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Did any of the non-northern Mediterranean/Nile influenced groups ever advanced to technologically advanced civilizations? Or was it primarily tribal conquering

Did any of the non-northern Mediterranean/Nile influenced groups ever advanced to technologically advanced civilizations? Or was it primarily tribal conquering/uniting?

dang 5y ago
You started a tedious race flamewar and perpetuated it downthread. We ban accounts that do that. Please don't do that on HN again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
prmph 5y ago
Is that a rhetorical questions or you genuinely seek to expand your knowledge? In case it’s the latter, then your slant of: > northern Mediterranean/Nile influenced groups is weird. Many European cultures were influenced by the Romans, who were influenced by the Greeks, who were influenced by other cultures. The flow of ideas across time and space is what actually gives rise to civilizations. So what if an African civilization was influenced by another civilization? Does that make it less meaningful? As for what civilizations Africa had, you can read about Kerma/Napata/Kush/Nubia, Aksum, Kongo, Swahili coast, Ghana/Mali/Songhai, Kanem-Bornu, Egypt, etc. However, I suspect you have your mind made up, hence the dismissive “Or was it primarily tribal conquering/uniting?”
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  There's lots of people in this thread demonstrating exactly what this Great Zimbabwe project is about. The history of Africa that many of us have been taught is basically "there were a bunch of black people living in mud huts forever, and then the White Man came and gave them civilisation". This is an ideological and inaccurate portrayal history designed to make African people look backwards. In actuality, despite a challenging climate, various African groups built cities and civilisations. The idea to use European civilisational and technological development as the measure for all other places is also absurd, because you could sample various points in time where e.g. Britain was a place of warring tribes with pointy sticks while China or the Middle East had thriving civilisations. Real life history is not a game of Civ where everyone starts at the same point and races through a bunch of predetermined milestones.
  - edmcnulty101 5y ago
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      It's like you didn't even read my comment. Why do you think everybody is just stacking technologies on top of a shared pool? That's a post-globalisation concept. African people discovered plenty of technologies including metal forging - but they were less technologically advanced than Europeans when they were invaded. Why? Because the material situation in Europe is ideal for technological development. The climate is temperate, food is abundant, the Romans went everywhere dumping their own advanced tech on everybody, probably other factors a historian could elaborate. There are plenty of alternative explanations to the one you're implying, and the one that's been historically taught, which is "black people are not capable of developing civilisation or technology". Edit given you appended "at any point in time": basically no milestone technological development has happened anywhere for quite some time now, excluding computers and the Internet. Everything's incremental now. Plus for much of that time many African countries have either been trying to recover from colonialism or been caught up in civil war (which should be expected when a power vacuum is created). I would say that mobile money is a good candidate for a meaningful invention though, and that came out of Nigeria.
      - edmcnulty101 5y ago
        >> Because the material situation in Europe is ideal for technological development. The climate is temperate, food is abundant, >> the one that's been historically taught, which is "black people are not capable of developing civilisation or technology". Jared Diamond posits the first theory, as well, in Guns, Germs, Steel. These are competing theories for sure, amongst probably a massive number of other theories. If you're trying to have a more accurate perception of reality you have to leave yourself open to even uncomfortable truths.
        beaconstudios 5y ago
        The "uncomfortable truth" (that black people are socially or intellectually inferior to white people) /is/ the established idea. We're only just now looking for alternative explanations because it turns out black people are regular people too and can function perfectly well within our "superior white civilisation", assuming they're not too busy being lynched or pushed into ghettos. White superiority (dare I say, white supremacy?) has only just become uncomfortable instead of the accepted truth, because the evidence points to other explanations, and we've recently noticed what racial ideology leads to. It is not those looking at material explanations and examining African culture and development that are dogmatically clinging to ideological explanations - it's those who still think that colonial propaganda and white savior mythology represent a disinterested examination of the evidence.
- edmcnulty101 5y ago
  Out of 55 countries in Africa, if you exempt the mediterranean countries, out of the free flow of ideas across time and space on the African continent throughout history, what major technological advancements emerged from continental Africa?
  - rendall 5y ago
    I was curious, so I looked this up. Inoculation, iron metallurgy and myriad practices in agriculture including rice cultivation and terraced irrigation. There are also technologies not adopted that are still pretty cool, including talking drums.
astine 5y ago
Well, the Swahili coast is nowhere near the Nile/Mediterranean and it was quite advanced. But that was connected to the Arab world via trade and I think what you mean is did any African societies develop to a similar level of sophistication without influences from outside of Africa? That's a complicated question that I'm not qualified to answer (Congo maybe?), but I'd point out that even in the ancient near east, trade and contact with foreigners preceded the development of civilization in those regions and European civilization especially owes a lot of its success to contact with outside civilizations. So the fact the most well-known African civilizations had regular trade contacts with Eurasia should not do much to diminish the accomplishments of those civilizations as such. For example, it's possible that iron smelting began in the Sahel in Africa, and from there spread to the Near East/Mediterranean rather than the other way around which would mean that Africa entered the iron age well before the rest of the world. [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_metallurgy_in_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_metallurgy_in_Africa
woodruffw 5y ago
This is a weird dichotomy, given that the Roman state has its origin in a series of tribal unifications and that "technologically advanced" is a relative term (i.e., relative to neighboring societies and groups) when doing anthropological research on ancient civilizations.

