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Diverse societies in Africa, The Nok Culture - Coggle Diagram
Diverse societies in Africa
A Land of Geographic Contrasts
Trade
Africa is the second largest continent in the world
Coastlines
few harbors, ports, or inlets
The coastline of Africa is 18,950 miles (30,5 00 km) in length and it is shorter than that of Europe, because there are few inlets and few large bays or gulfs. Off the coasts of Africa a number of islands are associated with the continent.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Africa
11.7 million square miles
5,000 miles - north to south
4,600 miles - east to west
Challenging Environments
Desserts are very unsuitable for human life and that makes it so people move to more welcoming climates
Sahara in the North
Culture
The Sahara is roughly the size of the United States and only a small part of it consists of sand dunes. The rest of it is flat, grey wasteland of scattered rocks and gravel.
Each year the desert expands and takes over more and more of the semiarid region which is at the southern edge of the desert, the Sahel.
Rainforest(nature's greenhouse)
produces mahogany and teak trees up to 150 feet tall
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Why might the rain forest be called “Nature’s Greenhouse”?
Answer: The tree leaves and branches cover the forest floors from sunlight much like a greenhouse.
What problems might the expansion of the Sahara Cause?
Answer: It could cause environmental problems and a limit to food production.
Most people in Africa live on savannas or grassy plains. Africas savannas include mountainous highlands and swampy tropical stretches of land. Savannas cover over 40 percent of the continent with tall grasses and dotted with trees.
Dry seasons and rainy seasons go back and forth. The topsoil in Africa is thin and heavy rains strip away minerals. Most years, the savannas support lots of agricultural production.
Kalahari in the South
These deserts have been around for millions of years
http://www.eyesonafrica.net/Articles/deserts-africa.htm#:~:text=Africa%20%2D%20the%20second%20largest%20continent,a%20large%20portion%20of%20Africa
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Early Humans Adapt To Their Environments
Culture
By studying these groups, scholars learn clues about how hunter-gathers may have lived in the past
The first humans appeared in the great Rift valley, a deep gash in earth's crust that runs through the floor of the red sea & across Africa.
They lived in the lturi forest in the democratic republic of Congo.
Like their ancestors, the modern-day Efe live in small groups of between 10 and 100 members, all of whom are related.
Social System
They developed technologies & social systems that helped them survive in & then alter their surroundings.
Nomadic hunting-gathering societies the oldest form of social organization in the world began in Africa.
Today, hunting gathering societies form an extremely small percentage of the population these groups speak their own language & often use their own hunting techniques.
The Efe are one of the several hunting gathering societies in Africa
To what might the Efe attribute their long success as a hunter-gatherer society?
Why would complex settlement require more government then smaller communities?
West African Iron Age
unlike cultures to the north, the people of africa south of the sahara seem to have skipped the copper and bronze ages and move directly to the iron age. Iron production dated around 500 BC.
West Africa earliest known culture was of the Nok people. Lived in what is now nigeria from 500 BC- AD 200. Their name came from the village where the first artifacts from their culture were found.
Nok artifacts have been found in the area stretching for 300 miles between Niger and Benue River. They were the first west Africans to smelt iron which was used for tools like hunting and farming.
Djenné Djeno
In the region south of the sahel, most Africans lived in small villages but during 600 BC and 200 BC, they started building cities. One of them was Djenné Djeno.
It was uncovered by archaeologists in 1977. It's located on a tributary of the Niger River in West Africa. They found thousands of artifacts such as pottery, iron knives, glass beads, and clay toys.
It was the oldest city in Africa south of the Sahara. At its peak, the city had 50,000 residents. They lived in enclosed out of mud bricks. They fished, herded cattle, and raised rice on the river's fertile floodplains.
By the 3rd BC, they learned how to smelt iron and started trading their food and pottery for gold, copper, and salt. Djenné Djeno became a trade center linked to other towns. It was abandoned around AD 1400
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How do artifacts provide a picture of daily life?: It shows the culture of the people such as past events, what they ate, what they lived in, or how they were organized as people.
Civilization:Organized: Urban development, political & social structure, control of the Natural environment: a complex society
Culture:Tradition, customs or a way of life of a community
What major changes affected societies during Africa's Iron Age: Iron tools were more reliable than copper or bronze. It increased Agriculture, trade, hunting, and building. It made the quality of life easier for the people.
The basic info for the Iron Age
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/iron/hd_iron.htm#:~:text=Iron%20smelting%20and%20forging%20technologies,of%20significant%20centralized%20kingdoms%20in
Stateless Societies
The societies south of the Sahara shared common elements
One of these elements was the importance of the basic social unit, the family
South of Sahara, many African groups developed systems of governing based on lineages, in some societies groups took the place of rulers
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.
If a dispute arose in an Igbo village, elders from different lineages settled the problem
The Igbo, people of southern Nigeria, lived in a stateless society.
Their political structure was similar to stateless societies found in Central Africa
How is lineage important to stateless societies?
In many African societies, families are organized in groups called lineages
The members of a lineage believe they are descendants of a common ancestor
Government Systems
The Nok Culture