AE1

Unit Six: The Othered: Africa and the Americas 1000 BCE-1000 CE 6.1 Alterity

It is important to recognize that civilization was not just limited to those areas of the Afroeurasian world that experienced empire-building or whose integration into trade networks meant that they were part of a broader, more tightly knit, world. We also need to take seriously the history of those peoples whose experiences diverged from this model, looking closely at civilizations in sub-Saharan Africa and in the Americas. Making comparisons between the experiences of these regions with other areas of the world that we have studied will make some important elements clear. Demographic historians believe that less than 20% of the world’s population -- some 50 million people -- lived in the Americas and sub-Saharan Africa. In many cases these people lacked access to heavy draft animals or never developed a pastoral economy, which meant that they pursued alternative paths in the course of their development. These alternatives are important, and they speak to the diversity and creativity of the human experience. In some cases, people developed complex societies that were not centered on towns and cities; in others they developed complex societies with intricate trade and communications networks. In some cases empires formed, in others they did not. Some societies developed well-established religious traditions with an entrenched priestly class; in others religious experience remained rooted in local tradition and folklore. We see, in other words, the value of understanding the diverse range of human society and culture. But this is also a history class, so it remains important not just to note the diversity of human society and culture, but also to investigate how it changed over time. 6.2 African Geography

During the Classical Era of second-wave civilizations, some 85% of the world’s population lived in Europe and Asia. Africa was home to 10% of that global population. And it is important to keep in mind that the millions of people living in Africa during this period did not recognize a shared identity based on their shared continent. Instead, the geographical diversity of Africa helped shape its historical trajectory in the period before modern colonization.

It is useful to look at Africa as being split into different geographical zones. The Horn of Africa and the Nile River Valley is one contact zone, and as we saw the River system was used by people not only as a source of irrigation that supported widespread agriculture, but it also was used as a conduit of transport. The highlands of Africa, about which we will learn more in the following section, was connected not only to the Mediterranean through trade, but also to the Arabian peninsula across the Red Sea.

Northwest Africa and the Sahara form another analytical unit. Societies there included not only the mighty Carthaginians (who fought three brutal wars again Rome for control of the Mediterranean in the Punic Wars), but also the trans-Saharan trading cities like Timbuktu, which were connected East and West Africa to the Mediterranean through its vast trading network.

Finally, there is sub-Saharan Africa, a territory that encompasses both equatorial rainforests, arid deserts, and vast grasslands. Sub-Saharan Africa, which experienced lower population densities than other areas, continued to see hunter-gatherer societies thrive for centuries after the practice was abandoned in more densely populated areas. Indeed, one of the big stories about the history sub-Saharan Africa, and one we will consider shortly, is how the

settling of Southern Africa by Bantu-speaking agriculturalists fundamentally transformed the historical trajectories of the continent. 6.3 Meroë

In the Northeast region of Africa, the Nubian civilization continued to flourish between 300 B.C.E. and 100 C.E., even as Egypt came under the control of the Roman Empire. The monarchs who ruled Nubia resided in Meroë, a city on the Nile River with a flourishing economy built around agriculture, herding, and a variety of trades (from textile production to metal working). Surrounded by agricultural and pastoral zones, Meroë also benefited from long- distance commerce with markets in the broader Mediterranean world. In its earlier phase as a civilization, Nubians religion reflected the influence of Egyptian theology; and Egyptian hieroglyphics were the basis for the Nubian system of writing. As Egypt lost its autonomy to Rome, Egyptian cultural practices declined in Nubia, replaced by worship of local gods and a writing system created in Meroë. Between 100 C.E. and 400 C.E., Nubian autonomy eroded as the kingdom’s access to natural resources declined with the disappearance of its regional forests.

