The FIRST civilizations in Africa and Mesoamerica

[Exsanguination]

For a mod I am doing: What were the FIRST civilizations in the Mesoamerica/Mexico area and in Africa? I'm figuring between 4000-2000 BC, maybe later. But i wanna know the first, not their descendants or relatives... kinda like the Sumerians or Harrapans.

 

[Ribannah]

Africa: the cradle of human civilization, the Ethiopians (aka Cushites), as early as 15,000 BC, also occupying part of Asia.

Meso-America: nomads of Siberian origin, mixed with African (Mande) and Chinese settlers. One of the first distinguishable civilizations was that of the Olmec (from around 1200 BC), later gradually absorbed by the Maya.

 

[Locutus]

The oldest known civilization known in the Americas is Caral, in present-day Peru. When you want to limit it to Mexico and surroundings, I think the Olmec are the oldest civ.

In Africa it would definitely have to be Egypt and Nubia, those were the first truly great civilizations there.

 

[Locutus]

Ribannah,
Ethiopia and Nubia are often confused; the Cushites lived in what is now called Nubia, not what is now called Ethiopia. The confusion exists because the Greeks originally referred to the Nubians as 'Ethiopians' (from the Greek word 'Aithiopiai', which means so much as 'burnt faces'), only much later Ethiopia began to mean 'people from Abyssinia/Ethiopian Highlands'. And I wouldn't be too sure about that 15,000 BC. I'm sure Cushites lived in that region around that time but the oldest distinct culture from Nubia that I know of is A-Group (from around 3500 BC onwards).

Edit: Cu****es (Cushites) is still being censored here? I hope the mods won't ban me for 'hacking' around the auto-censor

PaleHorse76: Not a problem, as long as you use your power only for good!

 

[Ribannah]

http://wings.buffalo.edu/dunjeehouston/history/cush.htm

Ethiopia is what the Greeks called the Cushite empire of that time; the name Nubia was reserved for a specific kingdom in part of the larger Cush area.

To add to the confusion, Egypt, Nubia and Ethiopia were all from time to time ruled by kings from one of the others.

http://www.nbufront.org/html/MastersMuseums/JGJackson/EthiopiaOriginOfCivilization.html

Now that we have straightened out ourselves on the issue of the classification of races, we may property turn to the main subject matter of this essay, i.e., the ancient Ethiopians and their widespread influence on the early history of civilization. In discussing the origin of civilization in the ancient Near East, Professor Charles Seignobos in his History of Ancient
Civilization, notes that the first civilized inhabitants of the Nile and Tigris-Euphrates valleys, were a dark-skinned people with short hair and prominent lips; and that they are referred to by some scholars as Cushites (Ethiopians), and as Hamites by others. This ancient civilization of the Cushites, out of which the earliest cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia grew, was not confined to the Near East. Traces of it have been found all over the world. Dr. W. J. Perry refers to it as the Archaic Civilization. Sir Grafton Elliot Smith terms it the Neolithic Heliolithic Culture of the Brunet-Browns. Mr. Wells alludes to this early civilization in his Outline of History, and dates its beginnings as far back as 15,000 years B.C. "This peculiar
development of the Neolithic culture," says Mr. Wells, "which Elliot Smith called the Heliolithic (sun-stone) culture, included many or all of the following odd practices: (1) Circumcision, (2) the queer custom of sending the father to bed when a child is born, known as Couvade, (3) the practice of Massage, (4) the making of Mummies, (5) Megalithic monuments (i.e. Stonehenge), (6) artificial deformation of the heads of the young by bandages, (7) Tattooing, (8) religious association of the Sun and the Serpent, and (9) the use of the symbol known as the Swastika for good luck. … Elliot Smith traces these associated
practices in a sort of constellation all over this great Mediterranean / Indian Ocean-Pacific area. Where one occurs, most of the others occur. They link Brittany with Borneo and Peru. But this constellation of practices does not crop up in the primitive home of Nordic or Mongolian peoples, nor does it extend southward much beyond equatorial Africa. … The first civilizations in Egypt and the Euphrates-Tigris valley probably developed directly out of this widespread culture." (Outline of History, pp. 141–143).

