There was a meeting of civilizations that changed the way of life of many peoples of the world, but not always in better side. For Africans, it turned into a terrible disaster - the slave trade. Europeans turned the continent into a real hunting ground for people.
From slave trade to conquest
Tens of millions of people - the strongest, healthiest and most resilient - were taken outside Africa. The shameful trade in black slaves has become an integral part of European history and the history of two Americas.
In the 19th century, after the slave trade was ended, Europeans began to conquer African continent. The most dramatic events occurred in the last third of the century. The European powers literally tore Africa apart, and completed their “job” by the outbreak of the First World War.
Exploring Africa
On the eve of the decisive battle for Africa, that is, by the seventies, only a tenth of the huge continent was in the possession of European powers. Algeria belonged to France. Cape Colony in Southern Africa - England. Two small states were created there by the descendants of Dutch settlers. Rest European possessions were support bases on the sea coast. The interior of Africa was a secret behind seven locks - unexplored and inaccessible.
Henry Stanley (left) went to Africa in 1869 in search of Livingston, who had not made himself known for three years. They met on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in 1871.
European expansion into the interior of the African continent in the 19th century. made possible thanks to extensive geographical studies.From 1800 to 1870, more than 70 major geographical expeditions were sent to Africa. Travelers and Christian missionaries collected valuable information about natural resources and the population of Tropical Africa. Many of them made great contributions to science, but European industrialists took advantage of the fruits of their activities.
Outstanding travelers were the Frenchman Caillet, the German Barth, the Scotsman Livingston and the Englishman Stanley. Only brave and resilient people could overcome vast distances, barren deserts and impenetrable jungles, rapids and waterfalls of the great African rivers. Europeans had to contend with unfavorable climatic conditions and tropical diseases. The expeditions lasted for years, and not all participants returned home. The history of African exploration is a long history. In it, the most honorable place is occupied by the most noble and selfless of the travelers, Livingston, who died in 1873 from a fever.
Riches of Africa
European colonialists were attracted to Africa by its enormous natural wealth and valuable raw materials, such as rubber and palm oil. Manila opportunity to grow in favorable conditions climatic conditions cocoa, cotton, sugar cane and other crops. Gold and diamonds were found on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea and then in South Africa. Finally, new flows of European goods could be sent to Africa.
Exploration of the African continent forced Europeans to recognize the existence of original African art. String musical instrument. Ritual musical instruments
Leopold II and Africa
The decisive battle for Africa began with the Belgian king Leopold II. The motive for his actions was greed. Early in 1876, he read a report that the Congo Basin contained “an amazing and fabulously rich country.” A man who ruled a very small state literally became obsessed with the idea of getting himself a huge territory, equal in size to one-third of the United States. For this purpose, he invited Henry Stanley to serve. He was already a famous traveler and became famous for finding Livingston’s lost expedition in the wilds of Africa.
On behalf of the Belgian king, Stanley went to the Congo on a special mission. By cunning and deception, he concluded a series of treaties with African leaders for territorial possessions. By 1882, he managed to acquire more than 1 million square kilometers for the King of Belgium. At the same time, England occupied Egypt. The territorial division of Africa began.
The Belgian king, successful and enterprising, was worried. How will the European powers react to his actions?
Berlin Conference
France and Portugal did not hide their discontent. Still would! After all, they were bypassed at the very moment when they were planning to seize Congolese territories. The disputes that arose were resolved at the Berlin International Conference, convened in 1884 on the initiative of the German Chancellor Bismarck.
Representatives of 14 European states “legitimized” the territorial division of Africa at the conference. To acquire any territory, it was enough to “effectively occupy” it and promptly notify the other powers about it. After such a decision, the Belgian king could be completely calm. He became the “legal” owner of territories tens of times larger than the size of his own country.
"The Great African Hunt"
When acquiring African territories, Europeans in most cases resorted to deception and cunning. After all, treaties were signed with tribal leaders who could not read and often did not delve into the contents of the document. In return, the natives received rewards in the form of several bottles of gin, red scarves or colorful clothes.
If necessary, Europeans used weapons. After the invention of the Maxim machine gun in 1884, which fired 11 bullets per second, the military advantage was entirely on the side of the colonialists. The courage and bravery of blacks had virtually no meaning. As the English poet Belloc wrote:
Everything will be the way we want it;
In case of any troubles
We have a Maxim machine gun,
They don't have Maxim.
Conquering the continent was more like a hunt than a war. It is no coincidence that it went down in history as the “Great African Hunt.”
In 1893, in Zimbabwe, 50 Europeans armed with 6 machine guns killed 3 thousand blacks from the Ndebele tribe in two hours. In 1897, in northern Nigeria, a military detachment of 32 Europeans with 5 machine guns and 500 African mercenaries defeated the 30,000-strong army of the Emir of Sokoto. In the Battle of Omdurman in Sudan in 1898, the British destroyed 11 thousand Sudanese during a five-hour battle, losing only 20 soldiers.
The desire of European powers to get ahead of each other has more than once caused international conflicts. However, things did not come to military clashes. At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. The division of Africa ended. Vast territories of the continent found themselves in the possession of England, France, Portugal, Italy, Belgium and Germany. And although the military advantage was on the side of the Europeans, many African peoples offered them fierce resistance. The most famous example is Ethiopia.
Ethiopia against European colonization
Back in the 16th century. The Ottoman Turks and the Portuguese tried to conquer Ethiopia. But all their attempts were unsuccessful. In the 19th century Developed European powers, especially England, began to show interest in it. She openly interfered in the internal affairs of this African country, and in 1867 a 15,000-strong British army invaded its borders. European soldiers were armed with new types of rifles. One thing happened, but decisive battle- the battle between man and machine. The Ethiopian troops were defeated, and the emperor, not wanting to surrender, shot himself. The British lost only two people.
The defeated country lay at the feet of the conquerors, but England was unable to reap the benefits of its victory. The same thing happened as in Afghanistan. Both nature and people were against the conquerors. The British lacked food and drinking water. They were surrounded by a hostile population. And they were forced to leave the country.
At the end of the 19th century. A new threat looms over Ethiopia. This time from the Italian side. Her attempts to establish a protectorate over Ethiopia were rejected by the intelligent and far-sighted Emperor Menelik II. Then Italy started a war against Ethiopia. Menelik addressed the people with an appeal: “Enemies have come to us from across the sea, they have violated the inviolability of our borders and are seeking to destroy our faith, our fatherland... I am going to defend the country and repel the enemy. Let everyone who has strength follow me.” The Ethiopian people rallied around the emperor, and he managed to create an army of 100,000.
Emperor Menelik II personally directs the actions of his army. In the battle of Adua, the Italians, out of 17 thousand soldiers, lost 11 thousand killed and wounded. In the struggle for the integrity of his country, Menelik II tried to rely on Russia. The latter, in turn, was interested in a strong independent Ethiopia
In March 1896, the famous battle of Adua took place. For the first time, an African army managed to defeat the troops of a European power. Moreover, a peace treaty was signed, according to which Italy recognized the sovereignty of Ethiopia, the only independent African state at the end of the 19th century.
Boer War
Dramatic events took place in southern Africa. This was the only place on the continent where whites fought with whites: the British with the descendants of Dutch settlers - the Boers. The struggle for South Africa was long, hard-fought and unfair on both sides.
At the beginning of the 19th century. The Cape Colony passed into English hands. The new owners abolished slavery and thereby dealt a severe blow to the agricultural and cattle-breeding economy of the Boers, based on slave labor. In search of new lands, the Boers began their great migration to the north and east, deep into the continent, mercilessly destroying the local population. In the middle of the 19th century. they formed two independent states - the Orange Free State and Republic of South Africa(Transvaal). Soon, huge reserves of diamonds and gold were found in the Transvaal. This discovery decided the fate of the Boer republics. England did everything possible to get its hands on fabulous riches.
In 1899 the Anglo-Boer War broke out. The sympathies of many people in the world were on the side of the small, fearless people who challenged the largest power of the time. The war, as expected, ended in 1902 with the victory of England, which began to reign supreme in southern Africa.
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At the beginning of the 19th century. In the United States, the American Colonization Society arose, created with the goal of relocating freed black slaves to Africa. The territory chosen for settlement was on the Guinea coast of West Africa. In 1821, the “Society” purchased land from local leaders for perpetual use for six guns, a box of beads, two barrels of tobacco, four hats, three handkerchiefs, 12 mirrors and other goods with a total value of $50. First, black settlers founded the settlement of Monrovia on these lands (in honor of the American President D. Monroe). In 1847, the Republic of Liberia, which means “free,” was proclaimed. In reality, the free state was dependent on the United States.
