ancient african social structure

The same eye for beauty and spirit, along with a zest for color and pattern, was revealed in countless textile works from all over the continent. 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. Under Muslim influence the game of dara became popular. Conditions in much of sub-Saharan Africa make wresting a secure subsistence from the land a major challenge. Much dance was narrative in purpose, telling and retelling myths and stories. Everyone on the community would take part, but the central roles were reserved for the mediums with their trance-dancing. The findings add support to linguistics-backed theories of population structure . 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. Ancient Africa's government was not very stable because everyone was not unified this is because every village had a different leader. Iron was also an important regional trade commodity, as major smelting areas were only to be found in locations where abundant wood for the furnaces was available. Some communities, especially those in rain forests, had a sacred barrier to keep the wilderness at bay. In most patrilineal societies womens status tended to be less favorable. The tsetse fly infested many wooded areas, especially along waterways, killing cattle and causing sleeping sickness amongst humans. Built on the orders of the pharaohs thousands of years ago, the Great Pyramid of Giza continues to reveal its secrets. OWNmYWU3NDdmYzFiZjMxNzdiMjg0ZDI2ZDQxMjMzZWMyNjUwZGQwZTg4Mzg0 book part Spinning and weaving technologies remained comparatively primitive, and therefore labour intensive, but craftsmen and women produced cloth of high quality and often of great beauty. Its flora consists of a mix of scrub, grassland and woodland. This article looks at the societies and cultures of sub-Saharan Africa in pre-modern history. The ancient structure is the last surviving wonder of the ancient world. - africa's social structure forms political nations that will help people from violence. The first king was king Tenkamenin, and the second king of the Ghana Empire was Kaya Maghan. All these diseases were, despite higher levels of resistance in indigenous populations to foreign ones (West Africa in particular would become known as the The White Mans Grave) were all widespread killers. Age sets were the mark of militarized, mobile societies which lived by cattle-keeping, but also by cattle-raiding and territory-taking. Such organizations had strong parallels with modern corporations, with agents stationed in towns scattered over the area where they operated. MWMwNGY0OTc1ZDgwNmQ5YzJkMWE3YWIxNDIwMGUwYWNjY2ZhYThkNTc4OWE4 In large societies with dense populations, which showed marked differences in wealth and were controlled by strong political power, human sacrifice was widely practiced. When one society was conquered by another, it was the mediums and priests, as well as others in the community with high religious status such as iron workers and herbalists, who often put up the stoutest resistance to alien rule. Surrounding this would be rings of less and less dense settlement and fields, eventually merging into the surrounding bush. A hard environment First adopted by Western scholars, the notion of caste in West Africa refers to a form of hierarchical social classification of individuals into . Whereas the people round about were Berbers, they were of black descent, either descended from captives brought there from further south or the last remnants of Negroid peoples who had lived in the region when it had a wetter climate. Privacy Policy Terms and Conditions. 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. Underpopulation, and the difficulties that this created for taxation and control, meant that the kind of bureaucracies which invented literacy in Sumer or Egypt could not emerge in the African context. The Europeans then made use of existing (African) political structures, which proved themselves not primitive at all, to run the colonies. 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. They include the second largest freshwater lake in the world, Lake Victoria. 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. The Bantu, a large group of related peoples, originated along what is now the border between NIGERIA and CAMEROON and spread throughout central and southern Africa. Linguistically, acculturation among Africans has been much slower than among Indians. YmNjNjY4NWM4MWUxYzhlYjFmYzIwMmNiMTBmZTA0OWZlNGQ4ZmI5MzNlNmMz 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. Long-distance trade rested chiefly on high value goods produced only in confined areas. 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). Similarly, belief that spiritual power came only through dead ancestors was common amongst herding societies. 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. Indeed, at times such trading organizations were able to take over large areas and establish small states. 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. It was structured around a big man who was usually (by myth, at any rate) the man most directly descended from the founding ancestor. In fact, we should not think of communities of cultivators or pastoralists concentrating entirely on a single subsistence strategy. However springs or small lakes allow oases of vegetation to flourish at scattered spots, sometimes hundreds of miles apart. There is a direct link between a strong democratic state and a prosperous and attractive country.' We learn about their beliefs and religion and the important structures that still stand in Egypt today. 