Why did traditional Africa not develop technology ?

[Spiffor]

During my vacation, I've taken a little bit of interest for the precolonial African empires such as the Ghana/Mali/Songhai, the Ethiopians and the Zulu. (Mind you, I didn't put enough energy into it to actually buy books )
I am not talking about Egypt here, but about subsaharian African Civs.


Argguably save for the Zulu, these empires took most of their 'civilised' traits (technology, weaponry, political structure) from the Arabs or other influential mediterranean powers. Even Ethiopia owes its success to its Arab-influenced political structure.
Besides, they almost systematically got their butt spanked by non-African countries or tribes. Heck, even Timbuktu the golden Capitol was unable to defend itself from desert raiders. Sure they have put some resistance to the European all-out invasion, but modern Ethiopia was the only successful African nation against a non-African one ever.

Subsaharian Africans developed their way to the top of the food chain, and had dropped nomadism for a very long time, without any influence from the outside. Tribal wars were many, yet the Africans barely developped tech / efficient political structures by themselves.

How come ?

[The Mad Monk]

Welcome back, Spiffor!

A few possibilities?

- The climate
- Lack of domesticated animals
- Poor agricultural land
- Frequent Epidemics / Droughts / Famines which forced population movement
- Stupid People

I'm not saying that all were true, or any. This is just brainstorming.

[Az]

I don't think that Ethiopia owes the arabs anything.

Nubia was also an equal partner in the ancient world.

[Al B. Sure!]

say what?

you apparently didn't read enough if you came up with this stupid, horribly wrong conclusion that sub-saharan africa was primitive

[Ecthy]

*insert UberKrux style reply here*

@ Krux

[C0ckney]

population is a big factor, africa is very big, and there wasn't the same competition for land and resources there was in europe, the crops that the africans used were not efficent enough to produce the massive population booms that europe experianced at various points.

also no african people (except ethiopians) developed writting (and as a result could not build diplomats ), so no records could be kept, no knowledge stored in book, everything had to be handed down orally.

[Az]

it was primitive in relation to other parts of the world. that much has almost always been true.

[C0ckney]

and i agree with az here, ethiopia owes almost nothing to arabs, in fact its isolation (and some timely portuguese aid) is really what kept it alive as a state.

[Az]

The ethiopians didn't develope their own writing style, IIRC.

The person who made their alphabet was the same who wrote the Georgian and Armenian one. probably some Orthodox monk.

[Al B. Sure!]

During my vacation, I've taken a little bit of interest for the precolonial European empires such as the English/French/Germans, the Romans and the Swedes. (Mind you, I didn't put enough energy into it to actually buy books )
I am not talking about Alexander's Greece here, but about European Civs.


Argguably save for the Swedes, these empires took most of their 'civilised' traits (technology, weaponry, political structure) from the Greeks or other influential mediterranean powers. Even Rome owes its success to its Greek-influenced political structure.
Besides, they almost systematically got their butt spanked by non-European countries or tribes. Heck, even Rome the golden Capitol was unable to defend itself from nomadic raiders.

Europeans developed their way to the top of the food chain, and had dropped nomadism for a very long time, without any influence from the outside. Ethnic wars were many, yet the Europeans barely developped tech / efficient political structures by themselves.

[Dinner]

Don't forget most African kingdoms were more isolated from other kingdoms then a contemperary European, Asian, or Middle Eastern Kingdom would have been so they would have had less competetion and thus demand for technological innovations. Plus it would have taken much longer for other people's innovations to reach them as well so that almost insures they would be technologically backwards.

[Solly]

They are very primitive..intelligence maybe wasn't required for survival in Africa..if you get me.

[C0ckney]

albert, seriously, read some history.

az, i'm not entirely sure about exact origins of their writting, but i always thought it was the written form of ge-ez (old ethiopic), they certainly had it by the time the first portuguese found them.

[Az]

portuguese? the region was a well-known part of the old world for millenia.

[C0ckney]

it might well have been, but i know more about history from about 1200 onwards, so i'm going to talk about that