Slide 5: African Prehistory Flashcards
What is the creationist theory ?
Believed for many years that earth is 6,000 years old
Human created in modern form
All humans come from Adam and Eve
What is the evolutionary theory ?
Earth is older than 6000 years
Homo sapiens came into existence through evolution
How do we know Africa is the birthplace of humanity ?
3 parts
*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
What is relative dating? Who was Charles Lyell and what did he conclude?
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
What does absolute dating include?
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
What are the Australopithecines? What did it’s finding conclude? Where did they inhabit?
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
When did homo habilis live ? Where ? What’s it’s distinct feature? What did they prove ?
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
When did Homo erectus live? Features? What did they make first ?
Lived from 1.89 million and 143,000 years ago
Larger brain than homo habilis
The first to use fire and sophisticated tools
Homo erectus made ____ and produced ______?
Where did they live? Features ? Did they walk upright ? Did they make tools ?
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
Homo sapiens lived ________ years ago.
What happened since their expansion ?
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
What material is pottery? Overlaps with what? What type of people used it more? how do we know?
- 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.
Pottery technology in Africa: earliest evidence came from ? Motifs ?
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
What are the forms of pot in Africa ?
Non- utilitarian: fabricated for ritual and symbolic purposes
Utilitarian: fabricated for storage, cooking, transportation
What are the Implications of Pottery? What did it create?
- 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
What is Metallurgy in Africa ? Define Independent and Diffusion? Where was the earlist found metallurgy? Second earliest? What are the conclusions of ironworking?
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
Diffusionist theory
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
What is the conclusions about metallurgy in Carthage?
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
suggestions of metallury in Arabian peninsula are …?
Other route of diffusion for early iron metallurgy to Africa through Arabian pennisula
Earliest evidence is 900 bc
Independent invention theory
Metal work invented in Africa independently
Eghazzer basin in Niger- early iron smelting
This site shows evidence of copper Work back in 2000 bc
What are the cons of carbon dating?
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.
whats the problem with the diffusionist theory?
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.
