(101 things to know when you go) ON SAFARI IN AFRICA. Patrick Brakspear
tree climbing. Whilst the overall skeleton still had features such as a low sloping forehead, strong brow ridges, and the absence of a chin not seen in Homo sapiens, there are significant defining characters, such as bigger brain size, arms and legs that are slightly longer, and a nose projecting like those of humans rather than the open flat nose seen in apes. It is thought that its body hair may also have been thinner, with increased sweat glands to hasten cooling, and a much darker skin with abundant melanin to cope with the direct tropical African sun.
Jebel Irhoud, Morocco
In a 2017 article published in the journal Nature, Professor Jean-Jacques Hublin of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany has revealed that fossils of five early humans have been found in North Africa that show Homo sapiens emerged at least 100,000 years earlier than previously recognised. The latest material comes from an archaeological site at Jebel Irhoud in Morocco and has been dated by hi-tech methods to be between 300,000 and 350,000 years old, and the skull form is almost identical to modern humans (the few significant differences are seen in a slightly more prominent brow line and smaller brain cavity). The excavation site has also revealed that these ancient people had employed stone tools and had learned how to make and control fire. So, not only did they look like Homo sapiens, they acted like them as well.
"We now have to modify the vision of how the first modern humans emerged" states Prof Hublin, who believes that before our species evolved there were many different types of primitive human species, each of which looked different and had its own strengths and weaknesses. And it was these various species of human, just like other animals, that evolved and changed their appearance gradually, with just the occasional spurt. They did this over hundreds of thousands of years. By contrast, the mainstream view has been that Homo sapiens evolved suddenly from more primitive humans in East Africa around 200,000 years ago; and it is at that point that we assumed, broadly speaking, the features we display now. What is more, only then do we spread throughout Africa and eventually to rest of planet. Prof. Hublin's discoveries would appear to shatter this view.
Food for thought indeed..
Early Civilisations
“Adam’s Calendar”
Scholars have told us that the first civilisation on Earth emerged in a land called Sumer some 6000 years ago. New archaeological and scientific discoveries made by a team of leading scientists, show that the Sumerians, and even the Egyptians, inherited all their knowledge from an earlier civilisation that lived at the southern tip of Africa more than 200,000 years ago...mining gold. These were also the people who carved the first Horus bird, the first Sphinx, built the first pyramids and constructed an accurate stone calendar right in the heart of it all. "Adam's Calendar" is the flagship among millions of circular stone ruins, ancient roads, agricultural terraces and thousands of ancient mines left behind by a vanished civilisation which we now call the First People. They carved detailed images into the hardest rock, worshiped the sun, and are the first to carve an image of the Egyptian Ankh - key of life and universal knowledge, 200,000 years before the Egyptians came to light.
Source: excerpt from Temples of the African Gods: Revealing the Ancient Hidden Ruins of Southern Africa by Michael Tellinger and Johan Heine.
You don’t believe me do you? Google it – it’s true!
The Early Explorers
Little was known about Africa, then described as the Dark Continent, prior to the 18th century. By the late 1700s Europeans had become familiar with the coasts of Africa, although the interior of the continent remained a mystery to them. They limited themselves to trading along the coast, first in gold, ivory, and spices, and later in slaves. Penetration of the interior was difficult because of the harsh terrain and the presence of deadly diseases, such as malaria and dysentery. Despite these obstacles, Europeans explored much of Africa south of the Sahara during the late 1700s and the 1800s.
In 1788 Joseph Banks, the botanist who had sailed across the Pacific Ocean with Cook, founded the African Association to promote the exploration of the interior of the continent, specifically “with the aim of finding Timbuktu and the origin of the Niger”.
What follows is a brief account of each of the early African explorers whose names went down in history:
James Bruce (1730 - 94) was a Scottish explorer who set off from Cairo in 1768 to find the source of the River Nile. He arrived at Lake Tana (Ethiopia) in 1770, confirming that this lake was the origin of the Blue Nile, one of the tributaries of the Nile.
Mungo Park (1771- 1806) was hired by the African Association in 1795 to explore the River Niger. When the Scotsman returned to Britain, having reached the Niger, he was disappointed by the lack of public recognition of his achievement, and by not being acknowledged as a great explorer. So in 1805 he set out to follow the Niger to its source. His canoe was ambushed by tribesmen at the Bussa Falls and he drowned.
Rene Caillie (1799 -1838), a Frenchman, was the first European to visit Timbuktu and survive to tell the tale. He had disguised himself as an Arab to make the trip. Imagine his disappointment when he discovered that the city wasn't made of gold, as legend said, but of mud. His journey started in West Africa in March 1827, headed towards Timbuktu where he stayed for two weeks. He then crossed the Sahara (the first European to do so) in a caravan of 1,200 animals, after which he crossed the Atlas Mountains to reach Tangier in 1828, from where he sailed home to France.
Heinrich Barth (1821- 1865) was a German working for the British government. His first expedition (1844 - 1845) was from Rabat in Morocco across the coast of North Africa to Alexandria in Egypt. His second expedition (1850 - 1855) took him from Tripoli in Tunisia across the Sahara to Lake Chad, the River Benue, Timbuktu, and back again across the Sahara.
Samuel Baker (1821- 1893) was the first European to see the Murchison Falls and Lake Albert, which he did in 1864. He was actually hunting for the source of the Nile but was beaten to the prize by Speke (see below).
Richard Burton (1821-1890) was not only a great explorer but also a great scholar (he produced the first unabridged translation of The Thousand Nights and a Night, from its original Arabic. This is a collection of stories compiled over thousands of years by various authors, translators and scholars. Well known stories from The Nights include "Aladdin," "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” and "The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor"). Burton’s most famous exploit was probably in 1853 when, dressed as an Arab, he visited the holy city of Mecca into which non-Muslims were forbidden to enter. In 1857 he and Speke set off from the east coast of Africa (modern day Tanzania) to find the source of the Nile. At Lake Tanganyika Burton fell seriously ill, leaving Speke to travel on alone.
John Hanning Speke (1827- 1864) spent 10 years with the Indian Army before starting his travels with Burton in Africa. Speke discovered Lake Victoria in August 1858. He initially believed it to be the source of the Nile but Burton didn't believe him and in 1860 Speke set out again, this time with James Grant. In July 1862 he did find what became accepted as the source of the Nile - the Ripon Falls north of Lake Victoria *.
David Livingstone (1813- 1873) arrived in Southern Africa as a missionary with the aim of improving the life of Africans through religion, European knowledge and trade. A qualified doctor and minister, he had worked in a cotton mill near Glasgow, Scotland, as a boy. Between 1853 and 1856 he crossed Africa from west to east, from Luanda in Angola to Quelimane in Mozambique, following the Zambezi River to the sea. On 16th November 1855 he became the first European to view what he named the Victoria Falls. Between 1858 and 1864 he explored the Shire and Ruvuma river valleys and Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi). In 1865, not accepting Speke’s claim he set off to find the source of the River Nile.
Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904) was a journalist sent in 1869 by the New York Herald to find Livingstone, who had been presumed dead for four years because no-one in Europe had heard from him in that time. Stanley found him at Uiji on the edge of Lake Tanganyika