Paramount Chief Lobengula and his people
Moving deeper into the continent, the Boers ousted the Matabele from the territory of the Transvaal into the Zambezi-Limpopo interfluve. But even here the exiles did not find peace. The struggle for the interfluve, which was claimed by the British, the Boers, the Portuguese, and the Germans, was fueled by rumors of rich gold deposits in the new Matabele lands. The British were the largest force in this struggle. Under the threat of force, they forced Lobengula to “sign” (put a cross) in 1888 on an unequal treaty. And in 1893 the British invaded the Matabele lands. An unequal struggle began, which ended three years later with the annexation of the interfluve to the English possessions in South Africa. Due to differences in cultures and ideas about life and the world around them, it was difficult for Africans to understand Europeans. And yet, the most far-sighted people, such as Chief Lobengula, were able to understand the deceptive maneuvers of the British and their methods of fighting for South Africa: “Have you ever seen how a chameleon hunts a fly? The chameleon stands behind the fly and remains motionless for a while, then begins to carefully and slowly move forward, silently placing one leg after the other. Finally, when he gets close enough, he throws out his tongue - and the fly disappears. England is a chameleon and I am a fly."
References:
V. S. Koshelev, I. V. Orzhekhovsky, V. I. Sinitsa / World History of Modern Times XIX - early. XX century, 1998.
According to the latest research, humanity has been around for three to four million years, and for most of that time it has evolved very slowly. But in the ten-thousand-year period of the 12th-3rd millennia, this development accelerated. Starting from the 13th-12th millennia, in the advanced countries of that time - in the Nile Valley, in the highlands of Kurdistan and, perhaps, the Sahara - people regularly reaped “harvest fields” of wild cereals, the grains of which were ground into flour on stone grain grinders. In the 9th-5th millennia, bows and arrows, as well as snares and traps, became widespread in Africa and Europe. In the 6th millennium, the role of fishing in the life of the tribes of the Nile Valley, Sahara, Ethiopia, and Kenya increased.
Around the 8th-6th millennium in the Middle East, where the “Neolithic revolution” took place from the 10th millennium, a developed organization of tribes already dominated, which then grew into tribal unions - the prototype of primitive states. Gradually, with the spread of the “Neolithic revolution” to new territories, as a result of the settlement of Neolithic tribes or the transition of Mesolithic tribes to productive forms of economy, the organization of tribes and tribal unions (tribal system) spread to most of the ecumene.
In Africa, the areas of the northern part of the continent, including Egypt and Nubia, apparently became the earliest areas of tribalism. According to the discoveries of recent decades, already in the 13th-7th millennia, tribes lived in Egypt and Nubia who, along with hunting and fishing, engaged in intensive seasonal gathering, reminiscent of the harvest of farmers (see and). In the 10th-7th millennia, this method of farming was more progressive than the primitive economy of wandering hunter-gatherers in the interior of Africa, but still backward compared to the productive economy of some tribes of Western Asia, where at that time there was a rapid flowering of agriculture, crafts and monumental construction in the form of large fortified settlements, much like early cities. with coastal cultures. The most ancient monument The temple of Jericho (Palestine) was built at the end of the 10th millennium - a small structure made of wood and clay on a stone foundation. In the 8th millennium, Jericho became a fortified city with 3 thousand inhabitants, surrounded by a stone wall with powerful towers and a deep moat. Another fortified city existed from the end of the 8th millennium on the site of the later Ugarit - seaport in northwestern Syria. Both of these cities traded with agricultural settlements in southern Anatolia, such as Aziklı Guyuk and early Hasilar. where houses were built from unbaked bricks on a stone foundation. At the beginning of the 7th millennium, the original and relatively high civilization of Çatalhöyük arose in southern Anatolia, which flourished until the first centuries of the 6th millennium. The bearers of this civilization discovered copper and lead smelting and knew how to make copper tools and jewelry. At that time, settlements of sedentary farmers spread to Jordan, Northern Greece and Kurdistan. At the end of the 7th - beginning of the 6th millennium, the inhabitants of Northern Greece (the settlement of Nea Nicomedia) were already growing barley, wheat and peas, making houses, dishes and figurines from clay and stone. In the 6th millennium, agriculture spread northwest to Herzegovina and the Danube Valley and southeast to Southern Iran.
The main cultural center of this ancient world moved from Southern Anatolia to Northern Mesopotamia, where the Hassun culture flourished. At the same time, several more original cultures formed in the vast areas from the Persian Gulf to the Danube, the most developed of which (slightly inferior to the Hassun one) were located in Asia Minor and Syria. B. Brentjes, a famous scientist from the GDR, gives the following characterization of this era: “The 6th millennium was a period of constant struggle and civil strife in Western Asia. In areas that had gone forward in their development, the initially unified society disintegrated, and the territory of the first agricultural communities constantly expanded... Forward Asia of the 6th millennium was characterized by the presence of many cultures that coexisted, displaced one another, or merged, spread, or died." At the end of the 6th and beginning of the 5th millennium, the original cultures of Iran flourished, but Mesopotamia increasingly became the leading cultural center, where the Ubaid civilization, the predecessor of the Sumerian-Akkadian, developed. The beginning of the Ubaid period is considered to be the century between 4400 and 4300 BC.
The influence of the Hassuna and Ubaid cultures, as well as the Hadji Muhammad (existed in southern Mesopotamia around 5000), extended far to the north, northeast and south. Hassoun products were found during excavations near Adler on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, and the influence of the Ubeid and Hadji Muhammad cultures reached southern Turkmenistan.
Approximately simultaneously with the Western Asian (or Western Asian-Balkan) in the 9th-7th millennia, another center of agriculture, and later of metallurgy and civilization, was formed - Indo-Chinese, in southeast Asia. In the 6th -5th millennia, rice cultivation developed on the plains of Indochina.
Egypt of the 6th-5th millennium also appears to us as an area of settlement of agricultural and pastoral tribes that created original and relatively highly developed Neolithic cultures on the outskirts of the ancient Near Eastern world. Of these, the most developed was the Badari, and the early cultures of Fayum and Merimde (on the western and northwestern outskirts of Egypt, respectively) had the most archaic appearance.
The Fayum people cultivated small plots of land on the shores of Lake Meridov, which were flooded during flood periods, growing spelt, barley and flax. The harvest was stored in special pits (165 such pits were opened). Perhaps they were also familiar with cattle breeding. In the Fayum settlement, bones of an ox, a pig and a sheep or goat were found, but they were not studied in a timely manner and then disappeared from the museum. Therefore, it remains unknown whether these bones belong to domestic or wild animals. In addition, bones of an elephant, a hippopotamus, a large antelope, a gazelle, a crocodile and small animals that constituted hunting prey were found. In Lake Merida, the Fayum people probably fished with baskets; large fish were caught with harpoons. Hunting for waterfowl with bows and arrows played an important role. The Fayum people were skilled weavers of baskets and mats, with which they covered their homes and grain pits. Scraps of linen fabric and a spindle whorl have been preserved, indicating the advent of weaving. Pottery was also known, but Fayum ceramics (pots, bowls, bowls on bases) various forms) was still quite rough and not always well fired, and at the late stage of the Fayum culture it completely disappeared. The Fayum stone tools consisted of celt axes, adze chisels, microlithic sickle inserts (inserted into a wooden frame) and arrowheads. Tesla-chisels were of the same shape as in the then Central and Western Africa (Lupembe culture), the shape of the arrows of the Neolithic Fayum is characteristic of the ancient Sahara, but not of the Nile Valley. If we also take into account the Asian origin of the cultivated cereals cultivated by the Fayum people, then we can formulate general idea about the genetic connection of the Neolithic culture of Fayum with the cultures of the surrounding world. Additional touches to this picture are added by research into Fayum jewelry, namely beads made from shells and amazonite. The shells were delivered from the shores of the Red and Mediterranean Seas, and the amazonite, apparently, from the Aegean-Zumma deposit in the north of Tibesti (Libyan Sahara). This indicates the scale of intertribal exchange in those distant times, in the middle or second half of the 5th millennium (the main stage of the Fayum culture is dated by radiocarbon to 4440 ± 180 and 4145 ± 250).
Perhaps the contemporaries and northern neighbors of the Fayum people were the early inhabitants of the vast Neolithic settlement of Merimde, which, judging by the earliest radiocarbon dates, appeared around 4200. The inhabitants of Merimde inhabited a village similar to an African village of our time somewhere in the area of \u200b\u200bLake. Chad, where groups of oval-shaped adobe and mud-covered reed houses made up neighborhoods united into two “streets.” Obviously, in each of the quarters there lived a large family community, on each “street” there was a phratry, or “half,” and in the entire settlement there was a clan or neighbor-tribal community. Its members were engaged in agriculture, sowing barley, spelt and wheat and reaping with wooden sickles with flint inserts. Grain was kept in clay-lined wicker granaries. There was a lot of livestock in the village: cows, sheep, pigs. In addition, its inhabitants were engaged in hunting. Merimde pottery is much inferior to Badari pottery: rough black pots predominate, although thinner, polished vessels of quite varied shapes are also found. There is no doubt that this culture is connected with the cultures of Libya and the regions of the Sahara and Maghreb further to the west.
The Badari culture (named after the Badari region in Middle Egypt, where necropolises and settlements of this culture were first discovered) was much more widespread and reached a higher development than the Neolithic cultures of Fayum and Merimde.
