Africans inferior due to genetics???

[Master of Ossus]

one must wonder, since africa was the first place where iron working became common place (they still use it for jewelry, for fucks sake!) why did hoardes of iron-equipped africans take over Africa like Rome did?

what societal and cultural issues were such that it didnt occur?

1. Lack of domestic animals.
2. Land that discouraged large armies and civilizations, and heavily favored small and mobile villages, which could take advantage of migrating herds, changing conditions in the rainy and dry seasons, etc. This was especially important in south/central Africa, and since all of the "notable" African civilizations appeared in the North (Carthage, Egypt, etc.)....
3. Lack of ability to unite the varying tribes, even when it became clear that it was important for them to band together.
4. Inability to communicate over significant differences with any kind of rapidity, due to unfavorable travelling conditions.
5. Lack of easily cultivated land areas, partially as a result of generally poor soil, but also due to a lack of domestic animals. This favored hunter/gatherer societies, discouraged "bumper crops" and prevented a rise of middle-class craftsmen and soldiers from appearing.
6. Lack of building materials--primarily wood--in some parts of the continent, which forced the residents to deal in stone.
7. They were excluded from the early trading between Europe and Asia, forcing them into a poor economic situation. While they had massive natural resources in the form of minerals, it is more lucrative to sit on a trade route where you don't have to dedicate any labor to actually mining the resources. Thus, they had no real armies or significant military technology by the time that they needed them--when the Europeans began arriving to colonize.

[ArmorPierce]

I would think that is the dumbest shit I've ever heard. Civilization isn't caused by genetics considering that the difference between blacks and other races is pretty damn minor. A lot of it has to do with right place at right time.

[Peregrin Toker]

No African civilizations?

Mali. Songhai. Ghana. The Swahilian city-states. The Zulu empire.

Don't forget the Ethiopians and the Nubians, which probably are the most well-known African civilizations.

[kojikun]

no no, nubians are starships from naboo

[Darth Wong]

no no, nubians are starships from naboo

Aha! This means Africans developed hyperspace travel!

[Peregrin Toker]

no no, nubians are starships from naboo

Aha! This means Africans developed hyperspace travel!

(insert joke about Erich von Däniken)

[Shaka[Zulu]]

Egypt was a caucasoid civilization, however its neighbors to the south, the Nubians, were black, as was Mali.

and where oh where do you get this? or have you merely fallen into the trap laid by the colonial europeans over the last few centuries... I suggest you take a closer look at dynastic era heiroglyphs, artwork etc -- in particular the scarcophagi... those are most definitely NOT the features of the typical caucasoid! The Idea of the ancient egyptian civilization being caucasoid was put forth by colonial era egyptologists (and their backers) who could not bring themselves to consider the idea that one of the greatest societies to ever exist was built by anyone else. the idea simply refuses to die because the modern egyptians have been so mixed up in the last 2-3000 years with everybody else ranging from the greeks, romans, & arabian hordes (which eventually colonized spain) to the later european colonialists that they no longer really resemble the original dynastic founders.

the reasons behind the lack of (apparently) notable African civilizations are numerous, however the lack of immunity to European and Asian diseases, the vast and comparatively untapped wealth of African natural resources, and the lack of domesticated animals made Africa very vulnerable to other groups. More importantly, their geography in Africa did not lend itself to the construction of the kind of civilizations that sprang up in Europe and Asia, and even parts of Central and South America during this time. To criticize an entire ethnic group for the continent that it happened to appear on is to vastly understate the effects of such factors on the progress of "civilization," and is a short-sighted and laughable objection.

all untruths... I can tackle them point by point if necessary, but the level of ignorance of history above renders such dissection unnecessary.

[kojikun]

(insert joke about Erich von Däniken)

The circle is the egyptian symbol for the gods and eternity! Is it any wonder that the movie stargate uses a magic ring that the gods move through? its TRUE! The stargate is not a movie but real history!

That guys a bit of a nut, but hes greay none-the-less.

and where oh where do you get this? or have you merely fallen into the trap laid by the colonial europeans over the last few centuries... I suggest you take a closer look at dynastic era heiroglyphs, artwork etc -- in particular the scarcophagi... those are most definitely NOT the features of the typical caucasoid! The Idea of the ancient egyptian civilization being caucasoid was put forth by colonial era egyptologists (and their backers) who could not bring themselves to consider the idea that one of the greatest societies to ever exist was built by anyone else. the idea simply refuses to die because the modern egyptians have been so mixed up in the last 2-3000 years with everybody else ranging from the greeks, romans, & arabian hordes (which eventually colonized spain) to the later european colonialists that they no longer really resemble the original dynastic founders.

