The rain forests are very dense. Much more frequently however, a kingdom simply fragmented into its constituent population clusters. - africa's social structure forms political nations that will help people from violence. The mysteriousness of such knowledge might be reinforced in societies where secret associations had a monopoly of spiritual activity. This process started to happen at different times according to region. African religious practices were equally common, involving ritual experts, mediums, dances, often with masks and often involving trances, witches, and charms. Where there is a spring, a lake or a river, however, cultivation is possible, and in some areas, for example in the inner delta of the River Niger (see below), or on the shores of Lake Chad in West Africa, or the Great Lakes of central Africa, intensive cultivation has allowed concentrations of dense population to grow up. As in other parts of the world, textile crafts were widespread. He was therefore required to host lavish feasts at which many could eat and drink at his expense; and to provide costly gifts to his allies and supporters. If a kinship group fell below a viable size it ceased to be able to protect itself properly and became extremely vulnerable to being absorbed, often brutally, by more fertile rivals. This was a form of draughts, and was played in private rather than in public. Learning support for teachers and students. The 25th Dynasty's reunification of Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt, and Kush, created the largest Egyptian empire since the New Kingdom. In fact, cults involving rain shrines and weather gods might command the loyalty of people over a wide area, a form of worship practiced side-by-side with that concerning the spirits of the land. Even the Swahili trading ports of East Africa such as Lamu, Mombasa, Kilwa and Zanzibar, home to a sophisticated Arab-African culture, were strung out along the coastline with great distances between them. The environment of sub-Saharan Africa is one of the hardest environments for human populations to thrive in. The General History of Africa ( Ki-Zerbo, et al. Their inhabitants regulated their affairs by means of commonly-accepted custom, relying on shamans or priests at area shrines for mediation, hierarchies of titled individuals of varying ranks who had moral authority within their communities, and/or in some cases on secret societies. To have children was essential to an individuals social standing, to their welfare in old age, to their survival as ancestors, and to their lineages existence as an independent group in competitive and often violent societies. Much religious activity, however, was in the hands of religious specialists adept at making contact with the spirit world in order to influence the forces of nature. In many of the great kingdoms of Africa, administration was carried on entirely orally. Most crafts supplied local markets, even when using high levels of skill. Built on the orders of the pharaohs thousands of years ago, the Great Pyramid of Giza continues to reveal its secrets. In some societies the wives even retained ownership of their family property after marriage. The culture,language and customs of this empire were greatly influenced by the culture of Western African cities and the people were divided into sects or sections based on their social standing. This would exacerbate the already existing social fault-lines which afflicted all such societies. To the Western mind, at least, this aspect of religion was indistinguishable from magic, and was in the hands of mediums, priests, diviners and healers. In terms of history and culture this zone has been part of the European and Middle Eastern regions, and is therefore not covered by this article. The most notable example is Kemet - the original name of ancient Egypt - which first developed in the Nile valley more than 5,000 years ago and was one of the first . 1. FIAT DOBLO (2015-) VANIKA DO KUFRA. ZDQwYTliY2VjMzM2YmIyZDM1ODQ4Zjc4NzY2ZWQ4NWU5YTliYzE4N2FhMTQw Egyptian culture has six thousand years of recorded history. Explain the social structure, unique aspects, and decline of Great Zimbabwe . 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. M2M4NGNlYzZmM2IzNmFlYTA3OGFjMDcwMWRiZjdmY2UyMzM5ZDg5OTcwNjA1 Hunter-gatherer peoples had inhabited sub-Saharan Africa for millennia prior to herders, and later agriculturalists, starting to settle the region. The salt miners, on the other hand, were a dependent group not much better than slaves. This was that there was a fundamental distinction between the cultivated and the wild, between civilization and savagery. Unlike in other parts of the world, temples and other religious buildings did not dominate townscapes the exception here being the large mosques of Muslim cities. 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. Those suspected of witchcraft were commonly relatives or neighbors who would benefit from a persons misfortune; and especially women whose age, childlessness, deformity or demeanor suggested bitterness. YWQxYjBmNjljZmEzOTNlOTg4YTZiZmI4M2NkMzZmZTM0MGYzYjRlZmE2Zjk1 To the south of the western savannah is the region of rainforest which encompasses the southern areas of West Africa and most of the Congo Basin. MWQxZmFmZDU1YzRiOTgwN2YwNjgwNGEyMWVmYmVjZTQ1YTI4ODkzMTA1OGQ2 Many studies have been mostly about political centralisation. The development of the Egyptian civilization is traced from the beginning of the settlement at the Nile river through to the uniting of Upper and Lower Egypt under one Pharaoh. West Africa had the oldest, densest and most enduring urban tradition, with famous cities such as Timbuktu, Gao, Jenne and Kano. Building the dense concentrations of population necessary for the emergence of major civilizations was not an option in most locations. 