Ancient Africa : a global history, to 300 CE / Christopher Ehret.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 171-201) and index.

Introducing the issues and themes -- African firsts in the history of technology -- Ceramic technology in world and african history -- Women as inventors and innovators -- Metallurgy in ancient africa -- Historical connections of copper to iron metallurgy in Africa -- Mechnical invention in early world and Africa history -- Issues and propsitions -- Ancient africa and the export of agricultural innovation -- The era of early agriculture -- African agricultural beginnings -- Early Agriculture in West Africa -- The age of Argicultural Exchange -- Towns and Long-Distance commerce in Ancient Africa -- The West Africa commerical revolution -- A second African commerical revolution: the Congo Basin -- Commerical "revolutions" in the Global Frame -- The Africanity of Ancient Egypt -- The deep background of Ancient Egyptian History, 20,000-6000 BCE -- The not-so-deep-time-story of Egypt's foundations, 6000-3100 BCE -- Africa and Africans in Early Global History -- Global history, 68,000-20,000 BCE -- Global history, 20,000-9700 BCE -- Global history, 9700 to the Sixth Millennium BCE -- The age of Argricultural Exchange 6000-3000 BCE -- Global history 6000-3000 BCE -- "Civilization" --- Appendix: considerations for Historians Reading Genetic Studies.

"A deep history of Africa, from 70,000 BCE to 300 CE, that synthesizes the archeological and historical linguistic evidence to tell an integrated global history of the continent. A framing chapter introduces the historical goals and issues of the book, recounting the terrible histories of recent centuries that led to Africa being wrongly treated as a peripheral other in the history of us all. Chapter two, "African Firsts in the History Technology," brings to light the histories of the independent inventions by Africans, living in different regions in the heart of the continent, of ceramic technology, more than 11,000 years ago; of the earliest cotton weaving technology in World History, 7,000-plus years ago; and of the earliest iron smelting, 4,000 or more years ago. Ehret then turns to agricultural innovations between the ninth and seventh millennia BCE, introducing the evidence that shows that Africa helped usher in the "Age of Agricultural Exchange," and was, on the whole, a net exporter of agricultural innovations into Eurasia (including twelve early essential crops, and domesticated donkeys). Chapter four, "Towns and Long-Distance Commerce in Ancient Africa," turns attention to the roles of Africans (particularly the regions of Sudan and the Congo Basin) in the development of new systems for trading over distance, which facilitated an emerging class of merchants, during the second and first millennia BCE. Next, "The Africanity of Ancient Egypt," summarizes the evidence of intensive cultural interaction between the lands several hundred kilometers south of the confluence of the White and Blue Niles in modern-day Sudan all the way north to Middle Egypt. Finally, a closing chapter, "Africa and Africans in Global History," takes up the problem of how to bring what we have learned about 'ancient' Africa integrally into how we tell World History and proposes a new periodization of African and World History over the ages from around 68,000 BCE-when true, fully modern humans all still lived in eastern Africa-down to the first three centuries CE"-- Provided by publisher.