HIS 128 - African History to 1600 - Professor Carr: African Historiography

PERIODIZATION

"No single periodizaton" (Middleton, New Encyclopedia of Africa) of African history.

CHALLENGES OF HISTORICAL RECORD

According to Ihediwa Nkemjika Chimee, the collected documents on history of Africa tended to focus on the activities Arabs and the Europeans in Africa (Chimee). 

They focused on the coasts and trading routes, and some periods of some regions are not as recorded. According to Chimee, it will be the job of historians to recreate the timeline using instead: 

languages
religions
philosophies
cosmology
arts & aesthetics,
music & dance,
warfare,
architectures,
farming,
astrology,
rituals,
navigation,
crafts & industries.

African Historiography and the Challenges of European Periodization: A Historical Comment – TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research (hypotheses.org)

CONSULT A REFERENCE WORK. 

Wakanda's not a real place as we all know, but stolen artifacts and the movement for restitution is a real problem. 

This talk by Dr. Rebecca Futo Kennedy, Herodotus on Ancient Africa: There is no Sub-Saharan Africa explores the whitewashing of African history, or the repeated mis-conception that Egyptian civilization was somehow part of Mediterranean culture and shows that the entire continent was part of the civilization cultural production of the time. Africans rules Egypt and were part of the ancient civilization ecosystem.