About the study of african history.

Edited by think - 11-Jul-2007 at 06:19

You don't really need stone buildings, besides, that would exclude early Mesopotanian cities, they didn't have access to much stone, so they developed the most sophisiticated ancient brick making industry to compensate for it.
No, building material is irrelevant, its the pattern of settlement, division of labour (along with the hierachies and whatnot) and supremacy over other settlements that makes the City what it is, and this gives you civilisation. Arguably writting isn't necessary either, just an accounting system of sorts, Inca knots being perhaps the most famous example.

Originally posted by pinguin Well, I don't think Toynbee is wrong.   Subsaharan African didn't develop an atonishing original civilization. I don't think that is racism but just stating a fact. Other peoples like the North Central Asian Nomads, the Samis, the Ainus, the Australians, the Amazonians and the Polynesians didn't develop an original civilization either. They developed cultures but not original civilizations. That doesn't mean they are "inferior" people at all. It is just the way it was.   Now, that doesn't mean the Subsaharan Region don't have marvels that are worth to study, starting by Zimbabwe, Eredo and the Ife brozes.   Pinguin

hmm no i do realize that there is a bond..i have stated many times before... but even if you are latino...the bond of states in that part of the world is no more special than the bonding or coming to together of  europeans in early america, or the unification of china...

this preception you have of others that live on the sea...seem only through your internal zeal to be appart of such a region that you dont see the difference between so called brotherhood  and them being nice...

Edited by Tk101 - 27-Apr-2007 at 11:58

I sort of agree with you in many respect. However, in the Mediterranean there are SOME cultural and genetic patterns in common. That's undeniable.

Edited by pinguin - 26-Apr-2007 at 22:26

Originally posted by Tk101 To label the romans, greeks, cretes, egyptians, moors and the others as a medit race is quite ridiculous.

Why is it more ridiculous than lumping together Irish, Bengali and Nenets in  a single race? Or Kazakh, Japanese and Inuit?

Tk 101 Don't believe Pinguin, read The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World at the Time of Philip II by Fernand Braudel (t.1) that book is one of the best piece of history and has been recognized as such since� 1949. Incidently Braudel and Pinguin agree. I don't know if Braudel uses this expression but he might have: "the mediterranean regions are the organes of a unique body". The French terme charabia (un-understandable speach) comes from the fact that arround the Med mostly in ports for everybody to be understood by all they used an awful mix of Arabic, Spanish, French, Turkish, Greek and Italian during the pre-modern period. That is also why Algerian has a lot of French words, that some Corsican dialects sound Greek, some Italian ones Spanish and some Spanish ones Italian. It is the reason why lot of the Turkish vocabulary comes from the Greek (starting by Istanbul) and why in English you use such arabic words as Admiral, Caravan, Algeber or Arsenal or the Turkish one Karamel.

Conserning physical resemblence lets just say that Northern Portuguese call southern Portuguese Moros (Moors). But this are mostly cultural traits when it comes to genetics I wouldn't be so sure about mixity in most places and certainly not at the scale of the Mediterranean. It is more a wild guess than anything else but remember that most of the Mediterranean regions are landlocked montains with little contact with each others but the fact that environmental similarities may have induce cultures to adopt the same traits.


Edited by Maharbbal - 26-Apr-2007 at 11:37