THE NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION IN AFRICA

 

Introduction

The Neolithic Revolution was a process of transition from a nomadic lifestyle of hunter-gatherer communities to one of agriculture and pastoralism, as well as the start of a sedentary lifestyle. This transition took place at a varying pace in different regions of the world. It is assumed that the major proportion of the human population underwent this process in the period between 10,500 and 6,000 years ago. The Neolithic Revolution was a consequence of a transition from gathering food, which was typical of pre-agrarian societies, to food production, which is observed in agricultural societies. It was accompanied by fundamental changes, which were characteristic of the whole process, such as development of sedentary village life, growth in population, use of ground-stone tools, development of ceramics, and the emergence of a new type of social organization.

The crucial factor which contributed to the advent of the Neolithic Revolution was the invention of agriculture, since it allowed humans to satisfy basic needs in a permanent and stable way. To understand the complex civilizational processes taking place in the framework of the Neolithic Revolution, it is necessary to understand the role played in this process by so-called domestication.

The term is usually referred to as, “a sustained multi-generational, mutualistic relationship in which one organism assumes a significant degree of influence over the reproduction and care of another organism in order to secure a more predictable supply of a resource of interest, and through which the partner organism gains advantage over individuals that remain outside this relationship, thereby benefitting and often increasing the fitness of both the domesticator and the target domesticate” (Zeder 2015).

This process takes place between the two poles designated by ‘wild’ and ‘domestic’. Consequently, one can talk about various stages or levels of domestication, which are dependent on the scope of the influence exerted by environmental, biological and cultural factors. These factors can have either a rapid or a gradual impact on the living organisms. Animal domestication provides an excellent example of the latter type of domestication, as it consists of a number of clearly discernible intermediate stages. At the initial, ‘wild’ stage of domestication, a given population of organisms generally has no experience of any direct or indirect impact on the part of man. Domestication ends at the ‘domestic’ stage, when a given population is totally dependent on humans with regard to such issues as survival, reproduction and nutrition.

The neolithic revolution in Africa

Africa is the setting for the long dawn of human history. From about four million years ago ape-like creatures walk upright on two feet in this continent. Intermediate between apes and men, they have been named Australopithecus. Later, some two million years ago, the first creatures to be classed as part of the human species evolve in Africa. They develop a technology based on sharp tools of flint, introducing what has become known as the Stone Age.

 

About a million years ago humans explore northwards out of Africa, beginning the process by which mankind has colonized the planet.

During the later part of the old Stone Age (see Divisions of the Stone Age), humans in Afica produce some of the earliest and most significant examples of prehistoric art. Paintings on stone slabs, found in Namibia, date from nearly 30,000 years ago. Rock and cave paintings survive from widely separated areas. They range from those of the San people, in southern Africa, to others dating from about 8000 BC in what is now the Sahara.

 

The Sahara is also the site of the earliest new Stone Age (or neolithic) culture to have been discovered in Africa.

     

A damp Sahara: 8000 - 3000 BC

The Sahara at this time supports not only elephant, giraffe and rhinoceros but hippopotamus and even fishes. It is a friendly landscape in which neolithic communities progress from hunting and gathering into a partly settled way of life, with the herding of cattle. Their paintings show that dogs have been domesticated and are sometimes used in the hunt - and that hunting methods include the pursuit of hippopotamus from boats made of reeds.

 

The paintings also suggest that these people wear woven materials as well as animal skins. The remains from their settlements reveal that they are skilful potters.

Around 3000 BC a climatic change gradually turns the Sahara to a desert (over the millennia it seems to have gone through a succession of humid and dry periods). The change brings to an end the first settled culture of Africa. The Sahara becomes the almost impenetrable barrier which throughout recorded history has separated the Mediterranean coast and north Africa from the rest of the continent.

 

At much the same time north Africa becomes the site of one of the world's first great civilizations, Egypt. There may perhaps be a link, in the migration eastwards of the Sahara people, but archaeology has found no evidence of it.

     

Africa's first civilizations: from 3000 BC

Egypt's natural links are in a northeasterly direction, following the Fertile Crescent up into western Asia. Similarly Ethiopia, the other early civilization of northeast Africa, is most influenced by Arabia, just across the Red Sea. So these two regions, Egypt and Ethiopia, flanked by desert to the west and equatorial jungle to the south, evolve at first in isolation from the rest of Africa.

 

But the development of maritime trade along the Mediterranean coast, pioneered by the Phoenicians in the 8th century BC, does increasingly bring Egypt into a specifically north African context.

     

The people of sub-Saharan Africa: 2000 - 500 BC

Much of the southern part of the African continent is occupied by tribes known as Khoisan, characterized by a language with a unique click in its repertoire of sounds. The main divisions of the Khoisan are the San (often referred to until recent times as Bushmen) and the Khoikhoi (similarly known until recently as Hottentots).

 

The tropical forests of central Africa are occupied largely by the Pygmies (with an average height of about 4'9', or less than 1.5m). But the Africans who will eventually dominate most of sub-Saharan Africa are tribes from the north speaking Bantu languages.

The Bantu languages probably derive from the region of modern Nigeria and Cameroon. This western area, bordering the Gulf of Guinea, is also the cradle of other early developments in African history.

 

Iron smelting is known here, as in other sites in a strip below the Sahara, by the middle of the 1st millennium BC. And the fascinating but still mysterious Nok culture, lasting from the 5th century BC to the 2nd century AD, provides magnificent pottery figures which stand at the beginning of a recognizably African sculptural tradition.

Probably during the first millennium BC, tribes speaking Bantu languages begin to move south. They gradually push ahead of them the Khoisan, in a process which will eventually make the Bantu masters of nearly all the southern part of the continent.

 

Meanwhile, in the regions immediately south of the desert, the first great kingdoms of sub-Saharan Africa become established during the first millennium AD.

 

 

Conclusion

The Neolithic Revolution is the first in the history of the human race which, due to a radical change in lifestyle, allowed for a systematic development of humankind. What is more, this revolutionary transition seems to have provided the foundations for the subsequent revolutions, which mark the further stages in the development of our civilization, i.e., the scientific revolution, industrial revolution, technological revolution, digital revolution, and nanotechnology revolution.

The unprecedented development of the human species was, however, only possible thanks to the Neolithic Revolution, during which humans abandoned the nomadic lifestyle of hunter-gatherers and adopted the sedentary lifestyle of farmers. Domestication of many species of plants and animals catalysed the development of agriculture and allowed for the production of large surpluses of food. This, in turn, enabled a significant part of the human population to live in cities and create complex social and state structures. The emergence of specialised social groups contributed to technological development and cultural exchange due to lively contacts between communities.

 

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