Name____________________________________________________________
Per.______
Robert W. Strayer
Ways of the World: A Brief Global History
Ways of the World: A Brief Global History with Sources
Chapter Seven, Classical Era Variations; Africa and the Americas, 500 B.C.E.-1200 C.E. (pp. 288290)
Along the Niger River: Cities without States
 Middle stretches of Niger River in W. Africa likes the emergence of urbanization
 Dry period brought growing # of people from southern Sahara into floodplain of middle Niger
in search of more reliable access to water
 People of this region created a distinctive city-based civilization
 Most fully studied was the city of Jenne-jeno which housed 40,000 people
 Most distinctive features of the Niger Valley civilization was absence of a state structure
o Niger urban centers were nto encompassed within some larger imperial system
o They were cities without citadels-complex urban centers that apparently operated
without the coercive authority of a state
o These urban centers resemble the early cities of the Indus Valley civilization, where
little archeological evidence of centralized state structures has been found
 In place of such hierarchal organization, Jenne-jeno emerged as clusters of economically
specialized settlements surrounding a larger central town
o Most prestigious of these specialized occupations was iron smithing
o Archeologist Roderick McIntosh argued that “their knowledge of the transforming
arts- earth to metal, insubstantial fire to the mass of iron- was the key to a secret occult
realm of immense power and immense danger.”
 Villages of cotton, weavers, potters, leather, workers, griots (praise-singers to preserved oral
traditions) grew up around central town
o Artisan communities became occupational castes
o Members passed their jobs and skills to their children & could marry within own group
o Specialization also occurred in farming focused on fishing & rice cultivation
 Growing network of indigenous West African commerce
o Middle Niger Floodplain supported a rich agriculture & had clay for pottery
o Scarcity of resources was on basis for long-distance commerce
o Iron Ore, Copper, gold, stones & salt- all these items have found Jenne-jeno in return
for grain, fish, smoked meats, iron implements, & other staples
o 500 CE- Evidence of an even wider commerce from Mauritania to present-day Mali &
Burkina-Faso
 Second Millennium CE- Number of large-scale states or empire emerged in the regiono Ghana, Mali, Songhay
o As West Africa became more firmly connected to North Africa and the Mediterranean,
Islam penetrated the region
South of the Equator: The World of Bantu Africa
 South on the African continent, the most significant development of the classical era involved
the accelerated movement of Bantu-speaking peoples into the enormous subcontinent
o That movement of peoples generated some 400 distinct but related languages
o Known collectively as Bantu
 In the centuries that followed, they established themselves quite rapidly in most of eastern &
southern Africa
 Bantu expansion was a slow movement of people
Cultural Encounters
 Movement of peoples also generated numerous cross-cultural encounters, as the Bantuspeaking newcomers interacted with already-established societies
o None more significant than the agricultural Bantu & gathering/hunting peoples who
occupied Africa south of the Equator
 Bantu-speaking farmers had various advantages
o 1) Agriculture generated a more productive economy
o 2) Disease-Farmers brought parasitic & infectious diseases such as Malaria
o 3) Iron- Useful for tools & weapons
 Gathering & hunting peoples were displaced, absorbed, or eliminated
 Many of the Bantu languages of southern Africa retain to this day the distinctive “clicks”
 In the rainforest region of Central Africa, the foraging Batwa (Pygmy) people became forest
specialists
o Produced honey, wild game, elephant products, animal skins, medicinal barks & plants
which entered regional trading networks in exchange for the agricultural products of
their Bantu neighbors
 Bantu farmers regarded their Batwa neighbors as closest to their ancestral & territorial spirits
 Bantu cultures changed as they encountered different peoples
o In drier environment of East Africa, African Bantu homeland was unable to support
their growing numbers
o Bantu farmers increasingly adopted grains as well as domesticated sheep & cattle
 All of this became part of the common culture of Bantu-speaking Africa
Society and Religion
 Bantu-speaking peoples also created a wide variety of quite distinct societies and cultures
o In present day Kenya organized themselves without any formal political specialists
o Instead, they made decisions by using kinship structures or lineage principles
 The kind of society that developed in any particular area depended on local factors
o Included: population, density, trading opportunities, & interaction among culturally
different peoples
 In terms of religion, Bantu practice in general placed less emphasis on a High or creator God
o Religion focused on ancestral or nature spirits
o Power of dead ancestors might be accessed through rituals of sacrifice (cattle)
o Supernatural power deriving from ancestors, heroes, or nature spirits
o Belief in witches reflected the idea that evil or misfortune was work of malicious people
 Bantu religious practice was predicated on the notion of “continuous revelation”
o Possibility of constantly receiving new messages from the world beyond