African Americans M01_HINE6279_04_SE_C01.indd 1 4/11/11 10:12 PM Africa • • ca. 6000 bce–ca. 1600 ce 2 DESIGN SERVICES OF M01_HINE6279_04_SE_C01.indd# 100851 Cust: NJ HSSL 2 Au: Clark Pg. No. PB C/M/Y/K S4carliSle 4/11/11 10:12 PM Title: African Americans: A Concise History Server: Jobs Short / Normal / Long Publishing Services Pearson Education Higher Ed History- master list of mylab icons • the verb or “action word” such as view, watch, explore, study, read, listen cannot be changed • the visual image which accompanies the “action word” cannot be changed • the noun will have flexibility ONLY if absolutely necessary. (see the 2 illustated examples of this “view” and “listen” • colors can be adapted to complement individual print products; once established for that individual product, they must be consistently applied in that individual products usage • use icons at 100%; Ok to modify size ONLY when small trim sizes or layout present issues. design judgement is required here • it is acceptable to stack the icon ; see sample below View the Map insert asset name here on myhistorylab.com View the Map on myhistorylab.com View on myhistorylab.com View the Image on myhistorylab.com Watch the Video on myhistorylab.com Watch on myhistorylab.com Explore the Concept on myhistorylab.com Explore on myhistorylab.com Study and Review on myhistorylab.com Study and Review on myhistorylab.com Read the Document on myhistorylab.com Read on myhistorylab.com Listen to the Chapter Audio on myhistorylab.com Listen on myhistorylab.com Hear the audio files for Chapter 1 at www.myhistorylab.com. • Although the icons below are not currently being used in history books, they are part of an SSA master that we will hold on to should history product needs change WHAT ARE the geographical characteristics of Africa? • notice the “listen” icon above and below are similar in color; the “action word” is the same yet the “noun” is different; this is an acceptable use and and treatment WHERE AND how did humans originate? WHY ARE ancient African civilizations important? Listen to the Podcast on myhistorylab.com Listen on myhistorylab.comWHY IS West Africa significant for African-American history? HOW DID the legacies of West African society and culture Map the Concepts on myhistorylab.com Map on myhistorylab.com influence the way African Americans lived? Simulate the Experiment on myhistorylab.com Simulate on myhistorylab.com ml 2/9/11 West Africans were making iron tools long before Europeans arrived in Africa. 3 DESIGN SERVICES OF M01_HINE6279_04_SE_C01.indd# 100851 Cust: NJ HSSL 3 Au: Clark Pg. No. PB C/M/Y/K S4carliSle4/11/11 10:12 PM Title: African Americans: A Concise History Server: Jobs Short / Normal / Long Publishing Services 4 chapter 1 Africa ca. 6000 bce–ca. 1600 ce he ancestral homeland of most black Americans is West Africa. Other Tregions—Angola and East Africa—were caught up in the great Atlantic slave trade that carried Africans to the New World during a period stretching from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. But West Africa was the center of the trade in human beings. Knowing the history of West Africa therefore is important for understanding the people who became the first African Americans. That history is best understood within the larger context of the history and geog- raphy of the whole African continent. This chapter begins with a survey of the larger context. It then explores West Africa’s unique heritage and the facets of its culture that have influenced the lives of African Americans from the Diaspora—the original forced dispersal of Africans from their homeland—to the present. A Huge and Diverse Land From north to south, Africa is divided into a succession of climatic zones (see Map 1-1). Except for a fertile strip along the Mediterranean coast and the agriculturally rich Nile River valley, most of the northern third of the continent consists of the Sahara Desert. For thousands of years, the Sahara limited contact between the rest of Africa—known as sub- Saharan Africa—and the Mediterranean coast, Europe, and Asia. South of the Sahara is a semidesert region known as the Sahel, and south of the Sahel is a huge grassland, or savan- nah, stretching from Ethiopia westward to the Atlantic Ocean. Arab adventurers named this savannah Bilad es Sudan, meaning ‘land of the black people.’ Much of the habitable part of West Africa falls within the savannah. The rest lies within the northern part of a rain forest that extends eastward from the Atlantic coast over most of the central part of the conti- nent. Another region of savannah borders the rain forest to the south, followed by another desert—the Kalahari—and another coastal strip at the continent’s southern extremity. The Birthplace of Humanity Paleoanthropologists—scientists who study the evolution and prehistory of humans— have concluded that the origins of humanity lie in the savannah regions of Africa. All people today, in other words, are very likely descendants of beings who lived in Africa millions of years ago. The first stone tools are associated with the emergence—about 2.4 million years ago—of Homo habilis, the earliest creature designated as within the homo (human) line- age. They butchered meat with stone cutting and chopping tools and built shelters with stone foundations. Like people in hunting and gathering societies today, they probably lived in small bands in which women foraged for plant food and men hunted and scav- enged for meat. A more advanced human, Homo erectus, emerged in Africa about 1.6 million years ago, is associated with the first evidence of human use of fire. Ancient Civilizations and Old Arguments The earliest civilization in Africa and one of the two earliest civilizations in world his- tory is that of ancient Egypt (see Map 1-1), which emerged in the Nile River valley in DESIGN SERVICES OF M01_HINE6279_04_SE_C01.indd# 100851 Cust: 4 NJ HSSL Au: Clark Pg. No. PB C/M/Y/K S4carliSle4/11/11 10:12 PM Title: African Americans: A Concise History Server: Jobs Short / Normal / Long Publishing Services Africa ca. 6000 bce–ca. 1600 ce chapter 1 5 Strait of Gibraltar t a ins Mo u n M e A t l as di t e r r an S a h e l ean S ea Sahara EGYPT Ahaggar Plateau R e NUBIA/KUSH d r S e v Tibesti i Kerma e R a Mountains e l Napata S i e N n r River Ennedi Plateau Meroe eg ge a i S ah e l l N Cape Verde R iv Azum e Lake r EASTERN Jenne Jos Plateau Chad Nok Culture SUDAN r WESTERN e ABYSSINIA Taruga CENTRAL iv SUDAN iver R R (ETHIOPIA) L e e u SUDAN l i i mi en t B N o f e est t n For i Rai h Lake Uban W Rudolph gi River ) R EQU ire ive ATO R ATOR Za r Mt. Kenya EQU ( o g on Mt. Kilimanjaro K Lake INDIAN Victoria OCEAN Lake ATLANTIC Tanganyika Lake Nyasa l OCEAN e zi Ri er n be n am a Z h C e u iq Kalahar i b MADAGASCAR po Rive m Desert po r a im z L o Rain forest v M Mountain ranges and high plateau ge R Oran ive Savannah and steppe r Desert Rift Valley Cape of Good Hope 0500 1000 mi 0500 1000 km map 1-1 • africa: Climatic Regions and Early Sites Africa is a large continent with several climatic zones. It is also the home of several early civilizations. c What Impact did the variety of climatic zones have on the development of civilization in Africa? the fourth millennium bce. Mesopotamian civilization, the other of the two, emerged in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in southwest Asia with the rise of the city-states of Sumer. In both regions, civilization appeared at the end of a long process in which hunting and gathering gave way to agriculture. The settled village life that resulted from this transformation permitted society to become increasingly hierarchical and specialized. The race of the ancient Egyptians and the nature and extent of their influence on later Western civilizations have long been a source of controversy that reflects more about racial politics of recent history than it reveals about the Egyptians themselves. It is not clear whether they were an offshoot of their Mesopotamian contemporaries, wheth- er they were representatives of a group of peoples whose origins were in both Africa and southwest Asia, or whether the ancestors of both the Egyptians and Mesopotamians were M01_HINE6279_04_SE_C01.indd 5 4/11/11 10:12 PM 6 chapter 1 Africa ca. 6000 bce–ca. 1600 ce black Africans. What is clear is that the ancient Egyptians exhibited a mixture of racial features and spoke a language related to the languages spoken by others in the fertile regions of North Africa and southwest Asia. Afrocentricists regard ancient Egypt as an essentially black civilization closely linked to other indigenous African civilizations to its south. They maintain that not only did the Egyptians influence later African civilizations but that they had a decisive impact on the Mediterranean Sea region, including ancient Greece and Rome. Therefore in regard to philosophy and science black Egyptians were the originators of Western civilization. Tra- ditionalists respond that modern racial categories have no relevance to the world of the ancient Egyptians. The ancient Greeks, they argue, developed the empirical method of inquiry and notions of individual freedom that characterize Western civilization. What is not under debate, however, is Egypt’s contribution to the spread of civilization through- out the Mediterranean region.