 

[amadeus]

Africa may have been the "cradle of civilization," but it hasn't improved that much since.

The only thing that's changed since then is what weapons those people use.

 

[Archbob]

Depends on what you mean by civilization. The first villages along the nile were earlier than 10,000BC. However, it wasn't until 3000BC that upper and lower egypt were united by King Menes and the Pharoah(double crown) was created.

As for the Americas, the first signs of settlement were well before the olmec civilization flourished. There is a spot, near present-day colorado where a city of about 40,000 called "poverty point" was built thousands of years before the olmecs. There is evidence that Cro-Magnon man(and therefore Homo sapiens) were in the americas as early as 35,000 BC.

 

[Alcibiaties of Athenae]

Hmm, Charles Seignobos Died over a century ago, and Sir Grafton Elliot Smith did the bulk of his research before the extent of Sumerian culture was understood.
A British archaeologist, C. Leonard Woolley was the first to begin serious work here,(on the Sumerians) in the 1920s, long after Seignobos' work, and contradicted large parts of it.

Dr Charles Peligrino postualtes that a culture rose about 10-15,000 BC in the upper Nile area, the best carbon dating is from this period, but the inhabintents were not urbanized, the first example of a laid out town is in Turkey in about 10,000 BC (I forget the place name, Catal Hyut or huysk, something like that), the first example of a decent sized city is Jerico, about 8,000 BC, but none of these is a true civilization, the Sumerians are the first with city planning and written language that we know of, and the skin color, dark or other wise is completely unkown, dispite what people like Leonard Jeffries says.

Eygpt and the Nile aera were deffinatly not the first, at least not from what is currently known, by a long shot.

 

[Jersey Joe]

Ethiopia gaves us coffee, ergo that is where civ began

 

[Sodak]

As AofA points out, the ideas presented by Seignobos are obsolete, and Smith follows suit. Wooley is still respected as a groundbreaker, and his work has been built upon - not debunked, like that of his predecessors. The long quote Ribannah provides sounds like a pile of speculation. Similarities between culture traits is interesting, but hardly a reason to think Britons and Melanesians are just offshoots of the same ancestral culture.

The Olmecs are the clear meso-american first on record. Other evidence shows that there were civilized peoples in the andes, among other places - but the Olmecs left legacies that have been thoroughly studied. Not only their own artifacts, but their cultural legacy transmitted thru the Maya and Aztec (and the peoples they absorbed before euro conquest). Their earliest known sites date from the era Ribannah mentions, but they were already a complex, well established society by then. Some guess an origin closer to 2000bc, tho that is speculation.

One problem with really ancient civilizations is simply evidence. There are traces of civilized behavior - e.g. architecture or irrigation, things that would have required organization - but the evidence is too thin to extend that to a civilization. Do we take the advanced site in anatolia as proof of a civ, or just some locally exceptional people? Without good proof, it's often left to interpretation of what does exist. For a game, of course, this is good - a scenario maker can simply fill in the gaps with a story that will make a fun game.

Quechua (Inca) people trace their own histories to the final centuries bc. Archaeology has supported this time frame. Before this time, evidence of advanced civs simply isn't there, or hasn't come to light.

The Egyptians have a detailed history, you can practically find a timeline for whatever info about them you need. After the unification of north and south, there are records of them dealing with their southern neighbors. The Nubians, Ku****es, Meroe, etc, did have different names to different people. The main point for Exsanguination's query is that there were at least two southern neighbors of merit, tho much less is known about them than the Egyptians.

When did the west african civs really begin to flourish? I think of the Mali (much later, iirc), Accra, and the like. I really don't know much about them from before 1000ad or so... I've read of archaeological finds in central africa that place iron smelting back way before even the europeans were busy with it. Does anybody here know anything about this? It could very well be a case of advanced local peoples, I'm curious if this ties to any ancient civs in the region. Tho not anywhere near as old as the nile valley peoples, the Shona of Zimbabwe had a glorious time a long time ago.

rmsharpe, you really ought to read some books. You'd discover quite a bit about how people who aren't doing as well today have had their moments in the sun - and some more recently than you might think.

