and practices from outside: if something worked it was acceptable, wherever it came from. Farming populations have therefore sought out well-watered locations such as river banks, lakesides and moist depressions. In more densely populated societies a number of such lineages might be clustered together to form a large village or small town. 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. Indeed, they even went on strike when a neighboring ruler attempted to convert them to Islam. Around this would be clustered the huts of other households, with four or five members each. Slavery Much dance was narrative in purpose, telling and retelling myths and stories. NWIyZWQ1YTA3MjZkYTQzOWRjMzhmYTJkYjAyNzViOGRjNjIxMGM0YTRjNGJl African hospitality can be defined as that extension of generosity, given freely without strings attached (Ekeke & Ekeopora, 2010). The challenge for premodern African societies was to build up numbers to create viable communities. Much craft work in Africa, as in all pre-modern societies, was done on a part-time basis by farmers, particularly women. Male children could be trained up to become administrators in the royal service, and in some states filled the most responsible positions at court: their lowly social status was thought to act as a check to their ambitions and a guarantee of their loyalty (though a chief slave may have usurped the Mali throne in 1357). This task would be helped by the fact that a defeated ruler had, by definition, been shown to have lost the support of the gods, and the victorious ruler had proved himself to be the more spiritually powerful. It offers a general survey of the geographical environments they inhabited; their settlements, social structures and economies; and their religions and cultures. If a kinship group fell below a viable size it ceased to be able to protect itself properly and became extremely vulnerable to being absorbed, often brutally, by more fertile rivals. Later, they faced competition from Hausa traders, who created an even more far flung network. 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. Its flora consists of a mix of scrub, grassland and woodland. These more local groups formed the enduring units of African societies, centers of local power which provided the building blocks of larger polities, and outlasted them. 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. The Rhodes-Livingstone Papers. YmNlZWRhOWNhNTAxYjRmYjc3ZWNhZDYyMGMyNGVhMjMyYjYyODYzMmMxZTQ1 South of the forest the grasslands resume, having skirted around the Congo Basin; but further south, on the western coast of south-central Africa, lies the Kalahari desert, smaller than the Sahara but perhaps even more arid. The wealthier the man, the more women he could marry. A womans standing and access to wealth was entirely dependent upon her husband. 2022 TimeMaps Ltd. All Rights Reserved. It offers a general survey of the geographical environments they inhabited; their settlements, social structures and economies; and their religions and cultures. They are in a style of idealized naturalism, most representing kings at the height of their powers. 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. Originally, there were two Egyptian kingdoms. But it was ancestors with whom these people directly interacted, and approaching them with sacrifices of cattle. It further summarizes some of the key social, economic, political, and religious groups and divisions in Classical Athenian society and how these interacted with each other and with questions of belonging and identity in the polis. Slavery was widespread in traditional African societies. 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. Camels were employed in the long-distance trans-Saharan trade, and donkeys were the normal mode of transport in the West African savannah. Conditions in much of sub-Saharan Africa make wresting a secure subsistence from the land a major challenge. Facts about Ancient Africa 2: the important civilization This article looks at the societies and cultures of sub-Saharan Africa in pre-modern history. It has captivated visitors since it was built as a royal burial chamber some 4,500 years ago. Each passage features one paragraph of informational text and 4 multiple-choice questions. As we have seen, the only major trading towns in these regions were on the Swahili coast of the Indian Ocean. 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. Some owed their rise to the wealth gained from long-distance trade. However, every tribe needs some sort of hierarchy. Some states were created by rulers of village clusters who, through military prowess, were able to use their manpower to conquer other clusters. Except where influenced by Islam, most pre-modern sub-Saharan societies were non-literate. 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. A large number of top officials in Hausaland, in West Africa, were eunuchs. In these, men did the more highly valued work of herding, protecting or raiding cattle, while women did the household chores and cultivated crops a lowly occupation in such societies. 