Afrocentric history...anything to this?

[TragicMonkey]

I guess I just don't that know much about history, if the Renaissance is now considered to have begun in the 10th century with Romanesque architecture.

 

[Mark6]

The Cleopatra and Hannibal were Black claims are the ones that crack me up.
Cleopatra was Greek....the Greeks were the ruling class of Egypt since the Time of Alexander thanks to Ptolemy and Hannibal was Phoenician,since Cathage was a Phonecian colony.

I also heard at various times claims that Plato, Aristotle, Aesop and Jesus were black. Or that ALL of ancient Greeks were black.

 

[Narcopuppy]

He did not mention two people. He mentioned one person (Julius Civilis) and one people (the Batavi, a Germanic tribe).

My point exactly. I'm going to go read now.

 

[ddt]

My point exactly. I'm going to go read now.

There's a nice write-up of the Batavian revolt at livius.org .

 

[Narcopuppy]

The thing that strikes me the most about African history (and actually, all history in general) is that it seems to be taught in pieces. One place at a time, I mean, is what you learn. That gives the impression that all these cultures and civilizations existed in isolation and didn't interact with each other. But in reality there were enormous amounts of commerce (in both senses of the word) between everybody at all times. Everybody knew their neighbors, so while England might not have known much about Songhai, they knew about Spain, and Spain knew the Moors, and the Moors knew the Songhai. Which makes it funny when people "discover" each other when they've basically been living two doors down for centuries.

I had that complaint about history classes too. They teach you about Mesopotamia, then Egypt, then Greece, then Rome, then Spain, then England with nods to others spread throughout...but what were the Egyptians doing at Greece's high point, or Greece during Rome's, and so forth? Reading through history has really driven home to me just how extensively each civilization was influenced by predecessors and contemporaries, to the point where it becomes useless to specialize because they're all part of a network greater than any of its components.

 

[drkitten]

I guess I just don't that know much about history,

I guess you don't.

Historic changes don't happen overnight; the Renaissance was one of the effects of the increased exposure to classical learning that had been preserved by the Byzantines and Arabs while western Europe suffered through the Dark Ages.

If you need a timeline, here's one that might be simple enough for you to understand.

* AD 375 -- Roman empire divided between Rome and Byzantium
* AD 476 -- Rome falls; much of Roman cultural heritage lost
* AD 500-1000 Western Europe stumbles through Dark ages
* AD 1000 Dark Ages End, High Middle Ages begin
* AD 1100-1300 Crusades; first significant cultural contact between Arabs and Western Europe
* AD 1100 First redevelopment of Roman technology (Romanesque architecture)
* AD 1300 High Middle Ages end, Late Middle Ages begin
* AD 1300-1450 Byzantine empire collapses; Byzantine scholars flee to Western Europe
* AD 1400-1600 Renaissance

 

[ddt]

What? France has been around for quite a long time, even if you only count it as Charlemagne onward.

It's only after the Hundred Years War that the French kings had effective control over his territory. Before that war, he was little more than the Count of Paris. And they were always in want of money, they had barely enough to keep up the court (as were all Medieval kings).

And of course medieval monarchs had trouble with their nobles--but can you name a single Roman emperor who didn't have trouble with his Senate? Or his generals? Seems like every Tom, Dick, and Harrius in charge of some troops thought he could make himself emperor, and frequently did!

Of course the emperor had to quibble with the Senate - after all, in name the Roman Empire was still a republic , and the Senate was part (officially center) of the administration. The number of (would-be) usurpers was quite small, especially in the 1st and 2nd Century - the heydays of the Roman Empire were quite stable.

A proper craftsman doesn't rush the job.

The reason why Gothic cathedrals took so long was very simple: a lack of money. Let alone they'd have money to build a road to the next city, which was a competitor.

It's not just that the Roman technology had been lost, but also the infrastructure that supported it. The Roman Empire had a central government, and its governors and generals were civil servants beholden to the public cause (that's what "republic" means) and appointed by that central government - many in fact by the Senate, not by the Emperor. The Roman economy thrived on trade - wares from the Middle East ended up in Britain vice versa.

That system broke down with the fall of the Empire. Central authority with civil servants administering parts of the Empire were replaced by kings who only ruled only indirectly over their kingdom, by means of vassals who ruled over their part of the kingdom through vassals of their own. And those vassals were not beholden to the public cause, but had sworn a personal oath to their lord. The king couldn't even command an army of himself, even for that he was dependent on his vassals. Let alone that he had money for large infrastructural projects as building roads.

