History of Africa

151 flashcards by MentisLibrary

A continent of empires, gold roads and stone cities. Covers Kush, Aksum, Mali and Songhai, Great Zimbabwe and the Swahili coast, the trans-Saharan and Atlantic trades, the Scramble for Africa, and the independence era that followed.

What is the fossil skeleton Lucy, and where was she found?
A partial Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found in 1974 at Hadar in the Afar region of Ethiopia, about 3.2 million years old
Which Tanzanian site produced key early hominin fossils and stone tools studied by Louis and Mary Leakey?
Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania
Where were the oldest known fossils of anatomically modern humans found?
At Jebel Irhoud in Morocco, dated to roughly 300,000 years ago
What is the Out of Africa migration?
The spread of modern humans from Africa into Eurasia and beyond
Who are the Khoisan peoples?
Southern African peoples including the San, historically hunter-gatherers, and the Khoikhoi, historically herders, speaking languages with click consonants
Where was cattle first herded in Africa?
In the eastern Sahara, possibly independently of the Near East
What was the African Humid Period, often called the Green Sahara?
A long wet phase, roughly 11,000 to 5,000 years ago, when the Sahara held lakes, rivers, grassland and abundant wildlife
What happened as the Sahara dried out after about 5,000 years ago?
Populations moved toward the Nile valley, the Sahel and the coasts, and the desert became a barrier that had to be crossed rather than lived in
What was the Bantu expansion?
The long spread of Bantu-speaking farming peoples from a homeland near the modern Nigeria and Cameroon border across central, eastern and southern Africa
Who are the Amazigh?
The indigenous peoples of North Africa, often called Berbers
What was Kerma?
A powerful Nubian kingdom on the Nile that rivalled and sometimes fought Egypt
What is the Nok culture known for?
Distinctive terracotta sculptures of human heads and figures from central Nigeria, and some of West Africa's earliest evidence of iron smelting
What was the Kingdom of Kush?
A Nubian kingdom on the middle Nile in modern Sudan, ruling first from Napata and later from Meroe
What does Saharan rock art show?
Cattle herds, hunters, swimmers and wildlife painted when the desert was grassland
Who founded Carthage, and when by tradition?
Phoenician settlers from Tyre, traditionally in 814 BCE
Who were the Kushite pharaohs of Egypt's Twenty-Fifth Dynasty?
Rulers from Kush, including Piye, Shabaka and Taharqa, who governed Egypt in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE
Who were the Garamantes?
A Saharan people who farmed the desert using underground irrigation tunnels
What was Meroe known for?
The later capital of Kush, famous for large-scale iron smelting and for its own fields of steep-sided royal pyramids
What were the Punic Wars?
Three wars between Carthage and Rome, fought between 264 and 146 BCE
Why was Roman North Africa economically important to the empire?
It was a major grain producer, along with olive oil, and supplied much of Rome's food
Where was the Kingdom of Aksum?
In the northern highlands of what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea, with a port at Adulis on the Red Sea
Why is Aksum's coinage historically important?
Aksum minted its own gold, silver and bronze coins from about the late third century CE
What made regular trans-Saharan caravan trade possible?
The camel, which was in widespread use in the Sahara by roughly the fourth century CE, along with oasis chains and Amazigh guides
What is Ge'ez?
An ancient Ethiopian Semitic language, no longer spoken day to day, that remains the liturgical language of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox churches
Which Aksumite king adopted Christianity?
King Ezana, in the fourth century CE
Who was Saint Augustine of Hippo?
A north African bishop whose Confessions and City of God shaped western Christianity
What were the Christian kingdoms of Nubia?
Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia, which were Christian for roughly 900 years
When did Arab Muslim armies conquer North Africa?
In the seventh century CE, with the city of Kairouan in modern Tunisia founded as a base around 670
Where was the Ghana Empire located?
In the Sahel of what is now southeastern Mauritania and western Mali, far to the northwest of the modern country named Ghana
What was Kanem-Bornu?
A long-lived state around Lake Chad, ruled by the Sayfawa dynasty, which shifted its center from Kanem to Bornu