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10,000-6,000 B.C

Microliths- tiny blades and flakes of stone.

These were used as hunting and gathering tools

Was also used as scrapping tools

Graphic:

Wilford, John. "Stone Tools Point to Creative Work by Early Humans in Africa." Stone Tools Point to Creative Work by Early Humans in Africa, November 12, 2012. Accessed November 14, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/science/evidence-of-persistent-modern-human-behavior-in-africa.html?_r=0.

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ARTIFACTS The excavations have uncovered caches of advanced stone hunting tools, including spear tips and other small blades, or microliths, which suggest that modern Homo sapiens in Africa had a grasp of complex technologies. The research team's report challenges a Eurocentric theory of modern human development.

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6,000 B.C- 2,000 A.D

Southern Africa rock art discovered in Apollo II Cave.

Paintings were commonly made up of animals and people

Animal paintings lead to the prehistoric beliefs systems of the San people

The precise date of these paintings are controversial due to the fact findings of of ancestors of the hunter gathers are still to be found

Graphic:

Williams, David. Deciphering Ancient Minds.https://landlibrary.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/from-the-african-savannah-to-the-wind-river-mountains-of-wyoming/

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1,000 BC - 1,000 AD

Iron smelting first discovered in Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Cameroon, Gabon, and Central African Republic.

Iron wasn't widely adopted in Africa till some time around 1,000 AD

People known as the Nok took advantage of iron and developed life size displays

Graphic:

"Nok Culture ~ DMV Africans." Nok Culture ~ DMV Africans. Accessed November 14, 2014. http://www.dmvafricans.com/2011/09/nok-culture.html.

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2,950 BC - 2,575 BC

Three levels of intermediate periods that can be traced to see the survival of ancient Egyptians

The Early Dynastic Period was from around 2,950 BC to 2,575 BC

In the third period the first king built the step pyramid

Graphic:

"Step Pyramid of Djoser, Saqqara." Global Holy Destinations. Accessed November 14, 2014. http://globalholydestinations.com/step-pyramid-of-djoser-saqqara/.

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2,575 BC - 2,150 BC

Was organized around the pharaoh

known as the period of despotic rulers who wanted to control disorder

during the fourth dynasty came a lot of The Old Kingdoms expansion of public works

Graphic:

"Re-admiring Africa's Beauty." Nzesylvas Corner. Accessed November 14, 2014. http://nzesylva.wordpress.com/2012/09/24/re-admiring-africas-beauty/.

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The First and Second Intermediate Periods and the Middle Kingdom 

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The First and Second Intermediate Periods and the Middle Kingdom 

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2,125 BC - 1,975 BC 1,975 BC - 1,640 BC

During the era of first and second was when a lot of political instability took place

This was a time where there was rival rulers

Throughout the Middle Kingdom it was generally more politically stable

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1,540 BC - 1,075 BC

This period saw numerous amounts of growth in their army and priesthood

Akhenaten attempted to replace traditional beliefs with new religion based off of the "sun disk"

lots of urbanization came from Akhenatens beliefs which evolved the city to 50,000-20,000 people

Graphic:"1550-1070 BCE - New Kingdom Art." Ancient to Medieval Art. Accessed November 14, 2014. http://klimtlover.wordpress.com/egypt-under-the-pharoahs/new-kingdom/.

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1,100 AD - 1,450 AD

populated during the iron age.

stone structures created for the elite

After time this structure was inhabitable due to overpopulation and deforestation

Source :"Great Zimbabwe National Monument." - UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Accessed November 14, 2014. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/364.

Graphic:

http://mrcaseyhistory.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/zimbabwe.jpg

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10,000 AD

Was only used for elite burial services

contained the most valuable grave goods

made with the earliest cast bronze

The glass beads in the Igbo-Ukwu werent local therefore they had to travel a far ditance in order to complete the Igbo-Ukwu

Source:

"Igbo Ukwu (Nigeria)." About. Accessed November 17, 2014. http://archaeology.about.com/od/iterms/g/igbo_ukwu.htm.

Graphic:

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Igbo Ukwu is an African Iron Age archaeological site located near the modern town of Onitsha, in the forest zone of southeastern Nigeria. Although it is unclear what kind of a site it is-settlement, residence, or burial-we know that the Igbo Ukwu was used during the late 10th century A.D.

Igbo-Ukwu was discovered in 1938 by workmen who were digging a cistern and professionally excavated by Thurston Shaw in 1959/60 and 1974. Eventually, three localities were identified: Igbo-Isaiah, an underground storage chamber; Igbo-Richard, a burial chamber once lined with wooden planks and floor matting and containing the remains of six individuals; and Igbo-Jonah, an underground cache of ritual and ceremonial objects thought to have been collected during the dismantling of a shrine.

