Chelles-Acheul Culture
Stages of the Chelles-Acheul culture, characterized by hand axes named after St. Acheui, France.
Acheulio-Levalloisian: A Culture recognized in the Somalia area. It includesAcheulian-type hand axes and flake tools about 500,000 BCE by the Levalloisian. Atlanthroipus mauritanicus: possibly the same species as Pithecanthropus erectus (500,000 to 250,000 BCE), generally located in the Algerian region of North Africa and Casablanca areas. Australopithecines: Relatives of the family Hominidae, or sub-family, to the earliest known upright-walking and tool-making hominids. Generally located around the regions of South and East Africa (1,800,000 to 500,000 BCE).
Australopithecus, Boskopid, Chellean Man & Bushman
Australopithecus: Genus of the sub-family Australopithecine. There are two species, Africanus and Robustus (2,000,000 to 500,000 BCE). Boskopid: Ancient South African (so-called "Bushmen") skulls.
The first type of the recognized skull from Boskop, South Africa. Bushman is a European word. It is used to single out a specific group of Africans. Chellean Man: A skull from bed 2, Olduvai Gorge Tanganyika, accompanied by Chellean type hand axes 500,000 BCE. Hyrax Hill: Earliest known variations of the stone bowl culture, named after a site in the Kenya rift valley 500,000 BCE.
Magosian, Sangoan, Stone Age & Olduvai Gorge
Magosian: Culture of the Second Intermediate Period (50,000 to 10,000 BCE) characterized by microliths, named after Ngosi, a water hole in the eastern area of Uganda. Nachikufan:
Later Stone Age culture first recognized at the Nachikufu caves Zambia, associated with rock paintings.Oldowan: Olduvai Gorge Tanganyika prior to Chelles-Acheul (1,800,000 to 500,000 BCE).
Symbolized by pebble tools, named after Olduvai Gorge Tanganyika. Sangoan: Early Middle stone culture of the forested steppes of Central Africa named after Sango Bay of Lake Victoria about 150,000 to 40,000 BCE. Shaheinab Neolithic: The Earliest known culture with evidence of domesticated animals in Eastern Africa, characterized by stone gouges, bone-ax heads, and pottery. Named after a sight 30 miles north of Khartoum (Sudan), approximately 100,000 BCE.
Archaeologists: Dr. Mary and Louis Leakey, Book: Black Man of
the Nile and his Family, Dr. Yosef A A ben-Jochannan.
Ancient Zambia
The Eurocentric timeline is based on radio-chronological,
archaeological, and paleo-ecological data after 5000 B.C.E., anything
before that is mostly speculations. It was on this data that the out of
East Africa into the rest of the world hypothesis was based, in order to
ultimately tally it with European history itself, incorporating human
evolution and migration.
Zambia is famous for its ancient schematic rock art. Northern Province has the highest concentration of rock art in Zambia and paintings are mainly found in and around rocky overhangs and caves. The most famous site is the Mwela, about 7 miles east of the town of Kasama which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The oldest in Zambia have been dated to between 350,000 and 400,000 years old! Many more are yet to be discovered.
Archaeologists in Zambia have uncovered evidence that early humans used paint for aesthetic purposes far earlier than previously thought. The team found pigments and paint grinding equipment believed to be between 350,000 and 400,000 years old.
The oldest pigments previously found were 120,000 years old and the oldest known paintings are just 35,000 years old. Over 300 fragments of pigment have now been found in a cave at Twin Rivers, near Lusaka, Zambia. These materials were apparently gathered in from the surrounding area. It is likely that the stone age inhabitants used the colours, which range from yellow to purple, to paint their bodies during Religious rituals, ceremonies, and other social events. "It also implies the use of language, so it's an important discovery, full of implications for the development of new behaviours."
The remnants date from before the "Official Accepted" date of the appearance of anatomically modern humans, Homo Sapiens. One of the teams that made the discovery, Dr. Lawrence Barham from the University of Bristol, UK, said: We're dealing here with people who were perhaps using symbols far earlier than we expected. (BBC) , Top right, Rock Painting from Zambia, and bottom right, Petroglyphs, from Lope-Okanda, Gabon, Central Africa.
Archaeologists: Dr. Lawrence Barham, (BBC) (UNESCO)
Ancient Garbon
The forest-savanna interface typical of central Gabon is well preserved in the park, and ecological and archaeological evidence shows that the area was inhabited almost continuously from late Palaeolithic times 350-400,000 years ago to the present. Scattered across the landscape is an exceptional archaeological record of successive cultures including the remains of Palaeolithic tools, Neolithic villages around 4,000 years old and Iron Age metal-working sites from 2,500 years ago. The Lope area has been inhabited for nearly 400,000 years and there are numerous artifacts telling the tales of the ancient hunter-gatherer settlements.
The Ogooué River has been a major trading route through these times and a road was built through the north of the park in the 1960s. The area was opened to forestry by the building of the railway in the 1980s this connects the national park to both Ivindo and Libreville.
One can conclude that there was a lateral transmission from the East to the West, not only across the southern Sahara but also across all of Sudan to the Nile and Niger, the location of origin being in both cases Nubia.
However, in the absence of certain dating, not only for the beginning of the iron age in Nubia, but also for all of the other sites mentioned in central and western Sudan, this could also signify an immense dispersion area of iron industry, even before population migrations began in the valley of the Nile towards the west, south-west and the south during the 6th century B.C. Because of the lack of sites in forested central Africa with well-maintained stratography dating to the early or middle Stone Ages. We are currently unable to say much about the way these earlier peoples lived. From about 10,000 B.C.E. onward we possess a relatively detailed picture of population dynamics in the middle Ogooue valley, which demonstrates the arrival of a long sequence of civilizations, particularly from the Neolithic (c. 4,500 B.C.E.) onward.
It seems that the major migrations of Bantu ironworkers were linked to a dry climatic phase in the Kibangian B (3,500-2,000 B.C.E.), which probably resulted in decreased forest cover and may have enabled these savanna-dwelling peoples to avoid the prospect of a daunting trip into extensive forest vegetation (Maley 1992, Schwartz 1992;).
These migrations were undertaken through Gabon following ridge lines (Oslisly 1995), although elsewhere river navigation was used (see, e.g., Eggert 1993). The migrating peoples seem to have favoured areas with at least some savanna vegetation, reflecting their origins outside the forest ecosystem, and it is not surprising that the middle Ogooue valley was appealing to them. It seems that they systematically supplanted resident cultures, although it is possible that they also assimilated some local knowledge.
Archaeologists: Richard Oslisly
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