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. 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. Their repertoire involved rituals, spells, dances and trances, as well as more practical applications such as herbs and ointments. From a wider communal viewpoint, wives and children were needed to build up a lineages numbers and so help it survive into the future. 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. eyJtZXNzYWdlIjoiYTQ3YTllNzM5MzNhY2U5MTg3MDQzZTY2YzI0NGNiOTQx The Sahara desert forms a major barrier to contacts between the cities and states of the Mediterranean region and the peoples to its south. The famous one that can be associated with the ancient Africa is the pharaoh and their pyramids. Having said that, no one can look at a Benin bronze figure and argue that skills of the very highest level were lacking in African craftsmanship; and fine crafts were to be found up and down the continent. Elsewhere, transport being limited to human porterage meant that there was little long-distance trade. Much craft work in Africa, as in all pre-modern societies, was done on a part-time basis by farmers, particularly women. The Awilu was the top most class in the social hierarchy of ancient Babylonia. YjE4NWI3ZjI1ZTFlNDUxYmJhY2U0N2E1ODZjNzFmOWJlM2FkMzA2OGZkN2Q4 But it was ancestors with whom these people directly interacted, and approaching them with sacrifices of cattle. Like the gold miners they were also hereditary, and in fact formed a distinct ethnic group within desert society. Some groups of Iron Age farmers from West Africa, moving into the Great Lakes region at the end of the first millennium BCE and then moving down towards central and southern Africa, adopted a cattle-keeping way of life. Women predominated in small-scale trade as market sellers, which gave those involved considerable economic independence. Many of them rose and fell throughout the African history. To survive in these harsh conditions a person needed his kin around him. They have few open spaces and are not suitable for herding animals and in any case, in Africa the forests are infested with tsetse fly, which spread a disease deadly to cattle. Also, iron working especially produced goods vital to farmers, hunters and warriors. preskmanie poter pomocnk plavaren zatvor hodiny figra Menagerry vodivos. When Europeans arrived in the region, in the 1500s, they found only a small population of hunter-gatherers there. Some states were created by rulers of village clusters who, through military prowess, were able to use their manpower to conquer other clusters. First adopted by Western scholars, the notion of caste in West Africa refers to a form of hierarchical social classification of individuals into . Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, this often took the form of inter-generational tensions between elder males with multiple wives and younger males with no wives. One common social structure among ethnic groups in sub-Saharan Africa is segmentary lineage organisation. Many African societies therefore experienced considerable social mobility. Under Muslim influence the game of dara became popular. 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. This would exacerbate the already existing social fault-lines which afflicted all such societies. They believed in both good and bad spirits. There were also different social. The most prized qualities were seen as the preserve of males, such as aggression and courage. Except in favorable locations, especially where fishing, or gathering aquatic resources, could supplement diets, hunting and foraging groups needed a large area of land on which to sustain themselves. These occupied the grasslands around (and sometimes within) the Sahara and Kalahari deserts, and the more arid grasslands which covered so much of the continent. The challenge for premodern African societies was to build up numbers to create viable communities. makes it the largest ancient structure south of the Sahara Desert. Some of these lived permanently in one town, but others spent much of their time wandering from town to town, market to market, with their wares. This process only reached its completion in South Africa by the end of the 1st millennium CE. If they were too old, ill or handicapped to work effectively; or if through misfortune they had no children; or if they had no kinsmen to aid them clear land and tame fields, they were very vulnerable. A popular form of leisure was a board game called mankala. ZGEzYzEwNGE3M2M4NDVjZWFiNDg4OTE5MzljZGNmY2UyN2ViOTc1YTZmMTRk Perhaps the highland areas which have had most impact on the history of Africa have been the Ethiopian Highlands, which have sheltered Africas only historic Christian state; and the highlands of southern Africa, which have played a key role in that regions history. Ancient Egypt was among the earliest civilizations.For millennia, Egypt maintained a strikingly complex and stable culture that influenced later cultures of Europe, the Middle East and Africa.After the Pharaonic era, Egypt itself came under the influence of Hellenism, for a time Christianity, and later, Arab and Islamic culture. Still others were created by nomadic pastoral groups imposing control over a population of farmers, such as the Fulani kingdoms in West Africa. 