Until recent years, her actual age was not known. Only in recent years, thanks to the use of the thermoluminescent method of dating clay shards obtained during excavations of settlements of the Badari culture, has it become possible to date it to the mid-6th - mid-5th millennium. However, some scientists dispute this dating, pointing to the novelty and controversy of the thermoluminescent method. However, if the new dating is correct and the Fayums and the inhabitants of Merimde were not predecessors, but younger contemporaries of the Badaris, then they can be considered representatives of two tribes that lived on the periphery of ancient Egypt, less rich and developed than the Badaris.
In Upper Egypt, a southern variety of the Badari culture, the Tasian, was discovered. Apparently, Badari traditions persisted in various parts of Egypt into the 4th millennium.
Residents of the Badari settlement of Hamamiya and the nearby settlements of the same culture, Mostagedda and Matmara, were engaged in hoe farming, growing emmer and barley, raising large and small cattle, fishing and hunting on the banks of the Nile. These were skilled artisans who made various tools, household items, jewelry, and amulets. The materials for them were stone, shells, bone, including ivory, wood, leather, and clay. One Badari dish depicts a horizontal loom. Particularly good is the Badari ceramics, amazingly thin, polished, handmade, but very diverse in shape and design, mostly geometric, as well as soapstone beads with a beautiful glassy glaze. The Badaris also produced genuine works of art (unknown to the Fayum people and the inhabitants of Merimde); they carved small amulets, as well as animal figures on the handles of spoons. The hunting tools were arrows with flint tips, wooden boomerangs, fishing tools - hooks made of shells, as well as ivory. The Badaris were already familiar with copper metallurgy, from which they made knives, pins, rings, and beads. They lived in strong houses made of mud brick, but without doorways; probably their inhabitants, like some residents of the villages of Central Sudan, entered their houses through a special “window”.
The religion of the Badarians can be inferred from the custom of setting up necropolises to the east of the settlements and placing corpses of not only people, but also animals wrapped in mats in their graves. The deceased was accompanied to the grave by household items and decorations; In one burial, several hundred soapstone beads and copper beads, which were especially valuable at that time, were discovered. The dead man was truly a rich man! This indicates the beginning of social inequality.
In addition to the Badari and Tasi, the 4th millennium also includes the Amrat, Gerzean and other cultures of Egypt, which were among the relatively advanced. The Egyptians of that time cultivated barley, wheat, buckwheat, flax, and raised domestic animals: cows, sheep, goats, pigs, as well as dogs and, possibly, cats. The flint tools, knives and ceramics of the Egyptians of the 4th - first half of the 3rd millennium were distinguished by their remarkable variety and thoroughness of decoration.
The Egyptians of that time skillfully processed native copper. They built rectangular houses and even fortresses from adobe.
The level to which the culture of Egypt reached in proto-dynastic times is evidenced by the finds of highly artistic works of Neolithic craft: the finest fabric painted with black and red paint from Gebelein, flint daggers with handles made of gold and ivory, the tomb of a leader from Hierakonpolis, lined on the inside with mud bricks and covered with multi-colored frescoes, etc. Images on the fabric and walls of the tomb give two social type: nobles, for whom work is done, and workers (rowers, etc.). At that time, primitive and small states - future nomes - already existed in Egypt.
In the 4th - early 3rd millennium, Egypt's ties with the early civilizations of Western Asia strengthened. Some scientists explain this by the invasion of Asian conquerors into the Nile Valley, others (which is more plausible) by “an increase in the number of traveling traders from Asia who visited Egypt” (as the famous English archaeologist E. J. Arkell writes). A number of facts also testify to the connections of the then Egypt with the population of the gradually drying up Sahara and the upper Nile in Sudan. At that time, some cultures of Central Asia, Transcaucasia, the Caucasus and South-Eastern Europe occupied approximately the same place on the near periphery of the ancient civilized world, and the culture of Egypt of the 6th-4th millennia. In Central Asia, in the 6th - 5th millennium, the agricultural Dzheitun culture of Southern Turkmenistan flourished; in the 4th millennium, the Geok-Sur culture flourished in the valley of the river. Tejen, further east in the 6th-4th millennia BC. e. - Gissar culture of southern Tajikistan, etc. In Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan in the 5th-4th millennia, a number of agricultural and pastoral cultures were widespread, the most interesting of which were the Kura-Araks and the recently discovered Shamu-Tepe culture that preceded it. In Dagestan in the 4th millennium there was a Neolithic Ginchi culture of the pastoral-agricultural type.
In the 6th-4th millennia, the formation of agricultural and pastoral farming took place in Europe. By the end of the 4th millennium, diverse and complex cultures of distinctly productive forms existed throughout Europe. At the turn of the 4th and 3rd millennia, the Trypillian culture flourished in Ukraine, which was characterized by wheat cultivation, cattle breeding, beautiful painted ceramics, and colored paintings on the walls of adobe dwellings. In the 4th millennium, the most ancient settlements of horse breeders on Earth existed in Ukraine (Dereivka, etc.). A very elegant image of a horse on a shard from Kara-Tepe in Turkmenistan also dates back to the 4th millennium.
Sensational discoveries recent years in Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Romania, Moldova and southern Ukraine, as well as generalizing research by the Soviet archaeologist E.N. Chernykh and other scientists revealed the oldest center of high culture in southeastern Europe. In the 4th millennium in the Balkan-Carpathian subregion of Europe, in river system Lower Danube, a brilliant, advanced culture for those times (“almost a civilization”) flourished, which was characterized by agriculture, metallurgy of copper and gold, a variety of painted ceramics (including painted with gold), and primitive writing. The influence of this ancient center of “pre-civilization” on the neighboring societies of Moldova and Ukraine is undeniable. Did he also have connections with the societies of the Aegean, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt? This question is just being posed; there is no answer to it yet.
In the Maghreb and the Sahara, the transition to productive forms of economy occurred more slowly than in Egypt, its beginning dates back to the 7th - 5th millennia. At that time (until the end of the 3rd millennium), the climate in this part of Africa was warm and humid. Grassy steppes and subtropical mountain forests covered the now deserted spaces, which were endless pastures. The main domestic animal was the cow, the bones of which were found at sites in Fezzan in the eastern Sahara and at Tadrart-Acacus in the central Sahara.
In Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, in the 7th-3rd millennia, there were Neolithic cultures that continued the traditions of the more ancient Ibero-Moorish and Capsian Paleolithic cultures. The first of them, also called the Mediterranean Neolithic, occupied mainly the coastal and mountain forests of Morocco and Algeria, the second - the steppes of Algeria and Tunisia. In the forest belt, settlements were richer and more common than in the steppe. In particular, the coastal tribes made excellent pottery. Some local differences within the Mediterranean Neolithic culture are noticeable, as well as its connections with the Capsian steppe culture.
The characteristic features of the latter are bone and stone tools for drilling and piercing, polished stone axes, and rather primitive pottery with a conical bottom, which is also not often found. In some places in the Algerian steppes there was no pottery at all, but the most common stone tools were arrowheads. The Neolithic Capsians, like their Paleolithic ancestors, lived in caves and grottoes and were primarily hunters and gatherers.
The heyday of this culture dates back to the 4th - early 3rd millennium. Thus, its sites are dated according to radiocarbon: De Mamel, or “Sostsy” (Algeria), - 3600 ± 225 g, Des-Ef, or “Eggs” (Ouargla oasis in the north of the Algerian Sahara), - also 3600 ± 225 g ., Hassi-Genfida (Ouargla) - 3480 ± 150 and 2830 ± 90, Jaacha (Tunisia) - 3050 ± 150. At that time, among the Capsians, shepherds already prevailed over hunters.
In the Sahara, the “Neolithic revolution” may have been somewhat late compared to the Maghreb. Here, in the 7th millennium, the so-called Sahrawi-Sudanese “Neolithic culture” arose, related in origin to the Capsian one. It existed until the 2nd millennium. Its characteristic feature is the oldest ceramics in Africa.
In the Sahara, the Neolithic differed from more northern regions in the abundance of arrowheads, which indicates the comparatively greater importance of hunting. The pottery of the inhabitants of the Neolithic Sahara of the 4th-2nd millennia is cruder and more primitive than that of the contemporary inhabitants of the Maghreb and Egypt. In the east of the Sahara there is a very noticeable connection with Egypt, in the west - with the Maghreb. The Neolithic of Eastern Sahara is characterized by an abundance of ground axes - evidence of slash-and-burn agriculture in the local highlands, then covered with forests. In the river beds that later dried up, residents engaged in fishing and sailed on reed boats of the type that were common at that time and later in the valley of the Nile and its tributaries, on Lake. Chad and lakes of Ethiopia. The fish were hit with bone harpoons, reminiscent of those discovered in the Nile and Niger valleys. The grain grinders and pestles of the Eastern Sahara were even larger. and are made more carefully than in the Maghreb. IN river valleys Millet was planted in this area, but the main means of subsistence were provided by cattle breeding, combined with hunting and, probably, gathering. Huge herds of cattle grazed in the vastness of the Sahara, contributing to its transformation into a desert. These herds are depicted on the famous rock frescoes of Tassili-n'Adjer and other highlands. The cows have an udder, therefore, they were milked. Roughly processed stone pillars-steles may have marked the summer camps of these shepherds in the 4th - 2nd millennia, distilling herds from the valleys to the mountain pastures and back.According to their anthropological type, they were Negroids.
