AFRICAN TECHNOLOGY


INTRODUCTION
The history of the sciences in Africa is rich and diverse. In ancient northeast Africa, those regions such as
Egypt, Nubia and Aksum that had evolved large, complex state systems, also supported a division of labor
which allowed for the growth of science and the more practical technologies involved with the engineering of
public works. In other parts of Africa, in the various city states, kingdoms, and empires that dominated the
political landscape, science and technology also developed in various ways. The applied sciences of agronomy,
metallurgy, engineering and textile production, as well as medicine, dominated the field of activity across
Africa. So advanced was the culture of farming within West Africa, that ‘New World‘ agricultural growth was
spawned by the use of captives from these African societies that had already made enormous strides in the field
of agronomy. In her work Black Rice, Judith Carnoy demonstrates the legacy of enslaved Africans to the
Americas in the sphere of rice cultivation. We know also that a variety of African plants were adopted in Asia,
including coffee, the oil palm, fonio or acha (digitaria exilis), African rice (oryza glabberima), and sorghum
(sorghum bicolor). Plants, whether in terms of legumes, grain, vegetables, tubers, or, wild or cultivated fruits,
also had medicinal implications for Africans and were used as anesthetics or pain killers, analgesics for the
control of fever, antidotes to counter poisons, and anthelmints aimed at deworming. They were used also in
cardiovascular, gastro-intestinal, and dermatological contexts. Some of these such as hoodia gordonii and
combrettum caffrum are being integrated within contemporary pharmaceutical systems.
 Africa has the world's oldest record of human
technological achievement: the oldest stone tools in the
world have been found in eastern Africa, and later
evidence for tool production by our hominin ancestors has
been found across Sub-Saharan Africa. The history of
scienceand technology in Africa since then has, however,
received relatively little attention compared to other
regions of the world, despite notable African developments
in mathematics, metallurgy, architecture, and other fields.
Early humans

 The Great Rift Valley of Africa provides critical evidence for the evolution of early hominins. The earliest
tools in the world can be found there as well:
 An unidentified hominin, possibly Australopithecus afarensis or Kenyanthropus platyops, created stone
tools dating to 3.3 million years ago at Lomekwi in the Turkana Basin, eastern Africa.
 Homo habilis, residing in eastern Africa, developed another early toolmaking industry, the Oldowan,
around 2.3 million years ago.
 Homo erectus developed the Acheulean stone tool industry, specifically hand-axes, at 1.5 million years ago.
This tool industry spread to the Middle East and Europe around 800,000 to 600,000 years ago. 
Homo erectus also begins using fire.[1]
 Homo sapiens, or modern humans, created bone tools and backed blades around 90,000 to 60,000 years
ago, in southern and eastern Africa. The use of bone tools and backed blades eventually became
characteristic of Later Stone Age tool industries.[2] The first appearance of abstract art is during the 
Middle Stone Age, however. The oldest abstract art in the world is a shell necklace dated to 82,000 years
ago from the Cave of Pigeons in Taforalt, eastern Morocco.[3] The second oldest abstract art and the oldest
rock art is found at Blombos Cave in South Africa, dated to 77,000 years ago. [4] There are evidences that
stone age humans had an elementary knowledge of chemistry in Southern Africa, and that they used a
specific recipe to create a liquefied ochre-rich mixture., [5] according to Henshilwood "This isn't just a
chance mixture, it is early chemistry. It suggests conceptual and probably cognitive abilities which are the
equivalent of modern humans". [6]
Education
 Northern Africa and the Nile Valley[edit]
 In 295 BC, the Library of Alexandria was founded in Egypt. It was considered the largest library
in the classical world.
 Al-Azhar University, founded in 970~972 as a madrasa, is the chief centre of Arabic literature
and Sunni Islamic learning in the world. The oldest degree-granting university in Egypt after the 
Cairo University, its establishment date may be considered 1961 when non-religious subjects
were added to its curriculum.
West Africa and the Sahel
 Three philosophical schools in Mali existed during the country's "golden age" from the 12th to
the 16th centuries: University of Sankore, Sidi Yahya University, and Djinguereber University.
 By the end of Mansa Musa's reign in Mali, the Sankoré University had been converted into a
fully staffed University with the largest collections of books in Africa since the 
Library of Alexandria. The Sankoré University was capable of housing 25,000 students and had
one of the largest libraries in the world with between 400,000 and 700,000 manuscripts.[7]
 Timbuktu was a major center of book copying, religious groups,[8][9] the sciences, and arts.[10][11]
 Scholars and students came throughout world to study in its university. It attracted more foreign
students than New York University.[10][12]
Mathematics

 Central and Southern Africa[edit]

 The Lebombo bone from the mountains between Swaziland and South Africa may be the oldest
known mathematical artifact.[22] It dates from 35,000 BCE and consists of 29 distinct notches
that were deliberately cut into a baboon's fibula.[23][24]
 The Ishango bone is a bone tool from the Democratic Republic of Congo dated to the 
Upper Paleolithic era, about 18,000 to 20,000 BCE. It is also a baboon's fibula,[25] with a sharp
piece of quartz affixed to one end, perhaps for engraving or writing. It was first thought to be a 
tally stick, as it has a series of tally marks carved in three columns running the length of the
tool, but some scientists have suggested that the groupings of notches indicate a mathematical
understanding that goes beyond counting. Various functions for the bone have been proposed:
it may have been a tool for multiplication, division, and simple mathematical calculation, a six-
month lunar calendar,[26] or it may have been made by a woman keeping track of her menstrual
cycle.[27]
 The "sona" drawing tradition of Angola also exhibit certain mathematical ideas.[28][29]
Astronomy
 Three types of calendars can be found in Africa: lunar, solar, and stellar. Most African calendars are a
combination of the three.[13] African calendars include the Akan calendar, Egyptian calendar, 
Berber calendar, Ethiopian calendar, Igbo calendar, Yoruba calendar, Shona calendar, Swahili calendar, 
Xhosa calendar, Borana calendar, and Luba calendar.
 Northern Africa and the Nile Valley[edit]
 A stone circle located in the Nabta Playa basin may be one of the world's oldest known 
archeoastronomical devices. Built by the ancient Nubians about 4800 BCE, the device may have
approximately marked the summer solstice.
 Since the first modern measurements of the precise cardinal orientations of the Egyptian pyramids were
taken by Flinders Petrie, various astronomical methods have been proposed as to how these orientations
were originally established. [14][15] Ancient Egyptians may have observed, for example, the positions of
two stars in the Plough / Big Dipper which was known to Egyptians as the thigh. It is thought that a
vertical alignment between these two stars checked with a plumb bob was used to ascertain where North
lay. The deviations from true North using this model reflect the accepted dates of construction of the
pyramids.[16]
 Egyptians were the first to develop a 365-day, 12 month calendar. It was a stellar calendar, created by
observing the stars.
 During the 12th century, the astrolabic quadrant was invented in Egypt
GROUP 8 S1ME...

 MEMBERS:
 JANJUN I. HALAWIG
 CHRISTIAN YANGYANG
 ROCKWELL ELDRIN C. DAMIAN
 ROBERTO MIGUE
 RIEMESES ROSALEM
AND THATS
ALL THANK
U!!!!