9781422280676

A Concise History of Africa

technologies such as iron-smelting were being practised, and the population was on the increase. Africa’s first great civilization emerged in Egypt in around 3200 BC, while Carthage was founded by the Phoenicians in North Africa in the 9th century BC. In 146 BC, after the Third Punic War, North Africa became part of the Roman Empire, the province comprising what is present-day northern Tunisia, as well as the Mediterranean coast of modern-day western Libya along to Syrtis Minor. Christianity spread across these areas from Palestine via Egypt, also passing south beyond the borders of the Roman world into Nubia and by at least the 6th century into Ethiopia, where in previous centuries the Semitic Kingdom of Axum (Aksum) had flourished. Islam spread via Spain to North Africa in the 7th century AD, reinforcing the Arab influence that

Africa’s History Civilization is believed to have begun in what is now the heart of the Sahara Desert, which in 5200 BC was savanna, and far less arid than it is today. Agriculture was possible, but poor soil and limited rainfall made cultivation difficult, keeping populations sparse and largely pastoral. Early populations also followed river valleys, such as the Nile, Upper Congo, and Niger. By 1500 BC agriculture had spread, domestic animals were being kept, OPPOSITE: The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids at Giza. The Great Sphinx is in the foreground . ABOVE: Blue-colored paint dominates the old medina in the city of Chefchaouen, Morocco. ABOVE RIGHT: The ruins and the Roman site of Volubilis, Morocco, that date from 217 AD.

had long prevailed, and spreading to East and Central Africa where an extraordinary tribal and cultural diversity was already in existence. By the 9th century a string of dynastic states stretched across the sub-Saharan savanna, the most powerful of them being Ghana, Gao, and the Kanem-Bornu empire, with Kanem accepting Islam in the 11th

Even after the Sahara had returned to being a desert, it could still be penetrated by people

traveling between the north and south. The use of oxen for desert crossings was common, prior to the introduction of the camel, and trade routes followed chains of oases, located at intervals across the desert.

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