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Africa led the way in Stone Age technology. Magnetic dating has showed that pre-humans living in what is now Israel exported the latest Stone Age technology out of Africa much earlier than believed, scientists say.
Their study adds to evidence that humans and their ancestors came out of Africa in successive waves, each time bringing better and better technology with them.
Stone Age Africa
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Arena.DYK
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Origin of the name AFRICA
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Africa derives its name from the Phoenician Afryqah, meaning "colony", as translitered into Roman Latin. The name applied to the area surrounding Carthage, the "new city", which became the colony of Tyre. The word's root is afir, meaning "city", and may relate to the mystical name Ophir of the Bible, whose antecedents go deeper into history, suggesting Assyrian and/or Semitic origin. Rome's conquest of Carthage c.146 B.C. resulted in its transliteration to the Roman Latin (or Italic) form Africa and was first introduced as Africa Nova, "new Africa" and Africa Propria, the "original territory of Africa". Destroyed by the Romans, the city of Carthage was rebuilt by them and reconstituted as the capital a century later.
Under Emperor Augustus' rule the Roman Empire's provinces were reorganized and Africa was given Proconsularis status. As such, it was uniquely governed by a Proconsul who reported to the Roman Senate. In light of its strategic and economic importance to Rome the size of the province was greatly increased, extending westward to today's Algiers, eastward to Libya's Tripolitania and southward to cover the southern reaches of today's Tunisia.
Roman rule over Africa did not entirely collapse with its defeat at the hands of the Vandals in the AD 5th century. The conquerors occupied the coastal areas and the major towns and were content to allow the Roman administration to exercise some basic civil services in the region. The Berbers, who steadfastly maintained their independence under a decentralized political structure, however, were the de facto rulers of the countryside. This situation did not basically change with the return of the Romans under the flag of the Byzantine Empire a century later.
The 7th century witnessed the arrival of the Arabs and, at first, the subjugation of the Berbers. Under Arab rule the territory of Roman Africa was generally restored but the name was Arabicized to Ifrikiya (see below). Once again the region prospered under a newly founded city and capital, Al Qayrawan.
The advent of the Christians during the war of the Crusades in the mid-12th century and their occupation of some of Ifrikiya's major ports greatly weakened the Arabs' hold at a time when dynastic rule had become a central political, as well as spiritual, issue. When the Berber Hafsid dynasty gained the upper hand, it reformed its administration and moved the capital to Tunis in 1227. The provincial territory became known as Tunisia. In the process the designation Ifrikiya disappeared but was revived briefly in the 15th century as a marabout kingdom.
The resurrection of the name Africa was the result of a number of virtually concurrent developments beginning in the 15th century, including the contribution of the Portuguese navigators and the introduction of modern cartography, among other considerations. The application of the name Africa to the entire continent occurred much later.
There seems to be substantial agreement among the references I consulted that the geonym Africa derives from the ethnonym of ancestors to today's Berbers. Some sources claim that ethnonym was Afer (sg.) and Afri (pl.) while others give the names Afrigii and Afridi, supposedly derived from the Arabic "afira" = "to be dusty" (afar = dust). The Afri or Afridi supposedly inhabited the region to the south of Carthage. When Romans added Carthage to their empire, the ethnonym was transformed into a geonym to name the entire province, Ifriquia. From thence, the Latin term Africanus eventually enters English as African.
The name Africa came into European use through the Romans, who administered as the province of Africa the territory formerly of Carthage(Tunisia) Carthage (from the Phoenician Kart-Hadasht, the "New City", written without vowels in Punic as Qrthdst), was a city in north Africa located on the eastern side of Lake Tunis, across from the center of modern Tunis in Tunisia. It remains a popular tourist attraction.
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The first University in Sub-Saharan Africa
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Sankore University , Timbuktu,(MALI), 1320 by Mansa Musa. Courses were dispensed in arabic.
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First African To Obtain A Doctorate in a European University
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ANTON WILHEIM von AMO, born in Guinea and raised in Germany at the University of Wittenburg, 1734 with a dissertation on the psycology and psysiology of sensation.
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Size of BODY ORGANS
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The Skin is the biggest organ of the human body, weighing in at an average of 10.89kg. Others organs weigh in as follows:
Liver: 1.56kg
Brain
Male: 1.408kg
Female: 1.26kg
Lung: 1.09kg
Heart 315g(male)
Male: 315g
Female: 265kg
Kidney: 290kg
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First African University Still in Existence
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University of Qarawiyin, Fez, present-day Morocco, founded in 859 A.D.
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First Pregnancy Test
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EGYPT, 1500BCE. A substance in the urine of a pregnant woman causes seeds to germinate. To determine the pregnancy, urinate on a pile of barley and wheat. Barley grow faster if the baby is a girl, wheat if a boy.
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TINY STATES
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Vatican City is the world tiniest states with an area of 0.44km². Others are
| Gilbratar |
6.47km²
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| Monaco |
0.81km²
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| Macao |
16.06km²
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| Nauru |
21.23km² |
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The first to discover COFFEE as a stimulant
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The first to people to discover that coffee is a stimulant were the ABYSSINIANS, who later came to be called Ethiopians.
Wild coffee plants were taken from Ethiopia to southern Arabia and cultivated in the 15th century.
It was introduced into European countries during the 16th and 17th centuries with the first coffee-houses opening in Vienna, Paris and London (1652). Lloyds, the shipping underwriters, began in a coffee-house which was the meeting place of merchants, bankers, and shipowners and insurance agents.
With its increasing popularity – but limited supply – propagation spread to Java, the Americas and Hawaiian Islands (1825). In the 20th century most production came from the Western Hemisphere, particularly Brazil.
Industrial roasting and grinding machines came into use at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries along with decaffeination methods. Instant coffee was perfected in the 1950s - to the acclaim of many but the distaste of ‘real’ coffee devotees - and this led to an increase in the growth of cheaper Robusta beans in Africa.
RELATED LINKS
The
Green Bean Roastery | Origin Coffee Company
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The Origin of Mambo
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Of African and European parentage, the mambo is the result of a long cross-cultural journey, an example of the kind of sensual alchemy which is a speciality of the Caribbean. Mambo, conga and bongo were originally Bantu names for musical instruments that were used in rituals and gradually became secular. Mambo means "conversation with the gods" and in Cuba designates a sacred song of the Congos, Cubans of Bantu origin. The Congos have absorbed a variety of foreign influences and the mambo is a delicious cocktail of Bantu, Spanish and Yoruba.
Despite its African resonance, the mambo can be traced back to an unexpected source, English country dance, which in the seventeenth century became the contredanse at the French court and later the contradanza in Spain. In the eighteenth century the contradanza reached Cuba where it was known as danza and became the national dance. Its hold grew with the arrival of the planters and their slaves who fled from Haiti after it became independent. The Haitian blacks added a particularly spicy syncopation to it called the cinquillo, which is also found in the tango, itself derived from the contradanza. Gradually other black elements found their way into the contradanza, some titles of which--such as "Tu madre es conga" ("Your mother is Congo"), which was played in 1856 in Santiago de Cuba at an aristocratic ball in honour of General Concha, and "La negrita"--reflect this blending. A New Kind Of Music
RELATED LINKS
MusicOfPuertoRico.com ♠ The Maùbo Dance ♠ PlanetSalsa ♠ SalsaRoots ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠
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