The economy had also broken down. Trade meant farmers going to the local market town to sell their produce and buy locally made wares. Longer distance trade was hampered by the political fragmentation - it went primarily over water, and you'd have a toll at every next city on the river.

Charlemagne indeed made attempts to revert this system: he had his Missi Dominici who traveled to oversee the administration of his counts; he (re)introduced standard currency and weights and measures. But he was also thoroughly a Frank who understood his empire to be his property to be divided among his children, and after him and his sole son, his empire was divided among his grandsons and feudalism gained the upper hand again.

The West-Frankish kings sank into oblivion, and when around 1000 AD the last Carolingian king of France died without issue, it was no more than a title - and indeed a certain Odo, Count of Paris was crowned king. That doesn't mean he and his descendants had control over that territory. There were some quite unruly vassals. The French kings had intermittent conflict with the Duke of Normandy for about 250 years. The Flemish also had their own ideas. When they refused to pay taxes around 1300, the French King couldn't even pay for his own court. It's only at the end of the Middle Ages that the King managed to subdue them and to exert control over his territory.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I guess you don't.

Historic changes don't happen overnight; the Renaissance was one of the effects of the increased exposure to classical learning that had been preserved by the Byzantines and Arabs while western Europe suffered through the Dark Ages.

If you need a timeline, here's one that might be simple enough for you to understand.

* AD 375 -- Roman empire divided between Rome and Byzantium
* AD 476 -- Rome falls; much of Roman cultural heritage lost
* AD 500-1000 Western Europe stumbles through Dark ages
* AD 1000 Dark Ages End, High Middle Ages begin
* AD 1100-1300 Crusades; first significant cultural contact between Arabs and Western Europe
* AD 1100 First redevelopment of Roman technology (Romanesque architecture)
* AD 1300 High Middle Ages end, Late Middle Ages begin
* AD 1300-1450 Byzantine empire collapses; Byzantine scholars flee to Western Europe
* AD 1400-1600 Renaissance

Whatever. "Stumbles through the Dark Ages" for five centuries. I don't see why all credit for everything has to be given to selected times and peoples and denied in others. The precious Renaissance wouldn't have happened without building on what had gone before including the medievals. That would be like claiming you get all your genes from your grandparents and ignoring your parents, even if they are annoying.

 

[Juniversal]

It was not. The Khoi-San have apparently always been hunter-gatherers, and their territory, particularly to the south, was larger back then, but in the east (Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya) cattle-herding was pretty standard, and in the kingdom of Congo (which extended south into Angola at the time), most of the landscape was farmed (although not all at once because they would deliberately leave some fields fallow for several years at a time), the people lived in villages which were part of a wide multi-layered net of social connections organized in a structure the Portuguese recognized as feudal, and there were a few population centers that could be called cities (although without huge stone monument construction). Of course, that leaves some of the region you asked about that I can't account for, but even just the limited examples I am able to give still cover probably at least a third or close to half of the region.

Also, the general reason that's given for why black people were able to expand and overrun whoever else was there first was because black people had food production (which includes plant farming and domesticated animal herding), which gave them several competetive or military advantages over hunter-gatherers, including greater population density, more reliable food supply, and iron weapons & tools. So, by the time whites got there, food production was certainly a part of the heritage that had been brought from the Niger-Congo-Bantu homeland when they expanded and migrated to dominate most of the land. So it's safe to say that, if any of them ended up not doing it in any particular little places I don't know about, it's because they had it before and then switched back only after arriving in particular places where they found out food production wouldn't work very well.

Thank you for the enlightened response my friend.

 

[drkitten]

Whatever. "Stumbles through the Dark Ages" for five centuries. I don't see why all credit for everything has to be given to selected times and peoples and denied in others. The precious Renaissance wouldn't have happened without building on what had gone before including the medievals.

I'm getting tired of saying that you're wrong, so I'll just tell you once more and then leave you to wallow in your self-described ignorance of history.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I'm getting tired of saying that you're wrong, so I'll just tell you once more and then leave you to wallow in your self-described ignorance of history.

Really? I'm totally, utterly wrong in suggesting that saying that there were no advances in anything for five hundred years is wrong? None? Not in agriculture? Writing systems? Metallurgy? Nothing?

 

[ddt]

Really? I'm totally, utterly wrong in suggesting that saying that there were no advances in anything for five hundred years is wrong? None? Not in agriculture? Writing systems? Metallurgy? Nothing?

Oh, there were some advances. In agriculture, very importantly, three-field crop rotation. In writing, the Carolingian minuscule - which was then thrown by the wayside in favour of "Gothic" scripts, re-introduced during the Renaissance and forms the basis for our current script.