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. The more high-status and long-distance traders, however, were men. The caste system in India is not the only cultural institution designed to create divisions between social classes. -----END REPORT-----. MWZkZDVjMmYwOWFkODY0ZjRiZmVjNWQ3ZmIwYzIyOWVjYjk1MzNlNGE5OWU2 If the demands of royal authority became too onerous, in the form of heavy taxes, say, or the demands made for public projects or service in the royal army, people could (and did) simply up and leave en masse. They sought to bring shrines and cults under their authority through a mixture of threat and patronage. Hamilton, et al. Linguistically, acculturation among Africans has been much slower than among Indians. Throughout Africa the basic unit of society was the lineage-group, or clan. This article looks at the societies and cultures of sub-Saharan Africa in pre-modern history. Funding and operating them required large amounts of capital and large-scale, disciplined organization. This tradition of West African sculpture arose in a much broader context of mask-making and statuary in wood and ivory, which covered much of sub-Saharan Africa. 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. This reflects the much more limited role of trade outside West Africa. In many regions low or fickle rainfall greatly magnifies this problem. Everyone on the community would take part, but the central roles were reserved for the mediums with their trance-dancing. Ironically, this attractive landscape posed a barrier to the spread of traditional farming southward, as sub-Saharan agriculture had adapted itself to tropical conditions. African religions. Upon Africa's soils our prehistoric relatives have walked side by side. The art of ancient African was just as diverse as its cultures, languages, and political structures. This crosses much of the continent from east to west, from the Atlantic coast to the highlands of Ethiopia. Even here, however, there was commonly a belief that a higher or ultimate power lay behind the pantheon of gods who interacted with humans. These matters touched on the central concern of Africans, the continuity of the community. 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 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. The Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. OTIxY2QzNGMwMmQ0OGI0YWIzNDFhOThjNGU4ZTVhM2IzYjQyOTkzYjMwZmNk Canoes came in all sizes on the great rivers, and were probably the cheapest form of transport; but, of sub-Saharan rivers, only the Niger and Congo were navigable for any distance along their length. 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. MzE2MGQ0NGZjMTczYTA2YjU3ZDY1YWQ3YTRiOTdlZmE5NTQyMTg0NDgwZTYz Yams are a very productive crop, providing a large number of calories per acre harmed. NjFkYmJjYjc2MmM4OGJiZTM3ZDU4YWMzMGI2Y2IwMmY2MGE1ZDJhM2Y3OGQ1 However springs or small lakes allow oases of vegetation to flourish at scattered spots, sometimes hundreds of miles apart. African cultivators have generally taken great pride in their skills. There are also some large mountain ranges, such as the Ruwenzori mountains in Uganda (the Mountains of the Moon). Around the year 3000 BC, agriculture arose independently in Ethiopia with crops like coffee, teff, finger millet, sorghum, barley, and ensete. 2010-2011 provides a reassessment of the history of South Africa in the wake of that country's transition to majority rule. These caste systems feature endogamy, hierarchical status, inherited occupation, membership by birth, pollution concepts and restraints on commensality.. A medieval (c. 1220-1450) kingdom located in modern-day Zimbabwe. They had done this by the start if the first millennium BCE. Its flora consists of a mix of scrub, grassland and woodland. An extraordinarily detailed understanding of plants and their properties, already noted in above in connection to their skills as cultivators, gave African healers an unmatched mastery of herbal remedies. ZWQ2YjhiMDdhMDFlMTNjNjE4OWFkMjBlNjMwYzRjZDFhNjY5OGI2YjhmZDc0 Over the millennia they have become highly adapted to life in an ecosystem which is fiercely hostile to other peoples. The specifics of the caste systems in Africa vary among . The great majority of this area is far too dry for agriculture whether crop cultivation or animal grazing of any kind. Otherwise, large urban settlements were rare: Great Zimbabwe, Mbaza Kongo, and a handful of other towns were exceptional. OTg3ZTYwNWY1OWRjMGZiYzY3ZjQ0MGEzYTgyOTVhZDY3M2YwZDIyMzFjMzJk 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 these states, violence and exploitation led to societies ruled by classes of military aristocrats or nobles. MzJiMzEwNzkwMzQ0MDVhMWZmOTU0NzM1MzMzMmE1ZDE4MGY5ZjkyNzY5ZDA2 MTI3NmM1MDdjZmIyOWJjZjVhMzliNGM1MjA4NTAwNjY3YTI4YzRhMWE4NTM4 7. NzlkMGVmMDZkZjMzN2QyN2NjYTRkMGVkOTczNzJjZGYxZTAxZDM3MjAwYWJj The ancient structure is the last surviving wonder of the ancient world. An isolated region From the 17th century, European contact have brought new crops from America, such as maize, cassava and sweet potatoes, and these were beginning to provide additional nutrition and a significant boost to numbers all over Africa. 7th-13th century). Africa, where humans first evolved, today remains a place of remarkable diversity. African societies were often fluid from one generation to another, however.