The IQ of Black Africans

REFUTING FANATIC HISTORICAL PROPAGANDA: PART 1

One of the foremost questions that has been on the minds of historians is the question why did different regions of the world develop at different speeds. Why did Native American tribes remain primitive compared to the Incas or Aztecs? Why did Australian Aboriginals remain in a permanent state of hunter-gathering prior to European contact? Why was Africa able to be almost completely subsumed by European colonialism in the 20th century? These are questions I will attempt to answer today.

The average person doesn't have an in-depth understanding of History sadly because this is my favourite subject. I may be a STEM guy but I still love history and read history books regularly. History is one of the most important subjects in the world and it regularly gets slept on due its lack of "practicality". For some weird reason some people believe what happened in the past is of no importance, but that's pure nonsense! History is one of the most common tools of political propagandists, especially when it comes to twisting History for political purposes.  A common race realist talking point is to claim that historical differences in development are somehow a sign of racial differences in intelligence. This probably wouldn't be brought up in a scientific debate but it is very appealing to laymen due to a poor understanding of History. A great example of this is from white nationalist,  Jared Taylor who has been making bizarre claims about History for decades to push an agenda almost unchallenged. Taylor has been responsible for pushing bizarre memes about African History into the Wignat "mainstream" despite him not being a historian and only a philosopher. History is the only subject which gets this much disrespect where the layman can make such bizarre claims with confidence.  You'll be pressed to find a layman making equally bizarre claims about Quantum theory or topology but when it comes to History and Economics everyone becomes an expert

Make no mistake, people like Taylor are not just ignorant laymen but propagandists who spread lies about Blacks due to irrational hatred. Taylor makes claims that he could never defend in front of a historian or someone well versed on history many of these will be addressed today.

The History of Humans

For nearly 2 million years our male ancestors hunted other animals while our female ancestors gathered berries. This is how we have subsisted for most of our existence. Even till today there are isolated groups who still practice this way of life. Technological progress was very slow during this period, the spear was invented 500,000 years ago, fire was invented 200,000 years ago.  The bow and arrow was invented only 70,000 years ago. These game changing inventions were invented millennia apart. Then something happened which sped up technological process and changed our species forever.

The Agricultural revolution and it's consequences...

figure 1

Around 9000 BC in modern day Iraq the first agricultural communities began to emerge, kicking off the first agricultural revolution.  For millions of years humans had subsisted simply on hunting and gathering, however in 7,000 years agriculture was independently discovered in possibly 10 different places! This is where the main differences in human development began to emerge. Historians are unsure why the sudden change in lifestyle from hunting to farming. However what is clear is that agriculture was the reason that civilization began to emerge and this is the main reason why some reasons of the world are more developed than others. When the last group to independently develop agriculture (native Americans) in 2000 BC, the pyramids had already been built and parts of the old testament had already been written. 

We see a pattern of civilization first appearing in a society roughly 4000 - 6000 years after the introduction of agriculture. The Sumerian civilization began in 4000 BC, The first dynasty of China began in around 1600 BC. The civilization of the Mayan's began around 250 BC. In West Africa the empire of Ghana was established in 300 AD. There is only one contradiction to this pattern and that is Papua New Guinea which discovered agriculture independently in 6000 BC but never developed any "advanced" civilizations. This is due to the relative isolation of the island and its densely forested terrain which makes it hard to traverse. Thus agriculture didn't spread beyond that pocket unlike in the rest of these areas where agriculture began.

spread of agriculture

Why Eurasia?

It's an undeniable fact that most of humanity's biggest achievement's come from the 2 continents of Europe and Asia. They aren't separated by water so I'll just refer to them as Eurasia. Eurasia is about 36% of the Earth's landmass and a whopping 7 in 10 humans live there. It was home to the various Chinese dynasties, the Mongol empire, the Sumerians, the Gupta empire etc, the Soviet Union, the British empire almost too many to list. Most of humanities inventions also come from this area.

 But why?  This is mainly due to geography. 

Factors preventing trade

Trade boosts the speed at which a civilization develops. It allows new ideas to flourish and its nearly impossible for a strong civilization to develop in isolation. This is why the concept of "Atlantis" is so ridiculous. All strong civilizations have had healthy trade with their neighbours. States which isolate themselves from the rest of the world are usually horrible backwaters for example "states" like North Korea or Eritrea. One only needs to take a look at the effect of isolation on Chinese history when in 1434 Chinese emperor Zhu Zhanji issued the "edict of Haijin" and closed China from the rest of the world. China was undoubtedly the strongest nation in the world at this point but pissed away a massive civilizational advantage and was badly punished by western "barbarians" in the 19th century who had willingly adopted trade and foreign ideas some of which from China themselves! Such as the Compass, gunpowder and paper money. Unfortunately some regions of the world face a harder time with trade due to geographical circumstances which has translated to slower historical development.

