Why get AfriSmart?

It’s simple! We don’t know enough about our amazing African continent, along with all the countries in Africa.

• Do you know how many countries there are in Africa?
• Do you know the names of all the countries, and where they are on the map?
• Do you know that GIRAFFE used to roam what is now the Sahara desert?
• Do you know what language is spoken in Mali?
• Do you know that in the 12th century there was a university in Timbuktu with 25,000 students?

Let’s learn more about Africa together . . . let’s get AfriSmart!

Countries of Africa

As fellow Africans, we need to know more about our neighbours . . .

Where their country is located, how they live, what language they speak, and many more facts about the countries that make up our beautiful continent of Africa!

Start off with knowing WHERE Africa’s countries are by using the map on the right.

Take the COUNTRY QUIZ <<< click here!

Explore each country by clicking on the links below!

Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros Islands, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, eSwatini (formerly Swaziland), Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Western Sahara, Zambia, Zimbabwe

World’s Oldest Mine

The Ngwenya Mine is located on Bomvu Ridge, northwest of Mbabane and near the northwestern border of Eswatini (Swaziland). This mine is considered to be the world’s oldest, at 43,000 years old. The haematite ore deposit was used in the Middle Stone Age to extract red ochre, while in later times the deposit was mined for iron smelting and iron ore export. Ultimately 300,000 artefacts were recovered including thousands of stone-made mining tools. Adrian Boshier, one of the archaeologists on the site, dated the mine to a staggering 43,200 years old.

Click HERE to see where Ngwenya Mine is.

Read more HERE:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngwenya_Mine
• https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5421/

12,000 Year-Old Farmers

Africans cultivated crops 12,000 years ago, the first known advances in agriculture. Professor Fred Wendorf discovered that people in Egypt’s Western Desert cultivated crops of barley, capers, chick-peas, dates, legumes, lentils and wheat. Their ancient tools were also recovered. There were grindstones, milling stones, cutting blades, hide scrapers, engraving burins, and mortars and pestles.

Reference: https://www.csu.edu/dosa/AAMRC/news1.htm

First Mathematicians

Africans pioneered basic arithmetic between 25,000 and 43,000 years ago!

The Ishango Bone is a tool handle with notches carved into it found in the Ishango region of Zaïre (now called Congo) near Lake Edward. The bone tool was originally thought to have been over 8,000 years old, but a more sensitive recent dating has given dates of 25,000 years old. On the tool are 3 rows of notches. Row 1 shows three notches carved next to six, four carved next to eight, ten carved next to two fives and finally a seven. The 3 and 6, 4 and 8, and 10 and 5, represent the process of doubling. Row 2 shows eleven notches carved next to twenty-one notches, and nineteen notches carved next to nine notches. This represents 10 + 1, 20 + 1, 20 – 1 and 10 – 1. Finally, Row 3 shows eleven notches, thirteen notches, seventeen notches and nineteen notches. 11, 13, 17 and 19 are the prime numbers between 10 and 20. Read more HERE.

Have you ever heard of the Lebombo Bone? It is even older than the Ishango Bone. It is indeed the oldest known mathematical artifact in the world. Discovered in the 1970s in Border Cave, a rock shelter on the western scarp of the Lebombo Mountains in an area near the border of South Africa and Swaziland (now Eswatini). The bone was found on the Eswatini side, and dates from 35,000 BC. It consists of 29 distinct notches that were deliberately cut into a baboon’s fibula. The bone is between 44,200 and 43,000 years old, according to 24 radiocarbon datings. Read more HERE.

The Lebombo Bone

Reference:

• https://www.csu.edu/dosa/AAMRC/news1.htm
• https://afrolegends.com/2019/05/17/the-lebombo-bone-the-oldest-mathematical-artifact-in-the-world/

World’s Wealthiest Person

The richest man in history officially remains Mansa Musa I, the 10th Mansa (emperor) of the mighty Empire of Mali — one of the largest, and richest, empires in West African history. His inflation-adjusted wealth at the time was the equivalent of $400 billion, which is far in excess of modern day billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

Read more HERE:

• https://www.thevintagenews.com/2019/03/05/mansa-musa-i/