Remarkable cultural monuments of these farmers-pastoralists are the famous frescoes of Tassili and other regions of the Sahara, which flourished in the 4th millennium. The frescoes were created in secluded mountain shelters, which probably served as sanctuaries. In addition to frescoes, there are the oldest bas-reliefs-petroglyphs in Africa and small stone figurines of animals (bulls, rabbits, etc.).
In the 4th - 2nd millennia, in the center and east of the Sahara, there were at least three centers of relatively high agricultural and pastoral culture: on the wooded Hoggar highlands, abundantly irrigated by rain at that time, and its spur Tas-sili-n'Ajer, on no less fertile in the Fezzan and Tibesti highlands, as well as in the Nile Valley.Materials from archaeological excavations and especially rock paintings of the Sahara and Egypt indicate that all three centers of culture had many common features: in the style of images, forms of ceramics, etc. Everywhere - from the Nile to Khogtar -pastoralists-farmers revered the heavenly bodies in the images of a solar ram, a bull and a heavenly cow. Along the Nile and along the now dry river beds that then flowed across the Sahara, local fishermen sailed on reed boats of similar shapes. One can assume very similar forms of production, life and social organization But still, from the middle of the 4th millennium, Egypt began to overtake both the Eastern and Central Sahara in its development.
In the first half of the 3rd millennium, the drying out of the ancient Sahara, which by that time was no longer a humid, forested country, intensified. In low-lying lands, dry steppes began to replace tall-grass park savannas. However, in the 3rd -2nd millennia, the Neolithic cultures of the Sahara continued to develop successfully, in particular, they improved art.
In Sudan, the transition to productive forms of economy took place a thousand years later than in Egypt and in the east of the Maghreb, but approximately simultaneously with Morocco and southern regions Sahara and earlier than in areas further south.
In Middle Sudan, on the northern edge of the swamps, in the 7th - 6th millennia, the Khartoum Mesolithic culture of wandering hunters, fishermen and gatherers, already familiar with primitive pottery, developed. They hunted a wide variety of animals, large and small, from elephant and hippopotamus to water mongoose and red cane rat, found in the forested and swampy region that was at that time the middle Nile valley. Much less often than mammals, the inhabitants of Mesolithic Khartoum hunted reptiles (crocodile, python, etc.) and very rarely birds. Hunting weapons included spears, harpoons and bows with arrows, and the shape of some stone arrowheads (geometric microliths) indicates a connection between the Khartoum Mesolithic culture and the Capsian culture of North Africa. Fisheries played relatively important role in the life of the early inhabitants of Khartoum, but they did not yet have fish hooks, they caught fish, apparently, with baskets, beat them with spears and shot arrows. At the end of the Mesolithic, the first bone harpoons, as well as stone drills, appeared. The gathering of river and land mollusks, Celtis seeds and other plants was of considerable importance. Rough dishes were made from clay in the form of round-bottomed basins and bowls, which were decorated with simple ornaments in the form of stripes, giving these vessels a resemblance to baskets. Apparently, the inhabitants of Mesolithic Khartoum were also engaged in basket weaving. Their personal jewelry was rare, but they painted their vessels and, probably, their own bodies with ocher, mined from nearby deposits, pieces of which were ground on sandstone graters, very diverse in shape and size. The dead were buried right in the settlement, which may have been just a seasonal camp.
How far to the west the bearers of the Khartoum Mesolithic culture penetrated is evidenced by the discovery of typical shards of the late Khartoum Mesolithic in Menyet, in the north-west of Hoggar, 2 thousand km from Khartoum. This find is dated by radiocarbon to 3430.
Over time, around the middle of the 4th millennium, the Khartoum Mesolithic culture is replaced by the Khartoum Neolithic culture, traces of which are found in the vicinity of Khartoum, on the banks of the Blue Nile, in the north of Sudan - up to the IV threshold, in the south - up to the VI threshold, in the east - up to Kasala, and in the west - to the Ennedi mountains and the Wanyanga area in Borku (Eastern Sahara). The main occupations of the inhabitants of the Neolithic. Khartoum - the direct descendants of the Mesolithic population of these places - remained hunting, fishing and gathering. The subject of the hunt was 22 species of mammals, but mainly large animals: buffalos, giraffes, hippos, and to a lesser extent elephants, rhinoceroses, warthogs, seven species of antelope, large and small predators, and some rodents. On a much smaller scale, but larger than in the Mesolithic, the Sudanese hunted large reptiles and birds. Wild donkeys and zebras were not killed, probably for religious reasons (totemism). The hunting tools were spears with tips made of stone and bone, harpoons, bows and arrows, as well as axes, but now they were smaller and less well processed. Crescent-shaped microliths were made more often than in the Mesolithic. Stone tools, such as celt axes, were already partially ground. Fishing was done less than in the Mesolithic, and here, as in hunting, appropriation took on a more selective character; We caught several types of fish on a hook. The hooks of Neolithic Khartoum, very primitive, made from shells, are the first in Tropical Africa. The collection of river and land mollusks, ostrich eggs, wild fruits and Celtis seeds was important.
At that time, the landscape of the middle Nile Valley was a forested savannah with gallery forests along the banks. In these forests, the inhabitants found material for building canoes, which they hollowed out with stone and bone celts and semicircular planing axes, possibly from the trunks of the duleb palm. Compared to the Mesolithic, the production of tools, pottery and jewelry progressed significantly. Dishes decorated with stamped patterns were then polished by the inhabitants of Neolithic Sudan using pebbles and fired over fires. The production of numerous personal decorations took up a significant part of the working time; they were made from semi-precious and other stones, shells, ostrich eggs, animal teeth, etc. In contrast to the temporary camp of the Mesolithic inhabitants of Khartoum, the settlements of the Neolithic inhabitants of Sudan were already permanent. One of them - al-Shaheinab - has been studied especially carefully. However, no traces of dwellings, not even holes for supporting pillars, were found here, and no burials were found (perhaps the inhabitants of Neolithic Shaheinab lived in huts made of reeds and grass, and their dead were thrown into the Nile). An important innovation compared to the previous period was the emergence of cattle breeding: the residents of Shaheinab raised small goats or sheep. However, the bones of these animals constitute only 2% of all bones found in the settlement; this gives an idea of specific gravity cattle breeding in the households of residents. No traces of agriculture were found; it appears only in the next period. This is all the more significant since al-Shaheinab, judging by radiocarbon analysis (3490 ± 880 and 3110 ± 450 AD), is contemporary with the developed Neolithic culture of el-Omari in Egypt (radiocarbon date 3300 ± 230 AD).
In the last quarter of the 4th millennium, the same Chalcolithic cultures (Amratian and Gerzean) existed in the middle Nile valley in northern Sudan as in neighboring Predynastic Upper Egypt. Their bearers were engaged in primitive agriculture, cattle breeding, hunting and fishing on the banks of the Nile and on neighboring plateaus, covered at that time with savannah vegetation. At that time, a relatively large pastoral and agricultural population lived on the plateaus and mountains west of the middle Nile valley. The southern periphery of this entire cultural zone was located somewhere in the valleys of the White and Blue Nile (burials of “group A” were discovered in the Khartoum area, in particular at the Omdurman Bridge) and near al-Shaheinab. The language affiliation of their speakers is unknown. The further south you go, the more Negroid the carriers of this culture were. In al-Shaheynab they clearly belong to the Negroid race.
Southern burials are generally poorer than northern ones; Shaheinab products look more primitive than Faras and especially Egyptian ones. The grave goods of the “proto-dynastic” al-Shaheynab differ markedly from those of the burials at the Omdurman Bridge, although the distance between them is no more than 50 km; this gives some idea of the size of ethnocultural communities. The characteristic material of the products is clay. It was used to make cult figurines (for example, a clay female figurine) and quite a variety of well-fired dishes, decorated with embossed patterns (applied with a comb): bowls of various sizes, boat-shaped pots, spherical vessels. Black vessels with notches characteristic of this culture are also found in protodynastic Egypt, where they were clearly objects of export from Nubia. Unfortunately, the contents of these vessels are unknown. For their part, the inhabitants of proto-dynastic Sudan, like the Egyptians of their time, received Mepga shells from the shores of the Red Sea, from which they made belts, necklaces and other jewelry. No other information about the trade has been preserved.
According to a number of characteristics, the cultures of Meso- and Neolithic Sudan occupy an intermediate place between the cultures of Egypt, the Sahara and East Africa. Thus, the stone industry of Gebel Auliyi (near Khartoum) is reminiscent of the Nyoro culture in Interzero, and the ceramics is Nubian and Saharan; stone celts, similar to those of Khartoum, are found in the west as far as Tener, north of Lake. Chad, and Tummo, north of the Tibesti mountains. At the same time, the main cultural and historical center to which the cultures of Northeast Africa gravitated was Egypt.
