What if Africa had more domesticable animals?

[JTWuest]

Female hybrids are poorly fertile, males are sterile. Try coupling the poorly fertile female with the fertile male enough times and over generations it could perhaps work.

It's possible I suppose. Expensive and near pointless, but possible.

 

[arras]

Sorry, I'll take Jared Diamond's opinion over yours, more domesticable animals in africa would have completely changed the continent.

Yea and in Diamond's opinion Europeans still live in caves and hurl stone axes around because no animal was domesticated in Europe.

It does not matter where animal was domesticated.

Look at the introduction of the horse to the Savannahs of west africa. the cavalry mounted sahelian kingdoms dominated the weaker tribes.

And? What else they did with those horses except dominating some "weak" tribes? Now compare it to what did Mongols with the same horses.

The songhai empire extended its rule because of it(and their navigation of the niger river) to become one of the largest african empires in history. Imagine what the zulus could've done say, with rhinos or hippos. Mobility is everything to an empire, especially in Africa where the native topography can be a nightmare to trudge through.

Nothing would have happened.

First of all rhinos can not be domesticated. That is pure fanthasy, not history. Out of thousands, perhaps millions of mammals, birds and what else, only very, very few species could be domesticated. Most of animals are unfit for domestication.

Second of all Africa had access to domesticated animals as Europe did at approximately the same time. In fact even earlier.

 

[WeisSaul]

And? What else they did with those horses except dominating some "weak" tribes? Now compare it to what did Mongols with the same horses.

The Fulani did a good job at conquering various Hausa emirates (organized city-state polities) in Northern Nigeria. The Mongols were an anomaly, and aside from the Russians nobody has ever come close to repeating their success.

Second of all Africa had access to domesticated animals as Europe did at approximately the same time. In fact even earlier.

You're forgetting about the tsetse fly, which made the use of horses in most of Africa an impossibility. If you can't use horses, the movement of goods and materials become more difficult.

 

[arras]

You're forgetting about the tsetse fly, which made the use of horses in most of Africa an impossibility. If you can't use horses, the movement of goods and materials become more difficult.

-that does not change fact that location where animal was domesticated does not matter.

-your map shows hardly half of Africa.

-horse newer was used as a primary animal for transport of goods and materials until perhaps 18-19th ct. Instead it was donkey, cattle, camel and some other animals which were real "workhorses" of transportation. Horse was always expensive and difficult to bread and grow and therefore more a status animal and warbeast. With few notable exceptions of course like grasslands of Central Asia.

-not to mention civilisations which did not use any animals for transport in substantial numbers like Greeks.

 

[arras]

The Fulani did a good job at conquering various Hausa emirates (organized city-state polities) in Northern Nigeria. The Mongols were an anomaly, and aside from the Russians nobody has ever come close to repeating their success.

They were not anomaly, they were just most successful of bunch of similar peoples through out history: Scythians, Sarmatians, Allans, Huns, Avars, Turks and others.

 

[WeisSaul]

-that does not change fact that location where animal was domesticated does not matter.

If the domesticated animals from outside the region die in the region where they are to be used then it does matter.

-your map shows hardly half of Africa.

It's most of Africa only missing the North African coast. It shows the range of the tsetse fly.

-horse newer was used as a primary animal for transport of goods and materials until perhaps 18-19th ct. Instead it was donkey, cattle, camel and some other animals which were real "workhorses" of transportation. Horse was always expensive and difficult to bread and grow and therefore more a status animal and warbeast. With few notable exceptions of course like grasslands of Central Asia.

And all those animals would have died by the Tsetse fly as well.

-not to mention civilisations which did not use any animals for transport in substantial numbers like Greeks.

Islands and shipping.

They were not anomaly, they were just most successful of bunch of similar peoples through out history: Scythians, Sarmatians, Allans, Huns, Avars, Turks and others.

And they all expanded along flat empty spaces not through densely populated regions. The anomaly being the Mongol conquest of China and Iran.

 

[arras]

OK, this whole thread is nonsense.

-What allowed most ancient and early modern civilisations to develop was not horse, rhino or any other animal but SHIP.

-Ancient civilisations appeared along waterways: rivers, seas, later even oceans, not along inland routes.

-Until railroad most of the transport and trade was done by SHIP not horse, rhino or pigeon.

-Until railroad, water was mean of transport and communication and land was obstacle.

-Africa newer was single civilisation. North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa were always (or at last as long as we have some records) two different worlds. North Africa was always and till this day is part of "Mediteraean" and "Middle-Eastern" "world", civilisation or civilisations. Libya or Egypt are culturally, economically, politicaly even racially more close to Greece than to Kongo.

 

[mansamusa]

OK, this whole thread is nonsense.

-What allowed most ancient and early modern civilisations to develop was not horse, rhino or any other animal but SHIP.

-Ancient civilisations appeared along waterways: rivers, seas, later even oceans, not along inland routes.

-Until railroad most of the transport and trade was done by SHIP not horse, rhino or pigeon.

-Until railroad, water was mean of transport and communication and land was obstacle.

I think its fair to say that domesticated animals did contribute significantly to world civilizations. I don't know how anyone measures the importance of land trade/tranport vs water trade/transport throughout human history to draw the absolutist conclusion that you just did. Different civilizations evolved differently had different modes of transport. And I would think land transport was complementary to water transport, with goods being transported overland before being loaded unto ships and vice versa.

The silk road which linked china to the middleast, I believe was primarily land based trade. In Africa, one of the most famous trade networks is the transaharan trade network also largely land based. The medieval trade of gold bullion upon which Islamic world currency relied on was based on transaharan trade, and was a big cause of trade rivalry between Moslems and Christian Europeans.

 

[arras]

I did not say that land trade routes did not exist. I said they played little if any role in development of civilisations and empires. And that is easy to find out just by looking at geography of those empires.

 

[mansamusa]

-Africa newer was single civilisation. North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa were always (or at last as long as we have some records) two different worlds. North Africa was always and till this day is part of "Mediteraean" and "Middle-Eastern" "world", civilisation or civilisations. Libya or Egypt are culturally, economically, politicaly even racially more close to Greece than to Kongo.

It makes no sense to separate north Africa civilization from subsaharan civilizations. N. Africa itself is not a single civilization, especially if we are speaking about millennia of history. Neither is subsahatran civilization a single civilization for the same reason.

Languages found in N. Africa are frequently found or even originate in Subsaharan Africa, Afroasiatic languages being among the most famous, and the population history of these regions, as determined from arvhaeological research point to these regions being populated by subsaharan African populations, especially Egypt and Libya.

Your point about Kongo, Egypt and Libya seems unrelated to any meaningful point.