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Diverse Societies in Africa - Coggle Diagram
Diverse Societies in Africa
Early Humans Adapt to Their Environment
Pastoral Societies
Natural Resources
These people kept cattle, goats, or sheep.
The Masai measure their wealth by the size of their herds.
Africans domesticated and raised a variety of animals for food.
How did the size of their herds affect their wealth?
The Masai
Live in small bands that include up to 12 households.
Each Masai family makes their own decisions and can come and go freely.
Masai diet consists of meat, blood, and milk.
Why did the Masai have blood apart of their diet?
Learn more about their diet here.
What happened to the pastoralists of the Sahara 8,000 years ago? Why did this happen?
Pastoralists living here adapted to its environment, but their activity caused the desertification.
Transition to a Settled Lifestyle
Agriculture began in Africa by 6000 BC.
Sahara Desert
Change
Farmers moved east to the Nile Valley or south to West Africa to survive.
Some settled to the savannas, which had the best agricultural land.
The Sahara had an increase in rainfall, but later began to dry up.
What caused the Sahara Desert to dry up?
Learn about the Sahara Desert here.
Agriculture
Cattle raising became an important part of agricultural life.
Africans learn to farm in the rain forest, where they planted root crops.
Grain grew well in the savannas.
Why are cattle an important part of agriculture?
Civilizations
Complex settlements required more organizations, so various types of governing bodies filled these spots.
Some societies developed into kingdoms.
Settlements expanded because reliable food supplies led to longer, healthier lives.
Why would complex settlements require more government that smaller communities?
They required more government because there were so many small settlements that one person couldn't rule all of them.
Hunting-Gathering Societies
They're an extremely small percentage of the population in Africa.
They speak their own language and use their own hunting techniques.
Continuity
Nomadic hunting-gathering societies are the oldest from of social organizations in the world.
Nation-State
Each band makes their own decisions and is free to come and go.
Independence
Daily life for the Efe is not governed by formal written laws.
Women are the gatherers, men and older boys do the hunting.
To what might the Efe attribute their long success as a hunter-gatherer society?
They can attribute their success to women who go out and gather food, and the to men who go out and hunt.
Click here to see what the Efe's hunt for.
Why do they speak their own language?
Learn more about their culture here.
A Land of Geographic Contrasts
Sahara Desert
Africa
4,600 miles across and 5,000 miles north to south
Africa is the second largest country in the world
Easily can get blocked and lost throughout desert
Largest Deserts in Africa are the Sahara in the north and the Kalahari in the south
The Sahara goes from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, it is almost the size of the USA
Only small parts of the Sahara have
sand dunes
, the rest is flat
Every year the Sahara takes over more and more of the semiarid region at the southern edge of the desert called the
Sahel
What problems might the expansion of the Sahara Cause?
The deserts are largely unsuitable for human life
Slows people's movement to more welcoming climates
Rain forests
Why might the rain forest be called “
Nature’s Greenhouse”
?
The forest produces
The
tsetse
fly is found in the rain forests
This fly can be very dangerous and helped keep out certain European invaders and avoided them from settling around the rainforest
Because of this fly Africans couldn't use cattle, donkeys, or horses to farm near the rain forests
Teak
Mahogany
Welcoming Lands
Northern coast and the southern tip of Africa haver
Mediterranean-type climates
and fertile soil which is good for farming and good climate for people to live in
Due to the great climate and fertile soil this area of land became more populated with farmers and herders
Most people in Africa lived on the Savannas, also known as grassy plains
The savannas also have mountainous highlands ad swampy tropical stretches
The savanna covers 40% of Africa
The
seasons in the Savanna
can vary every year from have dry seasons to wet seasons with lots of rain
West African Iron Age
Iron Manufacturing
Africans from the south of the Sahara skipped copper, and bronze and moved into iron
Evidence of Iron production dating back to the 500 bc had been found in the area north of Niger and Benue Rivers
Smelting Iron was a major technological achievement of the ancient Nok of sub-Sahara Africa
Nok Culture
West Africa's earliest known culture was the Nok people
They lived in what is now Nigeria is 500 BC to 200 AD
Nok artifacts have been found in stretching for 300 miles between the Niger and Benue Rivers
How do artifacts provide a picture of daily life
Because the artifacts shows us what they had and what things were made out of back in the ages drawing us a picture of what history looked like back in the day
They were first West African people to smelt iron
The Iron was fashioned into tools for farming and weapons for hunting/ Some of the tools and weapons made their way into overland trade routes
What major changes affected societies during Africa's Iron Age
Iron was a huge change to societies used for tools for farming and used for weapons for hunting, even used for trading. It made valuables and life itself changed
Djenné-Djeno
Major City
Cities began to develop between 600 and 200 bc, usually along rivers and oasis
A major city: Djenne was uncovered by archeologists in 1977
This is the oldest known city in Africa
Thousands of artifacts there
At its height some 50,000 residents lived there
What are some possible reasons the Djenne-Djeno was abandoned
To many people lived there it got overcrowded/ People began to move to South AFrica
More About Ancient Djenne-Djeno
Stateless Societies
Lineage
How is lineage important to stateless societies?