According to E.J. Arqella, the Khartoum Neolithic culture was connected to the Egyptian Fayum through the mountainous regions of Ennedi and Tibesti, from where both the Khartoum and Fayum people obtained blue-gray amazonite for making beads.
When, at the turn of the 4th and 3rd millennia, Egypt began to develop class society and a state arose, Lower Nubia turned out to be the southern outskirts of this civilization. Typical settlements of that time were excavated near the village. Dhaka S. Fersom in 1909 -1910 and at Khor-Daoud Soviet expedition in 1961-1962 The community that lived here was engaged in dairy farming and primitive agriculture; They sowed wheat and barley mixed together, and collected the fruits of the doum palm and siddera. Pottery reached significant development. Ivory and flint were processed, from which the main tools were made; The metals used were copper and gold. The culture of the population of Nubia and Egypt of this era of archeology is conventionally designated as the culture of the “group A” tribes. Its bearers, anthropologically speaking, belonged mainly to the Caucasian race. At the same time (around the middle of the 3rd millennium, according to radiocarbon analysis), the Negroid inhabitants of the Jebel al-Tomat settlement in Central Sudan sowed sorghum of the species Sorgnum bicolor.
During the period of the III dynasty of Egypt (around the middle of the 3rd millennium), a general decline in economy and culture occurs in Nubia, associated, according to a number of scientists, with the invasion of nomadic tribes and the weakening of ties with Egypt; At this time, the process of drying out of the Sahara sharply intensified.
In East Africa, including Ethiopia and Somalia, the "Neolithic revolution" appears to have occurred only in the 3rd millennium, much later than in Sudan. Here at this time, as in the previous period, lived Europeans or Ethiopians, similar in their physical type on the ancient Nubians. The southern branch of the same group of tribes lived in Kenya and Northern Tanzania. To the south lived the Boscodoid (Khoisan) hunter-gatherers, related to the Sandawe and Hadza of Tanzania and the Bushmen of South Africa.
The Neolithic cultures of East Africa and Western Sudan apparently developed fully only during the heyday of the ancient Egyptian civilization and the comparatively high Neolithic cultures of the Maghreb and Sahara, and they coexisted for a long time with the remains of Mesolithic cultures.
Like the Stillbey and other Paleolithic cultures, the Mesolithic cultures of Africa occupied vast areas. Thus, Capsian traditions can be traced from Morocco and Tunisia to Kenya and Western Sudan. Later Magosi culture. first discovered in eastern Uganda, it was distributed in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, almost throughout East and South-East Africa to the river. Orange. It is characterized by microlithic blades and incisors and coarse pottery, appearing already in the late stages of the Capsian.
Magosi comes in a number of local varieties; some of them developed into special cultures. This is the Doi culture of Somalia. Its bearers hunted with bows and arrows and kept dogs. The relatively high level of the Pre-Mesolithic is emphasized by the presence of pestles and, apparently, primitive ceramics. (The famous English archaeologist D. Clark considers the current hunter-gatherers of Somalia to be the direct descendants of the Doits).
Another local culture is the Elmentate of Kenya, whose main center was in the lake area. Nakuru. Elmenteit is characterized by abundant pottery - goblets and large earthenware jugs. The same is true of the Smithfield culture in South Africa, which is characterized by microliths, ground stone tools, bone products and rough pottery.
The Wilton crop that replaced all these crops took its name from Wilton Farm in Natal. Its sites are found all the way to Ethiopia and Somalia in the northeast and all the way to the southern tip of the continent. Wilton in different places has either a Mesolithic or a distinctly Neolithic appearance. In the north, this is mainly a culture of pastoralists who bred long-horned humpless bulls of the Bos Africanus type, in the south - a culture of hunter-gatherers, and in some places - primitive farmers, as, for example, in Zambia and Rhodesia, where several polished stone tools were found among the characteristic late Wiltonian stone implements stone axes. Apparently, it is more correct to talk about the Wilton complex of cultures, which includes the Neolithic cultures of Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya of the 3rd - mid-1st millennium. At the same time, the first simplest states were formed (see). They arose on the basis of a voluntary union or forced unification of tribes.
The Neolithic culture of Ethiopia of the 2nd - mid-1st millennium is characterized by the following features: hoe farming, pastoralism (breeding large and small horned animals, livestock and donkeys), rock art, grinding stone tools, pottery, weaving using plant fiber, relative sedentism , rapid population growth. At least the first half of the Neolithic period in Ethiopia and Somalia is an era of coexistence of appropriative and primitive productive economies with the dominant role of cattle breeding, namely the breeding of Bos africanus.
The most famous monuments of this era are large groups (many hundreds of figures) of rock art in Eastern Ethiopia and Somalia and in the Korora Cave in Eritrea.
Among the earliest in time are some images in the Porcupine Cave near Dire Dawa, where various wild animals and hunters are painted in red ocher. Style of drawings (known French archaeologist A. Breuil identified here over seven different styles) naturalistic. Stone tools of the Magosian and Wilton types were found in the cave.
Very ancient images of wild and domestic animals in a naturalistic or semi-naturalistic style were discovered in the areas of Genda-Biftu, Lago-Oda, Errer-Kimyet, etc., north of Harar and near Dire Dawa. Shepherd scenes are found here. Long-horned, humpless cattle, Bos africanus species. Cows have udders, which means they were milked. Among domestic cows and bulls there are images of African buffalos, obviously domesticated. No other pets are visible. One of the images suggests that, as in the 9th-19th centuries, African Wilton shepherds rode bulls. The shepherds are dressed in legguards and short skirts (made of leather?). There is a comb in the hair of one of them. The weapons consisted of spears and shields. Bows and arrows, also depicted on some frescoes at Genda Biftu, Lago Oda and Saka Sherifa (near Errere Quimiet), were apparently used by hunters contemporary with the Wiltonian shepherds
At Errer Quimyet there are images of people with a circle on their heads, very similar to the rock paintings of the Sahara, in particular the Hoggar region. But in general, the style and objects of the images of the rock frescoes of Ethiopia and Somalia show an undoubted similarity with the frescoes of the Sahara and Upper Egypt of predynastic times.
A later period includes schematic images of people and animals in various places Somalia and Harar region. At that time, the zebu became the predominant livestock breed - a clear indication of Northeast Africa's connections with India. The most sketchy images of livestock in the Bur Eibe region (Southern Somalia) seem to indicate a certain originality of the local Wilton culture.
If rock frescoes are found in both Ethiopian and Somali territory, then engraving on rocks is characteristic of Somalia. It is approximately contemporary with the frescoes. In the area of Bur Dahir, El Goran and others, in the Shebeli Valley, engraved images of people armed with spears and shields, humpless and humpbacked cows, as well as camels and some other animals were discovered. In general they resemble similar images from Onib in the Nubian Desert. In addition to cattle and camels, there may be images of sheep or goats, but these are too sketchy to be identified with certainty. In any case, the ancient Somali Bushmenoids of the Wilton period raised sheep.
In the 60s, several more groups of rock carvings and Wilton sites were discovered in the area of the city of Harar and in the province of Sidamo, northeast of Lake. Abaya. Here, too, the leading branch of the economy was cattle breeding.
In West Africa, the "Neolithic Revolution" took place in a very difficult environment. Here, in ancient times, wet (pluvial) and dry periods alternated. During wet periods, in place of savannas, which abounded in ungulates and were favorable for human activity, dense rain forests (hylaea) spread, almost impenetrable for Stone Age people. They, more reliably than the desert spaces of the Sahara, blocked the access of the ancient inhabitants of North and East Africa to the western part of the continent.
One of the most famous Neolithic monuments of Guinea is the Cakimbon grotto near Conakry, discovered in colonial times. Pickaxes, hoes, adzes, jagged tools and several axes, polished entirely or only along the cutting edge, as well as ornamented pottery were found here. There are no arrowheads at all, but there are leaf-shaped spearheads. Similar implements (in particular, hatchets polished to a blade) were found in three more places near Conakry. Another group of Neolithic sites was discovered in the vicinity of the city of Kindia, approximately 80 km northeast of the Guinean capital. Feature from the local Neolithic - polished hatchets, picks and chisels, round trapezoidal dart and arrow tips, stone disks for weighting digging sticks, polished stone bracelets, as well as ornamented ceramics.
Approximately 300 km north of the city of Kindia, near the city of Telimele, on the Futa Djallon highlands, the Ualia site was discovered, the inventory of which is very similar to the tools from Kakimbon. But unlike the latter, leaf-shaped and triangular arrowheads were found here.
