The Antiquity of Man Exploring human evolution and the dawn of civilisation Introduction AOM book Courses Ancient Egypt ... Contact The similarities and differences between the rise of complex societies in West and East Africa by Mikey Brass Two sides of the African continent, involved in two separate economic spheres, are bound to inevitably produce differences between the origins of their complex societies. The influence of the trade networks will vary as well the extent to which the settlements will owe their origins to native or external processes. Yet these self-same processes allow parallels and distinctions to be drawn between the regions under consideration, West and East Africa. THE INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT OF JENNE-JENO As a result of McIntosh and McIntoshÂs precessual archaeological approach to excavating Jenne-Jeno and its hinterland, it has been demonstrated that instead of developing as a result of the trans-Saharan trade, Jenne-Jeno was an indigenous town possessing much earlier origins (Hall 1996: 221). THE INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT OF GHANA Although the Ghana Empire is the earliest historically documented kingdom in the West African Sahel, it is in fact the second complex political system that arose in this area (Munson 1980: 457). The historical records of Ghana come from Arab sources dating between 800 and 1650 AD, but Ghana had been in existence for long before then and was centred in the present-day Sahal region of south-eastern Mauritania and western Mali. (Munson 1980: 457). | |
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