8.How Africa Became Black

How Africa Became Black

1/4 of the world’s languages are spoken in Africa. No other continent even approaches this human diversity.

Humans have lived in Africa far longer than anywhere else.

Of the six major human groups, five live in Africa

whitesblacksasiansAfrican pygmieskhoisan

not Australian aboriginees

HUMAN MIGRATION PATTERNS DEDUCED FROM LANGUAGE

DISTRIBUTIONS

•The Niger-Congo language family arose in West Africa

•The Bantu branch of it arose at the east end of that range, in Cameroon and Nigeria

•And then the Bantu migrated out from that homeland area to dominate most of subequatorial Africa

Movements of people

reached coastby 100 BCE

began migrating3000 BCE withwet climate crops,cattle, but no metal

acquired ironby 1000 BCE

Natal by500 CE

With the addition of iron tools to their cattle and wet climate crops, the Bantu had put together a military-industrial package that was unstoppable in subequatorial Africa at the time and dominated the region

Pygmy and KhoisanThe geographically dispersed modern settlements of African Pygmies and Khoisan speaking peoples suggest they once occupied a much larger geographic area in Africa before being invaded and pushed out by Bantu speaking Africans

distribution of African Pygmies in 1971

1921

The Pygmies are a dark-skinned people who live in the dense equatorial rain forests of central Africa and average about 59 in. (150 cm) in height. It is estimated there are about 250,000 left.

Major Powell-Cotton posing as hunter with his gun and shooting jacket on. He is holding a spear. He has with him two pygmies, with their hunting equipment, bows and arrows, and spears.

Congo 1904

A few modern Khoisan speakers survived mainly

because of their isolation

in areas of southern

Africa unsuitable for Bantu farming

The Khoisan

language has click sounds

Nelson Mandela was

a Khoisan Kalahari Desert

Khoisan family in the Kalahari desert

Khoisan children

Khoisan cave paintings

The expansion of Bantu farming stopped along the Fish River in southern Africa because their summer-rain dependent crops would not grow in the Mediterranean climate

Fish River

The Fish River Canyon is the second largest in the world, only surpassed by the Grand Canyon in Colorado. It is approximately 180 kms long and stretches along the border between Namibia and South Africa.

Mediterranean crops require winter rains and seasonal variation in the day length for their germination. Thus, these crops were unable to spread south of the Sudan, beyond which they encountered summer rains and little or no seasonal variation in daylight.Similarly, the

west African summer rain crops would not grow in the Mediterranean climate south of the Great Fish River.

Mediterranean crops require winter rains and seasonal variation in the day length for their germination. Thus, these crops were unable to spread south of the Sudan, beyond which they encountered summer rains and little or no seasonal variation in daylight.

Therefore, when the Dutch settlers arrived in 1652 they were met with little resistance by the Khoisan hunter-gathering peoples

The Bantu agriculturalist peoples with cattle and metallurgy had been stopped further north

When European settlers finally expanded to reach the Bantu it took nine wars and 175 years to finally subdue the dense population of steel equipped Bantu farmers