1.East - West axis

Eurasia has an East-West axis compared to Africa and the Americas which have a North-South axis. This allows for an easier spread of ideas, culture, crops. This is because an east-west axis means that allows for more similar climate zones and is thus easier for trade and ideas to spread. This made development much more speedy in Eurasia unlike in Africa and the Americas where many key inventions such as agriculture had to be independently developed. Europe never had to independently develop many inventions that are key to civilization such as agriculture (which was brought from migrations from the middle east) as well as writing systems which was introduced from the Phoenicians in the middle east as well) meanwhile advanced Mesoamerican societies like the Maya never progressed past the "Stone age" because they never independently developed iron smithing. 

2. Zebras?

The spread of trade and ideas is also hindered by the lack of domesticated pack animals in both the Americas and sub-saharan Africa. Both of these areas lacked access to horses however in the Americas the Llama had been domesticated however it was unable to be spread from Mesoamerica to northern America for example due to the continental axis we just spoke about. Sub-saharan Africa was hit with a double whammy, not only did it suffer from the north-south orientation but horses in SSA also suffered from the Tsetse fly (sleeping-sickness) disease which basically rendered them useless in most places. However in SSA there is a similar animal to the horse which doesn't suffer from the Tsetse fly due to its stripes, the Zebra, so why didn't Africans domesticate it instead? The issue with Zebras is that they are very aggressive, in fact the literal translation for Zebra in Arabic means something like "demon donkey" According to Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, a great book which I get many of my theories in this article from which attempts to tackle the question of differences in human development, this is simply because Zebras can't be domesticated by humans. Whether or not you believe this it's important to note some key facts

figure 2

a.) Some idiots like to point to pictures like the one above to prove that Zebras can be domesticated. This is wrong. Zebras like almost all animals can be tamed, which is very different from domestication. The same way even though Igor can ride a Bear it doesn't mean you can use one to carry your luggage. Not all animals can be domesticated.

b.) Zebras are not that common in SSA. I'm a Nigerian and I've never seen one in my life.  Zebras are mainly found in certain sections of southern Africa, The map below shows where Zebras are actually found.

figure 3

These areas were barely inhabited prior to the Bantu expansions which began in approximately 4000 BC, This occurred when the proto Bantu, a Niger-Congo speaking group began to immigrate southward over Millenia and assimilated with the local indigenous populations.  When the Bantus arrived in most of the countries in the map above, they couldn't have enough time to domesticate Zebras. For comparison modern Europeans have been in contact with horses for possibly hundreds of millennia. The earliest depictions are in cave art from 30,000 years ago and these were probably wild horses of a similar temperament to modern day Zebras. Horses weren't successfully domesticated until about 3000 BC either in modern day Ukraine or Kazakhstan. The Bantus simply did not have enough time with this animal to domesticate it whether it was possible or not. However the fact that many other animals were domesticated by Southern Africans and the Zebra wasn't should give you an insight into the nature of these animals.

Bantu Migrations

3. The Sahara Desert

The Sahara desert was one of the biggest obstacles to Africa's trade with Eurasia. The Sahara is so massive the entire united states could fit inside it. The Sahara desert has one of the harshest climate's in the world and is also very hard to traverse due to its massive sand dunes which can reach almost 600 feet high.

The sahara desert split North Africa from the rest of Africa historically, because North Africa was able to interact without obstacles to the Eurasians, This came at some disadvantages due to the sheer amount of times North Africa was conquered by foreign Eurasian civilizations (The Ummayyads, The Ottomans, The Romans etc.) but even this gave them a boost as they were able to adopt the technology, religion of their conquerors which gave them a civilizational advantage over SSA.

Ummayad Caliphate (greatest extent)

Ottoman empire (greatest extent)

Roman empire (greatest extent)

The Sahara desert did protect SSA from these empires but it retarded trade with them. This is not to say the Sahara is entirely impassable (this isn't HOI4), Mansa Musa did traverse it on his hajj to Mecca, but the spread of ideas is slower with it.

4. Navigable rivers

Lastly, Africa also lacks navigable rivers. This makes transport and the spread of trade even more difficult. Europe has 3 times the coastline as Africa and is almost 4 times smaller in landmass as a good illustrator of this point. 

 

Anti-Black "history"

So now now I have examined the reason for differences in historical development between groups, now I will refute some historical propaganda which is often brought up by fanatics in the their daily screeds against Blacks.  