The city of Meroë was a center of Nubian civilization. The city, which was in the southern regions of Nubian influence, was ruled by a monarchy, and this political position was not limited to men. Ten women held the power of the throne, and they ruled as Queen. This was in contrast Hatshepsut in Egypt, who ruled as King and used masculine pronouns. The city economy was a diverse one consisting not only of tradesmen (metal workers, weavers, and merchants) but also laborers -- both free and enslaved. Over time, this connection to Egypt also meant that Meroë was exposed to Hellenism, and we see Greek influences developing in Meroë over time.

Outside the city people earned their livelihoods through both agriculture and herding. Farming, unlike the case in Egypt, was not completely dependent on the annual flooding of the Nile which meant that farming was a more diverse and widespread than what is seen in other areas. One consequence of this fact is that the rural population did not experience the same degree of political control as was the case in Egypt. Meroë , in other words, was an important economic and political center, but it was unable to exert quite the same degree of control over subject populations, who were still expected to pay tribute to the rulers in Meroë . Scholars note that Meroë ’s status came from its ability to leverage its connections to long-distance trade routes. Meroë tradesmen not only took advantage of riverine trade routes up and down the Nile River, which connected the city to Egypt and the Mediterranean as well as the highlands of Ethiopia, it also tapped into trans-Saharan trade networks. In this way, Meroë was a part of a thriving trade zone that criss-crossed North Africa -- connecting Meroë to cities as far away as Marrakech, Timbuktu, and Fez. This trade was a robust and diverse one. The Meroë se traded iron and cotton for a wide range of commodities, including gold and ivory. Over time, the power and influence of Meroë began to decline, in part due to shifts in the way that trade operated. In particular, when trade shifted from the Nile to the Red Sea, Meroë found itself excluded from the lucrative routes and their access to resources shriveled. By 100 CE their influence was on the wane. These people then experienced a series of dramatic and radical changes. Meroë was opened up to the influence of Christianity in the 4th century CE, and this region of the world was dominated by Christianity for nearly 1000 years; only with the advent of Arab trading in the 14th century, and the Islamic faith these traders brought with them, did Meroë fall under the sway of Islamic influences that still characterize the region.

6.4 Axum In the first century of the Common Era, the kingdom of Axum took shape to southeast of

Nubia. The economic foundation for this emerging civilization was a diverse economy that funneled trade goods and agricultural products through the port city of Adulis, on the Red Sea. Using plows, the region’s farmers cultivated cash crops of barley, millet, and wheat. And the region’s merchants exported trade items from the interior of the continent (including animal skins, ivory, and human captives) and imported items from distant markets across the Indian Ocean economy. Likewise, Axum’s language and alphabet were imported from the Arabian peninsula. Axum’s rulers used their civilization’s accumulated wealth to create magnificent monuments in their capital city. Stone pillars memorializing particular monarchs reached heights of more than 100 feet, an impressive architectural feat given that these markers were carved out of individual rocks rather than being assembled out of multiple stone elements.

The city of Axum in modern-day Ethiopia represented a rival to Meroë’s power and influence. Axum was located in the highlands of Ethiopia, close to the coast of the Red Sea. Unlike Meroë, which built its trade network both up and down the Nile as well as tapping into the trans-Sahara trade networks, Axum was oriented towards the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. In this fashion, Axum was able to help satisfy Roman demands for key commodities like pearls, textiles, and spices. Axum was able to exact tribute on this trade from Adulis, further enriching the city and its elites. Importantly, Axum’s fortunes ascended just as Meroë’s declined -- in each case due no small part to the shifting nature of trade routes. Axum’s monumental architecture meant to highlight the power, significance, and influence of the city elites. Axum was a powerful and significant polity. Historians believe that the Romans considered them to be an empire (just as they and the Persians were). This connection to Rome and to the Mediterranean also meant that Axum was exposed to Hellenism and to the influence of the Greeks. The religious history of Axum centers on the importation of Christianity in the 4th C CE. This happened because of its connections to the Roman world. King Ezana of Axum converted to Christianity in the 4th century, making him and Emperor Constantine of Rome two leaders who each adopted Christianity and gave it a certain prestige. In other words, King Ezana’s royal authority made Christianity acceptable and lent it an institutional prestige. With Ezana’s conversion, Christianity made inroads into Axumite society, and connected the Kingdom religiously not only to Rome but also to Egypt, which was under the influence of Coptic Christians. 6.5 Jenne-Jeno

