Evolution of Man & Religion - Stone Age Africa

Index - Evolution of Man & Religion

Evolution of Man & Religion:

Stone Age Africa

Africa

Paleolithic

The Paleolithic of Africa is characterized by a variety of stone-tool assemblages, some of which represent purely local developments while others are practically identical with materials from corresponding horizons in Europe. Geological investigations of the Late Cenozoic deposits of this continent indicate that, as the result of fluctuations in rainfall, the Pleistocene Epoch throughout most of Africa can be subdivided on the basis of a succession of pluvial and interpluvial stages. The pluvials, known as Kageran, Kamasian, Kanjeran, and Gamblian, are believed to represent the tropical and subtropical equivalents of the four major glacial stages of the Northern Hemisphere. The archaeological succession is well established in certain areas, although not in the continent as a whole.

North Africa

In this area, pebble tools have been reported from one site in Algeria in direct association with a Lower Pleistocene (Villafranchian) mammalian assemblage. Throughout Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and the Sahara region, Lower Paleolithic hand axes of both Abbevillian and Acheulean type, together with flake tools, have been found in great numbers. The geological evidence shows that the Sahara region was far less arid during Pleistocene times than it is at present. The Middle Paleolithic of both Levalloisian and Mousterian facies is very widespread in North Africa, and it apparently persisted as late as the second maximum of the Würm glaciation in terms of the European sequence. A specialized Middle Paleolithic development, known as the Aterian, occurred there; it is characterized by tanged points made on flakes and flake blades. This was succeeded by two distinctive blade-tool complexes—the Capsian and Oranian—which are more or less contemporary. Their main development took place during the time span of the European Mesolithic. The Capsian sites are all inland, whereas the Oranian has a coastal distribution. Both are microlithic tool complexes that persisted after the introduction of Neolithic traits into the area.

Egypt

The Pleistocene terrace gravels of the Nile Valley in Egypt have produced a wealth of Paleolithic materials. The 30-metre (98-foot) terrace contains typical Abbevillian and early Acheulean hand axes, including a special form with a triangular section known as the Chalossian type. These are associated with early flake implements. In the 15-metre (49-foot) terrace, developed Acheulean has been recorded, while the nine-metre (29.5-foot) terrace yields large flakes and cores of Levalloisian type. In the low terrace, which occurs at a height of three metres (10 feet) above river level, developed Levalloisian (originally called Mousterian) has been reported. Overlying the low terrace, a local development known as the Sebilian is found. It contains very highly evolved flake implements of Levallois type and, in its later phases, a definite microlithic industry. Of approximately the same age as the Sebilian are several Epi-Levalloisian sites in the Lower Nile drainage, including the Fayyūm Depression and the al-Khārijah (Kharga) Oasis. In the latter area, where the specialized Levalloisian development is called the Khargan, an Egyptian version of the Aterian has been discovered.

East Africa

In Kenya, the oldest known tools—consisting of early hammers, anvils, and cutting tools—date to the Middle Pliocene Epoch and predate the emergence of the oldest confirmed specimens of Homo by almost one million years. The tools were discovered in a dry riverbed near Kenya’s Lake Turkana.

See a researcher making an Oldowan flint flake from obsidian through a technique known as knappingSee all videos for this article

See also in Scientific America - Monkeys Make Stone "Tools" That Bear a Striking Resemblance to Early Human Artifacts - The discovery could necessitate the reanalysis of enigmatic stones previously attributed to human origins

Also in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, types of pebble tools, roughly chipped to an edge on one side only, occur in deposits of Lower Pleistocene age. This development, known as the Kafuan, apparently evolved into an industry characterized by implements made on pebbles chipped to an edge on both sides, called the Oldowan. Overlying the latter are beds containing true Lower Paleolithic hand axes of Abbevillian and Acheulean type, together with flake tools. Associated with the Middle and Late Acheulean are cleavers made on flakes, as well as evidence of the use of the prepared striking-platform–tortoise-core (Levallois) technique in the production of flakes. In the next-younger horizon, two distinct toolmaking traditions are found: the Kenya Stillbay, a Levalloisian derivative characterized by small- to medium-sized, bifacially flaked points or minute hand axes; and the Kenya Fauresmith, basically of Acheulean inspiration and very similar to the true Fauresmith of Southern Africa. Carefully shaped round stone balls, believed to have been used as bola weights in hunting, constitute part of the Fauresmith assemblage. In the post-Gamblian dry phase, microlithic tools appear for the first time in an assemblage known as the Magosian. This was followed by the introduction into the area of a true blade technique, called the Kenya Capsian, together with the art of pottery making. More or less contemporary with the localities where the earliest pottery is found in East Africa, a series of sites has been discovered yielding typical microlithic assemblages and referable to the Kenya Wilton, also found in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.