African groups developed systems of governing based on lineages.
These societies, known as stateless societies, did not have a centralized system of power. Instead, authority in a stateless society was balanced among lineages of equal power so that no one family had too much control.
Why were oral traditions important in early Africa?
In some African societies, lineage groups took the place of rulers.
The Igbo people of southern Nigeria lived in a stateless society as early as the ninth century. Although the Igbo lived in West Africa, their political structure was similar to stateless societies found in central Africa.
If a dispute arose within an Igbo village, respected elders from different lineages settled the problem. Igbos later encountered challenges from 19th-century European colonizers who expected one single leader to rule over society.
Age-Set System
In many African societies, young people form close ties to individuals outside their lineage through the age-set system.
An age set consists of young people within a region who are born during a certain time period.
Each age set passes together through clearly identified life stages, such as warrior or elder. Ceremonies mark the passage to each new stage.
Men and women have different life stages, and each stage has its own duties and importance
Societies like the Igbo use the age-set system to teach discipline, community service, and leadership skills to their young.
Tracing Family Descent
In African societies, the way a society traces lineage determines how possessions and property are passed on and what groups individuals belong to.
Members of a patrilineal society trace their ancestors through their fathers. Inheritance passes from father to son. When a son marries, he, his wife, and their children remain part of his father’s extended family.
In a matrilineal society, children trace their ancestors through their mothers. Young men from a matrilineal culture and inherit land and wealth from their mother’s family. However, even in a matrilineal society, men usually hold the positions of authority.
Local Religions
African peoples organized themselves into family groups. They also developed belief systems that helped them understand and organize information about their world.
Animists believe that spirits are present in animals, plants, and other natural forces. In addition to nature spirits, Africans honored the spirits of their ancestors.
What were some religious beliefs of many early Africans?
Many of these local religions were polytheistic, involving belief in one divine creator or supreme god in addition to several secondary gods or semi-divine spirits.
In most African religions, the supreme god was not involved in humans’ lives. Instead, the nature spirits and the spirits of ancestors were responsible for many of life’s events, such as a plentiful harvest or an illness.
African religions generally also included elements of animism, a belief system in which spirits play an important role in regulating daily life.
The majority of Africans are adherents of Christianity or Islam.
This belief led Africans to develop many religious practices, rituals, and ceremonies focused on asking the spirits for health, fertility, and wealth. Other rituals protected people from bad spirits. Africans did not separate religion from other areas of life. Instead, spiritual beliefs and practices were integral to all areas of life.
Keeping a History
Few African societies had written languages. Instead, storytellers shared orally the history and literature of a culture. In West Africa, for example, these storytellers, or griots, kept this history alive, passing it from parent to child.
Recent discoveries in West Africa have proved how old and extensive the history of this part of Africa is. Archaeologists believe that early peoples from the north moved into West Africa as desertification forced them south to find better farmland.
Discoveries in the areas of modern Mali and Nigeria reveal that West Africans developed advanced societies and cities long before outsiders came to the continent.
