Comments by "LancesArmorStriking" (@LancesArmorStriking) on "Why precolonial Africa didn't have the wheel" video.

@Zero-ry2rc Congo jungle. Larger animals. Europeans never had to deal with Elephants, cheetahs, zebras and hippos. If there are no domesticatable animals/beasts of burden, there is no easy way to do mass farming. No extra people, no road builders. Not saying it is impossible or that Africans did not build infrastructure (they did) but is simply much harder and the progress is slower. Also like I said, much less space to do it. Jungle is impassable sometimes.
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@robkrieg8301 1) The Serengeti has lions, wildebeast, zebras and buffalos. Significantly harder to establish a settlement with those monsters roaming around. 2) The amount of land available in the south-western part of Africa isn't "plenty". But let's say I grant you that those areas are prime civilization real estate (they aren't, the Sahel is— most African empires existed there, which gives credence to the idea that it's the lack of a large stretch of climatically similar land which prevents large civilizations). Even if we assume you're right, you already gave another reason for large empires not occurring— nomadic lifestyle! At what point were these herders supposed to just change their entire way of being? What would have slowly prompted them to change? To give another perspective, look at Mongolia. Until the USSR influenced them to change and imported building and infrastructure techniques, they were nomadic and would have continued to be nomadic. Even their empire was nomadic! So how were the west Africans supposed to do the same, with a fraction of the land that Mongolia had?
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@p00bix Why would Arabians be related to Egyptians? I would expect Egyptians to be the closest to Berber and Amazigh, maybe Lebanese (descendants of Canaanites). But Arabs? They changed the genetics of the Middle East, they conquered and intermixed with most of the Ancient Near East, entering as a foreign people.
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@weskerwillie9044 At this point in history probably true, modern Egypt extends down into Nubia. But in ancient times, Nubians were probably darker skinned. They were farther south and Egyptian wall paintings show them as black while they are red. Of course hieroglyphs are not realistic drawings, but why would they make that distinction even during the Nubian pharaohs ruling, if the 2 people were identical?
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@robkrieg8301 Yes, India's land in the north is flat and very, very fertile. There is no such place in Africa outside maybe Nigeria and South Africa. Only 2 narrow belts just north and south of the equatorial jungle. Also right about access to water. Outside of the Nile (Egypt made full use of that), the Gambia river and Lake Victoria, large bodies of water simply aren't present in Africa like they are in the rest of the Old World. This makes a large society expanding into new lands and mass farming simply impossible. If Egypt could it would, but it is limited by geography. Not by its people.
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@robkrieg8301 "Come now there were regions that were fertile enough for agriculture and roads to be built" Nope. The Nile only floods regularly at its delta, which is why Egypt is so ancient and successful. Outside of that, Africa is just unlucky in its climates and even basic shape (no large east-west stretch of land at the same latitude like in Eurasia). If there are such regions, which could reproduce the early conditions needed for civilization? (calm navigable river with regular flooding and little to no work needed to grow crops-- this is true of the Yellow, Indus, Nile, ESPECIALLY Euphrates valleys). I'd be happy to hear your list.
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@Zero-ry2rc That does literally nothing to disprove what I said. You're not even capable of giving a single example. Sorry, but everything IS in the Congo. That's the point. Europe has nothing even close to that cutting through its center. It has a sea. Africa has a forest full of silverback gorillas, leopards, hippos, and poisonous snakes and frogs. Among literally thousands of others animals. Even the most basic things, bees, are more aggressive and harder to domesticate in Africa. The closer to the equator you are, the more biodiversity. The more competition, the more fierce the flora and fauna evolve to be. Cope all you want, it has nothing to do with the people and enduring to do with geography, and even then the people managed to build empires right up to the jungle's edges. The Portuguese didn't bow to African kings for fun. If you can show me how to domesticate an African buffalo, I'll eat my words.
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@PrinceZakariyya Who, Egyptians or Nubians?
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