World History OCTOBER 19, 2015

Unit 4: Regional Civilizations and Cultures Africa  Desert – The Sahara Desert covers most of the continent. Life is difficult in this region. Without a river and adequate water, few civilizations flourish. The Kalahari Desert in southern Africa receives enough rain for more plant and animal life.  Sahel - A narrow band of dry, flat, scrubby grasslands that stretch across the continent. The word is Arabic for “shore” and it is the shore of the desert.  Savannas - The savanna covers about 40 percent of the continent. Much of the savanna consists of open, grassy plains dotted by trees, but the region also includes mountainous areas and tropical swamplands. This is where most animals, plants, and people live. Diverse Geography Sahel

Other Defining Features  Many people also live in the coastal areas on the extreme northern and southern coasts of Africa. There, the mild climate and fertile soil favor settlement and population growth.  The Great Rift Valley - stretches for 3,480 miles in south eastern Africa. The oldest remains of humans have been found.  Lakes - The deepest parts of the Rift Valley have filled with water, creating Lake Victoria, the second-largest freshwater lake in the world, and Lake Tanganyika, one of the deepest.  Rivers – The world’s longest river, the Nile runs over 4,000 miles. The main river in western Africa, the Niger runs for 2,550 miles. The Congo River runs 2,880 miles through central Africa.  The MS River runs 2,320 miles and the Rio Grande runs 1,896 miles.

Agriculture and Early Africans  Farmers grow sorghum and millet. In West Africa, around the wetlands of the Niger River, they grow rice.  As farming techniques advanced, people settled, formed communities, and developed traditions as diverse as the land. In some places, these farmers relied on rainfall to water their crops.  Some African hunter-gatherer societies never settled down in agricultural communities.  Early Africans belonged and thrived in clans.  Most early people focused their religious practices not on the creator but rather on the many spirits that they believed inhabited the world.  The idea that spiritual and supernatural forces act through all aspects of nature is called animism.

Oral Tradition  Most early African peoples had no system of writing. To transmit their culture from one generation to the next, they used memory and storytelling. In West Africa, they relied on oral tradition as embodied in important members of society called griots.  Other information we have of ancient Africans comes from artifacts.

Migration of People  One of the largest human migrations in history occurred over many centuries in Africa.  Beginning at least two thousand years ago and continuing for more than a thousand years, the Bantu-speaking peoples began to migrate. These were not a single people but various groups who spoke one of the hundreds of languages that linguists categorize as Bantu. Swahili is one of the most common languages spoken in African today and it originated from Bantu.  Bantu-speaking peoples had spread out across almost all of sub- Saharan Africa by A.D They brought more than just their languages and cultures.

West and East Africa  West Africa supported itself mainly through farming.  Timbuktu – an Ancient trade city in what is today Mali was one of the largest trading centers of the ancient world.  Traders from Europe, Asia, and all over Africa would travel there for the prosperous trade.  East Africa was always based on trade. From the ancient times of Nubian dominated trade, the powerful Kushites, to the Swahili cities that grew and flourished due to trade. Indian Ocean Red Sea Mediterranean Sea Africa Europe China India Arabia Russia Arabia Empire Byzantine Empire Atlantic Ocean

East African Trade  Nubia traded more gold than many other African civilizations put together.  Some Nubians built a new city, Meroë on the Nile and became known as the Kushite people.  Meroë was located on a fertile plain and nearby forests which provided plenty of timber, essential fuel for forging iron. In Meroë, the Kushites produced great quantities of iron weapons and tools.  Meroë variety of goods grew - gold, ebony, fine jewels, fragrances, and slaves.  The Romans defeated the Kushite and many of the wealthy and most powerful traders became slaves of the Roman Empire.

More East African Trade  Another civilization rose after the fall of Kush, Aksum.  It was built by Arab traders in the 6 th century BC in what is today Ethiopia.  As Aksum expanded, it became an increasingly cosmopolitan kingdom, attracting diverse people from various lands.  Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Persians, Arabs, Indians, and more came to do business.  People wanted to buy salt and gold from West Africa, as well as luxuries including ivory, rhinoceros horn, and frankincense  Aksum reached it’s peak during the 2 nd and 3 rd centuries AD.  At the time, the Aksum king adopted Christianity as the official religion.  Aksum prospered for eight hundred years, until the eighth century, when Arab and Persian traders took over the commerce flowing out of Africa. Aksum fell to invaders who followed a new and rapidly spreading religion, Islam.