In 1969-1970 Soviet scientist V.V. Soloviev discovered a number of new sites on Futa Djallon (in central Guinea) with typical ground and chipped axes, as well as picks and disc-shaped cores chipped on both surfaces. At the same time, there is no ceramics at the newly discovered sites. Dating them is very difficult. As the Soviet archaeologist P.I. Boriskovsky notes, in West Africa “the same types of stone products continue to be found, without undergoing particularly significant changes, over a number of eras - from Sango (45-35 thousand years ago. - Yu. K .) to the Late Paleolithic". The same can be said about the West African Neolithic monuments. Archaeological research carried out in Mauritania, Senegal, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Upper Volta and other West African countries shows a continuity of forms of microlithic and grinding stone tools, as well as ceramics, from the end of the 4th to the 2nd millennium BC. e. and up to the first centuries new era. Often individual items made in ancient times, almost indistinguishable from products of the 1st millennium AD. e.
Undoubtedly, this testifies to the amazing stability of ethnic communities and the cultures they created on the territory of Tropical Africa in ancient and ancient times.
The oldest archaeological finds indicating grain processing in Africa date back to the thirteenth millennium BC. e. Cattle raising in the Sahara began ca. 7500 BC e., and organized agriculture in the Nile region appeared in the 6th millennium BC. e.
In the Sahara, which was then a fertile territory, groups of hunters and fishermen lived, as evidenced by archaeological finds. Many petroglyphs and rock paintings have been discovered throughout the Sahara, dating back to 6000 BC. e. until the 7th century AD e. The most famous monument of primitive art in North Africa is the Tassilin-Ajjer plateau.
Ancient Africa
In the 6th-5th millennium BC. e. In the Nile Valley, agricultural cultures developed (Tassian culture, Fayum, Merimde), based on the civilization of Christian Ethiopia (XII-XVI centuries). These centers of civilization were surrounded by pastoral tribes of Libyans, as well as the ancestors of modern Cushitic and Nilotic-speaking peoples.
On the territory of the modern Sahara Desert (which was then a savannah favorable for habitation) by the 4th millennium BC. e. A cattle-breeding and agricultural economy is taking shape. From the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. e., when the Sahara begins to dry out, the population of the Sahara retreats to the south, pushing out the local population of Tropical Africa. By the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. the horse is spreading in the Sahara. On the basis of horse breeding (from the first centuries AD - also camel breeding) and oasis agriculture in the Sahara, an urban civilization developed (the cities of Telgi, Debris, Garama), and Libyan writing arose. On the Mediterranean coast of Africa in the 12th-2nd centuries BC. e. The Phoenician-Carthaginian civilization flourished.
In sub-Saharan Africa in the 1st millennium BC. e. Iron metallurgy is spreading everywhere. The Bronze Age culture did not develop here, and there was a direct transition from the Neolithic to iron age. Iron Age cultures spread to both the west (Nok) and east (northeastern Zambia and southwestern Tanzania) of Tropical Africa. The spread of iron contributed to the development of new territories, primarily tropical forests, and became one of the reasons for the settlement throughout most of Tropical and Southern Africa of peoples speaking Bantu languages, pushing representatives of the Ethiopian and Capoid races to the north and south.
The emergence of the first states in Africa
According to modern historical science, the first state (sub-Saharan) appeared on the territory of Mali in the 3rd century - it was the state of Ghana. Ancient Ghana traded gold and metals even with the Roman Empire and Byzantium. Perhaps this state arose much earlier, but during the existence of the colonial authorities of England and France there, all information about Ghana disappeared (the colonialists did not want to admit that Ghana was significantly older than England and France). Under the influence of Ghana, other states later appeared in West Africa - Mali, Songhai, Kanem, Tekrur, Hausa, Ife, Kano and other West African states.
Another hotbed of the emergence of states in Africa is the area around Lake Victoria (the territory of modern Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi). The first state appeared there around the 11th century - it was the state of Kitara. In my opinion, the state of Kitara was created by settlers from the territory of modern Sudan - Nilotic tribes who were forced out of their territory by Arab settlers. Later other states appeared there - Buganda, Rwanda, Ankole.
Around the same time (according to scientific history) - in the 11th century, the state of Mopomotale appeared in southern Africa, which will disappear at the end of the 17th century (will be destroyed by wild tribes). I believe that Mopomotale began to exist much earlier, and the inhabitants of this state are the descendants of the most ancient metallurgists in the world, who had connections with the Asuras and Atlanteans.
Around the middle of the 12th century, the first state appeared in the center of Africa - Ndongo (this is a territory in the north of modern Angola). Later, other states appeared in the center of Africa - Congo, Matamba, Mwata and Baluba. Since the 15th century, the colonial states of Europe - Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, England, France and Germany - began to intervene in the development of statehood in Africa. If at first they were interested in gold, silver and precious stones, then later slaves became the main product (and these were dealt with by countries that officially rejected the existence of slavery).
Slaves were transported by the thousands to America's plantations. Only much later, at the end of the 19th century, did colonialists begin to be attracted to natural resources in Africa. And it was for this reason that vast colonial territories appeared in Africa. Colonies in Africa interrupted the development of the peoples of Africa and distorted its entire history. Until now, significant archaeological research has not been carried out in Africa (African countries themselves are poor, and England and France do not need the true history of Africa, just like in Russia, in Russia there is also no good research on the ancient history of Rus', money is spent on buying castles and yachts in Europe, total corruption deprives science of real research).
Africa in the Middle Ages
The centers of civilizations in Tropical Africa spread from north to south (in the eastern part of the continent) and partly from east to west (especially in the western part) - as they moved away from the high civilizations of North Africa and the Middle East. Most of the large socio-cultural communities of Tropical Africa had an incomplete set of signs of civilization, so they can more accurately be called proto-civilizations. From the end of the 3rd century AD. e. in West Africa, in the basins of Senegal and Niger, the Western Sudanese (Ghana) civilization developed, and from the 8th-9th centuries - the Central Sudanese (Kanem) civilization, which arose on the basis of trans-Saharan trade with the Mediterranean countries.
After the Arab conquests of North Africa (7th century), the Arabs for a long time became the only intermediaries between Tropical Africa and the rest of the world, including through the Indian Ocean, where the Arab fleet dominated. Under Arab influence, new urban civilizations emerged in Nubia, Ethiopia and East Africa. The cultures of Western and Central Sudan merged into a single West African, or Sudanese, zone of civilizations, stretching from Senegal to the modern Republic of Sudan. In the 2nd millennium, this zone was united politically and economically in the Muslim empires: Mali (XIII-XV centuries), to which small political entities the Fulani, Wolof, Serer, Susu and Songhai peoples (Tekrur, Jolof, Sin, Salum, Kayor, Coco, etc.), Songhai (mid-XV - late XVI centuries) and Bornu (late XV - early XVIII centuries) - Kanem's successor. Between Songhai and Bornu, from the beginning of the 16th century, the Hausan city-states strengthened (Daura, Zamfara, Kano, Rano, Gobir, Katsina, Zaria, Biram, Kebbi, etc.), to which in the 17th century the role of the main centers of the trans-Saharan revolution passed from Songhai and Bornu trade.
South of the Sudanese civilizations in the 1st millennium AD. e. The proto-civilization of Ife was formed, which became the cradle of the Yoruba and Bini civilizations (Benin, Oyo). Its influence was experienced by the Dahomeans, Igbo, Nupe, and others. To the west of it, in the 2nd millennium, the Akano-Ashanti proto-civilization was formed, which flourished in the 17th - early 19th centuries. To the south of the great bend of the Niger, a political center arose, founded by the Mossi and other peoples speaking the Gur languages (the so-called Mossi-Dagomba-Mamprusi complex) and which by the middle of the 15th century turned into the Voltaic proto-civilization (early political formations of Ouagadougou, Yatenga, Gurma , Dagomba, Mamprusi). In Central Cameroon, the Bamum and Bamileke proto-civilization arose, in the Congo River basin - the Vungu proto-civilization (early political formations of Congo, Ngola, Loango, Ngoyo, Kakongo), to the south of it (in the 16th century) - the proto-civilization of the southern savannas (early political formations of Cuba, Lunda, Luba), in the Great Lakes region - an interlake proto-civilization: the early political formations of Buganda (XIII century), Kitara (XIII-XV century), Bunyoro (from the 16th century), later - Nkore (XVI century), Rwanda (XVI century), Burundi ( XVI century), Karagwe (XVII century), Kiziba (XVII century), Busoga (XVII century), Ukereve ( late XIX century), Thoreau (late 19th century), etc.
In East Africa, since the 10th century, the Swahili Muslim civilization flourished (the city-states of Kilwa, Pate, Mombasa, Lamu, Malindi, Sofala, etc., the Sultanate of Zanzibar), in South-East Africa - the Zimbabwean (Zimbabwe, Monomotapa) proto-civilization (X-XIX century), in Madagascar the process of state formation ended at the beginning of the 19th century with the unification of all the early political formations of the island around Imerina, which arose around the 15th century.
Majority African civilizations and proto-civilizations experienced a rise at the end of the 15th-16th centuries. From the end of the 16th century, with the penetration of Europeans and the development of the transatlantic slave trade, which lasted until the mid-19th century, their decline occurred. All of North Africa (except Morocco) to early XVII century became part of the Ottoman Empire. With the final division of Africa between European powers (1880s), the colonial period began, forcing Africans into industrial civilization.