Diverging from the pattern of the centralized political systems of Nubia and Axum, city- states along the Niger River in West Africa seem to have been governed without elaborate formal institutions of power. From roughly 500 B.C.E. to 900 C.E., many different city-states rose and declined in this part of Africa. Jenne-Jeno was perhaps the most significant example of this kind of society, maintaining a population of some 40,000 people despite the absence of a sizeable military, a legal system delineating clear class boundaries, or large structures through which an elite communicated their influence over the rest of the society. Instead, power dynamics in Jenne-jeno reflected a rough equality of influence being exercised by highly skilled tradesmen producing metalwork, textiles and pottery. Not only did the city’s residents engage in mutually profitable local commerce, but they also cultivated trade relationships with farmers, miners, and merchants many hundreds of miles away.

West Africa, which experienced changes in climate that disrupted the formation of large polities, nonetheless saw the rise of urban centers that dominated the political and economic landscape. These cities, however, were not a part of some larger state apparatus. The absence of some overarching polity is a puzzling facet of West African urban life. Indeed, these cities cannot be termed “city-states,” because they lacked even that type of political structure. Large settlements like Jenne-Jeno, then, provide a remarkable counterpart to the usual historical narratives that describe a relentless process of political creation, consolidation, and expansion. Scholars suggest that in lieu of a state apparatus, even one that only functioned at the level of the city, places like Jenne-Jeno survived because of a process of economic specialization. Each city in the area dominated a key industry, thus ensuring its survival and integrating each city into a larger economic environment that promoted coordination rather than competition. Jenne-Jeno, for instance, was known for its iron smithing abilities, and the iron smiths of Jenne-Jeno were highly esteemed throughout the Niger River basin for their skill. Other urban centers promoted expertise in other industries, for instance textiles or leather working. Over time these urban centers were conflated with occupational guilds that controlled aspects of the social environment, dictating for instance marriage patterns and inheritance. Outside the cities, rural areas also saw a drive toward economic specialization that was linked to kinship and ethnicity.

Cities like Jenne-Jeno, which enjoyed a dominant position in one aspect of the economy, then had to trade -- sometimes over long distances -- in order to pull in all the resources that were necessary. Historians have evidence that by 500 CE, Jenne-Jeno was part of a long-distance trade network that connected West Africa to the Mediterranean coast, Egypt, and Central Africa. 6.6 Bantu

The Bantu population that pushed into the southern half of African in the early Common Era illustrated yet another pattern of political and economic movement. Bringing with them agricultural techniques that enabled them to compete with populations continuing to rely on Paleolithic practices, the Bantu expanded their geographic reach through a process of migration and displacement that played out over multiple generations. As had been the case in other parts of the world, Bantu societies that could sustain larger populations through agricultural and pastoral practices exposed the preexisting populations to diseases that decimated their ranks. In some areas such as the Kalahari region, those older societies were able to maintain their presence and to also influence (linguistically and theologically) the more recently arrived Bantu populations. In the case of the Batwa society in central Africa, Paleolithic economic practices were maintained but redirected to connect the Batwa to broader networks of trade with Bantu populations. Over the centuries of the Common Era, the Bantu populations developed considerable regional differences across the African continent, with distinctive variations emerging in language and in agricultural and pastoral techniques. Yet the many Bantu societies tended to have in common religious practices focused upon the veneration of ancestors and common cultural practices in which music and dance followed similar aesthetic conventions.

