Pastoralists appear on the plains of northern Kenya
as early as the
middle of the third millennium B.C. In the next section we will take up
an aspect of their social organization in recent centuries; though by
no means typical of Africa as a whole, it has some interesting things
to tell us. At this point what is worth noting is the contrast between
the East African highlands south of Ethiopia and the New World at the
same latitude. Unlike the Andes, these highlands did not support
intensive cultivation, relatively advanced metalworking, urbanization,
or state formation, and were not integrated into the long-distance
trade of the coast. The main reason for this is no doubt the aridity of
the region.
Overall, the most distinctive feature of the African
scene remains its
pronounced north-to- south cultural gradient. To take just one example:
in the south, the G/wi in the last century still made do with a number
system comparable in its simplicity to that of the Aranda; in the
north, by contrast, the Egyptians were already compiling handbooks on
methods of mathematical calculation in the early second millennium B.C.
Though each culture could be said to have had what it needed for its
purposes, the difference in purposes is telling. Africa contrasts with
the Americas in showing not just the costs of isolation but also the
benefits of being connected.