Colonization of Africa
In ancient times, North Africa was the object of colonization by Europe and Asia Minor.
The first attempts by Europeans to subjugate African territories date back to the times ancient greek colonization 7-5 centuries BC, when numerous Greek colonies appeared on the coast of Libya and Egypt. The conquests of Alexander the Great marked the beginning of a rather long period of Hellenization of Egypt. Although the bulk of its inhabitants, the Copts, were never Hellenized, the rulers of this country (including the last queen Cleopatra) adopted the Greek language and culture, which completely dominated Alexandria.
The city of Carthage was founded on the territory of modern Tunisia by the Phoenicians and was one of the most important powers in the Mediterranean until the 4th century BC. e. After the Third Punic War it was conquered by the Romans and became the center of the province of Africa. In the early Middle Ages, the kingdom of the Vandals was founded in this territory, and later it was part of Byzantium.
The invasions of Roman troops made it possible to consolidate the entire northern coast of Africa under Roman control. Despite the extensive economic and architectural activities of the Romans, the territories underwent weak Romanization, apparently due to excessive aridity and the incessant activity of the Berber tribes, pushed aside but unconquered by the Romans.
The ancient Egyptian civilization also fell under the rule of first the Greeks and then the Romans. In the context of the decline of the empire, the Berbers, activated by the Vandals, finally destroy the centers of European, as well as Christian, civilization in North Africa in anticipation of the invasion of the Arabs, who brought Islam with them and pushed back the Byzantine Empire, which still controlled Egypt. By the beginning of the 7th century AD. e. The activities of early European states in Africa cease completely; on the contrary, the expansion of Arabs from Africa takes place in many regions of Southern Europe.
Attacks of Spanish and Portuguese troops in the XV-XVI centuries. led to the capture of a number of strong points in Africa (the Canary Islands, as well as the fortresses of Ceuta, Melilla, Oran, Tunisia, and many others). Italian sailors from Venice and Genoa have also traded extensively with the region since the 13th century.
At the end of the 15th century, the Portuguese actually controlled the western coast of Africa and launched an active slave trade. Following them, other Western European powers rush to Africa: the Dutch, the French, the British.
From the 17th century, Arab trade with sub-Saharan Africa led to the gradual colonization of East Africa, in the area of Zanzibar. And although Arab neighborhoods appeared in some cities in West Africa, they did not become colonies, and Morocco’s attempt to subjugate the Sahel lands ended unsuccessfully.
Early European expeditions concentrated on colonizing uninhabited islands such as Cape Verde and São Tomé, and establishing forts on the coast as trading posts.
In the second half of the 19th century, especially after the Berlin Conference of 1885, the process of colonization of Africa acquired such a scale that it was called the “race for Africa”; Almost the entire continent (except for Ethiopia and Liberia, which remained independent) by 1900 was divided between a number of European powers: Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy; Spain and Portugal retained their old colonies and somewhat expanded them. During the First World War, Germany lost (mostly already in 1914) its African colonies, which after the war came under the administration of other colonial powers under the mandates of the League of Nations.
Russian empire never claimed to colonize Africa, despite a traditionally strong position in Ethiopia, except for the Sagallo incident in 1889.
The history of the peoples of Africa goes back to ancient times. In the 60-80s. XX century On the territory of Southern and Eastern Africa, scientists found the remains of human ancestors - Australopithecus monkeys, which allowed them to suggest that Africa could be the ancestral home of humanity (see The Formation of Humanity). In the north of the continent, about 4 thousand years ago, one of the most ancient civilizations arose - ancient Egyptian, which left numerous archaeological and written monuments (see Ancient East). One of the most populated areas Ancient Africa was the Sahara with abundant vegetation and diverse animal life.
Since the 3rd century. BC e. happened active process migration of Negroid tribes to the south of the continent, associated with the advance of the desert to the Sahara. In the 8th century BC e. - IV century n. e. in northeast Africa there were the states of Kush and Meroe, associated in many ways with the culture of Ancient Egypt. Ancient Greek geographers and historians called Africa Libya. The name "Africa" appeared at the end of the 4th century. BC e. from the Romans. After the fall of Carthage, the Romans founded the province of Africa on the territory adjacent to Carthage, then this name spread to the entire continent.
North Africa met the early Middle Ages under the rule of barbarians (Berbers, Goths, Vandals). In 533-534 it was conquered by the Byzantines (see Byzantium). In the 7th century they were replaced by Arabs, which led to the Arabization of the population, the spread of Islam, the formation of new state and social relations, and the creation of new cultural values.
In antiquity and the early Middle Ages, three large states arose in West Africa, replacing each other. Their formation is associated with the expansion of intercity trade in the Niger River basin, pastoral agriculture, and the widespread use of iron. Written sources about the first of them - the state of Ghana - appear in the 8th century. with the arrival of the Arabs in sub-Saharan Africa, and oral traditions date back to the 4th century. Its heyday dates back to the 8th-11th centuries. Arab travelers called Ghana the country of gold: it was the largest supplier of gold to the Maghreb countries. Here, crossing the Sahara, caravan routes passed to the north and south. By its nature, it was an early class state, whose rulers controlled the transit trade in gold and salt and imposed high duties on it. In 1076, the capital of Ghana, the city of Kumbi-Sale, was captured by newcomers from Morocco - the Almoravids, who laid the foundation for the spread of Islam. In 1240, King Malinke from the state of Mali Sundiata subjugated Ghana.
In the XIV century. (the time of its greatest prosperity), the huge state of Mali stretched from the Sahara to the edge of the forest in the south of Western Sudan and from the Atlantic Ocean to the city of Gao; its ethnic basis was the Malinke people. The cities of Timbuktu, Djenne, and Gao became important centers of Muslim culture. Early feudal forms of exploitation spread within Malian society. The well-being of the state was based on income from caravan trade, agriculture along the banks of the Niger, and cattle breeding in the savannah. Mali was repeatedly invaded by nomads, neighboring peoples; dynastic feuds led to its demise.
The state of Songhai (the capital of Gao), which came to the fore in this part of Africa after the fall of Mali, continued the development of the civilization of Western Sudan. Its main population was the Songhai people, who still live along the banks of the middle reaches of the Niger River. By the 2nd half of the 16th century. an early feudal society developed in Songhai; V late XVI V. it was captured by the Moroccans.
In the Lake Chad region in the early Middle Ages there were the states of Kanem and Bornu (IX-XVIII centuries).
The normal development of the states of Western Sudan was put an end to the European slave trade (see Slavery, Slave trade).
Meroe and Aksum are the most significant states of North-East Africa in the period between the 4th century. BC e. and VI century. n. e. The kingdoms of Kush (Napata) and Meroe were located in the north of modern Sudan, the state of Aksum was on the Ethiopian Highlands. Kush and Meroe represented the late phase of ancient Eastern society. Little has survived to this day archaeological sites. In temples and on steles near Napata, several inscriptions in Egyptian have been preserved, which make it possible to judge the political life of the state. The tombs of the rulers of Napata and Meroe were built in the form of pyramids, although they were significantly smaller in size than the Egyptian ones (see Seven Wonders of the World). The transfer of the capital from Napata to Meroe (Meroe was located about 160 km north of modern Khartoum) was obviously associated with the need to reduce the danger from invasions by the Egyptians and Persians. Meroe was an important center of trade between Egypt, the Red Sea states and Ethiopia. A center for processing iron ore arose near Meroe; iron from Meroe was exported to many African countries.
The heyday of Meroe covers the 3rd century. BC e. - I century n. e. Slavery here, as in Egypt, was not the main thing in the system of exploitation; the main hardships were borne by village community members - plowmen and cattle breeders. The community paid taxes and supplied labor for the construction of pyramids and irrigation systems. The Meroe civilization remains insufficiently explored - we still know little about the daily life of the state, its connections with the outside world.
The state religion followed Egyptian models: Amon, Isis, Osiris - the gods of the Egyptians - were also gods of the Meroites, but along with this, purely Meroitic cults arose. The Meroites had their own written language, the alphabet contained 23 letters, and although its study began in 1910, the Meroe language still remains difficult to access, making it impossible to decipher the surviving written monuments. In the middle of the 4th century. King Ezana of Aksum inflicted a decisive defeat on the Meroitic state.
Aksum is the forerunner of the Ethiopian state; its history shows the beginning of the struggle waged by the peoples of the Ethiopian Highlands to preserve their independence, religion and culture in a hostile environment. The emergence of the Aksumite kingdom dates back to the end of the 1st century. BC e., and its heyday - by the IV-VI centuries. In the 4th century. Christianity became the state religion; Monasteries arose throughout the country, providing great economic and political influence. The population of Aksum led a sedentary lifestyle, engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding. The most important crop was wheat. Irrigation and terrace farming developed successfully.
Aksum was important shopping center, connecting Africa with the Arabian Peninsula, where in 517-572. South Yemen belonged to him, but the powerful Persian power ousted Aksum from southern Arabia. In the 4th century. Aksum established connections with Byzantium and controlled the caravan routes from Adulis along the Atbara River to the middle reaches of the Nile. The Aksumite civilization has brought cultural monuments to this day - the remains of palaces, epigraphic monuments, steles, the largest of which reached a height of 23 m.
