Avoid parenthetical insults—they just diminish your authority. Throughout the post, you're best points seem to be lost in a sea of self-aggrandizement and scattershot thinking
Maybe the real problem is looking down on medieval Africans for not living in large cities and centralized empires. What's wrong with that? Northern Europeans were like that too at the time and it's nothing to be ashamed of. If anything, they could take pride in keeping their independence.
I agree with all those journos, Ethno-States are a wonderful thing.
Seriously though. The history ist very interesting Language, Law etc are things that have almost never been invented independently, usually these inventions spread through cultural exchange. Which makes it more impressive when cultures invent it, who have no contact with the rest of the world.
The Nok culture is an early Iron Age population whose material remains are named after the Ham village of Nok in Kaduna State of Nigeria, where their famous terracotta sculptures were first discovered in 1928. The Nok Culture appeared in northern Nigeria around 1000 BC and vanished under unknown circumstances around 500 AD, thus having lasted approximately 1,500 years.
Iron use, in smelting and forging for tools, appears in Nok culture by at least 550 BC and possibly earlier. Data from historical linguistics suggest that iron smelting was independently discovered in the region prior to 1000 BC. Scientific field work began in 2005 to systematically investigate Nok archaeological sites, and to better understand Nok terracotta sculptures within their Iron Age archaeological context.
Eurocentric view of world history in which the only legitimate origin of civilization is the one that began in the ancient east from the Nile to the “Fertile Crescent” bounded by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers
The eurocentric view that civilization started somewhere that's not europe?
"the remarkably durable Eurocentric view of world history in which the only legitimate origin of civilization is the one that began in the ancient east from the Nile to the “Fertile Crescent” bounded by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers."
The truth is, prehistoric man in any culture gets very little respect for what they were able to accomplish. I've heard it said by commentators, while standing in the midst of monolithic structures they couldn't conceive of or equal, that it's as if "3-year-olds have build a skyscraper", or "aliens built it", or something equally dismissive of the utterly human ingenuity, creativity, and cooperation that went to erecting these monuments.
Also: the Sahara wasn't always desert. I've seen different estimates as to when the modern Sahara came into being, ranging from thousands to millions of years ago. But archeologists have found evidence of a multitude of civilizations which thrived and prospered in the prehistoric Sahara. It's no great stretch to imagine full, rich and complete cultures populating the region.
However, unlike their contemporaries in the Fertile Crescent, prehistoric Saharan cultures didn't persist beyond their existence, and apparently were swallowed by sand and time. Perhaps if the prehistoric biome had remained, remnants of those cultures would have remained as well. As it is, the ancient Saharans were a cultural dead-end, for no other reason than their environment became the world's largest desert.
13 comments
1 SnapshillBot 2018-02-25
Avoid parenthetical insults—they just diminish your authority. Throughout the post, you're best points seem to be lost in a sea of self-aggrandizement and scattershot thinking
Snapshots:
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1 Redactor0 2018-02-25
Maybe the real problem is looking down on medieval Africans for not living in large cities and centralized empires. What's wrong with that? Northern Europeans were like that too at the time and it's nothing to be ashamed of. If anything, they could take pride in keeping their independence.
1 mohkohnsepicgun 2018-02-25
Nothing to do with me. My ancestors were living in cities in the middle east.
1 Maggot_Pie 2018-02-25
Sends mongols and black death on your cities
Psst... nothing personnel...
1 mohkohnsepicgun 2018-02-25
Frankly, it was the Timurids that were the last straw...
1 o11c 2018-02-25
One of history's greatest ironies is how Europe became dominant by sole virtue of being the least civilized, and thus least ravaged by the plague.
Also, *personal
1 _throawayplop_ 2018-02-25
Africa's history deserves better than these US-centered fantasies.
1 DickingBimbos247 2018-02-25
I agree with all those journos, Ethno-States are a wonderful thing.
Seriously though. The history ist very interesting Language, Law etc are things that have almost never been invented independently, usually these inventions spread through cultural exchange. Which makes it more impressive when cultures invent it, who have no contact with the rest of the world.
1 WikiTextBot 2018-02-25
Nok culture
The Nok culture is an early Iron Age population whose material remains are named after the Ham village of Nok in Kaduna State of Nigeria, where their famous terracotta sculptures were first discovered in 1928. The Nok Culture appeared in northern Nigeria around 1000 BC and vanished under unknown circumstances around 500 AD, thus having lasted approximately 1,500 years.
Iron use, in smelting and forging for tools, appears in Nok culture by at least 550 BC and possibly earlier. Data from historical linguistics suggest that iron smelting was independently discovered in the region prior to 1000 BC. Scientific field work began in 2005 to systematically investigate Nok archaeological sites, and to better understand Nok terracotta sculptures within their Iron Age archaeological context.
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1 Thhueros 2018-02-25
I thought Wakanda was so advanced because they got hit by a meteor?
1 DefNotaZombie 2018-02-25
The eurocentric view that civilization started somewhere that's not europe?
1 LSDawson 2018-02-25
"the remarkably durable Eurocentric view of world history in which the only legitimate origin of civilization is the one that began in the ancient east from the Nile to the “Fertile Crescent” bounded by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers."
how the fuck is that eurocentric LMAO
also what about ethiopia 🤔
1 free_is_free76 2018-02-25
The truth is, prehistoric man in any culture gets very little respect for what they were able to accomplish. I've heard it said by commentators, while standing in the midst of monolithic structures they couldn't conceive of or equal, that it's as if "3-year-olds have build a skyscraper", or "aliens built it", or something equally dismissive of the utterly human ingenuity, creativity, and cooperation that went to erecting these monuments.
Also: the Sahara wasn't always desert. I've seen different estimates as to when the modern Sahara came into being, ranging from thousands to millions of years ago. But archeologists have found evidence of a multitude of civilizations which thrived and prospered in the prehistoric Sahara. It's no great stretch to imagine full, rich and complete cultures populating the region.
However, unlike their contemporaries in the Fertile Crescent, prehistoric Saharan cultures didn't persist beyond their existence, and apparently were swallowed by sand and time. Perhaps if the prehistoric biome had remained, remnants of those cultures would have remained as well. As it is, the ancient Saharans were a cultural dead-end, for no other reason than their environment became the world's largest desert.