would be governed by their guild. Such villages were suburbs,
because they usually existed to service a nearby city with
their goods. Such details show villages and towns responding
to developments of their cultures.AFRICA
BY MICHAEL J. O’NEAL
Th e emergence of towns and villages in ancient Africa writes
in miniature the history of human development and civili-
zation. Th e earliest hominids emerged in Africa some three
million years ago and evolved into humans during the pe-
riod historians call the Stone Age. During the earliest phase
of the Stone Age, about one to three million years before the
Common Era, the human population was small and scattered
across the savannas of tropical Africa. People in small bands
lived entirely by hunting and gathering, craft ing primitive
tools out of stone. Th e only thing approaching a town or vil-
lage was a temporary encampment.
Later, up to 200,000 b.c.e., tools became more sophis-
ticated, and populations increased. Greater intelligence en-
abled people to begin living in communities where they could
share knowledge and pass that knowledge down to their off -
spring. As tools for digging, cutting, and carving became
more specialized, and as these stone tools were attached to
haft s to form spears and axes, ancient Africans were able to
move off the savannas and into other regions, including for-
ests, highlands, and more arid desertlike areas. Aft er about
20,000 b.c.e. yet more specialized tools emerged, including
fi shhooks, awls, and bows and arrows, along with boats and
pottery. Th ese developments enabled people to live longer
and contributed to population increases; therefore, they were
crucial for the emergence of towns and villages.
Historians and archaeologists use the term sedentary
to refer to this new, settled way of life, because people no
longer lived in nomadic hunter-gatherer bands and formed
relatively permanent communities. Th is change required the
emergence of agriculture, which occurred in northern Africa
beginning in roughly 16,000 b.c.e. Th e center of these new,
more sedentary communities was the Upper Nile River. (Th e
Nile fl ows from south to north, so the Upper Nile is to the
south.) Th roughout the following millennia the region was far
wetter than it was aft er about 3000 b.c.e., so numerous lakes
formed. Historians believe that it was in the region around
these lakes, along the southern borderland of the modern-day
Sahara Desert, that the fi rst African settlements were formed.
Th e region is called the Sahel, an Arabic word that means
“shore,” suggesting that the region formed the shore of the
Sahara Desert, likened to a sea. Th e development of agricul-
ture, including both herding and the planting of crops, paral-
leled the development of towns and villages because people
gathered to pool their eff orts in feeding themselves. Further,
agriculture provided surplus food that enabled communities
to support people who were not involved directly in food pro-
duction, including artists, craft s workers, and the like.In 2002 archaeologists discovered what may be the oldest
agricultural settlement in the Horn of Africa, and perhaps
Africa as a whole, near Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. Th e vil-
lage is believed to be about 3,000 years old. Excavations of the
site reveal that the people lived in stone houses. To conserve
heat on the cool highland plateau, walls were shared, and the
typical house did not have doors but was entered through a
hole on the roof. Other evidence shows that the people herded
and ate cattle and goats and brewed their own beer. For cloth-
i ng t he y wore a n i ma l sk i n s. Th roughout Africa archaeologists
have discovered similar villages, though buildings were more
commonly constructed of mud and mud brick.
Numerous historical developments contributed to town
and village life in ancient Africa. Agriculture was one. A sec-
ond, which went hand in hand with agriculture, was climate
change. Again the Sahel provides examples. In the 1970s
archaeologists began to excavate the ancient town of Jenne-
jeno, located in Sudan in the upper Niger River delta. Until
about 300 b.c.e. the area was uninhabitable because of the
high seasonal fl oodwaters of the Niger. Eventually the area
began to dry out, and the fl oodwaters were lower and shorter
lived. Th e result was the emergence of a fertile alluvial plain,
where fl oodwaters left behind silt well suited to agriculture.
Th e settlement of Jenne-jeno began in about 200 b.c.e. Th e
original village was on a patch of high ground. People lived
in circular huts made of straw covered with mud. By about
450 c.e. the village had grown to about 60 acres. Th e village
continued to be a vital settlement until about 1200.
Jenne-jeno is a good example of two further develop-
ments that infl uenced the emergence of towns and villages in
ancient Africa. One was an increasing amount of trade. Based
on archaeological fi nds, Jenne-jeno appears to have actively
engaged in trade. Artifacts found in the area demonstrate
that Jenne-jeno imported goods from Greece and Rome. In
fact, the entire Sahel, which stretches in an east–west band
across the middle of the African continent, constituted a trade
route. Goods from the east and from the Mediterranean area
passed through the Sahel on the way to points south, where
they were traded for African goods such as ivory, precious
metals, and the like. Th e ancient Carthaginians established
numerous trading posts along the northern and western Af-
rican coasts. Th ese posts were points of contact between the
Carthaginians and their neighbors to the south. Along any
trading route, towns and villages supported caravans of trad-
ers, providing them with food and water, forage for horses
(and later, camels), markets, and resting places. Goods prob-
ably changed hands at numerous points along these trade
routes, giving rise to villages.
A second development that contributed to the emergence
of towns and villages was metalworking. Once again, Jenne-
jeno was a site where a considerable amount of metalwork-
ing took place. Most of this work consisted of goldsmithing
and jewelry. Archaeological evidence shows the presence
of ironworking as well, yet the area itself holds no iron ore,
suggesting that trade also took place for metals. One of the1086 towns and villages: Africa0895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i1086 1086 10/10/07 2:31:01 PM