Slide 5: African Prehistory

Question 1

What is the creationist theory ?

Answer 1

Believed for many years that earth is 6,000 years old

Human created in modern form

All humans come from Adam and Eve

Question 2

What is the evolutionary theory ?

Answer 2

Earth is older than 6000 years

Homo sapiens came into existence through evolution

Question 3

How do we know Africa is the birthplace of humanity ?

3 parts

Answer 3

*archeology: study of cultural artifacts
Archeological evidence discovered in diff parts of Africa

Fossil evidence strongly support expansion because volcano erupted and preserved remains of Australopithecines and homo Habilis

Genetic evidence: Africans are the most genetically diverse people— farther and farther from Africa less diverse

Question 4

What is relative dating? Who was Charles Lyell and what did he conclude?

Answer 4

The science of determining the relative order of past events.

Charles Lyell concluded that the same forces of nature that affected the earth in the past continued to operate in the present

Deposit of lake bed sediments, erosions and so had occurred gradually over many thousands of years
Bottom part of sediment is oldest

Question 5

What does absolute dating include?

Answer 5

process of determining age

Potassium Argon dating objects as 1.3 billion years old

Radiocarbon dating can date organic remains as old as 50k years old

Question 6

What are the Australopithecines? What did it’s finding conclude? Where did they inhabit?

Answer 6

Our predecessor

• 1924- Taung Baby discovered to have canine teeth similar to humans than apes
• Evolution occurred after when human separated from ape like Austra.
• Spinal attachment almost directly under the skull meaning stood upright
• Evidence found due to preservation from volcanic matter
• inhabited broad region: from southern to northeastern Africa and as far west as chad

Question 7

When did homo habilis live ? Where ? What’s it’s distinct feature? What did they prove ?

Answer 7

Lived 2.4 million to 1.4 million years ago

Distinctive feature was brain larger than Austra.

Mostly lived in eastern region

Proved to make tools with irregular shapes that represented oldowan tech. Named after Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania

Question 8

When did Homo erectus live? Features? What did they make first ?

Answer 8

Lived from 1.89 million and 143,000 years ago

Larger brain than homo habilis

The first to use fire and sophisticated tools

Question 9

Homo erectus made ____ and produced ______?

Where did they live? Features ? Did they walk upright ? Did they make tools ?

Answer 9

The stone technology made by them called Acheulian tech.

Produced sophisticated hand ax, cleavers, and scrapers

Spread beyond sub Sahara Africa to: Middle East Southern Europe, China and java

Small brain case and lathe bony ridges over the eyes

Walked upright and made advanced tools

Question 10

Homo sapiens lived ________ years ago.

What happened since their expansion ?

Answer 10

All Homo sapiens services from Africa and reached Australia 40,000 years ago

Since their expansion, developments include: -invention of pottery
Beginning of agriculture
Beginning of metallurgy
Beginning civilizations

Question 11

What material is pottery? Overlaps with what? What type of people used it more? how do we know?

Answer 11

• Synthetic material
• Intro of pottery overlaps w/ adoption of a agricultural lifestyle
• Pottery happened before agriculture
• pottery made among settle societies as opposed to hunter gatherers and the dental information proves less wear on teeth in agriculturists infants than h/g infants because h/g don’t cook food well
• represents a great change in human flood and food processing tech.

Question 12

Pottery technology in Africa: earliest evidence came from ? Motifs ?

Answer 12

Earliest evidence of pottery in Africa comes from Mali

Also found in eastern Sahara and Nile valley

Had two motifs: wavy line and dot wavey line

Question 13

What are the forms of pot in Africa ?

Answer 13

Non- utilitarian: fabricated for ritual and symbolic purposes

Utilitarian: fabricated for storage, cooking, transportation

Question 14

What are the Implications of Pottery? What did it create?

Answer 14

• The change from hunter gatherers subsistence ( maintenance) to a diet based on food boiled in ceramic vessels produced a reduction in food toughness and resistance
• cooking lessened bacteria and infection and brought social gatherings
• Resulted in a reduction in the role of the teeth in breakdown of foods
• By transforming the texture of food from tough to soft, cooking facilitates early weaning ( an infant accustoming to other foods other than breast milk) which In Turns shorten temp. Post natal infertility
• early weaning helped mother recover from birth faster and reproduce faster

Question 15

What is Metallurgy in Africa ? 
Define Independent and Diffusion?
 Where was the earlist found metallurgy?
 Second earliest? 
What are the conclusions of ironworking?

Answer 15

Independent: coming from Africa
Diffusion: happened some where else and then came to Africa
-Egypt earliest found metallurgy however development diffused form Mesopotamia
-Niger is the second earliest and Egypt and Niger had no contact therefore Niger independently invented metallurgy
-Metallurgy diffused from Egypt to Great Lake valley but between lake chad and Great Lakes regions of east Africa appear to have separately invent smelting and forging of iron
-ironworking presumed to have first started in Anatolia and Asia Minor and modern turkey
Iron working appears to be est. in heart of sub Sahara before available Egypt and North Africa

Question 16

Diffusionist theory

Answer 16

Metal tech came to Africa from outside of Africa where it was copper then bronze then iron smelting

Following routes : Mediterranean Sea where the knowledge of iron smelting came through Egypt

Question 17

What is the conclusions about metallurgy in Carthage?

Answer 17

Developed here in early ninth century bc

Theory suggests that tech was intro to Africa by the agency in berbers of North Africa

Supposedly diffused to Carthage from Anatolia

No evidence older than 5 century BC

Question 18

suggestions of metallury in Arabian peninsula are …?

Answer 18

Other route of diffusion for early iron metallurgy to Africa through Arabian pennisula

Earliest evidence is 900 bc

Question 19

Independent invention theory

Answer 19

Metal work invented in Africa independently
Eghazzer basin in Niger- early iron smelting

This site shows evidence of copper Work back in 2000 bc

Question 20

What are the cons of carbon dating?

Answer 20

i) Problems with the erratic fluctuations of
atmospheric carbon during part of the first
millennium BC.

ii) Problem of deadwood in dating: people may
have used the deadwood and charcoal for fuel to
smelt iron.

Question 21

whats the problem with the diffusionist theory?

Answer 21

The diffusionist school does not address the reason
why there is no evidence of iron smelting in Carthage
before the fifth century BC. This makes the validity
of their argument questionable.