Education For Life Academy

Unit 1: Ancient Africa (200,000 B.C.E – 646 A.C.E.)

The Standing on the Shoulders of Giants Curriculum

Complete Hominid Time Line found only in Africa. Chad 7 million years ago Ethiopia 5 million years ago South Africa 3.5 - 4 million years ago.

Oldest Stone Tools: dated back to 2.5 million years ago in Ethiopia and other parts of the Rift Valley.

Domestic Use of Fire: 1.4 million years ago.

Oldest Fossils of Modern Man (Homo sapiens, Sapiens) [200,000] years ago in Ethiopia.

Oldest Example of Fishing - 110,000 years ago, N. E. Africa & South Africa.

Oldest Use of Pigments, 150,000 years ago, Rift Valley & South Africa.

Oldest Bone Tools, 90,000 years ago in South Africa.

Oldest Barbed Points & Hook, 70-90,000 years ago, N.E. & South Africa.

Oldest Jewelry Beads, [70,000] years ago, Central & South Africa.

Oldest Homesite, 90,000 years ago, Sudan.

Stargazing, 43,000 years ago, Nile Valley

Iron Ore Mining, 43,000 years ago, ["Lion Cave" in Swaziland.]

Oldest Known Mathematical Artifact, 37,000 years ago, Lebombo Bone, Swaziland.

Oldest Example of Math Calculations, 27,000 years ago, Ishango Bone, Zaire.

Oldest Rock Art (Apollo II Rock Shelter) Namibia, 28,000 years ago.

Animal Domestication, 15,000 years ago, Ethiopia.

Crop Cultivation, 18,000 years ago.

Sources:

http://www.panafricanperspective.com/origins/earlyafricans.html

http://www.sntc.org.sz/cultural/malarch.asp

The Ishango bone is a bone tool, dated to the Upper Paleolithic era. It is a dark brown length of bone, the fibula of a baboon, with a sharp piece of quartz affixed to one end, perhaps for engraving. It was first thought to be a tally stick, as it has a series of what has been interpreted as tally marks carved in three columns running the length of the tool. But some scientists have suggested that the groupings of notches indicate a mathematical understanding that goes beyond counting.