Читать книгу Igbo History Hebrew Exiles of Eri - Omabala Aguleri - Страница 13

Professor Onwuejeogu said that archaeological evidence shows that the Igbo man of today has undergone cultural evolution transformations from the African late Stone Age through the Neolithic and Metal Age to contemporary Modern time. In discussing the four archaeological finds in Igboland mentioned above, he quoted Anozie 1981 as analyzing the Ugwuele culture as being dominantly a handaxe culture which can only be understood within the context of the evolution of man, the tool maker in Africa. He further said: According to geographers and geologists most of Africa was once the heart of a vast super-continent called Gondwana Land. About 250 million years ago much of this super-continent was glaciated. During the Cretaceous Period (about 200 million years ago) Gondwana Land started to break apart, and the continent began to take its present shape; and the African coast came into existence. More recent geological activity occurred creating the basic topographic division of high and low Africa. This is evident in the major river basins in the continent; namely, Niger Basin, the Chad Basin, the Congo Basin, the Nile Basin and the Zambezi-Kalahari (Basin Stamp 1976; Kimble 1962).

Life form began to evolve on parts of the earth which were favourable. According to Paleontologists, by the Palaeocene Era, 63 million years ago, the primates had begun to evolve from some unknown insectivores, and by the Pilocene, between one million and thirteen million years ago, the first proto-man (more ape-like than man-like) had appeared.

From all existing evidence, it appears that man’s ancestor first became differentiated from the Primates in Africa. Recent archaeological finds in Omo Valley of Ethiopia suggest that this occurred at least 3 million years ago. Evidence from the wooden savannah areas of East Africa puts homo sapiens, the forerunner of present man, at about two million years ago. Homo sapiens are all that remains of the Hominid time today. Multineal evolutionary process had taken place producing the earliest Hominids which died away because they were overspecialized. The less specialized ones evolved into Homo sapiens. Some of African hominids are as follows (Howell 1955, Graham 1955, Leakey, 1967 and 1971)

(i)Australopithecus africanus – very early hominid which probably were omnivorous. They were small, lightly built and adapted to open country. They possibly were tools users.

(ii)Australopithecus robustus: These were larger and robust and very ape-like. They were probably vegetarians and adapted to forest environment.

(iii)Zinjanthropus: This is another form of robustus that flourished in East Africa.

(iv)Homo habalis (found by Leakey in Olduvai George in Tanzania) existed side by side with Zinjanthropus nearly two million years ago and was probably the earliest tool maker.

(v)Homo erectus: This was represented by Pithecanthropus and existed around 500, 000 years ago in Africa. They evolved the Acheulian hand-ace culture near lakeshores and rivers. Some of their remains were found in Algeria, Morocco, Chad, Tanzania, Indonesia and China. The Asian examples were younger. Homo erectus gave rise to many offspring’s such as Rhodesia man, (a Neanderthal type) and to Homo sapiens around 35, 000 years ago

Having discussed the early material culture in Africa let us look at the earliest human society.