XXᵉ siècle av. J.-C. – Vᵉ siècle av. J.-C.
Sahara, Sahel, and Sudan zone
Traduction non disponible · Original (anglais) · français indisponible
Sahelian cattle pastoralists were mobile communities whose expansion was associated with the deterioration of Saharan and Sahelian habitats during the second and first millennia BC. Their movements brought them into sustained contact with cultivators, fishers, and other communities, producing both competition for land and durable systems of exchange involving livestock, milk, manure, grain, and other goods.
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Le récit
The spread of desertification altered the ecological basis of mobile communities in the Sahara. As lakes and swamps disappeared, groups increasingly turned to small stock and cattle, which offered a more dependable resource than fluctuating aquatic and wild-animal populations. Herding also supported a more regularized pattern of seasonal movement and could help maintain or increase local population levels.
By around 2000 BC, the pressure on the fragile Sahelian habitat had become severe. Cattle pastoralists began moving through the desert massifs and beyond the desert, toward Mediterranean coastal lands, the Sahelian and West African savannas, and the Nile Valley. Related movements in the Horn of Africa connected the Ethiopian Rift and Somalia with the plateau, Sudan, and East Africa.
These migrations brought pastoralists into juxtaposition with communities that relied on cultivation, fishing, hunting, or collecting. Competition could be violent, particularly when Libyan-Berber groups later possessed metal weapons, but exchange proved more durable in the richer southern grasslands. Grain was exchanged for livestock, manuring, milk products, and other commodities, creating the pastoralist–cultivator symbiosis described as characteristic of West Africa and the Horn.
The source also links northern pastoral expansion with the spread of cattle and sheep or goats toward the Lake Victoria basin and the eastern Rift after about 1000 BC. It cautions, however, that the extent to which these groups were cultivators as well as herders can be established only through secure archaeological excavation. This uncertainty is central to interpreting their role in the wider economic transformation of Africa.
XXᵉ siècle av. J.-C. – Vᵉ siècle av. J.-C.
Sahara, Sahel, and Sudan zone
Traduction non disponible · Original (anglais) · français indisponible
Sahelian cattle pastoralists were mobile communities whose expansion was associated with the deterioration of Saharan and Sahelian habitats during the second and first millennia BC. Their movements brought them into sustained contact with cultivators, fishers, and other communities, producing both competition for land and durable systems of exchange involving livestock, milk, manure, grain, and other goods.
Poursuivre l’exploration
Le récit
The spread of desertification altered the ecological basis of mobile communities in the Sahara. As lakes and swamps disappeared, groups increasingly turned to small stock and cattle, which offered a more dependable resource than fluctuating aquatic and wild-animal populations. Herding also supported a more regularized pattern of seasonal movement and could help maintain or increase local population levels.
By around 2000 BC, the pressure on the fragile Sahelian habitat had become severe. Cattle pastoralists began moving through the desert massifs and beyond the desert, toward Mediterranean coastal lands, the Sahelian and West African savannas, and the Nile Valley. Related movements in the Horn of Africa connected the Ethiopian Rift and Somalia with the plateau, Sudan, and East Africa.
These migrations brought pastoralists into juxtaposition with communities that relied on cultivation, fishing, hunting, or collecting. Competition could be violent, particularly when Libyan-Berber groups later possessed metal weapons, but exchange proved more durable in the richer southern grasslands. Grain was exchanged for livestock, manuring, milk products, and other commodities, creating the pastoralist–cultivator symbiosis described as characteristic of West Africa and the Horn.
The source also links northern pastoral expansion with the spread of cattle and sheep or goats toward the Lake Victoria basin and the eastern Rift after about 1000 BC. It cautions, however, that the extent to which these groups were cultivators as well as herders can be established only through secure archaeological excavation. This uncertainty is central to interpreting their role in the wider economic transformation of Africa.
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