9781422277409

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C onn ect i ng C u ltu r es T hrough F am i ly and F ood

Introduction

T he story of all people begins in Africa. The earliest ancestors of humans lived on the continent severalmillionyears ago.Andabout 200,000 years ago, the first homo sa- piens —modern humans—evolved there. At almost 12 million square miles (31 million sq km), it’s an enormous continent that straddles the equator. Dense, dripping rain forests clustered in the center of the continent give way to the vast, dry expanses of sand of the Saha- ra Desert in the north. People live in a Mediterranean climate on the north coast and in semi-arid and temperate regions in the south. That geographical diversity has helped produce a huge amount of physical and cultural diversity, as well. Tens of thousands of years ago,

people began migrating through- out Africa. Eventually, about 60,000 years ago, they moved into Europe, Asia, and eventually the Americas. Sometimes these migrations were voluntary. At other times, especially from the 1600s through the 1800s, theywerenot, asmillions of African natives were shipped to other parts of the world and sold as slaves. Whatever the reasons or cir- cumstances for their movement, as Africans spread into different parts of the world, they left their mark in numerousways. Styles of musicand dance that grew out of traditional African culture, such as jazz and hip-hop, arenowpart of mainstream society. And all over the world, mod- ernwaysof eatinghave theirroots in Africa. Gumbo from the Caribbean,