Why despite being the cradle of civilization did Africa never take off?

why despite being the cradle of civilization did Africa never take off?

>Sahara prevented sub saharan people trading in ideas with asia and europe
>Hot as fuck
>Communism post independance from european nations
>Tribal conflicts still going on today

Some places took off others didn't.
Bronze and metal development obviously came from one or two places only in the world, and being isolated via Sahara and the sea, Africa wasn't much influenced by the Metal Age.
Phoenicians, Greeks and later Romans never had much interest going there (but some Phoenicians did).
Ethiopia and the places closer to the Islamic trade were influenced by it.
Later places like the Kongo and South Africa were influenced by later arrivals such as the Portuguese and Dutch.

Most cultures in Europe were influenced by outside influences mainly from the east. You need to understand this. Most places in Europe were still backwards shitholes until the 18th century.

Whitey.

Carthage
Egypt

Communists meddling in decolonisation process
>yfw you realise ethiopians were starving because the goverment was run by communists

It was most likely the cradle of humanity, never of civilisation

>why despite being the cradle of civilization did Africa never take off?

But Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent aren't in Africa, user

Sub-Saharan Africa has a tropical climate, crops domesticated in the Middle East won't grow there. Unlike Europe where Middle Eastern Crops spread quickly, Sub-Saharan Africa could only receive cattle, which aren't enough to build a complex society. Africans had to develop agriculture independently, which only happened after about 3000 BC around modern Mali, and then it took thousands of years to spread across the continent. Bantu Africa never really had a chance because agriculture didn't arrive there until the 1st millennium BC, not near enough time to develop civilization (think of how long it took in the Middle East, between 8000 and 3500 BC) and aside from the Swahili Coast there wasn't enough outside influence for them to adopt civilization from somewhere else. West Africa, where agriculture was older but still very young compared to Eurasia, did develop civilization but only very late in history so that it was still at an early stage of development by the time Europeans arrived. West Africans did have contact with the Mediterranean world, but these contacts were very weak before the Middle Ages, by which time civilization had already emerged independently.

Furthermore there are serious environmental issues, much worse than those faced by Eurasia or other tropical regions of the world. Endemic disease and the presence of tsetse flies, which prevent plow-based agriculture, kept populations low in most areas. With abundant land but low populations, wealth was valued in control over people rather than control over land, the opposite of in Eurasia. This wasn't conductive to the rise of large territorial states and created a social system in which slavery was widespread (though it was more like serfdom than chattel slavery). This social system, along with the fragmentary nature of African societies and Africa's geographic position in relation to areas like the Middle East and the Americas, made them a major source of slaves for these areas. These slave trades, especially the Atlantic one, caused massive damage to the societies they affected and in some cases lead to a complete collapse of civilization (see the Kongo).

Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and the Swahili Coast don't really fall into this because their civilizations were closely linked to places like Egypt and Arabia from the beginning, they didn't have the same environmental constraints and none of them were really in a position to spread their own civilization further into Africa.

how are civilizations lasting thousands of years not taking off

Were they rome? no. But neither was 99% of the world

>cradle of civilization

>cradle of civilization
bait

They had the easiest going, they never faced the pressure to improve

>ifunny

Consider ending it

>war torn since its colonization from european countries
>slave trade
>slave trade
>natural resources but no way of harvesting due to underproduction ie no industrial revolution
>but mostly war and genocide between nations. lack of allies
but Africa invented agriculture, architecture, and almost everything that every other culture built off of. I mean, they are the first ever humans. We all came from there. technically it did take off. Some parts of africa are developed but have been so fucked by bad government flip flops and war
>south africa
>Egypt
>Libya
>most western and southern countries
that the economy went south and never went back up and has caused revolution after revolution and still to this day rebels run around blowing shit up because they hate their own government. it's super communist and split up and just completely fucked

>Sahara prevented sub saharan people trading in ideas with asia and europe
Here's your (You)

>"""civilizations"""

Until Camel came about 2kya Trans-saharan travel was severely limited.

True, but Sub-Saharan people traded a fuckload with Asia and the Middle East so that's completely irrelevant.

It was not through the Sahara and mostly the trade dealt in highly priced and inaccessible goods of coastal elites with only limited cultural exchange and diffusion away from prime ports and islands.

While of course I critique ideas of Africa and especially Africa south of the Sahara as a backwater, I also concede that there were many limitations in transmission of knowledge that supported societal developments that occurred in the land routes and interactions of Eurasia.

