Conclusion
The development and spread of farming and herding in sub-Saharan Africa were long drawn-out and uneven processes spanning up to five millennia with many stops and starts. They entailed the domestication of several different crop species; the modification and manipulation of ecological niches to better suit the needs of farming and herding; the nurturing of new cross-breeds, hybrids and varieties better adapted to distinctively African ecological conditions; and the exploitation of a vast array of other plant species that seemingly have not undergone significant morphological change as a consequence.
Over the longer term, the history of agriculture on the continent also involved the adoption of a wide range of ‘exotic' species from other parts of the globe; and, as critically, the spread of various African domesticates to other parts of the world.[1089] However, relative to many other continents, sub-Saharan Africa's standing as an area for researching the origins and spread of farming remains low within the global archaeological community, often because of a presumed absence of ‘primary' centres of domestication south of the Sahara. This is unfortunate given the diversity of sources available and that the origins of food production in sub-Saharan Africa followed a different trajectory to these in most other regions with the adoption of domestic animals typically preceding the adoption of food crops. Moreover, the subsequent histories of food production offer numerous opportunities for novel theoretical insights into a range of topics from the creation and maintenance of ethnic mosaics across moving and stable frontiers, the drivers of agricultural intensification and the ecological impacts of the adoption of farming to the reconstruction of ideological structures and patterns of descent, propositions concerning ‘landscape domestication' and even whether morphological change is always the most salient marker of ‘domestication'.[1090] However, given the momentum of current research, as outlined here, this situation may be set to change.
More on the topic Conclusion:
-
World history -