Society & Culture in Early Africa

Africa
Africa is a very, very large continent - 11.7 million square miles large. It holds
the world's longest river and the world's largest hot desert, straddles two
oceans, and is the only continent to stretch from the northern temperate to
southern temperate zones. Africa is also the home of humanity, with the
earliest evidence of human fossils dating back 200,000 years.

As you can guess, the history of Africa is pretty complex. As a birthplace of

humanity, Africa is the oldest place on Earth to be inhabited by people and
over the last 200,000 years, it has seen societies of every shape and kind.
Africa did not have a single culture, but instead boasts an incredible diversity
of civilizations.

Societies of Africa
Ancient Africa had many different societies, but they can be roughly
categorized into four types. First are the hunter-gatherer societies. These
nomadic groups traveled continuously for food, relying on naturally available
resources. Even after the development of agriculture, many groups chose to
maintain hunter-gatherer lifestyles because many regions of Africa, especially
the deserts and jungles, are not great for farming. Hunter-gatherer societies
tended to be highly egalitarian, meaning that every member was treated
equally, including men, women, elderly, etc.

Another style of society were the stateless societies. Stateless societies

were larger than hunter-gatherer communities, but still small enough that they
did not need a central government. That is the definition of a stateless
society: a settled community with little or no organized government. The
people in stateless societies dealt in complex trade networks, farmed, and
developed art but dealt with issues democratically, taking into consideration
every member of the group. At most, a small council of leaders might resolve
disputes. Like hunter-gatherer societies, stateless societies were egalitarian
with high gender equality. Stateless societies could be found throughout
central Africa in ancient times.

Once a society grows to be larger than roughly 10,000 people, organizing it

becomes difficult without a government. The next type of society in ancient
Africa was a city-state, or an urban center with its own independent
government. City-states are independent of larger kingdoms or empires, and
thus have very strong local identities tied to their city. In ancient Africa, the
most prominent city-states developed along the northeast coast, where the
Nile River, Red Sea, and Arabian Sea intersect. This region grew very quickly
in ancient Africa because of the lucrative trade routes that connected the rich
territories of North Africa to faraway markets in India and China.
City-states had a slightly more complex culture that developed social
stratification, or the separation of people into classes. Some people were
leaders. Some were merchants. Some were laborers, or even slaves. This
made society more structured, but also set some people above the others.

Finally, the fourth major form of society in ancient Africa was the
true kingdom or empire. These were highly stratified societies that were
controlled by a very powerful central government, usually in the person of a
king. They maintained powerful professional armies, controlled the
distribution of resources and international trade, and determined the fate of
all the people they controlled. Unlike the smaller stateless societies,
kingdoms in ancient Africa, or anywhere in the ancient world, had low degrees
of egalitarianism. Women, in particular, were often treated as inferior to men,
but slaves were at the bottom of society.

Kingdoms controlled wide territories and they formed empires as those

territories stretched far enough to conquer other kingdoms. In ancient Africa,
the first major kingdoms were in the north, centered upon the Nile River and
Mediterranean Sea. Egypt is perhaps the most notable example, ruled by the
powerful pharaohs for centuries. Egypt was one of the first great civilizations
of ancient Africa, but it was not the last and as societies grew, hundreds of
kingdoms competed across time.

Religions of Africa
At its earliest, ancient Africa was full of hundreds of local religions. Many of
these were polytheistic, meaning they worshipped several deities. The deities
could be actual gods, nature spirits, or ancestors who could intervene in daily
life. In northern kingdoms, the king was often seen as a god as well. The
northern religions, particularly those around Egypt, were also very centered on
the idea of an afterlife. They believed that the spirit would survive after death
and that certain rituals or objects could help the spirit in their next life. This
was the reason for practices like mummification or burial objects.

In the first centuries AD, a new religion swept into Africa and made a dramatic
impact in consolidating people under one religious identity. That religion
was Christianity. It entered primarily through the major cities of North and
East Africa as merchants and missionaries spread it quickly across the
continent. The first African kingdom to formally adopt Christianity as the state
religion was Axum, a trading city in the northeast in the 4th century.
Christianity was a major power throughout ancient Africa, both in cultural and
political terms.

Christianity was not the last major religion to enter Africa. Islam, a religion
originating in the Arabian Peninsula, entered Africa first through the
northeastern trade cities and later through military conquest. The powerful
Muslim empires completely controlled North Africa by the early 8th century,
forcing the Christian Byzantine Empire out of the region. Especially in North
Africa, Islam remained a major power and is still one of the most prominent
religions in Africa today.
Lesson Summary
Africa may well be one of the most diverse continents on Earth. After 200,000
years of continual human development, Africa has seen hundreds of different
societies.

Hunter-gatherers were nomadic groups that relied on available resources.

They were egalitarian, meaning that everyone was treated equally. Some
small communities chose to settle down and adopt agriculture but did not
have organized governments. These are called stateless societies.

Populations larger than 10,000 people generally required a government,

however. Some of these larger societies were city-states, independent
governments based around an urban center, and some were
true kingdoms or empires. In these societies, people were divided into
classes and had different rights according to gender, a division known
as social stratification. The government was often very centralized, usually
around a single ruler, and controlled resources, trade, and the military.

The people of ancient Africa worshipped several local religions that were
mostly polytheistic, meaning they had several
deities. Christianity and Islam both entered Africa as those religions
developed and both maintain a strong presence to this day. Yeah, Africa has
seen pretty much every style of society that humanity could ever devise.