‘Black Panther’ and the Real, Lost Wakandas

Daily Beast ^ | February 24, 2018 | Clive Irving

[Cronos]

Question — given the similar latitudes in North America to Europe, the wide east-west range of hospitable latitudes in NA, why didn’t the aboriginals in NA develop more advanced civilizations? It seems that there was hardly any development in NA over thousands of years — they remained rather primitive nomadic hunter - gatherers.

Because in North America there was :

1. No domesticable large animals - there were no horses (yet remember that later the Sioux became great horsemen), no pigs, no sheep, no cattle. The Bison were and are still not domesticable and ditto for moose
2. No domesticable cereals or vegetables -- the modern day corn/maize looks nothing like its wild ancestors which tells us that it took thousands of years of not very fruitful work to make it useful

   Without domesticable crops and animals, there was no benefit in giving up a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, so that (the hunter-gatherer lifetstyle) was the best choice

   But we should note that North Americans DID create advanced civilizations -- the Olmecs, Toltecs and Maya in MesoAmerica were quite advanced.

   And north of Mexico you have the Mississippi civilization.

   But all of them had the problem of no domesticable animals or plants -- think of how difficult it is to farm without a bull to pull the yoke. Low productivity.

   And with low productivity there is less time and energy (read food) available for artisans, metallurgists, philosophers etc. There is no point of cities either without this "fuel" furnished by numerous peasants as happened in Eurasia.

[Cronos]

No. Iron was already being smelted in 1300 BC in Anatolia -- a couple of hundred years before the Bronze Age collapse

But also you need to note that making Bronze is easier than making iron -- iron requires higher temperatures and until the invention of the specific iron smelter, it was near impossible for most people to make it

have you read the Old Testament book of the prophets? It is fascinating how it talks about the invasion of Iron Sword wielding Philistines (related to the pre-ancient Greeks) and them swatting aside bronze sword holders

I alwasy think that must have been a massive civilizational shock -- imagine, you have these fine, shiny bronze weapons and suddenly there are these strange people with swords that look somewhat like yours (bronze and iron swords are slightly different in design due to the metal structures) and you go to fight them, but their sword cuts through yours like a knife through butter. you die, utterly shocked.

[Cronos]

If you want to have your mind blown even more, I recommend reading "The Epic of Gilgamesh" -- this is a story that dates to at least 2800 BC and is about a Sumerian king

The Sumerians, as you know, were the creators of civilization around 5000 BC in what is now Iraq. They were related to the modern day Tamil people of southern India and called themselves the Sa-gi-ga (the black haired people)

Gilgamesh is about a king of Uruk, a massively ancient city. He talks about this travels. Can you imagine travelling in 2800 BC? It continuously blows my mind: Egypt is a new state, recently united, to the east you have fabulous journeys to Dilmun (Bahrain), Elam and Harappa. To the north-west, Anatolia is still basically famers and further north you have the giant forests of Europe.

The Indo-Europeans are still one group of people in the land between the black and caspian seas (no Iranians, indians, Armenians, Celtcs, Italics, Germanics -- they are all still one people, one large tribe).

In Anatolia you have the ancestors of the modern day Georgians

to the east of the indus valley you have a massive jungle

"China" is still a group of farmers huddled between the Yellow and Yangtze rivers.

And how they thought?! They had no sense of time or progress. Things just were, so there was no sense of time going forward or backward. There was no history, no science fiction, there just WAS :)

[Savage Beast]

I have read “at’ Gilgamesh but never read it thoroughly. Your explanations are very interesting. They excite my appetite to know more about it all.

[BenLurkin]

Well....let’s just say we disagree and leave it at that.

[PIF]

I suppose the point was there was a time when the Sahara region was not as dry as it is now - northern Africa was the grain basket of antiquity. But after the Islamic invasion which huge huge herds of goats to strip the vegetation the area is now semi arid desert. Up until then the whole of the area was traversable, unlike to day.

Comparing Northern European peoples to pre-dynastic Egyptians is just wrong. There is no comparison.

“What domesticable animals did native sub-Saharan africans have? None. None of their large beasts are domesticable even today.”

They had cattle, sheep goats and so on by the millions in huge farms which also grew grains to feed the animals and to export to Egypt and Greece, Minoans, and others. As I said, the area was devastated ecologically during the 620s by Mohammad and his Disciples.

[PIF]

Egyptian boats have been recently shown to be quite seaworthy and capable of extended trips even to crossing the Atlantic. They knew the world was round. Proof is in the tobacco found in Ramses (?) tomb/mummy - I forget the details. Tobacco is native to North America.

[Cronos]

They didn't find tobacco in Ramesses' tomb -- they found traces of nicotine.

there are other plants that also contain nicotine like the eggplant (native to south asia and had spread to Egypt by the time of the Pharaoah) -- that isn't conclusive proof that there WASN'T contact but there is not conclusive proof that there WAS contact

however why are there no other traces? Why is the trade not depicted in Egyptian art? They wrote about trade with India and further Asia, so why not abotu this strange land. There is zero other linkage and that's weird - either there is no link or at best there might have been one dude blown across

Egyptian boats were not sea-worthy enough for the open ocean - they were built for hopping from coast to coast.

[Cronos]

The Sahara itself during Roman and even during Old Kingdom Egypt was as dry as it is today. the Coastal regions were fertile -- and still are, especially if you look at Tunisia

But the desert was dry just as today

I'm not comparing northern European Saami etc. to pre-dynastic Egypt. As I said It's not at all surprising - Baltic peoples and Finno-Ugric peoples (Finns, Sami) were very primitive hunter-gatherers with no writing or any towns until the 1100s and they were so close to Rome, ancient Greece etc. Between Egypt and the sub-sahara there is, well, the Sahara -- vast and difficult to breach. I am comparing Egypt-subsaharanAfrica to Rome/Greece - Finland/Baltics. Both areas were geographically close yet had no relationship for millenia

[Hootowl]

Both Ancient and Modern Egyptians were/are Arab Semitic White (65% of Egypt’s population), about 30% Black (mostly Nubian, some Nilotic), Black/Arab admixture—the Berbers and Moors are essentially Arabs with 8-15% Black heritage—and 5% all other ethnicities. From Yahoo Answers.

[Cronos]

Both ancient and modern Egyptians are NOT Arabs, not even Semites

DNA Analysis proves Egyptians are not Arabs from the Egypt times

Arabs are a branch of Semites - the others being Iraqis, Jews, Syrians etc.

And Semites are a branch of Afro-Asiatics, the others being Ethiopians, Somalis, Berbers and Egyptians

[Hootowl]

The exeerpt I used was based on DNA tests which showed that ancient Egyptians and modern Egyptians are basically the same genetically.