Why do people say that Africans did not progress because they were isolated? The Japanese were isolated but still developed.
>>1269686
>The Japanese were isolated but still developed.
>being right next to china is isolated.
Japan was within spitting distance of one of the oldest civilizations on earth.
Subsaharan Africa was effectively as isolated from the rest of the world as Australia.
>a literal backwater of iron age animist savages who owe their ENTIRE semi-civilized way of life to the Chinese
>developed
They were in a perfect zone just far away from Asia to keep away invaders but close enough to leech off their culture
>>1269686
>The Japanese were isolated but still developed
I'm sorry what? Even their alphabet is the fucking same.
And many of them still were poor as fuck back then.
>>1269775
The overwhelming majority were literally subhuman peasant farmers
Well you're operating from a false premise
1. Africa did "progress", whatever that means
2. No part of Africa was isolated except, like, pygmies
3. I don't really think anybody uses this argument
>>1269686
You try making a civilization while lions and buffalo and shit are killing you, and the sun is all hot and also we was kangs and sheit family
>>1269790
They never specify what they even mean
What kind of progress?
Iron Age?
Infustralization?
What?
When?
>>1269790
>No part of Africa was isolated except, like, pygmies
No part of Africa was completely and utterly isolated from the world, but most parts were still too isolated from the civilizations of Eurasia/North Africa to adopt them. Only Ethiopia and Nubia had sustained contact with the rest of the world since ancient times, and they had the longest lasting civilizations in sub-Saharan Africa. West Africa only came into sustained contact with North Africa after the growth of the trans-Saharan trade around the 8th century, and about the same time large civilizations emerged in the region, but even there the influence was mostly indirect; trade encouraged growth, but only a tiny amount of Islamic culture was adopted by a fairly small elite (Islamisation didn't really take hold until the 18th-19th centuries). Most of Central/Bantu Africa had no contact, except the cities on the Swahili Coast (which themselves had little direct contact with the interior's population centers until the 18th/19th centuries). Africa itself isn't well interconnected either, so where development occurred like in West Africa, Sudan and Ethiopia, it didn't necessarily spread to other parts of the continent.
Isolation isn't the only thing though; plenty of civilizations developed in isolation from other civilizations. Time is the other major factor; those civilizations which emerged in isolation only did so very slowly, usually several thousand years after agriculture was introduced to the region. Crop-based agriculture only emerged in West Africa around 2500 BC, and only spread to the Rift Valley (the best land that the Bantu colonized) around the first millennium BC. Compare that with c. 9000 BC in the Middle East. There just wasn't much time to develop civilization in most of these areas (and there's no guarantee that it has to emerge at all; look at pre-Roman Northern Europe), except in West Africa where agriculture was a bit older and where trade stimulated development.
>>1269780
So were the majority of earths population
>>1269946
Not that anon's group.
His group is a speshul snowflake.
>>1269686
Its called Rangaku, look it up. They traded books with the Dutch. They weren't poor, or completely isolated like the a lot of Africa during the same time. The people in this thread are pointing out how china's culture is shared with them but they more technological stuff.
If anyone knows more about this subject I'm interested to hear more about it. I haven't seen it mentioned here yet even though its a big part pointing out the difference between Japanese and African isolationism
>>1270502
>>1269686
Africa is a continent and Japan is a nation, mate.