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. ZTBhMDQ4MWZjMjIzYTBiMjFlOTFiZWYwZDcxMGI4YjMwYzhkYWEwMDgwZTFk Rice was grown on particularly well-watered areas such as along the banks of the River Niger. It was by no means uncommon for a brave young man to capture a young wife and run off with her. The most spectacular practitioners of this were kings and chiefs, which gave rulers swarms of sons to contest the succession or fragment the state. An extraordinarily detailed understanding of plants and their properties, already noted in above in connection to their skills as cultivators, gave African healers an unmatched mastery of herbal remedies. The Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. OGFiY2MzM2UxNTEyOTJjNWUxYWE1ZmEyODEwNDc0MzU5OTRkZmNhNThmOTM0 In West Africa, the climatic zones aligned in a series of east-to-west belts Sahara desert, desert-grassland margin (the Sahel), savannah grassland and tropical forest. The difficulties of transport noted above acted to restrict trade, and thus to the emergence of centers of specialist production. In many agricultural societies, however, the most important spiritual beings were the spirits of the land and, closely associated with these, ancestral spirits. Under these circumstances, the ability of ruling classes to build strong state institutions like powerful armies or effective bureaucracies, or even construct impressive temples or palaces, was limited. However, state-building was not a straightforward process in African conditions. Craft workers were often dedicated to meeting the needs of the ruler and the elite, their workshops located within the royal compound. The donkeys also were domesticated independently in the Ethiopian and Somalian region, but the majority of the domesticated animals came there from the regions around . So too did the more widespread infestation of tsetse fly, which set a limit of animal transport. 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. At an individual and family level, dealing with the challenge to build up numbers manifested itself in the supreme importance attached to the production of children. 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. Not a few chiefly dynasties traced their ancestry back to such a figure. The limited nature of urbanization greatly restricted transport, trade and industry. FIAT DOBLO (2015-) VANIKA DO KUFRA. The resulting dissent, fueled by, The larger the state the more resources it could commit to defense and expansion. In the Kingdom of Axum, like many other kingdoms of its time, there was a social structure or hierarchy level. Still others were created by nomadic pastoral groups imposing control over a population of farmers, such as the Fulani kingdoms in West Africa. This The Call of the Wild by Jack London Middle School reading unit and novel study is exactly what you need to teach your . To survive in these harsh conditions a person needed his kin around him. 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. HUM 2213 Midterm Paper essay. This is due to a number of factors. They did obeisance to their overlord, forwarded tribute to his court and providing men for his army. Their repertoire involved rituals, spells, dances and trances, as well as more practical applications such as herbs and ointments. A further one thousand a year may have been taken each year through the Swahili ports and up the east coast of Africa, destined for the Middle East and South Asia. In : General history of Africa, V: Africa from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, 5, p. 895-905 Language : English Also available in : Also available in : Franais Also available in : Portugus Year of publication : 1992 Licence type : CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO. Outside the oases there are some areas of scrubland, and here nomadic pastoralists Berber peoples, most notably the Tuareg graze their herds. Stateless peoples Throughout Africa, bearing and bringing up children was probably the most vital task after brute survival. This process started to happen at different times according to region. They would form a group of inter-related clans, or lineages, tracing their descent back to a single ancestor. 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. Fewer than 30 examples have survived, all made by the lost wax process. Oral traditions and Muslim and European records suggest that large-scale famines occurred every 70 years or so, and were often accompanied by epidemic disease. The poor Some stateless peoples even looked to the rulers of neighboring states to provide arbitration in their disputes village communities bordering the powerful kingdom of Benin were examples of this. MzE2MGQ0NGZjMTczYTA2YjU3ZDY1YWQ3YTRiOTdlZmE5NTQyMTg0NDgwZTYz 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. 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. Over the millennia they have become highly adapted to life in an ecosystem which is fiercely hostile to other peoples. Like the gold miners they were also hereditary, and in fact formed a distinct ethnic group within desert society. 