Southern Africa

The sequence in Southern Africa is well established on the basis of the terrace stratigraphy of the Vaal Valley. Just as in North and East Africa, the succession begins in the basal Pleistocene with the occurrence of pebble tools of Kafuan type. These develop into what is called the pre-Stellenbosch, which is found in the oldest gravels of the Vaal and which includes artifacts made on pebbles that recall both the Kafuan and the Oldowan. The true Stellenbosch complex occurs in the next-younger series of deposits; it is simply a Southern African version of the Abbevillian and Acheulean of other parts of Africa and Europe. Typical are hand axes, cleavers, flakes struck from Victoria West cores, and (in its later phases) various sorts of flakes produced by the prepared striking-platform–tortoise-core technique. The Stellenbosch was followed by the Fauresmith, which is characterized by evolved hand axes and Levallois-type flakes. The Stellenbosch and Fauresmith together constitute what is called the South African Older Stone Age, a period roughly corresponding to the Lower and Middle Paleolithic stages of Europe. On the other hand, the South African Middle Stone Age belongs to the later part of the Upper Pleistocene. It is characterized by a series of more or less contemporary flake-tool assemblages, each of which displays local features. These are known as Mossel Bay, Pietersburg, Howieson’s Poort, Bambata Cave, Stillbay, etc.; Stillbay, which occurs in Kenya and Uganda, is the only one of these found outside Southern Africa. The characteristic tools are made on flakes produced by a developed Levalloisian technique, including slender unifacial and bifacial lances or spear points for stabbing or throwing. In the final stages of the Middle Stone Age, known as the South African Magosian, microlithic elements appear, just as in the case of East Africa. The Later Stone Age cultures of this region—the Smithfield and the Wilton—developed during post-Pleistocene times. These are closely related and, in their later stages, reveal varying degrees of influence as the result of contact with the culture introduced by the Bantu-speaking peoples. Both were extant at the time the first Europeans arrived in Southern Africa, and there is little doubt that the Wilton, which is a typical microlithic assemblage, is to be associated with the modern San (Bushman). There are many paintings in the rock shelters and engravings on stones in the open-air sites of Southern Africa, the oldest of which belong to the Later Stone Age. The naturalistic style of art revealed at these sites persisted until well into historic times.

Central Africa

The Lower Paleolithic sequence of Central, or Equatorial, Africa is essentially a repetition of what has already been outlined for East and Southern Africa. At the beginning of Middle Stone Age times, however, a special development took place known as the Sangoan (formerly Tumbian). This is characterized by picks and adzes made on bifacially flaked cores, the tranchet type of ax, hand axes of developed Acheulean form, massive side scrapers, and many elongated, bifacially flaked points that probably served as lances or spearheads. The Sangoan seems to represent a response to the environmental conditions of this tropical rain-forest region. Its main development took place during Upper Pleistocene times, but it persisted after the introduction of Neolithic traits into the area.Hallam L. Movius

Mesolithic–Neolithic

The Paleolithic was everywhere followed by the Mesolithic, a period when humans continued to use stone tools, mostly microlithic, and, while still in the hunting-and-gathering stage, depended less for their food supply on large mammals than on fish and mollusks. In Africa the evidence for the Mesolithic is still scanty. In the Lower Nile Valley, sites have been examined only at Ḥulwān (Helwan) and Kawm Umbū (Kom Ombo). At the latitude of Khartoum, for a considerable distance to each side of the Nile, have been found sites of a Mesolithic culture in which large, well-fired, unburnished pots decorated with designs impressed with a fish spine to make them resemble baskets were made and barbed bone harpoons were used for fishing. Arrows were mostly armed with stone lunates, and in general the microlithic industry shows relations with the Capsian (of northwestern Africa) and the Wilton (of east central Africa). The fauna indicates a climate much wetter than the present. The upper Kenya Capsian, with traces of similar pottery found at Gamble’s Cave, probably represents the Mesolithic of Kenya. Its pottery also copies basketwork. And while it is impossible to say where pottery was invented, the discovery of a prepottery Neolithic in Asia, with the existence of modern mud-lined baskets among the Nilotes, the accidental burning of which could have led to the invention of pottery, suggests that pottery was possibly an African discovery.

The Neolithic inventions that led to the rise of humans above the conditions of the Old Stone Age were made gradually in different places and probably over a long period. Some, such as the domestication of animals, took place more than once. In a famine, a wild animal will sell itself into slavery to humans for the food that will preserve its life. Thus, cattle and goats, while certainly domesticated in Asia, may have been independently domesticated in Africa, too. African jackals may have provided one breed of domestic dog, while the donkey and the cat are African. The polishing of stone implements was probably a by-product of the grinding of red ochre, in wide demand for its magic properties since the Paleolithic and extensively used in Africa in the Mesolithic and later. One result of the grinding of ochre was to polish the grindstone, and another, when the upper grindstone was used at an angle, was to develop a sharp edge that, produced accidentally, may have led to the idea of grinding the cutting edge of celts or other tools. Repeated pecking of the flat surfaces of the grindstones that became too smooth to grind ochre efficiently led to perforation of the stone and thus to the development of the disk macehead of the Nile Valley. Archaeology must establish where and when celts were first ground; but the partly polished celts of the Fayum and Khartoum are probably the earliest forms of that tool known. The cultivation of wheat, barley, and flax probably were Asiatic developments that first entered Africa through the Nile Delta. The cultivation of one form of wheat may have originated in Ethiopia, however.

In Egypt, civilization first reached its full development c. 3000 BCE, but though it passed through Copper and Bronze ages and introduced copper tools to the Sudan, there is no evidence of either of these ages in the rest of Africa, where a transition from the Stone Age, generally still Mesolithic in type, directly to the Iron Age took place gradually during the last two millennia and in a few places did not take place until the middle of the 20th century. In some localities, an intermediate state, when Neolithic forms were used, occurred (e.g., Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ghana), but elsewhere (e.g., Kenya) polished-stone celts, or axes, seem so rare that they may have been comparatively late imports from the north.

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African archaeology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Olduvai Gorge, where some of the earliest hominins are believed to have evolved.

Africa has the longest record of human habitation in the world. The first hominins emerged 6-7 million years ago, and among the earliest anatomically modern human skulls found so far were discovered at Omo Kibish,^[1] Jebel Irhoud, and Florisbad.^[2][3][4][5]

European archaeology, as well as that of North Africa, is generally divided into the Stone Age (comprising the Lower Paleolithic, the Middle Paleolithic, the Upper Paleolithic, the Mesolithic, and the Neolithic), the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. For Africa south of the Sahara, African archaeology is classified in a slightly different way, with the Paleolithic generally divided into the Early Stone Age, the Middle Stone Age, and the Later Stone Age.^[6] After these three stages come the Pastoral Neolithic, the Iron Age and then later historical periods.