The Igbo-Richard locality was clearly a burial place for an elite (wealthy) person, buried with a large array of grave goods, but it is unknown whether this person was a ruler or had some other religious or secular role in his or her community. The principal interment is an adult seated on a wooden stool, dressed in fine clothing and with rich grave effects including over 150,000 glass beads. The remains of five attendants were found alongside.

The burial included a number of elaborate cast bronze vases, bowls, and ornaments, made with the lost wax (or lost latex) technique. Elephant tusks and bronze and silver objects illustrated with elephants were found. The bronze pommel of a sword hilt in the form of a horse and rider was also found in this burial, as were wooden objects and vegetable textiles preserved by their proximity to bronze artifacts.

Over 165,000 glass and carnelian beads were found at Igbo-Ukwu, as were objects of copper, bronze, and iron, broken and complete pottery and burned animal bone. The vast majority of the beads were made of monochrome glass, of yellow, grayish blue, dark blue, dark green, peacock blue, and reddish brown colors. There were also striped beads and multicolored eye beads, as well as stone beads and a few polished and dull quartz beads. Some of the beads and brasses include the portrayal of elephants, coiled snakes, large felines and rams with curving horns.

To date, no bead-making workshop has been found at Igbo-Ukwu, and for decades, the array and variety of glass beads found there has been the source of a great debate. If there is no workshop, where did the beads come from? Scholars suggested trade connections with Indian, Egyptian, Near Eastern, Islamic and Venetian bead makers. That fueled another debate about what kind of trade network Igbo Ukwu was a part of. Was the trade with the Nile Valley, or with the East African Swahili coast, and what did that trans-Saharan trade network look like? Further, did the Igbo-Ukwu people trade slaves, ivory, or silver for beads?

In 2001, JEG Sutton argued that the glass beads might have been manufactured in Fustat (Old Cairo) and the carnelian might have come from Egyptian or Saharan sources, along trans-Saharan trade routes. In West Africa, the early second millennium saw increasing reliance on imports of ready-made brass from North Africa, which was then reworked into the famed lost-wax Ife heads.

In 2016, Marilee Wood published her chemical analysis of pre-European contact beads from sites all over sub-Saharan Africa, including 124 from Igbo-Ukwu, including 97 from Igbo-Richard and 37 from Igbo-Isaiah. The majority of the monochrome glass beads were found to have been made in West Africa, from a mixture of plant ash, soda lime, and silica, from drawn tubes of glass that were cut into segments. She found that the decorated polychrome beads, segmented beads, and thin tubular beads with diamond or triangular cross-sections were likely imported in finished form from Egypt or elsewhere.

The main question of the three localities at Igbo-Ukwu persists as the function of the site. Was the site simply the shrine and burial place of a ruler or important ritual personage? Another possibility is that it may have been part of a town with a resident population-and given, the West African source of the glass beads, there may well have been an industrial/metal-workers quarter. If not, there is likely some sort of industrial and artistic center between Igbo-Ukwu and the mines where the glass elements and other materials were quarried, but that hasn't been identified yet.

Haour and colleagues (2015) have reported work at Birnin Lafiya, a large settlement on the eastern arc of the Niger river in Benin, that promises to shed light on several late first millennium-early second millennium sites in West Africa such as Igbo-Ukwu, Gao, Bura, Kissi, Oursi, and Kainji. The five-year interdisciplinary and international research called Crossroads of Empires may well assist in understanding the context of Igbo-Ukwu.

Haour A, Nixon S, N'Dah D, Magnavita C, and Livingstone Smith A. 2016. The settlement mound of Birnin Lafiya: new evidence from the eastern arc of the Niger River . Antiquity 90(351):695-710.

Insoll T, and Shaw T. 1997. Gao and Igbo-Ukwu: Beads, interregional trade, and beyond. African Archaeological Review 14(1):9.

Onwuejeogwu. M A, and Onwuejeogwu BO. 1977. The Search for the Missing Links in Dating and Interpreting the Igbo Ukwu Finds. Paideuma 23:169-188.

Phillipson, David W. 2005. African Archaeology (third edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Sutton JEG. 2001. Igbo-Ukwu and the Nile. African Archaeological Review 18(1):49-62.

Wood M. 2016. Glass beads from pre-European contact sub-Saharan Africa: Peter Francis's work revisited and updated. Archaeological Research in Asia 6:65-80.

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What Was Igbo Ukwu, and Where Did All Those Glass Beads Come From?

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Igbo Ukwu is an African Iron Age archaeological site located near the modern town of Onitsha, in the forest zone of southeastern Nigeria. Although it is unclear what kind of a site it is-settlement, residence, or burial-we know that the Igbo Ukwu was used during the late 10th century A.D.