Did any of the non-northern Mediterranean/Nile influenced groups ever advanced to technologically advanced civilizations? Or was it primarily tribal conquering/uniting?

dang 5y ago

You started a tedious race flamewar and perpetuated it downthread. We ban accounts that do that. Please don't do that on HN again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

prmph 5y ago

Is that a rhetorical questions or you genuinely seek to expand your knowledge? In case it’s the latter, then your slant of: > northern Mediterranean/Nile influenced groups is weird. Many European cultures were influenced by the Romans, who were influenced by the Greeks, who were influenced by other cultures. The flow of ideas across time and space is what actually gives rise to civilizations. So what if an African civilization was influenced by another civilization? Does that make it less meaningful? As for what civilizations Africa had, you can read about Kerma/Napata/Kush/Nubia, Aksum, Kongo, Swahili coast, Ghana/Mali/Songhai, Kanem-Bornu, Egypt, etc. However, I suspect you have your mind made up, hence the dismissive “Or was it primarily tribal conquering/uniting?”

beaconstudios 5y ago
There's lots of people in this thread demonstrating exactly what this Great Zimbabwe project is about. The history of Africa that many of us have been taught is basically "there were a bunch of black people living in mud huts forever, and then the White Man came and gave them civilisation". This is an ideological and inaccurate portrayal history designed to make African people look backwards. In actuality, despite a challenging climate, various African groups built cities and civilisations. The idea to use European civilisational and technological development as the measure for all other places is also absurd, because you could sample various points in time where e.g. Britain was a place of warring tribes with pointy sticks while China or the Middle East had thriving civilisations. Real life history is not a game of Civ where everyone starts at the same point and races through a bunch of predetermined milestones.
- edmcnulty101 5y ago
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    It's like you didn't even read my comment. Why do you think everybody is just stacking technologies on top of a shared pool? That's a post-globalisation concept. African people discovered plenty of technologies including metal forging - but they were less technologically advanced than Europeans when they were invaded. Why? Because the material situation in Europe is ideal for technological development. The climate is temperate, food is abundant, the Romans went everywhere dumping their own advanced tech on everybody, probably other factors a historian could elaborate. There are plenty of alternative explanations to the one you're implying, and the one that's been historically taught, which is "black people are not capable of developing civilisation or technology". Edit given you appended "at any point in time": basically no milestone technological development has happened anywhere for quite some time now, excluding computers and the Internet. Everything's incremental now. Plus for much of that time many African countries have either been trying to recover from colonialism or been caught up in civil war (which should be expected when a power vacuum is created). I would say that mobile money is a good candidate for a meaningful invention though, and that came out of Nigeria.
    - edmcnulty101 5y ago
      >> Because the material situation in Europe is ideal for technological development. The climate is temperate, food is abundant, >> the one that's been historically taught, which is "black people are not capable of developing civilisation or technology". Jared Diamond posits the first theory, as well, in Guns, Germs, Steel. These are competing theories for sure, amongst probably a massive number of other theories. If you're trying to have a more accurate perception of reality you have to leave yourself open to even uncomfortable truths.
      - beaconstudios 5y ago
        The "uncomfortable truth" (that black people are socially or intellectually inferior to white people) /is/ the established idea. We're only just now looking for alternative explanations because it turns out black people are regular people too and can function perfectly well within our "superior white civilisation", assuming they're not too busy being lynched or pushed into ghettos. White superiority (dare I say, white supremacy?) has only just become uncomfortable instead of the accepted truth, because the evidence points to other explanations, and we've recently noticed what racial ideology leads to. It is not those looking at material explanations and examining African culture and development that are dogmatically clinging to ideological explanations - it's those who still think that colonial propaganda and white savior mythology represent a disinterested examination of the evidence.
edmcnulty101 5y ago
Out of 55 countries in Africa, if you exempt the mediterranean countries, out of the free flow of ideas across time and space on the African continent throughout history, what major technological advancements emerged from continental Africa?
- rendall 5y ago
  I was curious, so I looked this up. Inoculation, iron metallurgy and myriad practices in agriculture including rice cultivation and terraced irrigation. There are also technologies not adopted that are still pretty cool, including talking drums.

astine 5y ago

Well, the Swahili coast is nowhere near the Nile/Mediterranean and it was quite advanced. But that was connected to the Arab world via trade and I think what you mean is did any African societies develop to a similar level of sophistication without influences from outside of Africa? That's a complicated question that I'm not qualified to answer (Congo maybe?), but I'd point out that even in the ancient near east, trade and contact with foreigners preceded the development of civilization in those regions and European civilization especially owes a lot of its success to contact with outside civilizations. So the fact the most well-known African civilizations had regular trade contacts with Eurasia should not do much to diminish the accomplishments of those civilizations as such. For example, it's possible that iron smelting began in the Sahel in Africa, and from there spread to the Near East/Mediterranean rather than the other way around which would mean that Africa entered the iron age well before the rest of the world. [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_metallurgy_in_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_metallurgy_in_Africa

woodruffw 5y ago

This is a weird dichotomy, given that the Roman state has its origin in a series of tribal unifications and that "technologically advanced" is a relative term (i.e., relative to neighboring societies and groups) when doing anthropological research on ancient civilizations.