Africa's prehistory has been largely ignored, with the exception of research into early human evolution.^[1] However, it is overseen by the PanAfrican Archaeological Association, whose members consist of professional archaeologists from all over Africa.^[7]

Early Stone Age Africa

The Early Stone Age (ESA), which spanned from approximately 2.6 million years ago (mya) - 280,000 years ago (ya), describes a period in African prehistory in which the first stone tools were developed, including both Oldowan and Acheulean.^[8] Early sites along the East African Rift include Lomekwi in the Turkana Basin, Kenya, and Olduvai Gorge farther south in modern-day Tanzania. The earliest hominids were discovered in Ethiopia and titled Ardipithecus ramidus. The diverging species of hominin are known as australopithecines and were first discovered in Olduvai. Australopithecines and their fossils include Paranthropus boisei, the most famous being nicknamed "Zinj" or "Nutcracker man" by Mary Leakey, the archaeologist who found it. Another older, famous australopithecine, related to those found at Olduvai Gorge but found approximately 2000 kilometers to the north east in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia, is Lucy, who was discovered by Donald Johanson and his team in 1974.^[9]

The earliest relative dating for stone tool use was discovered in 2015, by Sonia Harmand, at Lomekwi 3 in West Turkana, Kenya with stone tools dating to 3.3 million years ago.^[10] Lomekwi tools differ from Oldowan tools in their primitive technological features making them large and heavy. The Lomekwi are thought to have been made by Australopithecus afarensis.^[11] Prior to this discovery, some of the oldest stone tools were found at Lokalalei 2C in West Turkana, where artifacts exhibiting knapping processes conducted by Australopithecus africanus date to about 2.34 million years ago, marking the beginning of the ESA. Incorporation of tools provided early hominins the ability to respond to changes more readily outside of the immediate needs of daily-life and extended adaptability behavioral patterns into long-term trends experienced over generations.^[12]

Around a million years later, Homo erectus evolved into a more advanced species and made tools known as the Acheulean handaxes. These handaxes were a multipurpose bifacial technology that remained unchanged for thousands of years. The technology demonstrates an increase in brain development and complexity in Homo erectus, as shown by the increased level of forethought and knowledge of material required for production of the tools.^[13] Homo erectus are also associated with the first instances of "modern human living," such as fire, "modern emotions," and art.^[14] The earliest evidence for hominins controlling fire is found in Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa.^[15] Along with their new technologies, they were also a part of the first "Out of Africa" movement and spread to all parts of the world. This movement took place somewhere around 1.8-0.8 million years ago, where Homo erectus spread out from Africa and into Eurasia.^[16] One of the most notable Homo erectus skeletons ever found was that of Nariokotome Boy, who was found near Lake Turkana in Kenya, discovered by Richard Leakey and Kamoya Kimeu. Nariokotome Boy was a teenager when he died, and his skeleton exhibits the first evidence for caring in the archaeological record, because he was cared for through his debilitating scoliosis.^[17]

Just recently discovered was a new addition to the line of human ancestors named Homo naledi. Found in Rising Star Cave in South Africa, Homo naledi is undated but has features of both primitive and modern humans.^[18]

Middle Stone Age Africa

Main article: Middle Stone Age

The Middle Stone Age (MSA), dating to roughly 280,000 to 40,000 years ago, is characterized by the continuation of hunter-gatherer lifestyles and, as more recently recognized, perhaps the origins of modern human behavior and cognition.^[8] Even though hominin species' brains were reorganized and modernized at a fast rate, the behavior of these hominins did not adapt quite as fast. This caused the hominin species to be quite primitive.^[8] African hunter-gatherers hunted larger mammals and relied on an assortment of edible plants,^[19] both in the grasslands that are now the Sahara desert, and the rain forests of Central Africa.^[20] Coastal peoples also subsisted on seafood and numerous middens indicate their diet.^[8]

Homo sapiens appear for the first time in the archaeological record around 300–270,000 years ago in Africa.^{[21][2][3][4][5]} They soon developed a more advanced method of flint tool manufacture involving striking flakes from a prepared core. This permitted more control over the size and shape of finished tool and led to the development of composite tools, projectile points and scrapers, which could be hafted onto spears, arrows or handles. In turn, this technology permitted more efficient hunting such as that demonstrated by the Aterian industry. In eastern Africa, stone tools were made from raw materials such as quartz and obsidian using the prepared core method, which varied by region.^[22] It was during the late Middle Pleistocene that many groups began to migrate away from eastern Africa, especially southward. Technological improvements such as Aterian methods and the development of new skills helped these people adapt to new landscapes.^[8]

Although still hunter-gatherers, there is evidence that these early humans also actively managed food resources as well as simply harvesting them. The Congo Basin was first occupied around this time; different conditions and diet there produced recognizably different behaviors and tool types. There are also the earliest signs of art appearing through the use of ochre as a body decoration and paint, and burial rituals may have been practiced as well.^[23]