Egypt was built by both nubian africans and pre-arabs. skin color on the tomb paintings and on statues show this. Pre-arabs are caucasian, and they were in the vast majority.

[Shaka[Zulu]]

well thats what i mean shaka -- ancient african metropolitan areas never were like european ones, they had little permanency. they also never grew to the scale and numbers that european cities like Rome did. There were a few big ones, but none of such endurance, or numbers.

Timbuktu... Benin... Ife... Idoma... Kano... to name but a few that survive to this day.

me personally i think it has to do with the lack of need. in africa theres an abundance of huntable animals, and while this is also true for europe, its also very easy to plant crop and be done with it, while i do not think it is as easy to do this in africa. also theres the nasty wet-dry season thing in the savannas.

necessity is definitely the mother of invention... contrary to popular belief however, most of africa outside the deserts and savannas is quite arable. domestic livestock of varying specie is also common everywhere except the deserts (where only camels tread). beleive me when I say this -- I have even seen people walking hyenas down the street (with muzzle on of course... africans arent stupid like certain pitbull raising idiots here in the states) in Kaduna and Kano just as you might walk a typical large breed dog.

[kojikun]

Timbuktu... Benin... Ife... Idoma... Kano... to name but a few that survive to this day.

And yet none of them spawned nations of equal magnitude to european and asian cities. you have to admit, timbuktu, while being the center of learning and economy during its time, was no Rome or London. There were no grand armies of Timbuktu, or anything remotely like the kingdoms and empires of european and asian hsitory. Africa, for some reason, never made it past typical iron age levels of civilisation until it was forced.

[Antie]

I suggest you take a closer look at dynastic era heiroglyphs, artwork etc -- in particular the scarcophagi...

The dynastic era lasted from about 3100 BCE (beginning of the first dynasty) to the death of Cleopatra (30 BCE). That's a long time. Ancient Egyptian art went through different styles during all of those years. However, some people may notice that that the women in the art tend to have light skin, and the men tend to have darker (often reddish) skin.

[Shaka[Zulu]]

And yet none of them spawned nations of equal magnitude to european and asian cities. you have to admit, timbuktu, while being the center of learning and economy during its time, was no Rome or London. There were no grand armies of Timbuktu, or anything remotely like the kingdoms and empires of european and asian hsitory. Africa, for some reason, never made it past typical iron age levels of civilisation until it was forced.

thats the whole culture thing getting into it... African cultures typically are so tradition-oriented that they literally wear blinders. they are perhaps the ultimate expression of the 'if it aint broke, dont fix it' philosophy

[kojikun]

well then, not to sound like an ass, but its probably a good thing some black people were taken away from that kind of society, otherwise there really would be a dichotomy between blacks and whites.

[Soulman]

If people are really interested in why it was the Europeans who went around conquering everyone and not the Incans, Zulu or Chinese Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond gives some good explanations (most of which have been touched upon in this thread).

[Peregrin Toker]

well then, not to sound like an ass, but its probably a good thing some black people were taken away from that kind of society, otherwise there really would be a dichotomy between blacks and whites.

Isn't that quite a generalization??

[Stormbringer]

thats the whole culture thing getting into it... African cultures typically are so tradition-oriented that they literally wear blinders. they are perhaps the ultimate expression of the 'if it aint broke, dont fix it' philosophy

That's every culture really; no culture or country starts a revolution or changes for no good reason. The thing is in Europe there was a constant pressure to keep improving and growing thanks to any number of factors. That wasn't present anywhere else to the degree it was in Europe. The Orient stagnated after making a fair amount of progress, Africa and the Americas never got far. A lot Europe's superiority was due to the fact they had a constant pressure to improve.

[Warspite]

3. Lack of ability to unite the varying tribes, even when it became clear that it was important for them to band together.

This is the single most important reason for the "underdevelopment" of Africa, every war between Africans can be, at it focus point, be pinned down to tribal wars.
Examples? Angola, Zaire, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Senegal, Guiné-Bissau, Congo, Biafra...

Even behind official sounding names, there is always a tribe in control, and their confrontations result almost always in extremes of violence that we, "westerners" would deem savage, but to them, is quite normal.

[kojikun]

Isn't that quite a generalization??

Not at all. If Africa was going to remain at the same level is was in 1500 for the rest of the millenium, as it was most likely to do, considering it could have but never did get near European or Asian levels of civilisation, then the entirety of the worlds black population would be living in that sort of dren.

This sounds really horrible, but were it not for the slave trade, Shaka would not have been born and his ancestors would be living in piss poor conditions, many of them starving.

