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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | A Provisional Historical Schema for Western Africa Based on Seven Climate Periods (ca. 9000 B.C. to the Nineteenth Century) |
Author: | Brooks, George E. |
Year: | 1986 |
Periodical: | Cahiers d'études africaines |
Volume: | 26 |
Issue: | 101-102 |
Pages: | 43-62 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | West Africa Africa |
Subjects: | climate change chronology Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment History and Exploration |
External link: | https://doi.org/10.3406/cea.1986.2164 |
Abstract: | Recent scholarships concerning West African climate patterns in past times has made feasible a provisional periodization of the history of Western Africa which is independent of European-derived chronologies. Concomitantly, historical periodization offers provocative insights concerning such long-term processes as human migrations and settlement patterns, the diffusion of cultigens and domestic animals, and the development of long-distance trade routes. The historical schema discussed here comprise seven periods: 1) era of aquatic culture (c. 9000 to c. 2500 BC); 2) era of progressive desiccation (c. 2500 to c. 300 BC); 3) era of advanced aridity (c. 300 BC to c. 300 AD); 4) era of plentiful rainfall (c. 300 to c. 1100 AD); 5) era of progressive desiccation (c. 1100 to c. 1500 AD); 6) brief but eventful wet period (c. 1500-1630 AD); and 7) era of droughts, famines, warfare and slaving (c. 1630-1860 AD). Bibliogr., note, sum. in French (p. 287). |