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. Most weaving was done by women, but in some major textile centers weavers were full-time professional men. Ancient Africa had many different societies, but they can be roughly categorized into four types. With the evolving of African settlements into bigger towns and cities, the Caste system slowly began to take shape and become a distinctive social structure. It offers a general survey of the geographical environments they inhabited; their settlements, social structures and economies; and their religions and cultures. 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. The political history of Africa begins with the emergence of hominids, archaic humans andat least 200,000 years agoanatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens), in East Africa, and continues unbroken into the present as a patchwork of diverse and politically developing nation states. 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. 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. The Mali empire, for example, had secretaries to conduct foreign correspondence, but its internal administration only employed word of mouth. 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 Taking captives was a major objective in war, with most of the individuals thus enslaved being women or children. The advancements made in the ancient world continue to influence our societies today. Explain the social structure, unique aspects, and decline of Great Zimbabwe . Africa has some giant lakes, including a number strung out down the spine of the continent, from Lake Turkana in northern Kenya to Lake Malawi in south-east Africa. One other consequence of African underpopulation was the prevalence of the polygamy (see below). In most territorial kingdoms, local rulers who had been defeated were not eliminated, but became vassal rulers. In Ghana Mali, and later in Songhai, kings ruled, but there were no queens, as odd as it was. Their impact on West African society, where trade networks were strongest, and along the East African coast, with its maritime links to the Middle East, was enormous. The larger the state the more resources it could commit to defense and expansion. It is inhabited by the San hunter-gatherer people who have adapted their lifestyle to this forbidding environment over 20,000 years. State formation The resulting dissent, fueled by, The larger the state the more resources it could commit to defense and expansion. Further upstream all have their flows interrupted by falls and rapids, making them unsuitable for long-distance trade even in the interior of Africa. 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. 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. In these states, violence and exploitation led to societies ruled by classes of military aristocrats or nobles. Apart from in West Africa and on the Swahili coast, where true cities had developed, African towns tended to have the appearance of large villages, or clusters of villages. 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. NjFkYmJjYjc2MmM4OGJiZTM3ZDU4YWMzMGI2Y2IwMmY2MGE1ZDJhM2Y3OGQ1 This caused individuals to be very sensitive to attacks on their personal honor, real or imagined. The diet in most parts of Africa meant that many did not reach sexual maturity until their late teens or early twenties. There were high levels of polygamy throughout Africa in some societies perhaps two-thirds of women were in polygamous marriages. 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. Connected with this, feats of memory were a key part of African religious, political and commercial life. Other states were built around sacred shrines and their custodians, who enjoyed a concentration of religious authority which they were able to convert into political power. In agricultural communities the status of women varied greatly. This was that there was a fundamental distinction between the cultivated and the wild, between civilization and savagery. Just as there is great cultural diversity so there is diversity in belief systems. This is most marked in eastern, central and southern Africa during the second millennium CE, at the start of which population levels were at a very low level. When Europeans arrived in the region, in the 1500s, they found only a small population of hunter-gatherers there. One group in African society, which made up probably a tiny proportion of the whole but which had an influence out of all proportion to its size, were the traders. Hamilton, et al. The environment of sub-Saharan Africa is one of the hardest environments for human populations to thrive in. Like all pre-modern medicinal practitioners, they also used traditional methods less appealing to the modern Western mind, such as bleeding, purgatives, magic and exorcism. In the grasslands, the hot, dry climate makes for a short growing season. The art of ancient African was just as diverse as its cultures, languages, and political structures. 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. 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. 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. 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. Pastoralist and farming communities have therefore lived in close proximity, which has been a major factor in state formation in these regions.if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[250,250],'timemaps_com-leader-2','ezslot_11',177,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-timemaps_com-leader-2-0'); Pastoralist communities are more dispersed, and much more mobile, than agricultural ones, as they follow their flocks and herds around in the search for good grazing.

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