In the 7th century n. e., with the beginning of the Arab conquests in Asia and Africa, Aksum lost its power. Period from VIII to XIII centuries. characterized by the deep isolation of the Christian state, and only in 1270 did its new rise begin. At this time, Aksum loses its significance as the political center of the country, and the city of Gondar becomes it ( north of the lake Tana). Simultaneously with strengthening central government The role of the Christian Church also increased; monasteries concentrated large land holdings in their hands. Slave labor began to be widely used in the country's economy; Corvee labor and natural supplies are being developed.
The rise touched and cultural life countries. Such monuments are being created as chronicles of the lives of kings and church history; the works of Copts (Egyptians professing Christianity) on the history of Christianity and world history are translated. One of the outstanding Ethiopian emperors, Zera-Yakob (1434-1468), is known as the author of works on theology and ethics. He advocated strengthening ties with the Pope, and in 1439 the Ethiopian delegation took part in the Council of Florence. In the 15th century The embassy of the King of Portugal visited Ethiopia. The Portuguese at the beginning of the 16th century. assisted the Ethiopians in the fight against Muslim Sultan Adal, hoping to then infiltrate the country and take it over, but failed.
In the 16th century The decline of the medieval Ethiopian state began, torn apart by feudal contradictions and subjected to raids by nomads. A serious obstacle to the successful development of Ethiopia was its isolation from the centers of trade relations on the Red Sea. The process of centralization of the Ethiopian state began only in the 19th century.
On the east coast of Africa, the trading city-states of Kilwa, Mombasa, and Mogadishu grew in the Middle Ages. They had extensive connections with the states of the Arabian Peninsula, Western Asia and India. The Swahili civilization arose here, absorbing African and Arabic culture. Since the 10th century. Arabs played an increasingly important role in the connections between the east coast of Africa and a large number Muslim states of the Middle East and South Asia. The appearance of the Portuguese at the end of the 15th century. disrupted the traditional ties of the east coast of Africa: a period of long struggle of African peoples against European conquerors began. The history of the interior of this region of Africa is not well known due to the lack historical sources. Arab sources of the 10th century. reported that between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers there was a large state that had a large number of gold mines. The civilization of Zimbabwe (its heyday dates back to the beginning of the 15th century) is best known during the period of the Monomotapa state; Numerous public and religious buildings have survived to this day, indicating a high level of construction culture. The collapse of the Monomotapa empire occurred at the end of the 17th century. due to the expansion of the Portuguese slave trade.
In the Middle Ages (XII-XVII centuries) in the south of West Africa there was a developed culture of the Yoruba city-states - Ife, Oyo, Benin, etc. They reached high level development of crafts, agriculture, trade. In the XVI-XVIII centuries. these states took part in the European slave trade, which led to their decline at the end of the 18th century.
The major state of the Gold Coast was the confederation of Amanti states. This is the most developed feudal formation in West Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries.
In the Congo River basin in the XIII-XVI centuries. there were early class states of Congo, Lunda, Luba, Bushongo, etc. However, with the advent of the 16th century. Their development was also interrupted by the Portuguese. There are practically no historical documents about the early period of development of these states.
Madagascar in the I-X centuries. developed in isolation from the mainland. The Malagasy people who inhabited it were formed as a result of the mixing of newcomers from South-East Asia and Negroid peoples; the island's population consisted of several ethnic groups - Merina, Sokalava, Betsimisaraka. In the Middle Ages, the kingdom of Imerina arose in the mountains of Madagascar.
The development of medieval Tropical Africa, due to natural and demographic conditions, as well as due to its relative isolation, lagged behind North Africa.
Penetration of Europeans at the end of the 15th century. became the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade, which, like the Arab slave trade on the east coast, delayed the development of the peoples of Tropical Africa and caused them irreparable moral and material damage. On the threshold of modern times, Tropical Africa found itself defenseless against the colonial conquests of Europeans.
There is a misconception that before the arrival of European colonists, only savages in loincloths lived in Africa, who had neither civilization nor states. IN different times there were strong state formations, which in their level of development sometimes surpassed the countries of medieval Europe.
Today little is known about them - the colonialists roughly destroyed all the beginnings of an independent, unique political culture of black peoples, imposed their own rules on them and left no chance for independent development.
Traditions have died. The chaos and poverty that is now associated with black Africa did not arise on the green continent due to European violence. Therefore, the ancient traditions of the states of black Africa are known to us today only thanks to historians and archaeologists, as well as the epic of local peoples.
Three gold-bearing empires
Already in the 13th century BC. The Phoenicians (then masters of the Mediterranean) traded iron and exotic goods, such as elephant tusks and rhinoceroses, with tribes who lived in the territories of modern Mali, Mauritania and the greater Guinea region.
It is unknown whether there were full-fledged states in this region at that time. However, we can say with confidence that by the beginning of our era there were state formations on the territory of Mali, and the first undisputed regional dominant had emerged - the Empire of Ghana, which entered the legends of other peoples as the fabulous country of Vagadou.
It is impossible to say anything concrete about this power, except that it was a strong state with all the necessary attributes - everything that we know about that era, we know from archaeological finds. A person who owns writing first visited this country in 970.
It was the Arab traveler Ibn Haukal. He described Ghana as a rich country drowning in gold. In the 11th century, the Berbers destroyed this possibly thousand-year-old state, and it broke up into many small principalities.
The Empire of Mali soon became the new dominant of the region, ruled by the same Mansa Musa, who is considered the richest man in history. He created not only a strong and rich, but also a highly cultural state - at the end of the 13th century, a strong school of Islamic theology and science was formed in the Timbuktu madrasah. But the Mali Empire did not last long - from about the beginning of the 13th century. to the beginning of the 15th century. It was replaced by a new state - Songhai. He became the last empire region.
Songhai was not as rich and powerful as its predecessors, the great gold-bearing Mali and Ghana, which provided half of the Old World with gold, and was much more dependent on the Arab Maghreb. But, nevertheless, he was the continuer of that one and a half thousand-year tradition that puts these three states on a par.
In 1591 Moroccan army after a long war, it finally destroyed the Songhai army, and with it the unity of the territories. The country splits into many small principalities, none of which could reunite the entire region.
East Africa: the cradle of Christianity
The ancient Egyptians dreamed of the semi-legendary country of Punt, which was located somewhere in the Horn of Africa. Punt was considered the ancestral home of the gods and Egyptian royal dynasties. In the understanding of the Egyptians, this country, which, apparently, actually existed and traded with later Egypt, was represented as something like Eden on earth. But little is known about Punt.
We know much more about the 2500-year history of Ethiopia. In the 8th century BC. The Sabaeans, immigrants from the countries of southern Arabia, settled on the Horn of Africa. The Queen of Sheba is precisely their ruler. They created the kingdom of Aksum and spread the rules of a highly civilized society.
The Sabaeans were familiar with both Greek and Mesopotamian culture and had a very developed writing system, on the basis of which the Aksumite letter appeared. This Semitic people spreads across the Ethiopian plateau and assimilates the inhabitants belonging to the Negroid race.
At the very beginning of our era, a very strong Aksumite kingdom appeared. In the 330s, Axum converted to Christianity and became the third oldest Christian country, after Armenia and the Roman Empire.
This state existed for more than a thousand years - until the 12th century, when it collapsed due to acute confrontation with Muslims. But already in the 14th century, the Christian tradition of Aksum was revived, but under a new name - Ethiopia.
South Africa: little-known but ancient traditions
States - namely states with all the attributes, and not tribes and chiefdoms - existed in southern Africa, and there were many of them. But they did not have writing and did not erect monumental buildings, so we know almost nothing about them.
Hidden palaces may be waiting for explorers in the jungles of the Congo. forgotten emperors. Only a few centers of political culture in Africa south of the Gulf of Guinea and the Horn of Africa that existed in the Middle Ages are known for certain.
At the end of the 1st millennium, a strong state of Monomotapa emerged in Zimbabwe, which fell into decline by the 16th century. Another center of active development political institutions was atlantic coast Congo, where the Kongo Empire was formed in the 13th century.
In the 15th century, its rulers converted to Christianity and submitted to the Portuguese crown. In this form this christian empire existed until 1914, when it was liquidated by the Portuguese colonial authorities.
On the shores of the great lakes, in the territory of Uganda and Congo in the 12th-16th centuries, there was the Kitara-Unyoro empire, which we know about from the epic of local peoples and a small number of archaeological finds. In the XVI-XIX centuries. In modern DR Congo there were two empires, Lunda and Luba.
Finally, at the beginning of the 19th century, a Zulu tribal state emerged on the territory of modern South Africa. Its leader Chaka reformed all the social institutions of this people and created a truly effective army, which in the 1870s spoiled a lot of blood for the British colonists. But, unfortunately, she was unable to oppose anything to the guns and cannons of the whites.