World Geography- Africa: Chapter 19 Vocab

Olduvai Gorge

a site of fossil beds in northern Tanzania, containing the most continuous known record of humanity over the past 2 million years, including fossils from 65 hominids

Aksum

an important trading capital from the first to the eighth centuries A.D. in what is now Ethiopia; it flourished due to its location near the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean

Berlin Conference

a conference of 14 European nations held in 1884-1885 in Berlin, Germany, to establish rules for political control of Africa

cash crop

a crop grown for direct sale, and not for use in the region such as coffee, tea, and sugar in Africa

Masai

a major ethnic group in East Africa that live on the grasslands of the rift valleys in Kenya and Tanzania. They farm and herd livestock

pandemic

a disease affecting a large population over a wide geographic area

Carthage

one of the great empires of ancient Africa, situated on a triangular peninsula on the Gulf of Tunis on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea

Islam

a monotheistic religion based on the teachings of the prophet Muhammad, and the biggest cultural and religious influence in North Africa

rai

a kind of popular Algerian music developed in the 1920s by poor urban children that is fast paced with danceable rhythms

Goree Island

an island off the coast of Senegal that served as a major departure point for slaves during the slave trade

stateless society

one in which people use lineages or families whose members are descended from a common ancestor, to govern themselves

Ashanti

a people who live in what is now Ghana, in West Africa, and who are known for their artful weaving of colorful asasia or kente cloth

Bantu migration

the movement of the Bantu peoples southward throughout Africa, spreading their language and culture from around 500 B.C. to around A.D. 1000

King Leopold II

the belgian king who opened up the African interior to European trade along the Congo River and by 1884 controlled the area known as the Congo Free State

Mobutu Sese Seko

the leader of Zaire, which is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, from its independence in the 1960s until 1997.

Fang sculpture

carved boxes containing the skulls and bones of deceased ancestors created by the Fang who live in Gabon southern cameroon and Equatorial Guinea

Great Zimbabwe

a city established in what is now Zimbabwe by the Shona around 1000; it became the capital of a thriving gold trading area

Mutapa Empire

a state founded in the 15th Century by a man named Mutota and that extended throughout all of present day Zimbabwe except the eastern part

Apartheid

a policy of complete separation of the races, instituted by the white minority government of South Africa in 1948

Nelson Mandela

one of the leaders of the African National Congress who led a struggle to end apartheid and was elected president in 1994 the first all race election in South Africa