Thats not to say that the slavetrade was a good thing, but it did bring black people out of the bad conditions of the african nations and into a world where they or their descendants were going to live with greater standards of living, health, and opportunity.

[Shaka[Zulu]]

This sounds really horrible, but were it not for the slave trade, Shaka would not have been born and his ancestors would be living in piss poor conditions, many of them starving.

thats not quite true koji, as my paternal ancestry (dad's parents & other family members) came over here as hired servants (not indentured in any way) to a wealthy british family from Nigeria, the realtionship ended in the bahamas and my dad's parents emigrated from the bahamas to D.C., where my dad was born. My mom just happens to be Polish.

Thats not to say that the slavetrade was a good thing, but it did bring black people out of the bad conditions of the african nations and into a world where they or their descendants were going to live with greater standards of living, health, and opportunity.

those that survived the trip anyway...

anyway... to step back for a minute to the 'caucasoid' origins of ancient egypt -- the skin tones of the heiroglyphs are far more reminiscent of the Khoisan/Hottentot than of any 'caucasian' candidates -- if you want a 'caucasian' you need to look at Iran. I was referring more to the facial bone structures represented... particularly on their sculptures & most notably on the scarcophagi. In the vast majority of examples I have seen, those structures aren't caucasian in any way (the noses in particular are nowhere near sharp enough).

[InnerBrat]

Seriously, I'm amazed this thread exists.

Everything Shinova's correspondant said was absolute complete bollocks. The end.

You could wipe out EVERY SINGLE non African race, and over 80% of the black African people, with absolutely no genetic loss. Every single gene present outside Africa is present on that continent. The is no such thing as genetic superiority.

And, while I'm not an archaeologist (at least not in the post-pleistocene sense) everything I've seen from ancient Egypt confirms what Shaka says - the likenesses do not look Caucasian in the slightest.

[Shaka[Zulu]]

That's every culture really; no culture or country starts a revolution or changes for no good reason. The thing is in Europe there was a constant pressure to keep improving and growing thanks to any number of factors. That wasn't present anywhere else to the degree it was in Europe. The Orient stagnated after making a fair amount of progress, Africa and the Americas never got far. A lot Europe's superiority was due to the fact they had a constant pressure to improve.

that is quite true. I must say however that the african mentality is such that in some cases they dont even see any value in improving their warfare -- IIRC the various pre-Shaka tribes of south africa (Zulu included) had gotten warfare down to such a form that rarely did anyone ever get seriously hurt in a declared conflict between tribal armies. Even under Shaka however, I dont think the Zulu ever really grasped the concept of taking the weapons off all the british soldiers they killed, figuring out how they worked and copying them for use themselves (they did have the metalworking capacity to make primitive copies). The american Indians didnt get much further either, though they did use purchased guns (something the Zulu never did *edit*: never had the opportunity to do to my knowledge).

[Frank Hipper]

Sorry I missed out on this one....

I've heard it proposed that one of the reasons African civilisations are marginalised is choice of building material-wood. Africa's history has disappeared down the gullets of millions of termites. One of the reasons that Great Zimbabwe was such a anomaly to 19th century archeologists. They looked only at building material, and not architectural similarities to existing structures thereabouts.
And where the paint survives, Nubians generally appear the same in Egyptian art, except for skin color and hair style, in my limited exposure to it.
As to the hairiness of humans and apes, look at a person that is backlit, we are actually hairier than your average chimp. Our hair is just downy stuff, as opposed to a chimp's coarser fur.

[Shaka[Zulu]]

Seriously, I'm amazed this thread exists.

Everything Shinova's correspondant said was absolute complete bollocks. The end.

You could wipe out EVERY SINGLE non African race, and over 80% of the black African people, with absolutely no genetic loss. Every single gene present outside Africa is present on that continent. The is no such thing as genetic superiority.

And, while I'm not an archaeologist (at least not in the post-pleistocene sense) everything I've seen from ancient Egypt confirms what Shaka says - the likenesses do not look Caucasian in the slightest.

damn... I wish I had said it so succintly

[Shaka[Zulu]]

Sorry I missed out on this one....

I've heard it proposed that one of the reasons African civilisations are marginalised is choice of building material-wood. Africa's history has disappeared down the gullets of millions of termites.

ummm... I dont mean to nitpick, but given the timescales involved, wouldnt that be a googolplex of termites?

[Admiral Valdemar]

There is only one human race and we are it, I hate the racist retards who claim the black and brown and what have you races are inferior.

Dumb fucks, learn some science for once, humans are polymorphic, not polytypic.

Genetics does not dictate civilisation, memetics does.