50,000+ BCE–1000 BCE: (Chapter 2: African Firsts in the History of Technology, Africans Living in the Heart of the Continent Participating Separately and Ind…

50,000+ BCE–1000 BCE: (Chapter 2: African Firsts in the History of Technology, Africans Living in the Heart of the Continent Participating Separately and Independently in the Key Technological Transitions of Ancient World History During the Same Broad Eras as Peoples Elsewhere, and in at Least Two Instances Innovating Earlier Than Anyone Else in the World): Chapter 2 of Ancient Africa: A Global History opens with a claim that most world history textbooks would never think to make: Africans living in the heart of the continent participated separately and independently in the key technological transitions of ancient world history. They did so during the same broad eras as peoples in other parts of the globe. And in at least two instances, Africans appear to have brought notable technological innovations into being not only just as early, but earlier, than did people living anywhere else in the world. This is not hedged, not qualified, not buried in a footnote. Ehret leads with it. As our forebears in Africa and elsewhere took new steps toward greater technological mastery, they built, as we still do today, on foundations laid by prior advances. Sometimes they put older techniques to new uses. Sometimes they applied older processes to new kinds of materials. Two primary, very long-term trendlines of technological descent lead from ancient times down to the more complex technologies of later ages. One line we might call chemical, and the other mechanical. Each line of development began separately in more than one part of the world, among both Africans and peoples of other continents. The chapter that follows will trace those lines, and the story they tell is one that the Western tradition has worked very hard to make sure you never heard.