1."Sub-saharan Africans never invented the wheel"

This is an increasingly popular braindead talking point.  In order we have to address this we have to look at who actually invented the wheel. No one knows who actually invented the wheel, according to historians it was probably only independently invented twice in Sumeria and China and spread to other areas in Eurasia

"Because the wheel was invented before records were kept, nobody can ever know who invented the wheel, or even which tribe had the idea. However, the ancient Mesopotamian people are widely believed to have invented the wheel around 4200--4000 BC, It is likely to have also been invented, independently in China, around 2800 BC."

Due to the reasons I mentioned above the wheel would spread easily throughout Eurasia due to the ease of the spread of trade there but it didn't spread to sub-saharan Africa quickly due to trade barriers like the Sahara. The wheel wasn't used anywhere for transport anywhere outside Eurasia. The wheel contrary to popular belief isn't a pre-requisite for civilization, Civilization predates it, the advanced mesoamerican civilizations didn't used it, the Japanese barely used the wheel when the Europeans arrived etc.     

That being said Africans definitely knew about the wheel. It just spread to SSA slower. There are numerous accounts of Europeans seeing the use of the wheel in Africa.

Even linguistic evidence shows that Africans were no stranger to the wheel. Most West African languages have indigenous words for the wheel unlike other foreign concepts/foods like apples which just use transliterations of the english word for apple

The wheel

Apples

The wheel was used in Africa not to the same extent as Eurasia due to lack of pack animals, more difficult terrain etc. 

2."Africans never had Calendars"

Another shocking lie is that Africans never developed calendars. This is insane as someone who grew up in Nigeria. You would have to have brain cancer to believe that farming societies never developed calendars. How exactly would they plan for their harvests. Groups like the Igbo had calendars which followed the pattern of 4 days in a week,  7 weeks in a month and 13 months in a year. The Akan had a system of 40 days in a month and 9 months in a year.  

3. "There were no 2-storey buildings in pre-colonial SSA"

This is another obvious lie. A simple google search can disprove this:

mosque of Djenne

Kano Street

                                                                          

                                                                       Akan house

                                                                              

European Painting of Ashanti Palace

Africans often get a bad wrap for living only in "mud huts" and because of this many people believe that African architecture never progressed beyond this level. There are many reasons for this, firstly many historic African cities like Kumasi and Benin were burnt to the ground along with their architecture during colonialist invasions. But the main reason for this is that African traditional architecture is actually made from mud brick which doesn't last as long as stone or cement houses. Even the mosque of Djenne above has to be maintained by the locals yearly since it was rebuilt in 1907. Even my family house in my village is made from mud brick.  Many people believe that it looks like this:

This is another dumb stereotype. Basically no one lives in this sort of houses except for nomadic groups in arid regions which need houses like this which can be assembled quickly because they move around constantly.  African traditional houses and towns tended to look something like this:

Drawing of Ibadan by British missionaries (1850)

Majority of the architecture in pre-colonial SSA (even till today) is made of mud-brick and adobe. This building style has persisted despite centuries of contact with Eurasian groups. Even in societies like Ethiopia which are very close to Eurasia, the average person lived in mud houses. 

Addis Ababa village (1900)

Mud bricks were even used in African forts like that of the Benin and Yoruba defensive walls parts of which still stand today thankfully.

So why was (still is) mud and adobe so prevalent in African building.  The answer is basically due to the temperature and climate.  Mud housing is perfect for the temperature in Africa which is the reason for its prevailing popularity as well as the fact that Africa isn't really susceptible to natural disasters. For example African states aren't susceptible to Earthquakes as the map below shows. 

 

This isn't to say that Africans didn't build with stone. Many African  African palaces were built with stone like the ones below but the majority of people lived in mud housing.

Dhar Tichitt ruins

Gao Palace ruins (Empire of Ghana)

4. "Africans never invented a written language"

I'm more sympathetic to this one because it is actually technically true. There were proto-writing systems in Africa like Nsibidi and Adinkra but none of these had developed into full fledged writing systems before European arrival. Empires like the Malians and Songhai did write extensively in their native languages in a script called Ajami, Timbuktu had one of the oldest universities in the world and the Malian manuscripts are very extensive. But Ajami is an arabic-based system. So this is actually correct, no independent writing scripts actually came out of SSA. But as usual key information is omitted by propagandists for political purposes. Like most inventions in history, writing was only invented in a handful of places. 3 places to be exact independtly invented writing scripts- Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica and China. India is another possible point of origin considered by Historians. However none were ever independently invented in Europe. The main European scripts (Latin, Cyrillic) derive from Greek. The Greeks however adopted writing from the middle east, the Phoenicians to be exact due to their geographic proximity. 

So contrary to the viewpoints of race realists differences in historical development cannot be used as evidence of  race differences in intelligence. These differences are mainly due to Geography. The Finns don't have the long history of Iraq or Egypt but they're doing far better than these nations and have higher average IQs for example.