And the Congo Free State was literally the private property of some rich asshole who didn't think twice about cutting the hands off of the family members of rubber harvesters who didn't meet their work quotas

>It was not through the Sahara
That was the point, retard.

>mostly the trade dealt in highly priced and inaccessible goods of coastal elites with only limited cultural exchange
So books, Islam, arabic writing etc are "highly priced and inaccessible goods" and "limited cultural exchange"? What about food, lumber, and people? The dhow, the most common form of transport in the Indian Ocean (among all peoples, not just Africans) until the modern age, originated in coastal Africa. Building techniques of Arabs moved into Coastal Africa and then inland. The nature of trade in the Indian Ocean meant the movement of entire populations due to the monsoons. You would have to live in Africa/India/Persia/Arabia for six months then go home for six months. There was an immeasurable amount of cultural diffusion among everyone involved.

tl;dr
You have no idea what the fuck you are even talking about and are basing your history on modern misconceptions and /pol/ shit.

Folk Islam was standard not forms perceived as correct by North Africans as noted by Ibn Battuta in Mali. However like I stated his views of the Zanzibari of Kilwa was markedly different yet again literacy, normative Islam etc... was that only found amongst Learned and educated elite.

The building of stone is not unique to Arab contact and the general consensus amongst researchers of the Indian Ocean World is one of native development in the face of cultural interaction for the better part of some 4k years with the proto-Austroneasians, from the time of about Hapshepsut with the discovery of Clove.

Beyond that the expansion of all this things occurs only after the development of Camel Caravans and only with the expansion of Tebu founded Kanem into West Africa.

In the western Indian Littoral there is little proof or evidence of great inland influence and certainly not the things you mentioned above until much later.


You clearly don't know much, I appreciate your fire but I'm Ethiopian and well read on the matter it's my main study. Not everyone in Veeky Forums is some pasty kid on /pol/

Ancient deforestation and desertification left the prime real estate in the north unsuitable for modern western development (presumably what you mean by take off)

Too much land compared to coastline, people didn't have to compete as much for space and develop proto-nation states which could then compete in the technology field further enhancing modern society.

The Sahara and Congo prevented trade along Africa's North-South axis which meant that the best crops and domesticated animals never got to many regions until European colonialism.

In a word, geography.

>and the general consensus amongst researchers of the Indian Ocean World is one of native development in the face of cultural interaction for the better part of some 4k years with the proto-Austroneasians
Abdul Sherriff, the head of the Indian Ocean World Center, says "No." Keep moving those goalposts like you did for everything else though. I'm sure you'll do great.

>but I'm Ethiopian and well read on the matter it's my main study
Said the guy who is definitely not pasty kid on /pol/. You outed yourself in your first post.

My original statement was that outside the coast there was limited transmission of knowledge and information. That is fact.

Secondly you can go on the archives on Veeky Forums and see that I have been posting and talking about Ethiopia and my Beta Israeli community for the better part of a year at this point.

Thirdly the Dhow is not from Southeast Africa, the language of Swahili actually derives significant proportions of Nautical terminology deriving from proto-malagasy. The existence of boat making to be sure derived from great lake communities using dugout canoes but plank seen vessels are Trans-Indian Ocean inventions primarily more northerly in Arabia Felix and India.

By all means keep posting, I can keep correcting you if you'd like.

>My original statement was that outside the coast there was limited transmission of knowledge and information
No, it wasn't. Your original statement was that the Sahara prevented trade with Asia which is wrong, you goal post moving faggot.

>Secondly you can go on the archives on Veeky Forums and see that I have been posting and talking about Ethiopia and my Beta Israeli community for the better part of a year at this point
>he thinks his qualifications of shitposting on Veeky Forums are greater than actual scholars in the field such as Abdul Sherriff
Wew lad

>in Arabia
With what lumber? Ah right, they got it from dhow traders from East Africa.

You're really good at digging yourself deeper into this hole. I'm going to bed. I'm curious to how deep you've dug yourself by tomorrow evening.

sub saharan africans are stupid
you can delete the thread now

thank you

Oh no in not that person I'm someone else. My original statement was about Camels and Trans Saharan trade. Probably should have cleared that up from the beginning because I can see why you stated I am shifting goal posts.

Also dhows originally developed using both Acacia in Yemen for smaller coastal crafts and wood from Kerala for much larger ones from deep ocean trade.

The dhows went to Southeast Africa to harvest mangrove pools for construction but mangrove it self is not a wood of choice for maritime boat building.

Again I appreciate your fervor but you really should study more. Have a great night when you post back I can give you some great books to learn more about.

