FROM THE YEAR 1000-1800
This article covers a small portion of the African history. I would like to talk more about the ways of life of our ancestors. These are things people probably do not care about but such things are the major enrichment of our culture. These facts makes African culture more resistant to time factor.
WAYS OF LIFE OF EARLY AFRICANS
The origins of African history are so old that we cannot actually tell in our minds the number of years.
Recent discoveries show that Africa may have been the birthplace of humanity.
These discoveries indicate that it was in Africa that early types of men, very different from ourselves , first developed the use of tools. The tools they made were lumps of chipped stone, and so the times in which these early people lived are called the Stone Age.
Equipped with such primitive tools yet useful, early men made progress. Slowly but surely, they grew stronger in their fight to live and prosper. They became more numerous . They wandered across Africa and over much of the world. But they were still very rare. Life for them and their families was dangerous and difficult.
But gradually, they discovered the use of fire and made tools from stones for hunting animals for meat, they had also discovered fishing and also the use of fire for cooking , this new era of these development in life of early man was called "Neolithic stone age". Life was a little comforting and somewhat easier than before , but what changed early man very well was the learning of growing crops and growing food from wild plants and also making herbs from plants for their ill ones. Now they could settle at places or villages for a very long time by growing their own food.
GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE OF HOW DISCOVERIES WERE MADE BY ANCIENT AFRICANS.
In the Middle East is where history shows actually started agriculture, by growing food instead of hunting game and gathering wild plants like the Africans of the Nile Valley six thousands of years ago.
Africans of other Regions started agriculture in somewhat later times .
But slowly and gradually agriculture spread through the African plains and it was adopted as the major means of growing food.
It came lastly to the dense forest lands of West and Central Africa; here it dates back less than
3000 years ago.
Now we should notice an important natural difference between the Africa of the Neolithic stone age and the Africa of today.
For eg West Africa is divided from North Africa and the Nile by the Sahara Desert.
But this was not always the case. History has it that during the Neolithic stone age part of desert were rich and fertile land .
Research also shows that the Sahara used to have Regions which harboured tall trees and green plants, broad rivers flowed through them.
Game and cattle were plentiful there, fish abounded .
SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES AND THEIR RELATION WITH NEOLITHIC STONE AGE.
Scientist have discovered have found stone tools and bone harpoons and fishing hooks, as well as drawings of animals, humans and gods on rocks from one end of the Sahara to the other, from Mauretania to Egypt . The old Sahara was in fact the cradle of ancient Africans it holds plentiful history and many discoveries pertaining to the ways of life of early man.
Reference : "The Growth of African civilization,A history of West Africa 1000-1800" written by F.K Buah and J.F Ade Ajayi .
More on African history to be released soon.