UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Introduction to the later prehistory of sub-Saharan Africa
in Zambia 39 where perhaps a more intensive study of iron age pottery has
been made than elsewhere in tropical Africa. The conclusion of Ehret 40
who on the basis of linguistic evidence thinks in terms of 'loose collections
of independent but mutually interacting communities' coexisting with unassimilated
hunter-gatherers, is also very acceptable on archaeological
grounds. As these Bantu communities became adapted to specific environments,
so their interactions with more distant communities grew less and
their languages and material cultures diverged.
Exchanges between the different regions of the continent
A further feature of the history of tropical Africa at this period which needs
to be stressed is the continuing and intensifying influence of North Africa
on the Sudanic belt. Influence is perhaps a misleading term, as the flow of
commodities and ideas was very much a two-way process. The Sahara, as
has been seen in the earlier chapters, was neither a barrier nor a no
man's land but an area with a detailed history of its own, much of which
still needs to be unravelled. By its very nature as a desert its population
was sparse and nomadic, and in the period under review the majority of its
population probably consisted of pastoralists who moved from the desert
to the highlands, like the Hoggar, the Tassili, the Tibesti, and from the
Sahelian belt northwards and southwards with the passage of the seasons. It
is very difficult either to quantify the actual contact that existed or to
describe its effects, though in recent years archaeological work in the
Sudanic belt is clearly indicating that contact there was, both indirect
such as that provided by the effects of nomadism and direct such as may
have grown up through trade contacts and mineral exploitation. 41 Our
information at present consists of classical literary sources, rock paintings
and engravings in the Sahara and archaeological evidence. Some of the
evidence has already been dealt with in Volume I and in earlier chapters,
but some recapitulation is called for at this stage.
Before dealing with the literary evidence for contact across the Sahara
it is necessary to mention the two direct sea contacts reported to have
been made from the Mediterranean to West Africa. The firstis the voyage
of nearly three years said to have been made by Phoenician sailors in the
service of Necho. This has been discussed in Chapter 4. It is recorded in
Herodotus, who somewhat doubted the story because of the fact that they
had the sun on their right, which is one of the reasons for accepting the
story. The scanty facts presented by the literary sources make it impossible
to verify. It is of some significance that Strabo and other classical writers
39. D. W . Phillipson, 1968a.
40. C. Ehret, 1973, p. 24.
41. We must no doubt resist the temptation to exaggerate the importance of the few
results which have been obtained.
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