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. OWNmYWU3NDdmYzFiZjMxNzdiMjg0ZDI2ZDQxMjMzZWMyNjUwZGQwZTg4Mzg0 In Africa, trade and industry were constrained by underpopulation. Just as there is great cultural diversity so there is diversity in belief systems. A larger group of non-farmers was made up of craftsmen. YWZkYWVmMTM2NzEyZTQ1NTBhOWQ3NWRjZGNiNDQwMTUzN2M1NjlhZjE0NzUx As such it was essentially a form of theatre. Younger men would set out to seduce or rape the young wives of their elders, and their elders would be determined to prevent this. Women predominated in small-scale trade as market sellers, which gave those involved considerable economic independence. The findings add support to linguistics-backed theories of population structure . In folktales, the rewards for perseverance, intelligence and courage were wives, children, status, wealth, and security in other words, to become a Big Man. African cultivators have generally taken great pride in their skills. social structure, in sociology, the distinctive, stable arrangement of institutions whereby human beings in a society interact and live together. Copper was also an important trade commodity, with trade routes running outwards from the copper belt in modern Zambia. 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 YWIzMzRhYjk5MGRlMDRiYzhlZmIyMjQ5ZjgwODE5MTIxZjAwNjdhODZiM2Y4 Further upstream all have their flows interrupted by falls and rapids, making them unsuitable for long-distance trade even in the interior of Africa. There is a direct link between a strong democratic state and a prosperous and attractive country.' The histories and cultures of Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia and North Africa are covered elsewhere. Some European captives came the other way, ending up as slaves in the West African kingdoms of Mali and Songhai. Ancient Africa's government was not very stable because everyone was not unified this is because every village had a different leader. OGUyMjAwMmI0ZjlmYzAyMmYxYjllZmEzN2EwMTYzMmMyNzQyZGIwY2IifQ== Crafts were usually hereditary, and expertise was often a closely-guarded secret of particular kin-groups. Many African kingdoms had lineages of rulers who traced their origins to foreign lands. The untamed forests have remained home to hunter-gatherer peoples, notably the pygmies. However the more organized societies such kingdoms had groups of full-time professional craftsmen. YjU5YTA2MjA2ZTZjNTRkNmQ0OTBmNzIzM2EzZTIyZWFlMDBlMGViZTQzMDMw From the 17th century, European contact have brought new crops from America, such as maize, cassava and sweet potatoes, and these were beginning to provide additional nutrition and a significant boost to numbers all over Africa. Egyptian Social Structure. MmYyNjc5MzNiN2Y1ZWY3NWJhMmMyZTBhZGE4YzI0OTI2MjAwZTRmODkwN2M1 Ancient Egypt is arguably the most well-known of Africa's ancient civilizations. This tradition of West African sculpture arose in a much broader context of mask-making and statuary in wood and ivory, which covered much of sub-Saharan Africa. African societies were often fluid from one generation to another, however. When Europeans arrived in the region, in the 1500s, they found only a small population of hunter-gatherers there. 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. 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. Metalwork held a special place in African culture. Conversely, most men could afford only one wife, if that. They represent the spectrum of human conditions, from kings and courtiers to the diseased and the executed. Many African societies therefore experienced considerable social mobility. Having said that, no one can look at a Benin bronze figure and argue that skills of the very highest level were lacking in African craftsmanship; and fine crafts were to be found up and down the continent. 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. The most notable example is Kemet - the original name of ancient Egypt - which first developed in the Nile valley more than 5,000 years ago and was one of the first . At their centers were located rulers palaces, usually a complex of buildings housing a large number of people the king, his wives and concubines and children, numerous attendants, often groups of skilled craftsmen such as the sculptures who produced the famous Benin bronzes, and a large body of domestic servants, often slaves. They believed in both good and bad spirits. YjE4NWI3ZjI1ZTFlNDUxYmJhY2U0N2E1ODZjNzFmOWJlM2FkMzA2OGZkN2Q4 OWM2MGJhN2I4ZTEwYzE2ZWQ2NDg2N2UzNTJhMWExYjMzMDUxMzM2ZjYzZGU0 - studies work with social structure to explain matters that are such as crimes or stolen things. Gender and age differentials A medieval (c. 1220-1450) kingdom located in modern-day Zimbabwe. It was only with the spread of the Fulani herdsmen across West Africa in the 2nd millennium that pastoralists would begin to live in areas between agricultural clusters, a development which would have a major impact on the history of this region in the 18th and 19th centuries. State formation There were also different social. In forest regions, away from lakes and rivers, human porterage was the only means of transport as the presence of tsetse fly meant that animals could not be used; this was by definition very labour intensive and meant that agricultural produce could travel only short distances. The work they did tended to be less valued than the mens: mundane work in the fields and in the house, rather than the demanding work of clearing the bush, which established a mans rights to a piece of land. 