ETA: Look also at the population numbers. Europe went through a big dip in population numbers in the Dark Ages.

 

[geni]

But anyway, those are particular works of literature. Of course particular books may fade in and out of public awareness over time. But I was talking about "things known"--it sounded like you were saying the Romans knew about refraction and the medievals didn't, or something like that. Achievements, discoveries, things of that nature tend not to be forgotten. Not because people are particularly intellectual, of course, but because such things are useful. The wheel hasn't had to be reinvented no matter how many civilizations vanish.

Britain forget how to make bricks. They don't start getting made again until the 12th century. The Lorica segmentata dissappeared untill maybe the 16th century. While the church appears to have kept glass making alive in britian there was no church for a while so glass was very limited.

 

[geni]

Question. Since you seemed well versed in African history, do you know if most of sub Saharan Africa was primarily made of fairly isolated hunter gatherer societies prior to European colonization? Even though i'm African American I unfortunately know little about African History.

I think the ususal read guns, germs and steel kicks in.

Sub Saharan Africa was a bit of a mix. In the very far south you had the hunter gathers while elsewhere you got a mix of herders and farmers.

But there were some quite serious empires. The zulus, The Ashanti, Benin. If you look at the early Portuguese and latter Dutch work there are quite a lot of records of dealing with local kindoms. For example a lot of european involvement with the gold cost involved trying to make sure the Fante were strong enough to hold off the Ashanti. Of course once they were able to the european forces largly put a stop to that. The Ashanti and the zulus were ah "pacified" and Benin was set fire to.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Very well, I'm wrong and everybody else is right. The medievals were stupid and retarded, and made no advances the Romans didn't, and thought of nothing the Romans would have adopted had they seen it. The medievals certainly didn't make any large constructions of stone. Nope, no large, stone constructions of military usage that the Romans would have liked. Definitely not. Because who in their right mind associates the medievals with castles?

 

[ddt]

Very well, I'm wrong and everybody else is right. The medievals were stupid and retarded, and made no advances the Romans didn't, and thought of nothing the Romans would have adopted had they seen it. The medievals certainly didn't make any large constructions of stone. Nope, no large, stone constructions of military usage that the Romans would have liked. Definitely not. Because who in their right mind associates the medievals with castles?

Castles of stone are from the High and Late Middle Ages, after 1000 AD. Before that, castles were simple motte-and-bailey types: a hill with a wooden palisade on it, and maybe a moat around it at the base.

 

[Damien Evans]

Italian ass.

Which, as far as European armed might goes, isn't.

 

[Shrike]

Which, as far as European armed might goes, isn't.

Eh!

Wadda you mean?

 

[TragicMonkey]

Which, as far as European armed might goes, isn't.

Okay, then, I guess it doesn't count then, and Ethiopia deserves no respect for fighting back so well against it. Let's denigrate all achievements if they are not the absolute best possible! James Dean, who's he? Some loser who only appeared in seven movies! That's nothing compared to Adam Sandler, who's been in dozens and made tons more money! Medieval people? Why, they didn't do anything compared to Rome, who is Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!

No wonder things like radical Afrocentrism get invented. It's a counter to the incredible urge for modern people to judge, judge, judge everything and everybody not on their own terms, the terms of the time and place, but against the whole of human history. Stupid Romans never landed on the moon! The medieval Germans didn't have vaccinations! Lousy Ethiopians only fought against those lazy Italians! JK Rowling made more money than Shakespeare!

 

[ddt]

Medieval people? Why, they didn't do anything compared to Rome, who is Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!

Come on, TM, a number of things have been mentioned that were invented in the Dark Ages. The three-field crop rotation was very important to sustain population growth. But yes, a lot of Roman technology got lost and was reinvented only later. That's just a simple fact.

No wonder things like radical Afrocentrism get invented. It's a counter to the incredible urge for modern people to judge, judge, judge everything and everybody not on their own terms, the terms of the time and place, but against the whole of human history.

********. Radical Afrocentrism is distortion of history and obvious facts. Apparently, those advocating it aren't content with the fact that blacks in fact overran nearly a whole continent. As noted up-thread, the proper blacks originated in West Africa and overran the pygmies of Central Africa and the Khoi-San of Southern Africa.

Stupid Romans never landed on the moon! The medieval Germans didn't have vaccinations!

Bad analogy. Nobody before had landed on the moon or had had vaccinations. However, the predecessors of the Medieval Europeans - the Romans - had had quite some technology that was subsequently lost for centuries.