You are confusing humanity and civilization

This, also parts of africa did develop. West africa and east africa benefitted from trade with the muslim world. Of course while interaction with islam cultivates a form of civilization, it's not one that most people in the west would like.

>traded a fuckload
By volume it's virtually inexistent compared to the Silk trade.

>cradle of civilization did Africa

cradle of human life. Not human civilization

even our ancestors knew well to gtfo from there

This never made sense at all.

source?

1. Wasnt the cradle of civilization, that was mesopotamia, anatolia, and greece
2. The sahara desert
3. The fuckin congo
4. Islamized tribes
5. Many places did take off but didnt go past the 10th century (16th if were talking about ethiopia) (north africa is more middle eastern than african. They dont count)

This

> Africa
> Cradle of civilization
Pick one
Memes aside, I would call mesopotamia the cradle of civilization.

Primarily due to the fact that tropical diseases made animal husbandry/farming nigh impossible. Paradoxically enough, the abundance of diseases present in Africa meant that the indegenous population wasn't completely devastated by European contact, due to the fact that they already were immunized against most Eurasian diseases.

> north africa is more middle eastern than african. They dont count
Okay so what you're saying is you're a retard

What's this? A nuanced post? Too bad this isn't the norm on this site.

What really needs to happen is hardcore communist regimes all over the continent

When they destroy local cultures and eventually collapse, Africans will be blank slates that could potentially work together to form "national" states

Maybe you should delete yourself from life instead?

Because of colonialism

Carthage and Egypt had the most success for benefitting from Mediterranean trade and being extremely fertile areas on their own.

The Swahili city states also had a good run during the middle ages from trade with the Arab caliphates/Ottomans.

Morocco has always been seen as one of the more stable and prosperous areas of the continent as well, again benefitting from the Mediterranean.

>Hot as fuck
change that to
>comfortably warm all year round so that you don't really have to be that inventive to survive all seasons

And I'll agree that is a contributing factor.

>Bronze and metal development obviously came from one or two places only in the world, and being isolated via Sahara and the sea, Africa wasn't much influenced by the Metal Age.

They developed metalworking independently, although somewhat later.

Welcome to Veeky Forums

you can't live in the cradle forever.

You need room to grow.

Why does everyone act like there's something specially unadvanced about pre-modern Sub-Saharan Africa? In the 10th century it was populated by fairly typical iron age settlements.

Because it feeds into their smug circle jerking echo chambers, that thrive off of 'muh superiority' memes, where they can pretend to be on the same 'level' as past inventors/innovators/political leaders, etc simply because they share a similar skin tone as them.

Don't forget the flies. Has there been any solution to that?

Are there any crops domesticated specifically in Africa or could be domesticated there?

>American Blacks are this salty
Wew. I can vouch we've had an Ethiopian post here for months.

>Most cultures in Europe were influenced by outside influences mainly from the east.
This. Great civilizations never got there on their own, you need the constant push and pull of interacting with other nations to develop.

He's right though. But more accurately North Africa is more itself (Berber) than anything else.

I find that fascinating.

Have you ever been to Africa?

ITT: Mental gymnastics

Native Americans, Aztecs, and Mayans all achieved civilizations, knowledge, and technological feats that far outpaced any Sub-Saharan African society that was similarly isolated from the rest of the world.

Stop denying the existence of evolution.

>Far out paced this

OK

>Africa is the cradle of civilization
>59 replies, 250 more incoming

Well done Veeky Forums.

I have, just about a 5 minute walk in any direction to find a fruit tree

Nigga jsut because something bears fruit doesn't mean it's good to it or nutritious enough unless it's domesticated. Hunter gathered got blow the fuck out against any sedentary groups that stayed in one area and farmed/engaged in agriculture. You know how much shit you have to gather to have anything resembling a good meal just from shit in the wild and the trucking time it takes to do so?

>Foraging cultures work 4 hours a day
>Walk around in nature with friends and family
>Find cool stuff to it
Meanwhile
>Post-industrial work day is at least 8 hours long
>Meaningless work for a company the views you as an expendable asset
>forced to be with people you hate
>Have no real control of your life beyond sick days and vacations, which can only be used so much.

Those modern day issues is shit wrong with the society at hand no with modernity itself.

Sub-Saharan Africans have low IQs and this is partially biological. Guess which Sub-Saharan African country has the highest average IQ. It's Madagascar where half the gene pool is Indonesian.

thats why Madagascar civs out pace sub saharan civs right

lol