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. 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. Virtually all young men in a community were unmarried. 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. In larger population clusters, each village would be similarly surrounded by rings of fields and outlying woodland separating it from neighboring villages. Underpopulation meant that disgruntled people could always seek new land beyond the reach of royal authority. The Mali empire, for example, had secretaries to conduct foreign correspondence, but its internal administration only employed word of mouth. Your access to this site was blocked by Wordfence, a security provider, who protects sites from malicious activity. Growth of the Axum Kingdom. Through history, Africa has had an exceptionally hostile environment in terms of the diseases which could strike humans and their animals; and of the regions, West Africa was probably the most dangerous. Starting perhaps as just one settlement, they would expand outwards into the bush over time as they cleared new land and established new settlements. Social There were six social classes in Ancient Ghana. Nevertheless there were some features which were widespread amongst African religions. The shores of these large bodies of water have been suitable for intensive agriculture, allowing some of Africas most notable kingdoms to flourish. Upon Africa's soils our prehistoric relatives have walked side by side. There was intense competition for women, and great inequality in access to them. 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. Popular culture. By utilizing this acronym, students can compartmentalize their findings and . 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. 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. 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. 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. MzE4Y2I3MDllMDBjODdjOGU4NDEwZGMxMWUzYzYxMDlmYmI2OWNiZmY1MGMw Age sets were the mark of militarized, mobile societies which lived by cattle-keeping, but also by cattle-raiding and territory-taking. book part 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. Pastoralist and farming communities have therefore lived in close proximity, which has been a major factor in state formation in these regions. African kingdoms suffered severely from the divisive effects of violent competition between royal princes. Many studies have been mostly about political centralisation. More often, they might be tested by a poison ordeal and if found guilty, put to death, often with great cruelty. Also, iron working especially produced goods vital to farmers, hunters and warriors. Famine was another source of slaves, causing people to sell themselves, or their children, into slavery in order to survive. It was not until the coming of iron technology that large-scale settlement of the West African and Equatorial regions, and of eastern, central and southern Africa, was able to begin. There are also some large mountain ranges, such as the Ruwenzori mountains in Uganda (the Mountains of the Moon). NzA0NTc2MTNjMDFjMzQ0ODY3ODRmNjZhMzc0ZGFjNDExMDIzN2VhMGNhNGE4 Such states could also organize the colonization of outlying areas in a more systematic fashion, perhaps under the leadership of a prince of the royal family. After about A.D. 500, several centrally organized, warring states appeared in parts of Africa. In East, Central and Southern Africa, the mix of staple crops varied from place to place according to environment, but normally included yams and sorghum, later supplemented by plantain. 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. This meant that, for a man to marry he must have some wealth, and since this took time to build up most men were in their thirties when they married. This was greatly feared, as it could spring up in communities and tear them apart. OGRiMDc3NTM1M2QyZDI3YzBlYjZmZjBhNWFkOWZjYzEzOGRlZDU4ZDc4NDE1 The surrounding bush remained untamed, wild, a source of harm, the abode of dangerous animals and evil spirits. It was structured around a big man who was usually (by myth, at any rate) the man most directly descended from the founding ancestor. African Kingdoms arose in a variety of ways. The continent of Africa covers several broad climatic zones. This reflects the much more limited role of trade outside West Africa. Perhaps the highland areas which have had most impact on the history of Africa have been the Ethiopian Highlands, which have sheltered Africas only historic Christian state; and the highlands of southern Africa, which have played a key role in that regions history. 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. Women who could not bear children were held in contempt, and by the same token male potency was esteemed.
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ancient african social structure