I want to do a project about why African culture is less developed than other cultures?

Question

My premis is that it is due to environmental influences on cultural evolution.

WHERE CAN I FIND INFORMATION TO SUPPORT THIS PREMIS?

Answer 1

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/zimb/hd...

Answer 2

Firstly, your going to get some grief for calling them less developed. This is considered a no-no these days.

Technologically less advanced is a fair comment though. As far as anyone can reasonably tell the only technologies they seem to have independantly discovered are possibly pottery (5,000 years later than in Eastern Russia) and steel, (you see steel at the same time in Southern Europe).

People have been in Africa since the beginning of time, by rights they should have invented everything. Anyone who wants to chuck in diseases as an explanation should be aware that a lot of diseases (malaria specifically) are less than 10,000 years old and attributable to farming.

It's going to make me massively unpopular, but Africans have a smaller brain to body mass ratio than Europeans and Asians. About half of all psychologists take the view that the differences in IQ are at least partly genetic, an 'all environment' view is only held by 15% (someone surveyed them anonymously). African IQ seems to be naturally about 10 points lower (and yes, it's a pretty good way of measuring general intelligence, and the modern IQ tests have been shown NOT to have a cultural bias repeatedly). That IQ varies naturally with race is actually the mainstream view. See link.

http://mathilda37.wordpress.com/2008/07/...

This will have the effect that creative 'Leonardo' types will be a massively less common. It also takes a lot of pretty high IQ people to set up and run the complicated beauracracy and taxation system necessary in a modern culture.

Answer 3

Hi you can research books on Google, look at Journals go to the library.  

It is interesting that the Egyptians had similar weather yet they were far advanced!  More so than most in that time, although Solomon seemed pretty clever.  It's possible that something divine happened in Egypt ! ?

Answer 4

You could also mention the inability to domesticate wild Sub Saharan African animals. You'll need to seperate North/South though.

Answer 5

There is no valid information to support your "premise"!

Note spelling: Oh! your premise is invalid!

Before you bury yourself too deeply, you might want to view some museum pieces from ancient African cultures (before the whiter man learned to sail south of the Sarah), and take a gander at the proverbs white man give s himself credit for.

There are gold staffs carved with various proverbs represented by symbols and various animals portraying such sayings as...keep your nose to the grind stone, action speaks louder then words, and so on.

I saw them on loan to the Houston Museum. Impressive.

Another thing...your ancestors came from Africa.

Oh! You probably mean air planes rather then wisdom.

Answer 6

Ancient Egypt was a well developed culture.  Doesn't it count?

Answer 7

You won't.  Actually, ancient Africa contained some quite advanced cultures, such as the Kush and the Axum.  Sorry to burst your bubble.

Answer 8

I don't think this is a fair assumption - read up on the Shona empire which included the north of zimbabwe, parts of mozambique and also south Africa. Africa got messed up when artificial boundaries were created leaving tribes and peoples strung across different countries. Interestingly in my experience of working in eight african countries people will rarely call themselves by their country ie mozambican etc they will tell you what tribe they are as that defines them in their eyes.

Africa was used as a proxy for battles during the cold war, not many people aware but CIA and KGB were behind stoking the eritrean - ethiopian wars. Experimental economic theory was introduced such as Structural adjustment, also countries were told to stop producing food and to produce cash cropsinstead liek flowers and buy food on the open market, see whats happening now!!! Corruption is also a problem but no more than say teh far east yet they have still manage to develop.

Answer 9

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond has some interesting ideas why they were technologically behind other cultures in Asia and Europe.  Saying a culture is developed is kind of hard to do since it is rather subjective about what constitutes developed or not.

Answer 10

Your premis needs reconsideration as cultural development is relative to the dynamics within the society and the ambiguities of the yardstick to examining these dynamics would be subjective, geographically. Does Bull-fighting in Spain compare in barbarity to circumcision in Africa, does bullying in Britain compare in terms of barbarity to public Floggings in African Muslim States - Conversely, while  the Chaste demands for women, in Muslim Nations is considered, being the greatest positive respect offered to women, this, takes on the guise of sexual and political oppression in the West. With dissenting camps holding powerful arguments for their stance. As your premis revolves round 'the underdeveloped'  fundamentals, your perimeters for comparisons, if not subjective and judgemental from your socialisation, would, at worst be an expose of differences in societal values and practises. Without streamlining your premis to specific cultural practises and the acceptance of a yardstick for comparison, based on  a platform of internationally, ethical, morally and consensually validated compliance, your project and its conclusion would warrant accusation of bias, open to interpretations, misrepresentations and imperialism.

Answer 11

All culture is relative and Africa is a continent. It is not like the USA, there is no common language. There are many tribes and countries there. It is patently absurd put the culture from all those dissimilar origins under one hat. It is a faulty premise at best. Prejudice at worst.

Read more about Africa, it's countries tribes and history. Some of the cultures are much further advanced than others. Perhaps your project could explore why this might be so.