Why did traditional Africa not develop technology ?

[Al B. Sure!]

These communication difficulties occur at every scale, local regional and continental, making trade impracticible for all but the most valubable items. Thus ideas from other places as well as many scarce materials remained where they were.

i have one of those history atlases that shows clearly the dramatic change in the african populations in ancient times, showing there must have been mass migrations and contact between all of africa... not on the scale of central asia but still significant... i'll try to find a map online but i'll briefly describe some population changes.

Africa south of the Kongo but also including east africa in 2000 BC was made up of Khoisan speaking peoples. the linguistic group in the Kongo is not known by historians but probably was not Niger-Kordofanian/Bantu. The Sudan, Chad, and Niger were of the Nilo-Saharan language group. The Bantu existed only along a region in west africa from roughly Nigeria to Liberia.

By 1000 AD, however, the Khoisan group was reduces to mainly the Nama and Ikung peoples in southwest africa while the Bantu filled up west africa, the kongo, and bantu peoples like the Xhosa and Shona were in south africa.

so the point is, there was plenty of migrations and contact between all of sub-saharan africa...

and yes, i now realize that the philly public school system was probably exaggerating the glories of sub-saharan africa. nevertheless, it was more advanced than i think people here are thinking


thanks

[Al B. Sure!]

a little bit of ivory and metal (yes... metal) sculpture from Benin around the period we're talking about... these were made by Michaelangelo's and daVinci's African contemporaries in Benin (which it should be noted was a pagan state with nearly no contact with the arab world.. if they were muslim, such sculpture would be heretical for muslims)

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
*insert UberKrux style reply here*

@ Krux

man, i wish i had more time to post here on poly. hard with 2 jobs and, you know, sleep.

anyway, not to disappoint you:

it all went bad when the great nations and Ghana of Nubia adopted a welfare program. Pretty much the rest of the continent didn't see any reason to produce anything, saw no reason to enhanse the society at all. they just signed up at their local Nubian/Ghanaian welfare office, and let the gold and salt come to them.

After a long time of doing this, Ghana and Nubia inevitably collapsed, while the "breeder" african class grew too large for the actual working class to support. when the "breeders" realized they were not getting their welfare goods, they rose up and killed all of the working class. With the entire working class dead, the surviving Africans now had a genetic predisposition to laziness, welfare scamming, and flat out leeching off society.

NEXT WEEK! GANGSTA CULTURE!

(edit: off to work! fun fun fun!)

[DAVOUT]

Isolation, diseases, absence of competition from invaders, lack of writing, all these reasons together, and possibly more, can explain that Africa did not enter the technology age. But they do not explain why, after the decolonisation where they have largely disappeared, it is so difficult (and is seems even impossible) for the African nations to enter the cycle of development.

All those who have been in school with black African students know that their abilities are not the problem. They possibly express more easily talents in literature and associated fields, but this is obviously expected from children who grown up in the total absence of science and technology. But they have also displayed immense talents in arts, and they have to-day fabulous sculptors.

One of the reasons still explaining this situation could be due to the extended family structure and internal rules which demands for any member to care for all others. Individual wise men cannot emerge from the family (unless by virtue of seniority when they are very old), because that would imply that they studied alone, and being alone is not allowed. For the same reason, reading is difficult and not appreciated by the family because it cut you from the others. Can you imagine what would be your attitude regarding science and technology if your family had consistently forbidden you to read?

During the last forty years, all development plans have failed; it looks like African only utilizes those artefacts that make the situation worse : medicine which increases overpopulations, firearms for African wars, or tribal wars (which unfortunately did not put an end to entire genocides committed with machetes), income from natural resources generating elite corruption.

The analysis of the African problem has yet to be done, and there is not much to expect from spectacular actions addressing specific points.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
say what?

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

Must rip off fingers, I'm agreeing with Speer.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
Isolation

When was Africa isolated from other parts of the world?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
The problem with saying Europe is backward is that they TOOK OVER THE WORLD! For a backward civilization that is quite a feat.

