Etymology
Afri was the name of several
Semitic peoples who dwelt in
North Africa near
Carthage (in modern
Tunisia). Their name is usually connected with
Phoenician afar, "dust", but a 1981 hypothesis
[6] has asserted that it stems from a
Berber word
ifri or Ifran meaning "cave", in reference to cave dwellers.
[7] Africa or Ifri or Afer
[7] is name of
Banu Ifran from
Algeria and
Tripolitania (
Berber Tribe of
Yafran).
[8]
Under Roman rule, Carthage became the capital of
Africa Province, which also included the coastal part of modern
Libya. The Roman suffix "-ca" denotes "country or land".
[9] The later Muslim kingdom of
Ifriqiya, modern-day
Tunisia, also preserved a form of the name.
Other etymological hypotheses that have been postulated for the ancient name "Africa":
- the 1st century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (Ant. 1.15) asserted that it was named for Epher, grandson of Abraham according to Gen. 25:4, whose descendants, he claimed, had invaded Libya.
- Latin word aprica ("sunny") mentioned by Isidore of Seville in Etymologiae XIV.5.2.
- the Greek word aphrike (Αφρική), meaning "without cold." This was proposed by historian Leo Africanus (1488–1554), who suggested the Greek word phrike (φρίκη, meaning "cold and horror"), combined with the privative prefix "a-", thus indicating a land free of cold and horror.
- Massey, in 1881, derived an etymology from the Egyptian af-rui-ka, "to turn toward the opening of the Ka." The Ka is the energetic double of every person and "opening of the Ka" refers to a womb or birthplace. Africa would be, for the Egyptians, "the birthplace."[10]
- yet another hypothesis was proposed by Michčle Fruyt in Revue de Philologie 50, 1976: 221–238, linking the Latin word with africus 'south wind', which would be of Umbrian origin and mean originally 'rainy wind'.
The
Irish female name Aifric is sometimes
anglicised as
Africa, but the given name is unrelated to the
geonym.
History
Main article:
History of Africa
Further information:
History of North Africa,
History of West Africa,
History of Central Africa,
History of East Africa, and
History of Southern Africa
Paleohistory
The African prosauropod
Massospondylus.
At the beginning of the
Mesozoic Era, Africa was joined with Earth's other continents in
Pangaea.
[11] Africa shared the supercontinent's relatively uniform fauna which was dominated by
theropods,
prosauropods and primitive
ornithischians by the close of the
Triassic period.
[11] Late Triassic fossils are found through-out Africa, but are more common in the south than north.
[11] The boundary separating the Triassic and
Jurassic marks the advent of an extinction event with global impact, although African strata from this time period have not been thoroughly studied.
[11]
Early Jurassic strata are distributed in a similar fashion to
Late Triassic beds, with more common outcrops in the south and less common fossil beds which are predominated by tracks to the north.
[11] As the Jurassic proceeded, larger and more iconic groups of
dinosaurs like
sauropods and
ornithopods proliferated in Africa.
[11] Middle Jurassic strata are neither well represented nor well studied in Africa.
[11] Late Jurassic strata are also poorly represented apart from the spectacular
Tendaguru fauna in
Tanzania.
[11] The Late Jurassic life of
Tendaguru is very similar to
that found in western North America's
Morrison Formation.
[11]
Midway through the
Mesozoic, about 150–160 million years ago,
Madagascar separated from Africa, although it remained connected to
India and the rest of the
Gondwanan landmasses.
[11] Fossils from Madagascar include
abelisaurs and
titanosaurs.
[11]
The African theropod
Spinosaurus was the largest known carnivorous dinosaur.
Later into the
Early Cretaceous epoch, the India-Madagascar landmass separated from the rest of Gondwana.
[11] By the Late Cretaceous, Madagascar and India had permanently split ways and continued until later reaching their modern configurations.
[11]
By contrast to Madagascar, mainland Africa was relatively stable in position through-out the Mesozoic.
[11] Despite the stable position, major changes occurred to its relation to other landmasses as the remains of Pangea continued to break apart.
[11] By the beginning of the
Late Cretaceous epoch South America had split off from Africa, completing the southern half of the
Atlantic Ocean.
[11] This event had a profound effect on global climate by altering
ocean currents.
[11]
During the Cretaceous, Africa was populated by
allosauroids and
spinosaurids, including the largest known carnivorous dinosaurs.
[11] Titanosaurs were significant herbivores in its ancient
ecosystems.
[11] Cretaceous sites are more common than Jurassic ones, but are often unable to be dated radiometrically making it difficult to know their exact ages.
[11] Paleontologist Louis Jacobs, who spent time doing field work in Malawi,[
citation needed] says that African beds are "in need of more field work" and will prove to be a "fertile ground ... for discovery."
[11]
Pre-history
Lucy, an
Australopithecus afarensis skeleton discovered on November 24, 1974, in the
Awash Valley of
Ethiopia's
Afar Depression
Africa is considered by most
paleoanthropologists to be the
oldest inhabited territory on
Earth, with the
human species originating from the continent.
[12][13] During the middle of the 20th century,
anthropologists discovered many
fossils and evidence of human occupation perhaps as early as 7 million years ago. Fossil remains of several species of early apelike humans thought to have
evolved into modern man, such as
Australopithecus afarensis (
radiometrically dated to approximately 3.9–3.0 million years
BC),
[14] Paranthropus boisei (c. 2.3–1.4 million years BC)
[15] and
Homo ergaster (c. 1.9 million–600,000 years BC) have been discovered.
[2]
Throughout humanity's
prehistory, Africa (like all other continents) had no
nation states, and was instead inhabited by groups of
hunter-gatherers such as the
Khoi and
San.
[16][17][18]
At the end of the
Ice Ages, estimated to have been around 10,500 BC, the
Sahara had again become a green fertile valley, and its African populations returned from the interior and coastal highlands in
Sub-Saharan Africa[
citation needed]. However, the warming and drying climate meant that by 5000 BC the Sahara region was becoming increasingly dry and hostile. The population trekked out of the Sahara region towards the Nile Valley below the
Second Cataract where they made permanent or semi-permanent settlements. A major climatic recession occurred, lessening the heavy and persistent rains in Central and
Eastern Africa. Since this time dry conditions have prevailed in Eastern Africa, and increasingly during the last 200 years, in
Ethiopia.
The domestication of cattle in Africa preceded agriculture and seems to have existed alongside hunter-gathering cultures. It is speculated that by 6000 BC cattle were already domesticated in North Africa.
[19] In the Sahara-Nile complex, people domesticated many animals including the
donkey, and a small screw-horned goat which was common from
Algeria to
Nubia. In the year 4000 BC the climate of the Sahara started to become drier at an exceedingly fast pace.
[20] This
climate change caused lakes and rivers to shrink significantly and caused increasing
desertification. This, in turn, decreased the amount of land conducive to settlements and helped to cause migrations of farming communities to the more tropical climate of
West Africa.
[20]
By the first millennium BC
ironworking had been introduced in Northern Africa and quickly spread across the Sahara into the northern parts of
sub-Saharan Africa[21] and by 500 BC metalworking began to become commonplace in West Africa. Ironworking was fully established by roughly 500 BC in many areas of East and West Africa, although other regions didn't begin ironworking until the early centuries AD.
Copper objects from
Egypt, North Africa, Nubia and
Ethiopia dating from around 500 BC have been excavated in West Africa, suggesting that
trans-saharan tr
what have i done to deserve Africa
i am nice,.. simple and excessive,..
