Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: the medieval scene
- 2 Egypt: al-Misr
- 3 Ifriqiya and the Regencies
- 4 The Islamic Far West: Morocco
- 5 The western Sudan and upper Guinea
- 6 The central Sudan and lower Guinea
- 7 Nubia, Darfur and Wadai
- 8 The north-eastern triangle
- 9 The upper Nile basin and the East African plateau
- 10 The heart of Africa
- 11 The land of the blacksmith kings
- 12 From the Lualaba to the Zambezi
- 13 The approaches to Zimbabwe
- 14 The peoples of the South
- Epilogue
- Further reading
- Index
6 - The central Sudan and lower Guinea
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: the medieval scene
- 2 Egypt: al-Misr
- 3 Ifriqiya and the Regencies
- 4 The Islamic Far West: Morocco
- 5 The western Sudan and upper Guinea
- 6 The central Sudan and lower Guinea
- 7 Nubia, Darfur and Wadai
- 8 The north-eastern triangle
- 9 The upper Nile basin and the East African plateau
- 10 The heart of Africa
- 11 The land of the blacksmith kings
- 12 From the Lualaba to the Zambezi
- 13 The approaches to Zimbabwe
- 14 The peoples of the South
- Epilogue
- Further reading
- Index
Summary
The region of West Africa lying between the Volta river and Lake Chad, comprising in modern political terms Nigeria and the immediately adjacent countries of Bénin, Niger and Cameroon, was probably, even by the thirteenth century, one of the best-populated parts of the entire continent. It lay at the meeting-point of Africa's three main language families. It had been the scene of the earliest metalworking, in both copper and iron, anywhere to the south of the Sahara. It had therefore probably witnessed the earliest intensive agriculture made possible by forest clearance with iron tools. While it had experienced no concentration of political power on the scale of the empires of Mali and Songhay in the west, it was, even more than its western counterpart, a region in which most people lived in defended towns, from which they went out by day to till their farms in the surrounding countryside. Buildings, wherever it was climatically possible, were of puddled clay and, when these were damaged by weather or warfare, they could normally be rebuilt on the same sites, using the same materials. Urban settlements therefore enjoyed a relative permanence unusual in other regions of Africa, and these settlements, together with their surrounding farmlands, formed the basic units of government. On a wider basis, small towns might pay respect to larger ones, and newer towns might honour the older towns from which their founding ancestors were supposed to have come.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Medieval Africa, 1250–1800 , pp. 79 - 96Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001