Unlike the Horn of Africa -- polities like Meroe and Axum -- and also dissimilar to the urban experiences of West Africa, Southern Africans did not develop the same type of civilization or socio-economic stratification that we see in Africa north of the Equator. To be clear, this is not a critique and it is important to remember that there are many paths through history. People living in Sub-Saharan Africa did not feel the same population pressures as those in the North; an urban center, let alone an empire, simply did possess the same logic in this part of the world. Instead, the dominant historical fact in this period is the Bantu migration -- the

movement of Bantu-speaking peoples throughout the vast interior space of Southern Africa. The evidence suggests that there were two waves of Bantu migrations -- one to East Africa and a second spreading south towards the Kalahari. Forest dwelling Bantu thrived in part due to banana cultivation, allowing massive growth in the population between 500-1000 CE. Much of the evidence for this migration is of a linguistic nature; linguistic scholars have identified more than 400 related languages, and by carefully tracing how languages change have created a fascinating picture of human migration in Southern Africa. The evidence suggests that the migrations originated in modern-day Cameroon and Nigeria around 3000 BCE. By 100 CE, Bantu speaking peoples had populated central Africa and scholars believe had probably reached the East Coast of Africa as well. From there, they spread throughout the rest of Southern Africa. Much of this process was a peaceful one, and as Bantu-speaking peoples came into contact with indigenous ones, they exchanged knowledge, cultural attitudes, and goods. In other cases, however, as when the agricultural Bantu displaced hunter-gatherers, conflicts could arise. Because of disease, their skill with iron implements, and the advantages of an agricultural lifestyle, the Bantu absorbed the people with whom they came into contact. But they were affected by this contact, learning new skills, religious attitudes, and -- in some cases, like the forest-dwelling Batwa peoples -- new lifestyles. 6.7 Mesoamerica

We’ve already seen something of the diversity of communities – some massively urban civilizations with a transcontinental military reach, some relatively conflict-free empires with a near-global trade footprint, and some widespread and loosely connected communities of related linguistic ancestry – on the continent of Africa. We’ve also seen how geographic and ecological factors (bodies of water, seas of sand, parasites and diseases, and even the basic problem of a north-south orientation) can shape or even slow down human exchange and movement. There’s probably no better example of this than the Americas, because for SO much of human history – really, for our purposes, until 1492 – massive salt water oceans kept the Americas pretty much to itself. Africa might have had some difficult areas, but it was still very much plugged into the general story, in huge and complex ways. The Americas, though, were going it alone.

And maybe this fact – their massive, splendid isolation – justifies us thinking of civilizations in the Andes of South America, in Mesoamerica (what’s now Mexico and Guatemala) in the southwest of what’s now the United States, and in the forested areas east and west of the Mississippi River Valley – as an afterthought. We talked about the numerical insignificance of Africa and the Americas, in raw human population, and that seems even more pronounced here. Remember that the Americas had something like five to seven percent of the world’s population around the beginning of the Common Era. That’s not nothing, but it’s not a big chunk, either.

Think about this, too – if Africa had a north-south problem – if its orientation meant that there were a lot of different climates and latitudes that migrating populations had to adapt to – think how much more the Americas faced this. Look at the map.

See how far this whole thing goes, north to south, tip to toe? And see that really mountainous, volcanic, thin, jungly part right here, right where North and South America are joined together? This is not easy to get across. The Americas in general are not easy going, and this pinched bit –Central America – is especially rugged. All this means that, for the most part, there ends up being not very much contact between, say, southern civilizations (like in the

Andes) and northern civilizations (for example, even the Teotihuacanians in present-day Mexico, let alone the peoples of the Mississippi River Valley.)

On the other hand - there’s so much diversity in topography, in ecology, in plants and animals and environments in Mesoamerica, it’s almost like a continent unto itself. From beaches to 12,000 foot snowcapped peaks, the territory of the Maya – kind of, more or less the current countries of Guatemala and Belize, with Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula thrown in – has been occupied for a long time, even before the earliest Maya came on the scene, perhaps 2,000 years before the common era. And when we talk about the Maya, we’re really focusing most on the rise of city-states with massive temple complexes, since around 500 BCE. Some of these cities were absolutely massive – the city of El Mirador, for example, was some six square miles in area even before the common era. These cities featured pyramids, plazas, and – starting a couple of hundred years BCE – a sort of public propaganda feature called a stela.