Evidence of a variety behaviors indicative of Behavioral modernity date to the African Middle Stone age, associated with early Homo sapiens. Abstract imagery, widened subsistence strategies, and other "modern" behaviors have been discovered from that period in Africa, especially South, North, and East Africa. The Blombos Cave site in South Africa, for example, is famous for rectangular slabs of ochre engraved with geometric designs. Using multiple dating techniques, the site was confirmed to be around 77,000 and 100–75,000 years old.^[24][25] Ostrich egg shell containers engraved with geometric designs dating to 60,000 years ago were found at Diepkloof, South Africa.^[26] Beads and other personal ornamentation have been found from Morocco which might be as much as 130,000 years old; as well, the Cave of Hearths in South Africa has yielded a number of beads dating from significantly prior to 50,000 years ago.^[8] These types of ornamentations represent some of the earliest signs of symbolic behavior amongst human ancestors, including developments in cognition and social relations.^[27] The beads from Bizmoune Cave, in southwest Morocco, are thought to be over 142,000 years old.^[27] Shell beads dating to about 75,000 years ago have been found at Blombos Cave, South Africa.^[28][29][30]

Specialized projectile weapons as well have been found at various sites in Middle Stone Age Africa, including bone and stone arrowheads at South African sites such as Sibudu Cave (along with an early bone needle also found at Sibudu) dating approximately 60,000-70,000 years ago,^{[31][32][33][34][35]} and bone harpoons at the Central African site of Katanda dating to about 90,000 years ago.^[36] Evidence also exists for the systematic heat treating of silcrete stone to increase its flake-ability for the purpose of toolmaking, beginning approximately 164,000 years ago at the South African site of Pinnacle Point and becoming common there for the creation of microlithic tools at about 72,000 years ago.^[37][38] Early stone-tipped projectile weapons (a characteristic tool of Homo sapiens), the stone tips of javelins or throwing spears, were discovered in 2013 at the Ethiopian site of Gademotta, and date to around 279,000 years ago.^[39]

In 2008, an ochre processing workshop likely for the production of paints was uncovered dating to ca. 100,000 years ago at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Analysis shows that a liquefied pigment-rich mixture was produced and stored in the two abalone shells, and that ochre, bone, charcoal, grindstones and hammer-stones also formed a composite part of the toolkits. Evidence for the complexity of the task includes procuring and combining raw materials from various sources (implying they had a mental template of the process they would follow), possibly using pyrotechnology to facilitate fat extraction from bone, using a probable recipe to produce the compound, and the use of shell containers for mixing and storage for later use.^[40][41][42] Modern behaviors, such as the making of shell beads, bone tools and arrows, and the use of ochre pigment, are evident at a Kenyan site by 78,000-67,000 years ago.^[43]

Expanding subsistence strategies beyond big-game hunting and the consequential diversity in tool types has been noted as signs of behavioral modernity. A number of South African sites have shown an early reliance on aquatic resources from fish to shellfish. Pinnacle Point, in particular, shows exploitation of marine resources as early as 120,000 years ago, perhaps in response to more arid conditions inland.^[44] Establishing a reliance on predictable shellfish deposits, for example, could reduce mobility and facilitate complex social systems and symbolic behavior. Blombos Cave and Site 440 in Sudan both show evidence of fishing as well. Taphonomic change in fish skeletons from Blombos Cave have been interpreted as capture of live fish, clearly an intentional human behavior.^[8]

Humans in North Africa (Nazlet Sabaha, Egypt) are known to have dabbled in chert mining, as early as ≈100,000 years ago, for the construction of stone tools.^{[45][self-published source?][46]}

Evidence was found in 2018, dating to about 320,000 years ago, at the Kenyan site of Olorgesailie, of the early emergence of modern behaviors including: long-distance trade networks (involving goods such as obsidian), the use of pigments, and the possible making of projectile points. It is observed by the authors of three 2018 studies on the site, that the evidence of these behaviors is approximately contemporary to the earliest known Homo sapiens fossil remains from Africa (such as at Jebel Irhoud and Florisbad), and they suggest that complex and modern behaviors began in Africa around the time of the emergence of Homo sapiens.^[47][48][49]

In 2019, further evidence of early complex projectile weapons in Africa was found at Aduma, Ethiopia, dated 80,000–100,000 years ago, in the form of points considered likely to belong to darts delivered by spear throwers.^[50]

Later Stone Age Africa

Main article: Later Stone Age

The Hofmeyr Skull is a specimen of a 36,000-year-old human skull that was found in 1952 near Hofmeyr, South Africa. Osteological analysis of the cranium by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology indicates that the specimen is morphologically distinct from recent groups in subequatorial Africa, including the local Khoisan populations^{[citation needed]}. The Hofmeyr fossil instead has a very close affinity with other Upper Paleolithic skulls from Europe. Some scientists have interpreted this relationship as being consistent with the Out-of-Africa theory, which hypothesizes that at least some Upper Paleolithic human groups in Africa, Europe and Asia should morphologically resemble each other.^[51]

Around 10,000 BCE, African hunter-gatherer societies developed microlith technologies. Composite microlithic tools were useful for harvesting wild grasses and also permitted the production of fine shell and bone fish hooks, which may have allowed for the exploitation of a broader range of food resources. Some of the earliest pottery in Africa has also been found in the Sahara and is associated with hunter/gatherer populations.^[52] By 9,400 BCE, in Ounjougou, central Mali, pottery is thought to been independently invented by local hunter-gatherers as they became more sedentary and began to intensively gather local wild grains (such as millet).^[53]

Archaeological evidence has attested that population settlements occurred in Nubia as early as the Late Pleistocene era and from the 5th millennium BC onwards, whereas there is "no or scanty evidence" of human presence in the Egyptian Nile Valley during these periods, which may be due to problems in site preservation.^[54]

In 2013, Iberomaurusian skeletons from the prehistoric sites of Taforalt and Afalou in the Maghreb were analyzed for ancient DNA. All of the specimens belonged to maternal clades associated with either North Africa or the northern and southern Mediterranean littoral, indicating gene flow between these areas since the Epipaleolithic.^[55][56] The ancient Taforalt individuals carried the mtDNA haplogroups U6, H, JT and V, which points to population continuity in the region dating from the Iberomaurusian period.^[57]

