A Provisional Historical Schema for Western Africa Based on Seven Climate Periods (ca. 9000 B.C. to the Nineteenth Century)

bibliographic database
Line

Periodical article

Title:	A Provisional Historical Schema for Western Africa Based on Seven Climate Periods (ca. 9000 B.C. to the Nineteenth Century)
Author:	Brooks, George E.
Year:	1986
Periodical:	Cahiers d'études africaines
Volume:	26
Issue:	101-102
Pages:	43-62
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	West Africa Africa
Subjects:	climate change chronology Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment History and Exploration
External link:	https://doi.org/10.3406/cea.1986.2164
Abstract:	Recent scholarships concerning West African climate patterns in past times has made feasible a provisional periodization of the history of Western Africa which is independent of European-derived chronologies. Concomitantly, historical periodization offers provocative insights concerning such long-term processes as human migrations and settlement patterns, the diffusion of cultigens and domestic animals, and the development of long-distance trade routes. The historical schema discussed here comprise seven periods: 1) era of aquatic culture (c. 9000 to c. 2500 BC); 2) era of progressive desiccation (c. 2500 to c. 300 BC); 3) era of advanced aridity (c. 300 BC to c. 300 AD); 4) era of plentiful rainfall (c. 300 to c. 1100 AD); 5) era of progressive desiccation (c. 1100 to c. 1500 AD); 6) brief but eventful wet period (c. 1500-1630 AD); and 7) era of droughts, famines, warfare and slaving (c. 1630-1860 AD). Bibliogr., note, sum. in French (p. 287).