First farmers in Southern Africa

Question 1

Archaeologists believe that the first farmers in Southern Africa were around during the _________ Age, some 1700 to 2000 years ago.

Answer 1

iron

Question 2

The first farmers are believed to have come from?

Answer 2

Central and East Africa to Southern Africa

Question 3

Who were already living in Southern Africa when the first farmers arrived?

Answer 3

Khoikhoi and the San people

Question 4

The first farmers brought many changes with them. List 4.

Answer 4

Less nomadic so were more settled
Lived in villages
Relied mainly on farming, so planted crops
Kept herds of cattle, sheep and goats

Question 5

What languages did these first farmers speak?

Answer 5

Bantu languages

Question 6

What is some of the reasons that these new farmers moved to Southern Africa

Answer 6

Water sources in the Sahara were drying up and the farmers were looking for new fields and pastures.

Question 7

These farmers came in contact with the San and KhoiKhoi people. How did they relate to each other?

Answer 7

Farmers traded with them and used them as slaves.

Question 8

Farmer who had large herds of cattle were seen as

Answer 8

Wealthy, a sign of wealth

Question 9

What is it called when a man had to pay for his bride?

Answer 9

Lobola

Question 10

What farming did they do

Answer 10

Hunting of game
Farming animals (cattle, sheep and goats)
Crops (millet, sorghum, beans, melons, grains and vegetables)
Farmers close to the sea fished and collected shelfish

Question 11

Did early farmers use metal?

Answer 11

Yes, they smelted iron and used it to make tools
They also traded with metal
They produced finely worked gold and copper ornaments.

Question 12

Did the early farmers trade with others?

Answer 12

Yes, they traded metal. They traded with people as far east as the Indian Ocean.

Question 13

Did these farmers hunt for ivory?

Answer 13

Yes

Question 14

With these early farmers, who made their decisions?

Answer 14

The chief and elders

Question 15

True or false “The Khoisan had no concept of land ownership”.

Answer 15

True

Question 16

What did the early farmers had in common with the Khoikhoi people? List 5 things.

Answer 16

1. Both group ate shellfish
2. Both groups hunted animals
3. Both groups needed good grazing for their livestock.
4. The farmers shared iron spears and tools and new farming methods with them.
5. Khoikhoi showed farmers to make medicine

Question 17

Did the Khoikhoi and first farmers helped each other in times of hardship?

Answer 17

Yes, when crops failed or animals were killed by disease. They also bartered with each other for items they needed.

Question 18

What evidence shows that there were marriages between these early farmers and Khoikhoi people?

Answer 18

Rock painting that was found.

Question 19

The first farmers were a patriarchal society. What does that mean?

Answer 19

Men were the rulers and chiefs.

Question 20

What does autocracy mean?

Answer 20

The chief made all the big decisions.

Question 21

What does democracy mean?

Answer 21

Decisions are made as a group, like the San and Khoikhoi people.

Question 22

The chief would give every family a piece of land to work, what work did the men and women do?

Answer 22

Men: hunt and look after livestock
Women: work the land and farm

Question 23

The first farmers were subsistence farmers, what does that mean?

Answer 23

They only grew enough crops and reared what animals they needed to survive.

Question 24

The main source of meat for these farmers were from?

Answer 24

Their livestock.

Question 25

Where did these farmers settled most often?

Answer 25

Near water, like rivers.

Question 26

What did over-farming cause?

Answer 26

Soil would become less fertile and causing a semi-nomadic existence for the farmers as they had to move to more fertile land.

Question 27

In the first farming communities, women reared cattle (true or false)

Answer 27

False

Question 28

The first farmers always lived near water?

Answer 28

True

Question 29

The first farmers hunted for all their meat requirements (true or false)

Answer 29

False

Question 30

The first farmers were commercial farmers and grew as many crops as possible to trade with the Khoikhoi and San (true or false)

Answer 30

False

Question 31

The first farmers were a patriarchal society (true or false)

Answer 31

True

Question 32

The first farmers lived in homesteads or villages (true or falst)

Answer 32

True

Question 33

What was a symbol of per and wealth for these early farmers?

Answer 33

Large herds of cattle. (These did not belong to the group, but to individual people)

Question 34

Name 9 uses of a cow?

Answer 34

1. Milk and meat for food
2. Skin for clothing, mats and shields
3. Carry containers
4. Bride price - lobola
5. Dung for fuel
6. Dung for walls/floors
7. Dung for vertilization
8. Paying taxes or fines
9. Pulling ploughs

Question 35

How was the homesteads/villages arranged?

Answer 35

• Group of huts inside a cattle kraal enclosure
• Huts made from clay and dung with thatch roofs
• Chief (headman) lived opposite the main entrance with huts for his wives.

Question 36

How did they find and work with metal?

Answer 36

Men or sometimes women, gather metal ores (copper or iron), smelt them in a very hot furnace. Resulted in small pellets of metal. Smelting makes the metal melt out of the rock.

Question 37

Once they made the small pellets of metal what would they do with it?

Answer 37

Take to a blacksmith, he would smelt it further over a hot fire and form a large lump of metal. He then worked and shaped the metal in a hot furnace kept going with BELLOWS made from animal skins.

Question 38

Once the metal was hot and malleable (soft to mould), the blacksmith would take it out of the fire and hammer and shape it into a tool. What is this process called?

Answer 38

Forging

Question 39

What all was made by them with metal?

Answer 39

Tools, jewellery, weapons,