There is an on-going debate in regards to using modern-day hunter-gatherer societies, like the San, as an analogy to societies of the Later Stone Age.^[58]

"Pastoral Neolithic" and Neolithic Africa

Main article: Pastoral Neolithic

Cultural developments during the early Neolithic led nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to be slowly supplanted by pastoralism in northern Africa.^[59][60] Africa's earliest evidence for domesticated animals comes from the Sahara c. 7000-6000 BCE, and evidence for new cattle herding lifestyles are preserved at both archaeological sites such as Gobero and in Saharan rock art.^[59] As the Sahara increased in size due to aridification, early pastoralists migrated south and eastwards into the Niger and Nile valleys, bringing with them herding practices that would also spread throughout eastern and southern Africa.^[61] The Savanna Pastoral Neolithic and the Elmenteitan material culture traditions are found in eastern Africa. Recent aDNA research has provided evidence for the spread of Pastoral Neolithic herders from eastern Africa into southern Africa.^[62][63]

In the western Sahel the rise of settled communities occurred largely as a result of the domestication of millet and of sorghum. Archaeology points to sizable urban populations in West Africa later, beginning by the 2nd millennium BCE. Symbiotic trade relations developed before the trans-Saharan trade, in response to the opportunities afforded by north–south diversity in ecosystems across deserts, grasslands, and forests. The agriculturists received salt from the desert nomads. The desert nomads acquired meat and other foods from pastoralists and farmers of the grasslands and from fishermen on the Niger River. The forest-dwellers provided furs and meat.^[64]

In West Africa, Dhar Tichitt and Oualata in present-day Mauritania figure prominently among the early urban centers, dated to ~2,000 BCE. About 500 stone settlements litter the region in the former savannah of the Sahara. Its inhabitants fished and grew millet. The ancestors of the Soninke, of the Mandé peoples, may have been responsible for constructing such settlements. Around 300 BCE the region became more desiccated and the settlements began to decline, most likely relocating to Koumbi Saleh.^[65] Architectural evidence and the comparison of pottery styles suggest that Dhar Tichitt was related to the subsequent Ghana Empire and Djenné-Djenno cultures (in present-day Mali).^[66][67]

Metal-using Africa

Main articles: Iron metallurgy in Africa and Copper metallurgy in Africa

Farming societies in Africa developed after the origins and spread of livestock pastoralism throughout the continent. The early use of metallurgy by farming communities may have been developed independently in Africa around 3000-2000 BCE.^[68] Pockets of iron usage appeared in subsequent millennia but metal did not supplant stone in the south of the continent until around 500 BCE, when both iron and copper spread southwards through the continent, reaching the Cape around 200 CE. Although some details regarding the Bantu expansion are still controversial amongst archaeologists, linguists, and historians, the widespread use of iron does seem to have played a major role in the spread of Bantu farming communities throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Contact and interaction between hunter/gatherer, pastoralist, and incoming farming communities remains an important topic of interest in African archaeology today.

In 2014, ancient DNA analysis of a 2,330-year-old male forager's skeleton in southern Africa found that the specimen belonged to the L0d2c1c mtDNA haplogroup. This maternal clade is today most closely associated with the Ju, a subgroup of the indigenous San people, which points to population continuity in the region.^[69] In 2016, a Late Iron Age desiccated mummy from the Tuli region in northern Botswana was also found to belong to haplogroup L0.^[70]

In central Nigeria, West Africa, around 1,500 BCE, the Nok culture developed on the Jos Plateau.^[71] The Nok people produced lifelike representations in terracotta, including human heads and human figures, elephants, and other animals. By 500 BCE, and possibly a few centuries earlier,^[72] they were smelting iron. By 200 AD the Nok culture had vanished. Based on stylistic similarities with the Nok terracottas, the bronze figurines of the Yoruba kingdom of Ife and those of the Bini kingdom of Benin are now believed to be continuations of the traditions of the earlier Nok culture.^[73]

Another site in southern Africa that used different types of metal was Bosutswe. The people who lived there used materials such as copper, bronze, and iron.^[74] It was proven that this metalworking was the basis for the trade that was responsible for the site's success^[75] and kept the power in the ruling Lose class.^[74]

Historical Africa

Main article: History of Africa

Trade with the Near East and Europe led to strong mercantile empires growing such as the Ethiopian kingdom of Axum and Harla Kingdom. Various states and polities also developed in West Africa including Ife, the Kingdom of Benin, Igbo Ukwu, Djenné-Djenno, Ghana Empire, Bono State and the Ashanti Empire.^[76] Bantu peoples in southern Africa built the impressive site of Great Zimbabwe between the 10th and 15th centuries CE. The north of the continent had close cultural and economic ties with the Classical and medieval Mediterranean. Cattle herding became important in the Horn of Africa and huge earthwork enclosures were built to corral the animals. The people of Christian Ethiopia produced impressive rock-cut monolithic churches such as that of St George at Lalibela during the 13th century and the first Portuguese forts appeared soon after this, penetrating as far south as Zambia.

