Africa: Difference between revisions

 

Towards the end of the 3rd century, a [[Monsoon#Africa (West African and Southeast African)|wet period]] in the Sahel opened up areas for human exploitation and habitation which had not been inhabitable for the best part of a millennium, causing the [[Ghana Empire#Rise of the Empire|Kingdom of Wagadu]], the predecessor to the [[Ghana Empire]], to rise out of the Tichitt culture, growing wealthy through the newfound viability of [[trans-Saharan trade|trans-Saharan trade routes]] following the introduction of the [[Dromedary|camel]] to the western Sahel by camel-owning [[Berbers]], which linked [[Koumbi Saleh|their capital]] and [[Aoudaghost]] with [[Tiaret|Tahert]] and [[Sijilmasa]] in North Africa.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gestrich |first=Nikolas |title=Oxford Research Encyclopedias: African history |chapter=Ghana Empire |year=2019 |url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-396}}</ref> Wagadu made its profits from exporting [[gold]] and [[textiles]] among other goods, incentivising the development major urban centres.<ref name=":0">{{cite web |url=https://www.vitaminedz.com/articlesfiche/7182/7182321.pdf}}</ref> Wagadu's core traversed modern-day southern [[Mauritania]] and western [[Mali]], and [[Soninke people|Soninke]] [[Oral tradition|tradition]] portrays early Ghana as very warlike, with horse-mounted warriors key to increasing its territory and population.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gestrich |first=Nikolas |title=Oxford Research Encyclopedias: African history |chapter=Ghana Empire |year=2019 |url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-396}}</ref> It has been stipulated that relative to Wagadu there were many more simultaneous and preceding kingdoms, based on [[Tumulus#Africa|large tumuli]] scattered across West Africa dating to this period, which have unfortunately been lost to time.<ref name=":1">{{cite book |last=Posnansky |first=Merrick |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/in/documentViewer.xhtml?v=2.1.196&id=p::usmarcdef_0000184265&file=/in/rest/annotationSVC/DownloadWatermarkedAttachment/attach_import_976b4f2f-4e7c-44ec-a92e-2014aa9d86f0%3F_%3D184265engo.pdf&locale=en&multi=true&ark=/ark:/48223/pf0000184265/PDF/184265engo.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A2903%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2Cnull%2Cnull%2C0%5D |title=General History of Africa: Volume 2 |publisher=UNESCO |year=1981 |page=729 |chapter=The societies of Africa south of the Sahara in the Early Iron Age}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{cite journal |last=Holl |first=Augustine |year=1985 |title=Background to the Ghana empire: Archaeological investigations on the transition to statehood in the Dhar Tichitt region (mauritania) |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0278416585900054 |journal=Journal of Anthropological Archaeology |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=73–115 |doi=10.1016/0278-4165(85)90005-4}}</ref>

====Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa====