Post on 13-Jun-2015
description
Sahara: Trade and Empire
Summer 2014
Themes
• Development of African civilizations• Cities– Trade– Environment
• Empires and their stories
Standard Model – Food production
• Exploitation of plants and animals• Cultivation of plants• Domestication of plants• Domestication of animals• Functional pottery
Characteristics
Urbanism (Location! Location! Location!)Central governmentSpecializationSocial hierarchyComplex religionWritingTechnology; public works; art and architecture
Classical City
• Nucleated• Hierarchal - Elites• Low surrounding population
Middle Niger pattern of urbanism
• Non- nucleated congeries of specialized areas• Separate areas– Artisans– Fishermen– Religious and funerary activities
Technologies
• Pottery• Specialized tools such as plows• Wheeled vehicles• Metallurgy• Woven textiles
Ecozones
Becoming the Sahara Desert
Ancient Lakes (estimated 10% of Sahara)
Climate Change in the Sahara and the Sahel(rock art)
Response to climate change
Wild fauna
Tadrart Acacus, Libya
Niger
Rock Art Periods - Sahara
Roundhead (~7000 – 4600 BCE)Bubalus (end of 6th – mid-4th millennium BCE)– Extinct Algerian buffalo
Cattle or Pastoral Period (mid-4th to mid-2nd millennium BCE)Horse Period (from ~1200 BCE)Camel Period (CE)
Roundhead
Bubalus period
Bubulus antiquus,Fezzan, Libya
Other animals
Pottery
Tassili, Algeria 9080 BP
Ounjougou, Mali9400 BCE
Wavy line and dotted wavy line pottery
Cattle
• Introduced to North Africa from Middle East• Later interbred with wild African aurochs• Domestication shown in rock art• ‘Cattle cult’• Dairying
Hunting cattle
Herding
Domesticated animals, Fezzan
Camp life, Tassili, Libya
Dairying
Find animal fat residues“unequivocal evidence for extensive processing of dairy products in pottery vessels in the Libyan Sahara during the Middle Pastoral period (approximately 5200–3800 BC)”Processing explains use in the presence of lactose intolerance
Dunne, Julie, et al. "First dairying in green Saharan Africa in the fifth millennium
BC." Nature 486.7403 (2012): 390-394
Milking sceneMessak, SW Libya
Conjectured Sequence
• Hunt larger animals • Hunt smaller animals• Penning (possible attempt to domesticate
Barbary sheep)• Introduction of domesticated cattle from
Middle East• Interbreeding with native aurochs
Cattle Cult(s)
• First observed in Egyptian desert• Rapid movement west with increasing aridity• Suggest “a social response to cope with droughts and
famine, using this precious resource as an offering to superhuman entities.”
• Later megalithic burials of people under conditions of social differentiation
Messak
• Pastoral rock art• Sacrifices• Monumental with cattle
bones
Figure 2. The sacrifice of a bull at In Erahar.
di Lernia S, Tafuri MA, Gallinaro M, Alhaique F, et al. (2013) Inside the “African Cattle Complex”: Animal Burials in the Holocene Central Sahara. PLoS ONE 8(2): e56879. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0056879http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0056879
Figure 5. Examples of excavated archaeological features.
di Lernia S, Tafuri MA, Gallinaro M, Alhaique F, et al. (2013) Inside the “African Cattle Complex”: Animal Burials in the Holocene Central Sahara. PLoS ONE 8(2): e56879. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0056879http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0056879
Messak, Libya rock art site ~5200 bp
Cattle cult bone heap, Mankhor, Algeria
Cattle cult in Niger
Plant use (Libyan Sahara)
• Early – herbs; no cereals• Before cattle– Cattails used for weaving & roofing– Food accumulation
• Little change in pastoral period
Pearl millet
Pennisetum glaucum– Cultivar: longer seed head; varied
colors
4500 BP Oldest archaeological remains of cultivated pearl millet found in Mali~4000 BP Found in India
Pearl MilletWild and Cultivated
Fezzan and agricultural imports
• Free threshing wheat arrives in late 1st millennium
• Pearl millet and sorghum arrive end of first millennium
Inland Niger Delta• African rice
Metallurgy: Standard Chronology
• Copper – native• Copper – smelted• Copper – arsenic and copper-tin• Iron
Melting PointsMetal Melting PointCopper 1064Cast Iron 1204Silver 961Gold 1063Bronze 913
Controversy
• Africans lack lack prior pyrotechnological skills for iron metallurgy
• Dates older than 500 BCE are either unreliable or the samples are contaminated– Use of old charcoal– 14C calibration curve
• Contrary view– É. Zangato & A.F.C. Holl ‘On the Iron Front: New Evidence from North-Central Africa”
Journal of African Archaeology, Volume 8 (1), 2010, pages 7-23– Holl, Augustin FC. "Early West African metallurgies: new data and old orthodoxy." Journal of
World Prehistory 22.4 (2009): 415-438.– Bocoum, Hamady. The origins of iron metallurgy in Africa: new light on its antiquity, West
and Central Africa. Unesco, 2004.