See also

• Africa portal
• History portal

• African Archaeological Review
• Prehistoric North Africa
• Archaeology of Banda District (Ghana)
• Egyptology
• Nubiology

References

1. ^ Jump up to:^a b Barham, Lawrence; Mitchell, Peter (2008). The First Africans: African Archaeology from the Earliest Toolmakers to Most Recent Foragers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-521-61265-4.
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External links

• African Archaeology – African Archaeology : a web directory on Africa.
• Journal of African Archaeology
• African Archaeological Review
• –Excavations at Karkarichinkat Nord and Sud

Evolution of Man & Religion - Mitochondrial Eve and Ancient Civilizations

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Evolution of Man & Religion:

Mitochondrial Eve and Ancient Civilizations

by R.E. Slater

Mitochondrial Eve was a woman who lived 200,000 years ago who had enough daughters in a continuous chain that her Mitochondrial DNA survived. Homo sapiens eventually migrated across the African continent around 120,000 years ago

Looking at humanity's distribution patterns several items stand out as earth's climatic conditions changed forcing migratory movement:

• The L2 and L3 migrations re-inhabited Africa in three areas: NW, Central NE, and Southern NW regions.

• During this time the descendants of the L2 and L3 populations, N & M, travelled across the northern and southern parts of Saudi Arabia populating the Levant's coastal regions of Greater Syria (Israel et al) and the Fertile Crescent areas of the Mesopotamian area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

• Concurrently, Central India was also becoming populated which next led to homo sapien migrations into Oceania and Australia first, and much later into China directly from India.

• As China's populations grew so too were human migratory groups into Europe and Russian.

• From Russia's Land Bridge came the America's populations settling along warmer climes northward then southward.

Introduction

Today's post is more properly two posts in one. They should not be separated and must therefore be enclosed together. Think of it as a two day read rather than one....

Further below I have included several videos and articles related to today's title. However, my immediate interest today lies in humanity's shared common ancestry via Mitochondrial Eve, and from her generations, the newly birthed homo sapien civilizations which spawned around the world.

By now, many ancient civilizations had come-and-gone by the time the pages of Genesis were written down. A collection we know as "origin narratives" gathered from a dozen federated tribes composing one nation's enculturated ideas of a God they knew as Adonai (Lord), Yahweh (YHWH), and Elohim (the plural form of God which polytheists took as "gods" and for which the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam took as the plural form of the singular God).

My evangelical church tradition does not delve much into it's ancient past. And when it does it proceeds along a common line of religiously approved divine ancestry. Here, in these recent series of posts I have been expanding from this tradition and have stated that even as the evolution of man was occurring so too was man's idea of God(s) taking root over long years of experience and observation. The first category speaks to man's origins; the other, to man's many layered enculturations of the divine.

Thus and thus we have an expanding evolution of modern man from his physique, his physiology, his sentient consciousness, epistemological awareness, individual and corporate behaviors, psyche, sociology, and religious development to mention a few. Consequently, humanity has been learning and maturing in its councils and actions. 

My surmise here is that long before the bible was written - many, many, many eons of humanity had come-and-gone. As Christians, we like to start with a biblical Adam and Eve, a Serpent in the Garden of Eden, a Tower of Babel, and Noahic Flood. In a sense, all these event-types (or archetypes) had occurred but not as we think of them today with our nice-and-neat Sunday School flannel board pictures and "bible workbooks" from Baker Book House, Tyndale House, and such like.

Instead, picture the figures of "Adam & Eve" in terms of a processual biological evolution which God designed and initiated. The "Serpent and Garden" as the mythic birthplace of the very real-world ingredients of indeterminant freewill. The "Tower of Babel" as a nod by prior Semitic civilizations to their own experience of the mixing of tribal languages in growing population centers throughout Mesopotamia and Greater Syria. And finally, the "Noahic Flood" as the general rising of the oceans up-and-down, again-and-again, with every passing glacial era during Earth's long geologic history - but especially in stone age man's psyche of ice ages over the more recent past 1000,000 years of his evolutionary birth and species' biological development.

Somewhere I read, or heard again, that the great oceans had risen 115 feet during the Pleistocene Era due to the melting of the mighty glaciers spanning the northern 'scapes of the world. As they melted, regional flooding took place often and frequently. By comparison, even today we are going through a warming of the earth due to our own man-made climatic changes. And with it, earth's remaining glaciers are melting... including the polar ice caps. Near term water level predictions are estimating near a 15-20 foot rise in coastal waters around the world. Modern day cities like Miami's Atlantic-archipelago will eventually be underwater along with much of Florida's lowlying lands.

We may concede then that a general global flooding will eventually occur worldwide. It is part of Earth's geologic history - hastened by humanity's pollution - wherein recent evolutionary land masses will again come-and-go, shift-and-move (sic, Continental tectonic plates causing the movement of the continents propelled by the subduction of displaced heat and pressure).

The Noahic Flood then was not one flood but many. Some disastrous. And some annoying. Telling us then that the biblical record in Genesis is not unlike the rest of the bible's storied memories. Each one enculturated at one time or another  in iconoclastic structure to share a quality of view by tribes or nations like Israel of their beliefs and nomadic religion turned "imperial" based upon more recent remembered events affecting their societies.

Now we might impute these climatic changes as divine events but more accuratey they are the resulting temporal changes due to earth's evolutionary processes set in place at creation's birth eons earlier.

Today, meta-modern faiths around the world are once again thinking about God in their minds and hearts due to startling climatic changes being witnessed everywhere around us. Those of faith, like myself, and those not of faith, are asking questions of God, or of society, in general. Humans are borne naturally curious. We examine and critique the processes we see around us.  And are instinctually imaginative. 

For my part, I am trying to redescribe God as the "God above or beyond the biblical page," utilizing the many good lessons and theologies in the Bible's pages and from my Christian heritage while removing, or adding, a more expansive theology better equipped to relate to the contemporary world we live in today.

By which I mean that one should never use the bible to delimit God because their theology does not fit the present context. Nor should we hold God's Spirit back from his work of salvation by our church doctrines and iconoclastic congregations. But I fear we are, and gravely so, and will describe how we have in the next section below.