The stela is a massive upright stone with carvings in the Maya language, which takes the form of hieroglyphics – picture-writing, like the Egyptians used. And for the most part, these stelae were carved with messages that recorded important dates in the lives of rulers, taking care to magnify their glory, their fitness to rule, their general awesomeness. This, for the literate Mayan citizen in one of these grand cities, might have been the equivalent of a massive campaign poster. For historians, of course, these stelae provide us with an amazingly detailed record of what the Maya were up to.

The Maya, during their so-called “classical” period – the height of their power and sophistication, around 200 to 900 CE – formed dozens of such city-states, each with its own hierarchy of nobles and clergy, merchants and artisans, and each embedded within an impressive system of intersecting alliances and antagonisms with city-states around it. The states were frequently vying with one another – sometimes violently – for wealth and power. At the same time, trade routes allowed them frequent and long-range contact of a more cooperative kind, through which their shared culture and language, their art and religion and science, was communicated and celebrated. The Maya, for example, were pretty famous for their mathematical systems (inventing, for example, the concept of “zero” as a number – which is actually a lot more sophisticated than you might think.) They used these mathematical insights to work with astronomy and calendars. Two notable things about the Maya calendar – first, it was in base 20 (not base 10 – and this supposedly reflects the Maya propensity to count on their toes. Lots of other cultures do this, too – it’s not just the Maya that had the good idea.) Second, it was incredibly accurate. The Maya calculated the length of the solar year (it’s just a smidge under 365 and a quarter days, so that you know) with astonishing accuracy. They had a lot going on, is my point.

The networks of military and trade activities that I mentioned before brought the Maya into contact with another major Mesoamerican civilization, based in the city of Teotihuacan. Located to the west of Maya territory, the urban complex of Teotihuacan is about 25 miles from the present-day Mexico City. Weirdly, this is another of those civilizations that boast massive achievements – many impressive pyramids and temples, broad avenues, multi-story apartment houses, workshops and stores and markets – but no sign of military fortifications. The city’s history lasted from around 200 BCE to sometime in the seventh or eighth centuries, when a lot of the city – but only the high-class parts – were burned and destroyed. This might have been an attack from without, but it could also be evidence of a pretty angry lower class destroying the civilization from within. Whatever the case, it seems that at several points in its centuries of history, forces from Teotihuacan encountered Maya city-states, and in some cases – at least as

the Maya tell it – Teotihuacanian leaders managed to put their own candidates on a Mayan throne.

We only have the Maya’s word on this (carved in stone!) because the Teotihuacanians – again, unlike their boastful neighbors, the Maya – didn’t bother to write things down. Certainly they didn’t produce the self-aggrandizing infomercials that were Mayan stelae, giving glory to and claiming divine support for a particular ruler. Instead, the Teotihuacanians seem to have been content just to exist in their massive city until, relatively quickly, they were no more.

Abrupt ends seem to be a specialty in Mesoamerican civilizations, because the Maya, too, collapsed pretty rapidly. (To be clear, it’s not like they all suddenly died – and many city-states, like Chichen Itza up in the north of the Yucatan peninsula, kept right on rolling.) But in the southern lowlands, where lots of famous Maya city-states were located – Palenque, Copan, Tikal – almost all the population centers were, well, depopulated. Abandoned, almost, and all around the 9th century. And while the collapse of a single city like Teotihuacan is a big deal, surely, it’s not nearly as striking as an entire region of independent city-states running out of steam so quickly. Scholars continue to debate this – was it a huge drought? Disease? Warfare? What? But let’s keep in mind that plenty of Maya continued to live – if not in quite such splendor – when the Spanish showed up in the early 1500s.