 

[Exsanguination]

when i say 'civilization' i mean: several cities, organized religion, possible dynasties, self-sufficiency - basically the Sumerians. as far as I know, they were the first civilization ever (5000 BC).

 

[Locutus]

LOL, thanks PaleHorse

Ribannah,
The second link you posted said the following, just before the part you quoted:

If we accept this three-fold division of the human species, our classification ought to read as follows: the races of man are three in number; (1) the Negroid, or Ethiopian or black race; (2) the Mongoloid, or Mongolian or yellow race; and (3) the Caucasoid or European or white race. This is the very latest scheme of race classification.

So Ethiopian, in this context, is a synonym for Negroid, i.e. all (Sub-Saharan) black people.

The newer (first) link explains basically the same thing I said: the people lived in a region called Nubia and called themselves Cushites. The Romans/Greeks called them Ethiopians but, as the link also explains, they called pretty much all blacks Ethiopians (Arabia was at the time part of the Aksumite (=present day Ethiopian) kingdom).

Then again, that's all just a matter of semantics, you can call them whatever you like, I suppose (it's just that IMHO Nubia or Cush covers the civ best in modern terms)...

As for the contents of that quote: what AoA and Sodak said. The first 'true' civilization in Nubia (with cities and all) arose roughly between 3500 and 2800 BC.

Originally posted by Sodak
When did the west african civs really begin to flourish? I think of the Mali (much later, iirc), Accra, and the like. I really don't know much about them from before 1000ad or so... I've read of archaeological finds in central africa that place iron smelting back way before even the europeans were busy with it. Does anybody here know anything about this? It could very well be a case of advanced local peoples, I'm curious if this ties to any ancient civs in the region. Tho not anywhere near as old as the nile valley peoples, the Shona of Zimbabwe had a glorious time a long time ago.

The first of the great Sahelian civilizations was Ghana, which arose in the 3rd century AD. But it is not entirely clear whether or not something that can be considered a civilization existed in West Africa before that. We do know that the Nok culture flourished in Nigeria between 500 BC and 200 AD but I'm not sure if you can truly regard that a civilization (probably not).

Exsanguination,
I'm no expert on Sumerian history but AFAIK Sumer didn't really develop into a true civilization until around 3500-3000 BC either, but I guess that depends a lot on how exactly you define 'civilization'. Whether Sumer or Cush or Shang or some other civ was first is hard to say but one can say that there were 6 or 7 regions in the world where civilizations came into existance roughly within the same time period (5000 BC - 2500 BC): China, Crete, Egypt/Nubia, Fertile Crescent, Indus Valley, Peru.

 

[Andu Indorin]

Originally posted by Exsanguination
when i say 'civilization' i mean: several cities, organized religion, possible dynasties, self-sufficiency - basically the Sumerians. as far as I know, they were the first civilization ever (5000 BC).

A working definition. (Civilization has been defined in many, and often contradictory, ways).

According to your working definition, the Olmecs would be the first MesoAmerican civilization -- as noted by Ribinnah and Sodak above. Beginning around 1150 b.c., the Olmecs reached their heighth c. 600 b.c. t0 400 b.c. After the destruction of La Venta c. 400 b.c., the Olmecs more or less declined and were eclipsed by the growing Mayan civilization to the east; to the west, if I recall correctly, they were eclipsed by the Mixtec civilization.

As for Africa, if one considers Nubia and Ethiopia as "outliers" of the Egyptian civilization (and hence apart of the Mediterranean/Near Eastern "cultural complex," then you'd probably be looking at the Kingdom of Ghana (8th-11th centuries a.d.) as the first distinctively African civilization.

Again, it's largely a matter of how one defines a given civilization.