This BBC article talks about the early history of Africa focusing mostly on the human inhabitants and their ancestors. It is believed that Africa was the first continent to ever be home to humans. Obviously, this is hard to prove and can be disproven at any given time if further information is ever gained about the human inhabitants of other continents. As of now Africa is the site in which the oldest human fossils have been found, and show many of the key stages of evolution. This conclusion is not only formed from looking at the fossils, but also studies with radiocarbon dating, as well as the analysis of DNA. All three support Africa being the first home to human life.

I found this article very fascinating! I've never really thought much about where human life first began, because it's something that's kind of  difficult to even imagine. Even though this information can be disproven it's kind of cool to have an idea of where it all began. With multiple studies showing this information from a trusted site I believe it is a conclusion that could very possibly be true. It will be interesting to look a little deeper into this subject to see if other's have come to similar conclusions!

 

Here is a picture of an example of some of the  fossils that can be found. This is a fossil of a human ancestor's footprint found approximately 1.5 million years ago in Kenya.

I read a short article on African slavery. It began with a powerful quote from the king of Congo, "They seize numbers of our free or freed black subjects, and even nobles, sons of nobles, and even members of our own family". Over the course of four hundred years millions of people from every area of the African society were forced into slavery, and sent all over. Even though slavery had been practiced for thousands of years this enslavement of Africans was the first time that such a large number had been forcibly  taken to other continents. Exact numbers are hard to come by, but it is estimated that approximately fifteen million Africans were taken to other continents. By the end of the nineteenth century large scale slave trade began to end in Africa. Even though it ended it's never been forgotten.

Even though this was a very short article I found it was packed with very insightful information. Beginning with the quote really caught my attention, because it showed that there really was no formula to how slaves were chosen. It could be anyone! Even powerful Africans had the threat of possible slavery to deal with. Secondly, the fact that Africa was the area where the largest amount of people were forced to leave their homes to become slaves plays a big role in why we so often associate slavery with Africa. There are so many other areas of the world that people were forced, or even taken to other areas to be used as slaves. It's not something we hear about so much, because the African slave trade was so big, which we can see very clearly from the statistics!



This picture shows some of the slave trade routes from Africa during a period of time. It also gives us an approximation as to how many African slaves were taken to select areas.

I came across an interesting article about the concern among Muslim scholars that such a large percentage of Islam followers are converting to Christianity. Islam use to represent Africa's main religion. With the large conversion only about 150 million non Arab Muslims live in Africa, which has an over all population of approximately one billion. Whereas the number of Catholics has increased from one million in 1902 to about 330 million in the year 2000. Every hour 667 Muslims convert, every day 16,000 Muslims convert, and every year 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity. Obviously, these are very large numbers, which would concern someone who is trying to protect their religion. These scholars discuss possible ways to avoid this huge conversion. One idea is that so many wealthy Muslims are quick to build a mosque rather than a school. They believe it is important to build the school before the mosque though, because they need to "build the worshiper before you build the mosque". Another scholar mentions his school where he trains missionaries to speak the native language and customs of the people. This attracts the native people, because the missionary is able to work with the people rather than seem like a foreigner. Lastly, one scholar mentions that he believes Islamic countries must fix themselves first before trying to spread their religion.

While reading the book "Things Fall Apart" it talked about how unsure so many Africans were of natives converting to Christianity when the European missionaries moved in. This is very similar to what is even continuing to happen today as followers of Islam are concerned as an overwhelmingly large amount of Muslims convert. I was so surprised to see how large these numbers were. I think it's a positive thing though that these Muslim scholars were able to discuss possible ways to help bring down these huge numbers of converts in Africa. It really stood out to me when the one scholar said to "build the worshiper before you build the mosque". I would've never thought of it in that way, but he made it seem almost like a no brainer. Educating the students about Islam will later create the need for mosques. Whereas if the mosque was built first there may be no need for it with such a small demand.  I also liked the idea of training the missionaries so they would really be able to fit in with the people. Rather than them coming in as a strange person they are able to instead relate with the natives. This would give them more of an ability to make an impact on the people.




Here is a picture of a Christian missionary visiting Africa.