In any case, we see that Mesoamerica was home to at least two important and influential civilizations that flourished roughly 200 BCE to 7 or 800 CE. These intricately connected, hierarchically structured, technologically and culturally impressive civilizations built on Mesoamericans peoples in the past, and would leave an important mark for their successors. 6.8 Andes

Scholars have identified three civilizations in the Andes that help us understand how politics, culture, and society operated in this part of the world. One of the important issues that we need to consider is the diverse terrain in the Andes--the coastal regions were vastly different than highlands and changes in altitude created almost infinite ecological niches that humans made use of. The oldest of these civilizations was based on the trading city Chavín de Huántar. Chavín developed around 900 BCE as the centerpiece of a pan-Andean religious movement. The movement spread, in part, due to Chavín’s location on the trade routes that connected these centers both to the coastal regions and to the Amazon. As we saw with the Silk Roads, religious change and conversion took advantage of traders, and the spread of Andean religion through trade is usefully compared to spread of religion by the Silk Roads. By around 750 BCE it is thought that Chavín had grown to a size of perhaps 2,000-3,000 people, but with social stratification, architectural distinctions based on status, and an elaborate temple. Religious rituals were dominated by the pan-Andean deities (jaguars, for instance.) and they included rites based on the use of hallucinogens meant to allow the priestly class access to the supernatural world of the gods. The city became an important one and was a pilgrimage site; its religious practices spread and scholars note that the city’s distinctive artistic styles were emulated across the region. Together, Chavín indicates how religion and trade could work hand in hand in the region.

The Moche peoples are a second example of Andean civilization. The Moche crafted a coastal civilization between 100-800 CE. They built complex Irrigation systems to channel snowmelt from the Andes, and this permitted a robust agricultural economy with a range of diverse crops supplemented with fish hauled in from the Pacific ocean. The largest city in the Moche civilization was Chan Chan, boasting a population of 20-30,000 people. Like Chavín, the

religious character of Moche civilization was based in the use of hallucinogens. Unlike Chavín, however, the rites also included human sacrifice. Priests were also often military leaders who captured subject peoples and used them in their religious rituals. The economy, based on agriculture but also tightly focused on religion, produced social stratification. This stratification was then reproduced in burial rites [photo “Lord of Sipan”], in which high status Mochians enjoyed intricate burial plots in which they were buried alongside material objects befitting their social status.

Finally, we consider the Wari and Tiwanaku peoples. These polities were located in the interior, away from the coast, and they demonstrate a type of political and cultural cohesion that transcended political borders. They reached their highpoint between 400-1000 CE, when their capital cities had populations numbering in the tens of thousands. Geography was an important consideration for these groups, and they formed what scholars have called “vertical colonies” that scaled the Andean mountain range. Establishing settlements at lower altitudes for the purpose of farming and to create a diverse range of foods, these groups relied on llama caravans for transport. The movement between capital city and colonial outpost created a type of integration that was notable for the region. 6.9 North America

Larger scale societies also emerged in North America. In the southwest of this continent, Hohokam society echoed practices that were staple features of Mesoamerica. By 300 B.C.E. the Hohokam population was constructing ceremonial platforms for religious services and engaging in ball sports. Yet North American societies did not simply reflect the widening influence of Mesoamerican civilizations. In the Mississippi Valley, agricultural society was emerging by 2,000 B.C.E. In time, the Hopewell population developed an economy predicated not only on the production of crops such as squash and other gourds but also on a vast trade network that stretched from the Rocky Mountains through the Great Lakes region and encompassing trade partners across the eastern half of North America. By 200 B.C.E., Hopewell societies were creating massive earthworks for ceremonial purposes. Excavating and moving soil to shape it into mounds, the Hopewell erected structures to serve as burial chambers and to conduct religious services. The pottery and artwork excavated from Hopewell mounds reveals that these populations were able to develop sophisticated artisanal and artistic traditions. The architectural scale of the mounds suggests that the Hopewell societies must have had sufficient institutions of government to be able to marshal sustained labor practices over periods of many years. Still, the Hopewell societies do not appear to have crossed the threshold to become civilizations on the scale established in Mesoamerica.

