Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE

by Christopher Ehret

Overview

A panoramic narrative that places ancient Africa on the stage of world history

This book brings together archaeological and linguistic evidence to provide a sweeping global history of ancient Africa, tracing how the continent played an important role in the technological, agricultural, and economic transitions of world civilization. Christopher Ehret takes readers from the close of the last Ice Age some ten thousand years ago, when a changing climate allowed for the transition from hunting and gathering to the cultivation of crops and raising of livestock, to the rise of kingdoms and empires in the first centuries of the common era.

Ehret takes up the problem of how we discuss Africa in the context of global history, combining results of multiple disciplines. He sheds light on the rich history of technological innovation by African societies—from advances in ceramics to cotton weaving and iron smelting—highlighting the important contributions of women as inventors and innovators. He shows how Africa helped to usher in an age of agricultural exchange, exporting essential crops as well as new agricultural methods into other regions, and how African traders and merchants led a commercial revolution spanning diverse regions and cultures. Ehret lays out the deeply African foundations of ancient Egyptian culture, beliefs, and institutions and discusses early Christianity in Africa.

A monumental achievement by one of today’s eminent scholars, Ancient Africa offers vital new perspectives on our shared past, explaining why we need to reshape our historical frameworks for understanding the ancient world as a whole.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691244860
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	11/05/2024
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Christopher Ehret is Distinguished Research Professor in the History Department at the University of California, Los Angeles. His many books include The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800 and History and the Testimony of Language.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Ehret illustrates how one can be a historian of deep time by using languages, artifacts, and genes as documents from the past. A culmination of this approach, this book is a masterful synthesis on the history of African societies in the past twenty thousand years and beyond.”—François-Xavier Fauvelle, author of The Golden Rhinoceros: Histories of the African Middle Ages

“This magisterial book presents Africa’s history from our earliest fully human ancestors to the African kingdoms of the first millennium, discussing along the way the independent invention of ceramics, agriculture, cotton weaving, iron smelting, and monotheism in Africa. Ehret’s volume restores Africa to its rightful place in global history.”—Solange Ashby, author of Calling Out to Isis: The Enduring Nubian Presence at Philae

“Ehret delivers a wide-ranging social history that provides an important corrective to the perception of Africa as a continent without history, including a clear and persuasive argument for ancient Egypt’s Africanity. He makes a compelling case for the significance of Africa in major human developments through independent invention and mutual influence rather than dependency, and takes a significant step toward fully integrating African accomplishments into world history.”—Stuart Tyson Smith, University of California, Santa Barbara

“In this brilliantly written and highly engaging volume, esteemed historian Christopher Ehret challenges the reader to reimagine early history through his masterful interweaving of Africa into the whole of global history, while also emphasizing women’s roles as innovators and inventors. Ancient Africa provides a compelling and accessible primer for anyone interested in early African history.”—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., coeditor of Who’s Black and Why? A Hidden Chapter from the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race

Editorial Reviews

A Seminary Co-Op Notable Book of the Year

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year

Finalist for the PROSE Award in Biological Anthropology, Ancient History, and Archaeology, Association of American Publishers

From the Publisher

02/20/2023

UCLA historian Ehret (The Civilizations of Africa) delivers a comprehensive and stimulating look at the major transitions in African history and their significance for the global development of early civilizations. Drawing from archaeology, linguistics, and anthropology, Ehret argues that major transformations in the history of civilization developed independently in Africa, often preceding similar developments in the Near East, Middle East, Mediterranean, and Asia. He recognizes five historical periods between 68,000 BCE and 300 CE, each with distinctive technological, dietary, and commercial developments. Major innovations between and during these periods include the development of ceramics in present-day Mali, in which women played a significant role; the smelting of metals from ores at various locales across the African savannas in the eighth and ninth centuries BCE; mechanical weaving and textiles; the shift from foraging subsistence to early agriculture, including plant and animal domestication; the establishment of towns and long-distance trade; the growth of specialized craft production and trading centers such as the Tichit region in today’s Mauritania; and the rise of early cities, states, and nations. Throughout, Ehret notes the influence of climatic change on these transformations and makes a persuasive case that “African history offers strong counterweights to... presumptions about male and female roles in history.” Exhaustive and carefully documented, this is a vital reconsideration of world history. Illus. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"Although the ancestors of all human beings alive today lived in Africa, the continent and the history of its peoples occupy remarkably little space in histories of the ancient world. Ancient Africa goes a long way toward rectifying that. . . . This masterful, accessible summary of a brilliant historian's life's work will appeal to everyone interested in ancient world history."

Choice Reviews

"Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE is a passionate, provocative, engaging, and eye-opening account that has swept away any preconceived notions I had of a part of the world that is certainly deserving of more attention.

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Ancient History

05/01/2023

Writing a book on the history of an entire continent requires a certain deftness in providing a holistic view of vastly different cultures and how those societies interacted with one another over time. Historian Ehret (UCLA; The Civilizations of Africa) does an admirable job of addressing African history from the close of the last Ice Age to the rise of kingdoms and empires in the first centuries of the common era. His book combines recent archaeological and linguistic research to show how pottery and ironworking were taught across the continent before the earliest evidence of similar technology elsewhere in the world. The author also identifies Africa's influence on other parts of the world through agricultural exchange. VERDICT Ehret provides a vital new perspective on Africa's significant role in the ancient world. This is an essential book on early African history that uses several types of evidence to demonstrate how different groups in Africa impacted each other and eventually the world.—John Rodzvilla

Library Journal