*cough* *cough* Mongols, Huns, Turks, Avars.

Backwardness isn't necessarily a hindrence from conquering the world.

[MrFun]

I cannot recall any period when African civilizations were isolated from other parts of the world.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by MrFun


When was Africa isolated from other parts of the world?

This has been demonstrated above by several posters : no access to seas for many, and those who have sea access have not seafaring ability to travel far; also desert like Sahara are serious barreers. Then jungle is very hostile in all respect including travels.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by DAVOUT


This has been demonstrated above by several posters : no access to seas for many, and those who have sea access have not seafaring ability to travel far; also desert like Sahara are serious barreers. Then jungle is very hostile in all respect including travels.

But those statements seem to contradict the fact that African civilizations had contact through Arabian merchants and caravans that crossed to the other side of the Sahara Desert.

Chinese explorers also had contact with African civilizations in the 1300's and 1400's before the Chinese emperor made the stupid mistake in dismantling his navy.

[CerberusIV]

The historical answer is probably mainly due to political and social structure/hierarchy. Compare to medieval/renaissance europe. Most technological developments took place in countries without a central traditionalist monarchical government (Netherlands, Italy, various german states) where economic competition was strong and state reluctance to permit new ideas limited. New technology and ideas were seen as either interesting or of potential commercial and military benefit.

The one tribe who we know used a new technology were the Zulu. They were originally pretty weak and suffered military defeats. Then Shaka (or someone) thought of a new weapon, the stabbing spear, and the military structure to use it. Result - military domination of the surrounding area and tribes. But then trapped by the social/military system that had given them success they stagnated.

The colonial era is fairly self explanatory. Most of the european colonial powers didn't trust africans to run their countries at all (and the British often imported south asians to do it instead).

Since 1945 there has been more political stagnation. I read a comment somewhere that the leaders who achieved independence for their countries were not the people with the right skills and abilities to run those countries after independence.

Now? How do you get from basic agriculture and a poor transport infrastructure to putting satellites into orbit? India has done it but most african countries are starting from an even lower base and without the sheer scale of resources to make it possible. They cannot catch up without political stability and two or three generations of very hard work. No african leader or country seems to have the will to do it at the moment. So their current situation is somewhat demotivating, not to mention AIDS, foreign aid induced dependence, periodic famine and external political destabilisation.


A brief comment and making several assumptions but I doubt if anyone would thank me for a 5000 word essay on the subject.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by MrFun


But those statements seem to contradict the fact that African civilizations had contact through Arabian merchants and caravans that crossed to the other side of the Sahara Desert.

Chinese explorers also had contact with African civilizations in the 1300's and 1400's before the Chinese emperor made the stupid mistake in dismantling his navy.

This is not a contradiction : Arabs merchants made some commerce (slaves), and Chinese came once and left definitely. They were no African merchants, soldiers and explorers visiting the rest of the known world, which resulted in an almost inexistant acquisition of knoledge from abroad.

[PLATO]

Cereberus is getting to the fundamental differences. African societal and governmental structure was not set up to encourage the accumulation of wealth. Without the accumulation of wealth then the day to day cycle is concerned with survival. Europe was able to create a class that could spend time on increasing efficiency instead of day to day survival. This still has not occured in many parts of Africa where populations entire energies are focused on their own survival.

[Spiffor]

Well, thanks everyone for the answers. This thread is a very interesting read

[Al B. Sure!]

Davout:

Isolation?

didn't i just say that the ethnic groups in africa changed constantly due to massive migrations? How did the Bantu go from Nigeria to south africa if there was no contact between african groups?

They were no African merchants, soldiers and explorers visiting the rest of the known world, which resulted in an almost inexistant acquisition of knoledge from abroad.

There is that famous story of Mansa Musa and his massive pilgrimage to Mekka... and the cities of Timbuktu and Jenne attracted scholars from various parts of the world.