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
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