The take away? We worship a God who expands to the needs and tasks of the present world at hand - thus, my evolving labour on what is becoming known as an Open and Relational Process Theology of Love. As the world changes so does God in his promises of loving care, tender mercies, and redeeming work laid before him. The bible then is a story of God... but not the final story - nor a final theology - about a God willfully connected to us ever-and-ever until our time ends along the evolutionary chain of "being and becoming".

R.E. Slater

March 11, 2023

Revised and Edited March 14, 2023

Index - Evolution of Man & Religion

The Evolution of Man & Religion

Part 1

by R.E. Slater

One Conclusion Among Many

We know from paleo-genetic and paleo-archaeologic samplings that the Semitic and Indo-Asian cultures grew apace with one another during humanity's migratory journeys out of Africa. As they settled and lived within their separate regional geographies they each were experiencing their own histories earlier than the histories of later migratory groups as humanity extended outwards from i) the Greater Mesopotamia & Levant areas and, ii) the Central Indian areas. This is seen on the maps here provided.

For example, Africa had its own lores, legends and empires before, and later, concurrent with, ancient Egypt. Why? Because Africa was settled sooner and traded with each another eons earlier. Later, as other Near Eastern and Indo-Asian cultures (and empires) grew the intermix of their own cultures, ideas, trade, and power were extended into the older settled areas of Old Africa and places lije non-Indian Asia , China, Europe, and Russia.

The Evolution of Religion and Socio-Politics

In the last several posts I have been steadily moving towards the pre-historical times of Stone Age Semitic cultures which developed many, many eons before the pages of the bible were written down... consequently, it is important to realise that what narratives we read of in the bible were but selective cultural beliefs and understandings inherited many thousands of years earlier from prior civilizations. And as they did these beliefs - or theologies - also changed in accordance with greater sentient awareness gained from past experiences and observations.

As example, in our own life histories we would be hard pressed to say what are grandparents believed in their lifetimes or what their faith meant to them. We may know the general outlines of their faith but not much else. So too Israel's early faith as it developed. It may have come from an admixture of polytheistic and animistic beliefs and folklore but over the years God shared himself in their experiences and observations birthing a developing theology we know as Judaism today.

Within ancient Israel (approx., c.2000 BC - 70 AD) the narratives of its oral histories and beliefs were written down somewhere between 750-350 BC. These oral stories were constructed of what they "knew and understood from their geopolitical and religious existential perspectives" and should not be approached as historical or theological "gospel truths". And by these efforts the Hebrews were attempting to write their own "story of the world" from their own self-advantaged histories.

Much like Israel then, we read of faith failures and faith successes. And from such 'earthy" insights we, like they, are also adjusting our own ideas of who God is; what God does (or doesn't do); and even how God behaves in relationship to the world today. Like Israel then, we grow up with our church's teachings of God in religious contexts of lived experiences both individually and corporately.

And like Israel's priests and scribes, we ourselves, like our churches, are adjusting our attitudes and perspectives of God and ourselves by how we feel the world should work - and God in relation to this constructed world within our hearts and minds.

Assumptions of God and Our Responsibilities

I.

Looking backwards we make assumptions about our responsibilities and views of life. Mine own was how my religious culture taught me to read life through the church's views of God and people. But my public education and work-a-day experience in the world taught me that my religious teachings were overly bible-centric with a strong emphasis in it's interpretations of the bible and the narratives held within the bible. Which is all well-and-good except when it isn't.

Eventually we learn to read and live in the world alongside our church's teachings changing as we must when it's teachings become unhelpful to faith's journey. It's not the bible so much as our learned approach to the bible. Which becomes more like wearing spiritual blinders because of the church's interpretations rather than like the Spirit's reading glasses tuned to God's heart rather than religious dictums and legalisms.

Using the bible for our own religious claims about God-and-world seems to forget the more complex truth that we are not absolved from living in love with one another. This conclusion has become a more recent fundamental development in my bible reading and theological formulations. It is significantly different from other church theologies of God which are non-loving as I will explain...

II.

The other assumption I was taught by the church was that Israel's narratives got God right. Again, they did but they didn't....

Israel's God was a violent and avenging God.... But Jesus was nothing if not good, kind, and loving to the religious outsider.

The divine violence thing seems more a descriptor of myself than of God... A behavior which I suppose we all go through in some manner or another when wronged, hurt, injured, or suffering from the cruelty of others.

But from these assumptions of God have come religious wars, societal oppression, and the repugnant labelling of others who are different from ourselves repeating age-old errors of our theologies of God as wrathful and unloving. A God who dominates and rules over his foes. Churches should never be in the business of imperial kingdom-building though we may call it by "nicer" names of "winning communities for Jesus," or "membership classes," "congregational assimilation," and such like. The essence of these statements may be right and honest but the tone or nature of some churches belies their real intentions in oppressing individual rights in the name of God. 

Nor should countries be in the business of sin and cruelty toward one another. Worshipping Gods of warfare is never healthy. But worshiping a God of love can usually be more healthy for a society of people trying to live together with one another.

Results of Our Religious Assumptions

Hence, what kind of God do we picture in our heads and hearts? What kinds of world experiences have given us these pictures? How assured can we be that the religious teaching of God in the bible were correct or incorrect? Why is God so often conflicted with God's self in portrayals of being unpresent then present; vindictive then loving; avenging then forgiving? Questions of Holy Spirit inspiration aside, what spirit are we actually listening to now or then?

When first beginning this website I questioned many times whether worshipping a dipolar God caught between the white-and-black sides of God's Self - sic, the "loving" v "unloving" sides of God's divine essence - whether this depiction of God was a wholly whole picture of God. I'm of the mindset that God is One and not two divided portions of his Divine Essence. That the ruling passion, essence, mind and heart of God is wholly loving.