Here, as historians, we might pause to think about the choices we make when we include or exclude various societies from our discussion of world history. What criteria should scholars use when measuring which historical examples are significant enough to demand lots of attention? If we think about the Classical Era in terms of global population, it would make sense to mostly talk about Europe and Asia, home to some 85% of the world’s people; and it would make sense to talk relatively little about North America, home to 1% of that global population. But, by that token, if our conversation is going to be dictated by the number of people living within various cultural and political systems, our course should almost entirely have focused on the Paleolithic Era which stretched for hundreds of thousands of years and, likely, provided the framework for the lives led by the vast majority of human beings to ever walk the face of the earth.

Most world historians choose to emphasize factors that lead them away from such a course structure. For one, the limited evidence available to historians from this early (lengthy) phase of human history makes it difficult to develop satisfying interpretations of what people were up to those many tens and hundreds of thousands of years ago. The evidence gets much better once we get to the Neolithic Era—so just for practical reasons, scholars tend dive into that period with greater gusto. Beyond the question of historical evidence is our preoccupation with explaining change over time. We seek to identify the factors that lead human societies to establish innovative patterns that ripple outward affecting subsequent generations of human beings. Based on that kind of scholarly concern, it makes sense to spend more time in a world history course studying Mesopotamia than it does to spend that time on some society that, however fascinating in its own right, exerted little lasting influence on its surrounding populations and cultures.

Still, we should remain very aware of what we are doing when we focus on some historical settings and ignore others. In a one-semester course on world history to 1500, we are by definition ignoring most of human history during this period. We do NOT want to fall into the trap of assuming that societies that we are not discussing are somehow inferior in value to those that we are concentrating on. We have defined influential civilizations in terms of their effectiveness in creating institutions that enable them to expand their political and religious and economic reach. But this by no means the same thing as saying that these civilizations were better ethically or aesthetically or intellectually than other societies. Indeed, it might be that societies that showed the greatest ethical disregard for most human beings were the ones to develop the tools to maximize their influence. So let’s keep in mind what we are doing as we check in only briefly with the historical developments outside of Eurasia! 6.10 African Integration and American Isolation

In this unit we have investigated the history of different civilizations in Africa and the Americas. One of these continents -- Africa -- retained connections to the Eurasian world; The Americas, obviously, did not. In short, we can imagine a comparative exercise: how did the connections that Africa experienced transform its history? How did American isolation affect its development?

The African situation is perhaps to some degree a more complicated analytical problem. As we saw, The horn of Africa -- Egypt, Meroë, Axum -- retained connections throughout the Mediterranean world and into the Arabian Peninsula. These societies developed strong trading and artisanal economies; they experienced exposure to Hellenism and to Christianity. They also participated in long-distance trade networks that connected the rim of the Sahara desert, joining much of Northern Africa into a complex trading zone. They were, in short, connected to the Afroeurasian world, with all of the opportunities for trade, cross-cultural exchange, religious conversion, and violence that that entailed.

Southern Africa was a different story, however. The Bantu-speaking people certainly engaged in cross-cultural exchange -- sometimes absorbing new knowledges from people (like the key to banana cultivation from forest dwellers), at other times displacing hunter-gatherers from their ancestral lands and converting those territories into ones more suitable for agricultural production. The Bantu migrations, in other words, were themselves a form of integration, although one that continued to only be remotely joined to the other processes animating the forces driving the Afroeurasian world.

It is true that the Americas were isolated from this connected world, but it is too simple to suggest that there weren’t important forces joining the disparate regions of the Americas into a set of cohesive cultures. In North America, for instance, we see broad similarities in the experiences of indigenous Americans. The empires of central America were similarly forces of cultural, social, and indeed military integration. And the pan-Andean religious world defined by Chavín and the other civilizations of the Andes demonstrate how cultural beliefs may have transcended political borders and outlasted the individual groups provides evidence for a cultural integration that was especially long-lived.

In short, the Americas may have been isolated from the trade networks and military empires of the time, but they developed their own cultures and historical trajectories that were autonomous. Africa too may have been “integrated” into world systems, but neither completely nor uniformly.