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Africa Timeline

This version was saved 15 years, 10 months ago View current version     Page history
Saved by Barbara Allen
on May 20, 2008 at 10:49:10 am
 

Types of societies

 



Hunter-gatherer

A hunter-gatherer society is one whose primary subsistence method involves the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild, foraging and hunting without significant recourse to the domestication of either. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer

Pastoralist

The primary subistence method is based on domesticated herd animals. The society is still nomadic, following natural weather cycles and wild plant availability. It is possible for nomadic groups who follow a regular movement pattern to practice land cultivation, by seeding plants that will be ready for harvest when the group passes through the area the next time.

Agriculturalist The society is non-nomadic and based on agriculture and non-nomadic herding. Both plants and animals are domesticated. 
Industrial The raw materials of the food supply are agricultural but the society revolves around manufacturing and trade rather than agriculture alone.

 

It has been assumed that the classifications above represented a natural evolution of culture from hunter-gatherer to pastoralist to agriculturalist industrial and post industrial. However there is evidence that some agriculturalist groups have moved "back" to hunter-gatherer groups.



African Empires

From Smithsonian Teacher Resources http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/resources/mali/index.htm

 

 

 Time  Region Events
 5 - 2.5 Million BCE  Ethiopia

First appearance of modern humans 

http://web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/hum211/timelines/htimeline.htm

200,000 BC Africa

San people spread throughout the continent

Mitochondrial DNA (MtDNA) research into modern human origins has produced two major findings. First, the entire amount of variation in mtDNA across human populations is small in comparison with that of other animal species. This means that all human mtDNA originated from a single ancestral lineage -- specifically, a single mother -- fairly recently and has been mutating ever since, producing the small diversity that exists throughout the human species. Most estimates of the mutation rate indicate an origin of about 200,000 years ago. The second major finding is that mtDNA of African populations is more diverse than of peoples of other continents. This suggests that African mtDNA has been changing for a longer time than elsewhere. Thus Africa is the likely source of the original mtDNA mother (sometimes called "Mitochondrial Eve"). Some geneticists and anthropologists have concluded, then, that modern humans originated in a small population in Africa and spread from there.

http://anthropology.si.edu/humanorigins/faq/Encarta/encarta.htm

130,000 BC Africa

Based on fossils, many scientist conclude that modern H. sapiens had evolved in Africa by 130,000 years ago and started spreading to diverse parts of the world beginning on a route through the Near East sometime before 90,000 years ago.

http://anthropology.si.edu/humanorigins/faq/Encarta/encarta.htm

 25,000-10,000 BC  South Africa Rock art created by San in South Africa 
 6000-4000

 Nile, Congo

 

Emergence of River people along Nile and Congo

6000-4000 Sub Saharan Africa

Rise of agriculture in SubSaharan Africa

 4500  Egypt First known written documents
 4000-1000  Nile Valley Rise of kingdoms
1000-800 BC  Africa

Bantu probably originated in West Africa, migrated downward to Subsaharan area, largest migration in human history, agriculturalists or pastoralists

Bantu split in Eastern, migrating down into South Africa, and Western, migrating into Angola, Namibia, and Botswana

300 AD Ghana Soninke Empire of Ghana
 600 AD  Southern Africa  Bantu cities, Great Zimbabwe, Dhlo-Dhlo, Kilwa, Sofala,  flourishing through 1600 AD
 610 AD  Africa  Spread of Islam through most of Africa
 639-641    Islam conquers Egypt
 700   Slave trade from 700-1911
 800  Sahel From Ghana, Mali, and Songhai, gold, kola nuts, and slaves were sent north across the sahel to trade for cloth, utensils and salt
 1000  Ghana   Soninke empire
     
1200-  Mali   Mali Empire, 1235 - 1600
1375   Songhai empire separates from Mali Empire
 1439  West Africa  Portuguese

exploration

 1441   Portugeuese slave trade
1497 South Africa Vasco da Gama lands in Natal
 1550-     Other European slavers
 1591    Fall of Songhai Empire
 1652  South Africa  Dutch (Boer) Colonize South Africa (Natal?)
1700-1717 Ghana  Rise of Ashanti Empire
1720 Dahomey  Rise of Dahomey
1700-1800    Atlantic Slave Trade
1795-1815   British seize control of Cape Colony (South Africa) from Dutch
1818-1828  South Africa Shaka unified Nguni, start of mfecane, rise of Zulu kingdom. Shaka assassinated in 1828, but Zulu power kept rising
1822 Liberia  Creation of Liberia
1830 Zimbabwe Mzilikazi founds Ndebele state
1834   Mzilikazi invades Rowsi state http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/africans.html
1830-1834  South Africa Boers move north across Orange River, establish Orange Free State and Transvaal
1852 South Africa British grant limited self-government to Transvaal
late 1850's South Africa Boers proclaim Transvaal a republic
1867 South Africa Diamonds discovered at Kimberly
1870  Zimbabwe Ndebele capital moved to Bulawayo
1874  

Britain defeats Ashanti Kingdom

http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/africans.html

1871-1912  Africa Global European Imperialism at its height: The "scramble for Africa" proceeds, rationalized as a "civilizing mission" based on white supremacy. Europeans assert their "spheres of interest" in African colonies arbitrarily, cutting across traditionally established boundaries, homelands, and ethnic groupings of African peoples and cultures. Following a "divide and rule" theory, Europeans promote traditional inter-ethnic hostilities. "The European onslaught of Africa that began in the mid 1400s progressed to various conquests over the continent, and culminated over 400 years later with the partitioning of Africa. Armed with guns, fortified by ships, driven by the industry of capitalist economies in search of cheap raw materials, and unified by a Christian and racist ideology against the African 'heathen,' aggressive European colonial interests followed their earlier merchant and missionary inroads into Africa"--Prof. Malaika Mutere, Howard Univ., African Culture & Aesthetics, African Odyssey Interactive:
1884-1885   Europes divides up Africa at Berlin Conference.  No Africans invited.
1877 South Africa Britain annexes Transvaal
1870's South Africa Zulu war with Great Britain
mid 1880's South Africa Gold discovered in Transvaal
1890 Zimbabwe Cecil Rhodes conquers Ndebele state
1899-1902 South Africa Anglo-Boer war
1902   Benin (Dahomey) is French colony
1910 South Africa Formation of South Africa from Cape and Natal colonies, Orange Free State and Transvaal
1922 Zimbabwe British settlers vote to secede from South Africa
1934 Zimbabwe Racial laws forbid blacks from running business in Rhode
     
1948 South Africa Apartheid policy established
1950's Kenya Jomo Kenyatta, wars for Kenya independence
1957 Ghana First independent Black state
1958 South Africa South Africa independent from Britain
1960 Mali Mali becomes independent
1960-1961 Zaire Zaire (Belguim Congo) independent
1964   Northern Rhodesia secedes and becomes Zambia
1965 Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) declares (white minority) independence from Britain
1966-1968 South Africa Lesotho, Botswana, and Swaziland become independent states
1970 Angola Portugal loses African colonies
1980 Zimbabwe Zimbabwe gains independence from white minority rule (Robert Mugabe)
1970's South Africa Apartheid enforced, blacks resettled in 'homelands'
1990 South Africa Nelson Mandela freed
1991 South Africa Apartheid abolished
1994 Zaire, Ruwanda Hutus massacre Tutsis
     

 

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