Geographical Location Of Ancient Africa Essay

Africa is broken up into the three relatively isolated parts which include north, central, and south (Source 4, emailed chart). The north is a vast desert which has tough weather conditions, it is hard to plant crops.. The central is where much of thee rainforest in the continent grows. The south is seen to have the best weather out of the three parts, however it still very isolated except by sea, though once there only has minor obstacles making it hard to get around. The bad weather conditions also made it very hard to store food in the rainforests, the humidity causing rot (Source 4).

Neolithic people that had lived in Egypt began to travel toward the northern corner of the continent of Africa. Records and writing show the ruins of the early civilizations, and the setting of Sub- Saharan Africa had a great impact on human growth. Kingdoms thrived through this time because of the natural resources that the geography of Africa provided. The ancient Kingdoms of Africa were Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. They are located in the western region of Africa. The kingdoms became very prosperous and their achievements impacted the following world that grew in the later years.

The early civilizations of Africa were different in many of their cultural traits. One common trait they did have in common was the importance of trade in their society. Although trade was good for the African civilizations, there was consequences that followed trading. I will be using documents B, F, and D to support how early African civilizations had consequences from trading. In document B it states that, “The door of the pavilion is guarded by dogs on an excellent breed… who wear collars of gold and silver,” this quote helps support the idea that Ghana had lots of gold and wealth.

When I began reading Chapter 1 of “Mistaking Africa,” it reminded me of our first class meeting. Professor Crowley asked us to do the same exercise Curtis Keim talks about in the text. Professor Crowley asked us what comes to mind when we think about Africa. It is a great exercise and allow us to express our perceptions of Africa. Even in class, it took me time to think about what comes to mind when I hear the word Africa, because I have not really heard much about it besides the common misconceptions: “Africa is a primitive place, full of trouble and wild animals, and in need of our help” (5). I frequently see the UNICEF commercial with Alyssa Milano, who asks her viewers how it would feel to be able to save a child’s life for fifty cents a day. The commercial precedes to play really depressing music and shows a slideshow of undernourished children, who fend for themselves in

The Kingdom of Ghana was a rich and mysterious country. The Ancient country lay where Maturia, Mali, and Senegal are to day. The kingdom existed from 700-1200 A.D. but people had been living in the area since the Fourth century A.D. Ghana's Golden age was from the Ninth to the Eleventh century A.D. During this time gold was abundant along with salt and other valuable goods. These items made Ghana a rich nation where the primary income was made from trading with the Arabs and other African nations. Even though trading was the main source of income, most of the common people were farmers. These farmers grew crops like corn, wheat, and rice. All of these reasons make the Ancient Kingdom of Ghana a desireable place to move to.

Athletes who compete in a college sport should get paid a small amount of cash for all they do. When a student is involved in a college sport, it consumes much of their life, and they do not have much time to do anything else. Since these athletes are not supposed to be paid, when they are paid athletes suffer great consequences that hurt the rest of their careers. It should be the college’s choice whether they want to pay a player to come play at their school or not. This would help many of these players who do not have enough time for a job. Almost all of these athletes’ time has something to do with the sport they are involved in, whether it is practice, games, or film. Many teams make their athletes go out and be involved with their community.

1) What were the major empires of West Africa from 1200-1500? What were their major

Uneducated and underdeveloped? “Half devil half child?” These phrases were used to describe the “underdeveloped” “country” of Africa. Ancient Ghana proved modern day authors and historians wrong as it created a culture which focused on trade, government, and religion. This quote is a basic description of Ghana during their rule from 400-1200 AD, “...

During the 1800s western society began to take an interest in creating political emprise all around the world. With this in mind, many European nations started looking at Africa. In 1880s only 10 percent of Africa was controlled by some European nation. Some of the 10 percent included the French who were in control of Algiers, Portuguese in parts of western Africa and British and Dutch colonies in South Africa. However that small percentage quickly grow with European nations started to gain control of almost all of Africa. By the 1900 European countries, control the majority of African

Egypt is located on the northeast corner of Africa. Egyptians are the population who lived in Egypt. They created an advanced civilization, with cutting-edge systems such as medicine, writing, farming and irrigation.

Geography had a tremendous impact on early civilizations, the topography of the different regions played a key role in their development and formation. This statement by Fernand Braudel “ Geography is the stage in which humanity’s endless dramas are played out” (Getz et al., Exchanges, 26) is a very moving and telling description. The terrain, whether it is natural or man made is not the end all, be all. It does however affect the stage a great deal. Mountainous areas act as blockades, which keep the societies independent, plains open up the area, and rivers enable everything to move around freely. 2

Ancient Africa held many treasures like gold and salt that could be used to build a large empire. A few men did exactly that. African empires were wealthy and great before men from Europe came onto the scene. Before the arrival of the Europeans, African civilizations from 300 to 1400 CE were wealthy, flourished in trade, and encouraged things like education, the arts, and security.

Mali has a unique geography. Mali is 478,842 square miles. This causes the state to be the 8th largest state in Africa! The average day temperature is about 100 degrees fahrenheit. Whereas, the normal night temperature is 50 degrees fahrenheit. This is unique because the temperature can change so much in one day. Mali does not get much rain. In the center of Mali, there is limited vegetation. There main resources are rice and corn. People in Mali normally have vegetation along riversides. Some environmental issues in Mali include, desertification, deforestation, soil erosion and droughts. All of this is caused because of people and the blazing heat.

     A pattern that was common among the ancient civilizations of China, Rome, Greece, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and India was that most of them started as a dictatorship, a monarchy, or a dynasty. Eventually, most of them changed to a democracy, republic, or to class systems. Almost all of the civilizations had one or two great leaders. For example, Egypt had King Tut, Greece had Alexander the Great and Rome had Julius Caesar.

Diseases such as smallpox and polio have killed hundreds of thousands of children in the past. Now thanks to the vaccines these diseases are eradicated. But even eradicated disease can come back if people are not vaccinated. A disease is never truly eradicated, there is always people from other countries coming into the United States and they can bring any number of illnesses with them. Take the example of polio I used in the last paragraph, polio should be one of those diseases that is eradicated in the United States. Someone in that Amish community probably did some mission work in another country, contracted polio and brought it back to the United States. One person is all it takes to make an illness that we believe is eradicated to prove to us that it is not. It is important to continue vaccinating children to keep harmful and deadly diseases like polio from resurfacing. International travel and immigration keep diseases like polio alive in the United States even if we have eradicated them on our own soil.