There is no sub Sahara group that would qualify as a civilization that predates the Europeans settling in the Americas exists.
This is pure garbage, there were many that preceded white settlement of America.
Only Eithiopia would qualify as such, perhaps if you are generous the Malis of about 1250 could also qualify but they left no lasting impression.
What do you mean "left no lasting impression?" On white people you mean? White Europeans aren't the center of this world, written records on Mali from travelers no doubt left a great impression on those that came there, everyone talked about Timbuktu.
Civilization is defined by having a written langauge and rudimentary knowledge of metallurgy and living in planned communities with an attempt to organize them into streets.
Language is *NOT* required for a civilization, if you have trade, planned and settled communities and possess the ability to communicte with other peoples, you have a civilization. by your logic most of Europe wasn't even "civilized".
I'd be interested to hear what people you claim qualify for this, the fact is the only ciilization Black Africa knew was from muslim influence down it's eastern coast, this was done to fascilitate the slave, gold and ivory trade, and this was clearly Arabic in design and control.
No, No wrong again:
The Swahili people have been viewed as of Persian/Arabic or Cushitic speaking origin. Scholars have used historical and archaeological data to support this hypothesis. However, linguistic and recent archaeological data suggest the Swahili culture had its origins in the early first centuries A.D. it was the early farming people who settled on the coast in the last centuries B.C. who first adopted iron technology and sailing techniques and founded the coastal settlements. the culture of iron-using people spread to the rest of the coast of East Africa, its center changing fom one place to another. Involvements in transoceanic trade from the early centuries A.D. contributed to the prosperity of the coastal communities as evidenced by coastal monuments. More than 1500 years of cultural continuity was offset by the arrival of European and Arab colonizers in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries A.D.
African Archaeological Review
16 (3): 199-218, September 1998
Felix Chami
"The East Coast archaeological evidence proves that, in all cases, local peoples possessed their own civilisation before the Arabs arrived. After Arabs coming, foreign technique replace the local earthenware techniques (Masao & Mutoro 1992: 286). The first Islamic earthenware (recognised as most characteristic of the thirteenth century) was a mottle glaze applied over a light slip that had incised hatched patterns (Garlake 1966: 53). This was followed in the fourteenth century, in Kenya particularly, by the “black on yellow” earthenware, which existed until the fifteenth century when it was supplanted by the blue and green glazed earthenware (Garlake 1966: 53, Masao & Mutoro 1992: 286). This can be compared with the introduction in the mid-thirteenth century of Chinese yellow and black glazed earthenware, and blue and white celadons (Garlake 1966: 53, Masao & Mutoro 1992: 286).
An unbiased reading of the Arabic sources reporting on this period reveals that contrary to the old belief of the East Coast being an Arabo-Persian colony or an Islamic cultural appendix in which the locals contributed little, nowhere is there a mention of large Islamic settlements or colonies of Muslim expatriates (Masao & Mutoro 1992: 287, 288). Indeed, these sources inform us that the coast was both inhabited and ruled by the indigenous Zandj population."
" The African components of the Swahili culture are stronger than has previously been recognised: the grammatical structure and much of the vocabulary of Kiswahili bears close relationships with the Mijikenda and Pokomo languages, and its literature echoes the African oral tradition (Masao & Mutoro 1992: 291).
Neither Arabia or Persia bears comparisons with the Swahili material culture and there are no known parallels that can be drawn with architecture outside East Africa that permits a conclusion other than that the Swahili stone architecture was an original and creative development of the local mud-and-wattle architecture abundant along the coast synthesised with the Arabian heritage of styles and methods (Masao & Mutoro 1992: 291, Garlake 1978: 97, Chittick 1974: 235). The surviving settlement buildings display a unity of style evolution along the coast which can be seen in both the plans and the construction and decorative techniques (Garlake 1978: 97). This architecture was a consequence of the increase in economic wealth of and socio-economic differentiation with the native societies (Masao & Mutoro 1992: 291)."
The Antiquity of Man East & West African complex societies
The mosques were not built in the traditional great arcade court and pavilion tradition of Arabia, but rather as rectangular halls containing numerous pillars (Garlake 1978: 97). While the form of a lot of the mosque and house decoration is Islamic, it has an African content (Garlake 1978: 97). The coastal internal house room arrangement reflect the African desire for privacy with the reception room being at the front (Garlake 1978: 97).
