How to Create Advanced Civilizations in Africa?

great. let's both walk two miles, you and me.

you can carry thirty pounds of bricks, as well as mortar.

I'll carry a mental image of an archway & the knowledge of how to build it.

now, which of us will have an easier job transporting the arch? you or me.
The thing is that arches themselves aren't commodities. People generally don't transfer them through physical relocation.

Let's say Gilgamesh wants to build a stone arch, but doesn't have any stone. He goes over to visit Humbaba and says, "I want stone. If you give me stone, I'll give you barley."

Whereupon Humbaba says, "Sure." Note that at no point in this transaction has Humbaba actually had an arch. He has had stone, which Gilgamesh can turn into an arch, but that's not intrinsically an arch.

Now let's say that Humbaba wants to have an arch. So he goes to visit Gilgamesh and tells him so.* Gilgamesh says, "All right. Here's how you build an arch. I'm warning you, it will take a while before you're any good..."

Humbaba, thus, gains an arch, and with his stone he can make as many arches as he wants. But in order to obtain the arch, he needs to start with the conception that arches are useful. If you are someone in West Africa, in order to get gunpowder, you can either
1) realize gunpowder is useful before encountering it, or
2) randomly invent gunpowder, or
3) encounter people gaining benefit from having gunpowder.

1) is rather nonsensical. 2) is unlikely. 3) thus remains as a viable option, but it requires contact with whoever uses gunpowder, and if they're getting an advantage from it, they might be conquering you.

*Gilgamesh probably wouldn't give it up for nothing, but I wasn't creative enought to come up with an object of barter.
 
I was under the impression that the renaissance was leftovers from the Islamic table at Cordoba and that North Africa was far in advance of Europe for most of the middle ages.

The point about the birthplace of humanity carries a disturbing implication (if my inference is correct). Nature is well 'practised' at subduing us in Africa and our population explodes on unprepared continents, but surely, in time, these continents will adapt to be just as inhospitable?

I would say that the Renaissance was distinctively European. It was influenced by Islam and other civilizations both contemporary and ancient, but it was its own distinct development.

Sub-Saharan Africa does have a particularly nasty disease environment, which probably does have a lot to do with humans and their ancestors living there for millions of years and giving local diseases and parasites plenty of time to adapt to "preying" on humans. On the other hand, I suspect that the greatest handicap that Sub-Saharan Africa presented to civilizational development was not diseases but rather the relative lack of native animals, and to a lesser extent plants, that are suited for domestication. In addition, the disease environment was quite hostile to domesticated animals from outside, due to sleeping sickness especially but also other diseases. It took literally thousands of years for cattle to adapt to live in sub-Saharan Africa, and horses and sheep were never able to adapt at all in most areas.
 
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