That there is no room for a "divine" attribute of non-loving (except when beheld in the gods of the pagan world). That all other Divine Attributes are subserviant to God's love. Whether holiness, justice, or passions like zealousness, envy, etc, as described of God in the bible... all these attributes or descriptions of the divine character are founded upon, and derive their source from, God's Love.

And perhaps more helpfully, when introducing a processual theology into the religious world (or the church's) neo-Platonic thoughts of good-and-bad divine entities (gods/polytheism), objects (animism/American folklore) or the ephemeral divine qualities of God's self (dipolar v monopolar monotheism), we might see a fuller divine story of humanity trying to work out what God's loving presence can mean to us in relation to the world. God's responsibilities, care, guidance in loving processual fashion seem the more reasonable than a hard-and-fast dominionist, or judgmental, idol of human creation.

What We Are Taught v Who God Truly Is

A God who is perfectly, fully God and deserving of the title "holy" can only be seen by God's loving care of creation. In the usage of the word "holy" we have as often misspoke it as we have spoken it of God and God's presence.

1 - As in all other attributes=qualities=descriptors of God, divine love must proceed all other attributes to the formulaic Western mindset. Divine love cannot exist with Divine judgment as we think of it. God is not vengeful but restoring. And in that restoration comes goodness not evil. God is not evil. God is loving. Holiness describes the kind of God we worship.

2 - Most of us misuse the word holiness as referring to the absence of sin or evil in God. But holiness is more than these. Holiness refers to God more than the absence of willful harm and cruelty in God. But that in God is love which is neither cruel nor evil.

3 - And further, that this God is wholly whole, wholly holy, wholly UNdivided. That God is NOT a dipolar God but a God who is One. Holiness then refers to God's UNdivided divine Self in perfect congruity with God's divine Self. That God's holiness can be recasted as a fully loving God and not a God of love and wrath divided in God's personage as to who God is.

Conclusions

A processual theology can grant this kind of narrative. A non-processual faith cannot and results in churches today which are not conducting loving ministries to congregants and society but brutalizing their own and other by stories of God which are oppressive. Stories spoken to dominate their congregants with bible-beat-downs with unconstructive/bullying labels, guilts, manipulations, legalisms, harmful pietistic rituals, and inaccurately oppressive pictures of God.

A God who is none of these things. A God which the church has made an idol of from it's own pictures of how the world and God works. But here, at Relevancy22, such a biblical God is anathema. This kind of Christian God is unwanted, unpreached and untrue despite what Israel or the Church have concluded.

The bible-kind-of-God we worship here is a God who is wholly loving, good, kind, ministering, helping, aiding and present in our lives through all our good times and bad, joys and sufferings. This God does not control the world but seeks to redeem the world from itself. Not by the wraths and judgments we bring upon ourselves but through present relationships sharing loving kindness to one another.

The Semitic stories of God are not unlike our own stories of God. A God who is difficult to grasp then as now when read in the limelight of man's own actions. But a God who from the obscurity of the biblical record we see redeeming, rebuilding, resurrecting, reconciling, and renewing all things back to relational wholeness to himself. A God who did all of this through in the person and work of Jesus. This is the true and right version of Israel's bible stories. It is the one which teaches the distance we have to go to be God-like, or godly, or whole, or holy.

R.E. Slater

March 11, 2023

Revised and Edited March 14, 2023

Index - Evolution of Man & Religion

RES - One caveat, "Escape from Africa" refers to drought and climatic conditions.

The voice is robotic but don't let it be offsetting to watching the video. Thank you.

mtDNA shows how humans migrated across the World

Dec 3, 2021

It has been over 20 years since DNA analysis technology began to be used in the field of archaeology. In many countries, scientists are analyzing genes from ancient human fossils and making them into a database so that they can be used for research. Genes extracted from more than 10,000 fossils were extracted, analyzed, and compared.As a result, humans are said to have originated from a woman in Africa about 200,000 years ago. And as a result of genetic analysis of her descendants who lived scattered around the globe, their migration routes were revealed. In this video, their movement paths by era were mapped.

Mitochondrial Eve and Homo Sapiens

in Africa’s Great Rift Valley

Africa's Great Civilizations

PBS Learning Media

Every modern ancestor’s origins can be traced back to Africa, with Homo sapiens found in Africa’s Great Rift Valley about 200,000 years ago.

All humans share a common direct maternal ancestor known as Mitochondrial Eve. She is believed to be a part of a small group of humans who lived in Africa around the time of Idaltu skull.

Mitochondrial DNA found in our cells is the genetic signature that has been passed from from mother to child. Mitochondrial Eve was a woman who lived 200,000 years ago who had enough daughters in a continuous chain that her Mitochondrial DNA survived.

Homo sapiens eventually migrated across the African continent around 120,000 years ago. It is only between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago that some common ancestors began to leave the continent and spread our kind across the rest of the world.

Because of this history, Africa is considered the most genetically diverse of all the continents, with various peoples from the rest of the world forming a subset of that diversity.

The descendants of our common ancestors who remained in Africa passed through many of the same great historical transitions during the same eras as those who migrated.

• This includes the transition from foraging (hunting and gathering) to farming societies, occurring between 10,000 and 5,000 BC.

• And transitions like the emergence of towns and urban life that notably began developing in the early fourth millennium BC along the Nubian Nile south of Egypt.

Video Link here:

wosu.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/585719bf-a860-4f09-9888-3a68879df132/mitochondrial-eve-and-homo-sapiens-in-africas-great-rift-valley/?student=true&focus=true