Day: August 17, 2015

Sub-Saharan African Societies: Axum, Meroe, the Niger River region, and Bantu Migrations.

/ Carol Galloway / 54 Comments

We’re going to do some experimental work today, guys, so be prepared to be patient if the technology we’re using gives us fits– it’s always worth playing around with new ways of collaborating and sharing information, even if there are some hiccups.  Here’s what’s going to happen:

  1. You’re going to be divided up into groups, each of which will be responsible for researching the history of one region of African history during the period 600 BCE to 600 CE.
  2. You will use all available resources (textbooks, JSTOR, Google Scholar, etc.) to generate a detailed, annotated, interactive, and ACCURATE digital timeline of your region during the period 600 BCE to 600 CE.  You will be working on this timeline not only with the people in your group, but with ALL of the groups in ALL of my classes.  Your timeline should include information on the political, economic, religious, social, intellectual, and artistic (PERSIA) history of your region.  You will CITE your sources that you use.
  3. You will find additional media (Flickr or other Creative Commons images, YouTube or Vimeo videos, Soundcloud audio, Google maps, etc.) to support your information.  You will correctly attribute this media in the Google spreadsheet template.
  4. You will use the shared Google spreadsheet link I have emailed to you in order to add your information to the template.  The template will automatically update.  DO NOT ALTER ANYTHING THAT IS DISPLAYED IN RED.
  5. Make sure to read over the material other groups have generated before you add anything new! You don’t want to repeat information.

In order to access the Google template, please check the email address you provided me at the beginning of the semester.  I should have shared the appropriate link with each of you.  (Really, only one person in each group needs to enter the information you generate as you work, so only one person will need to access this link.)  If you need to, you can use the emailed link to access the template at home and add more information after class.

IMPORTANT NOTE: When entering BCE dates, please indicate them in the spreadsheet by adding a minus sign before each.  (Thus, 600 BCE becomes -600, and 555 CE is simply 555.)

Here are the timelines for each region.  Remember, they’re automatically updated, so as soon as you type anything into the spreadsheet, it will show up online:

Your homework tonight will be to examine each of the above timelines, and to comment on this post with (a) the most interesting thing you learned from each timeline, and (b) one good observation about sub-Saharan culture or history between the years 600 BCE and 600 CE.