Diffusion Hypotheses
Meroe hypothesis: iron metallurgy spread from around Meroe, Nubia in the Nile Valley to the rest of the continent
Carthaginian Origins: “The Phoenicians traded extensively with the Berbers, who in turn bartered with the Neolithic peoples south of the desert. To the existing trade of salt for West African gold and slaves the Berbers probably added Phoenician goods, including iron”
Origins of Iron-working
• The smelting of iron– More complex than other metals– Needed large quantities of charcoal and special furnaces– Main archaeological evidence: slag from smelting furnaces
• The origins of iron-working in Africa– Earliest known origin in western Asia, 1500 BCE– 670 BCE, earliest in Egypt– Recent evidence: 1000 - 600 BCE, Chad/east African lakes
region
Probably independent African development
Furnace with tuyéres Tora-Sira-Tomo 1, Mouhoun Bend NW Burkina Faso
Early Iron Age in West Africa
• Spread through woodland savannah of west Africa, 500-400 BCE
• More efficient clearing of land for agriculture, and weapons for hunting
• Development of larger farming settlements• Niger ‘inland delta’: variety of urban farming
settlements, e.g. Jenne-Jeno (250 BCE-400 CE)• Specialised production and trade, 400-1000 CE• From 500 BCE Nigerian ‘Nok Culture’
Spread of Iron Working technology
Uses of Iron250 BCE –
400 CE400 - 900 900-1000 100-1400
Decorative 5 9 3 8Utilitarian 0 10 9 36
Iron BraceletKissi, Burkina Faso700 CE
Nok Culture, Nigeria
Iron-working developed by pre-existing stone-working cultures
Terracotta figurines prefiguring later bronzes of Ife and Benin
Other Early Metallurgy
• c. 2200 to 700 BC Copper metallurgy in the Eghazzer basin in Niger and the Bir Moghrein in north- central Mauritania
• Early 2nd millennium BCE Iron metallurgy at Air-Termit in Niger, and the Bouar region in northwest Central African Republic
• Iron metallurgy in Niger ~600 BCE
Copper spears, Air-Termit, Niger
Hunt scene, Air Termit
Early copper furnaces 2000-1000 BCE
Niger: Copper furnaces, 1000 BCE to 1000 CE
Metal working and trade
• Copper and iron worked at different sites• Different pottery styles• Evidence for similar life styles
Carthaginians and Early trans-Saharan trade
• Carthaginian power (800-500 BCE) partly based on trans-Saharan trade?
• Berber pastoralists controlled the trade; Indirect contact through Sahara via oases
• Saharan salt traded north in exchange for food, cloth, beads, metal;Salt traded south for gold, ivory and captives for sale into slavery
• Slavery minor part of trade: used at Saharan salt pans and for north African labour
• Transport: donkeys, mules and horses• Problems: water shortages, and raids by Garamantes• Camel, from Arabia, not widely used in north Africa until 1st century
CE
Garamantes
Trans-Sahara trade in the Classical World
Site HierarchySite Type Characteristics Example(s)Town Large agglomerations with
several satellite villages, qsur and/or buildings
Qasr ash-Sharraba; Jarma
Fortified villageup to 4 ha
Independent substantial villages or satellite villages in prime agricultural locations
HHG001
Village with qsurup to 6 ha
Independent substantial villages or satellite villages with focal fortified building (qasr)
HHG006–008
Garama (Jarma)
Central Fazzan and Romans
Trade Routes
Horse and Camel styles
Horse rock art ‘flying galllop’
Chariot
Chariots
Jarma, excavated buildings, kite photos
Urban Center HHG001 and vicinity
JarmaHinterland
Foggara
Domestic architecture, 1-400 CE
Elite –stone fittings Commonermudbrick
Workshops, houses or combinations, 1-400 CE
Fewet
Fewet, Excavated Compound
Fewet Compound, plan
Garamantes dwelling unit, Fewet, Libya
Basalt Lamps Charred Mats, Grinding tools
Garamante gathering
Camel period rock art, Tadrart Acacus
Caravan, Acacus Mountains, Algeria
Garamantes - Soldiers
Changes in Funerary Practice with Time
• Space between settlement and cemeteries increases
• More grave goods• Increased density follows increase in
population and population density• Stratified society• Roman influence, Egyptian influence
Al-Hatiya, Tombs
Fewet tumulus
Garamantean Royal Cemetery, Jarma
Tumulus Northern Fazzan
Qsar (castle) Abyad, northern Fazzan
Tin Hinan, Tomb
Tin Hinan Tomb Plan
The ‘Princess’
Writing
• Influenced by Punic• Earliest inscription at Jarma
1st C. BCE• Dougga (Thugga) Monument
139 BCE
In situ inscription, Tadrart Acacus, SW Libya
Stele, Germa
Dougga Mausoleum, 139 BCE
Trade
To Romans• Slaves• Natron• Cotton• Ivory• Carbuncles
From Romans• Oil• Pottery• Glass• Technology