Guided+Reading+questions+for+Ancient+Civilizations+of+Mali+and+Ghana


 * ** Use pages 172 to 182 to answer these questions **
 * 1) What is an artifact?
 * 2) Describe the Sahara desert
 * 3) Describe the Sub Sahara region of Africa
 * 4) What is a savanna?
 * 5) What is sorghum and why was it important to the people of Africa?
 * 6) Define extinction.
 * 7) What does “Continental Geography” mean?
 * 8) How has the Sahara changed over the last 3000 to 8ooo year period?
 * 9) Why didn’t farmers clear the forests for more farmland?
 * 10) Why were rivers “important highways” in sub-Saharan Africa?
 * 11) Describe 3 characteristics of the Niger River
 * 12) List and describe uses for 5 resources found in West Africa.
 * 13) List and describe at least 5 facts about the Nok people.
 * 14) Why is the study of the Bantu language important to researchers?
 * 15) What modern countries exist in the Nok region today?
 * 16) How did Bantu speakers spread across Africa?
 * 17) Name at least 5 foods Bantu speaking people would have eaten.
 * 18) Why was cattle so important to the people of Africa?
 * 19) Why was a corral important to villages?
 * 20) Why was kinship so important to African villages?
 * 21) What is matrilineage and patrilineage || ** Use pages 172 to 182 to answer these questions **
 * 22) Evidence of human existence which give us a clue as to how people lived examples; stone carvings, tools, trash pits, bones, buried wooden canoe
 * 23) Sandy and rocky wasteland
 * 24) Mountains, grasslands, lakes. Rivers and forests
 * 25) Dry grassy areas covering nearly half of Africa
 * 26) Grain which can be ground into for cooking
 * 27) The dying out of an animal or plant species
 * 28) The physical features of Africa
 * 29) Moist, Green and productive Sahara region became drier and people and animals move away
 * 30) Forests were too dense to clear for farm land so only the edges of forests were used
 * 31) Mountains and deserts were barriers to travel so rivers became an essential means of transportation
 * 32) Niger river: longer than Mississippi River, begins 150 miles inland from the Atlantic ocean and flows north east and curves south empties 2600 miles away into the Atlantic Ocean in the modern country of Nigeria,
 * 33) Resources of West Africa: gold, copper, iron, salt, animals, rivers, lakes, fish
 * 34) Nok people: one of Africa’s oldest societies, used iron tools, lived between 500 BC and 200 AD, flourished along river valleys of Niger and Benue river, artists created terra cotta pottery and sculpture, influenced artist of Ife, did not keep written records
 * 35) Bantu: of the 1000 languages spoken in Africa 350 are in the category of Bantu language, by mapping where speakers live now we can see how people migrates
 * 36) Nok region is today: Nigeria especially along Niger and Benue River
 * 37) Bantu speakers moved from Niger River valley south along the Congo River and branched out as far as the Indian Ocean, they followed the Zambezi river
 * 38) After 300 Ad Bantu speakers ate yams, rice, coconuts, sugar cane, bananas,
 * 39) Importance of cattle: meat, milk, hides, ownership represented wealth and power
 * 40) The corral, made from thorny bushes, protected people and animals from wild hungry animals and other invaders
 * 41) Kinship as determined by common ancestors demanded each members allegiance as well as defense and protection from outsides, share in resources
 * 42) Matilineage: tracing ancestry through the mother, mother’s mother and mother’s mother’s mother back in time, Patrilineage: tracing ancestry through fathers ancestors ||


 * Use pages 183 to 187 to answer these questions about ancient **Ghana**
 * 1) Describe how trade was conducted in ancient Ghana 1000 years ago
 * 2) Where is the region of the Kingdom of ancient Ghana today?
 * 3) What does Sahel mean?
 * 4) How do we know about the ancient Kingdom ?
 * 5) Who was al-Bakri?
 * 6) Why would the kings of ancient Ghana release only small amount of gold?
 * 7) Besides gold, how else did ancient Ghana gain wealth?
 * 8) Why were traders forced to pay a tax to the king of Ghana?
 * 9) How did the Kingdom of Ghana have a monopoly on trade?
 * 10) Why was salt so valuable?
 * 11) What was Kumbi-SaleH?
 * 12) Who were the Almoravids?
 * 13) Make a diagram of importance of salt; salt especially important in hot climates where salt is lost through perspiration
 * 14) What is the difference between gold and salt? (hint: define element and compound )
 * 15) What is a comparable size of the Sahara desert?
 * 16) Why were there more north South trading routes than east west trading routes?
 * 17) What goods other than gold and salt were traded across the desert?
 * 18) What were the dangers of traveling across the Sahara desert? || # Owners of gold and goods would place gold and good together, the owners of the goods would either accept the amount or wait for more gold.
 * 19) Ancient Ghana lies in the region known as the Sahel and is in the modern countries of Mali and Mauritania, on the northern borders of the gold filled Niger and Sengal river valleys
 * 20) Sahel means “Shore”, not of the ocean but of the Sahara desert.
 * 21) The ancient kingdom was written about as the land of gold
 * 22) Al-Bakri was a geographer who reported about the kng of ancient Gahna in 1067 A.D.
 * 23) Only small amount of gold were released so the king could control the price: the more gold there is, the less the price for it
 * 24) Trade provided the greatest amount of wealth for ancient Ghana, traders brought goods across the Sahara to Ghana to gold country and then back again; the trader had to pay a tax to pass through the kingdom
 * 25) The tax had to be paid to the king of Ghana because it was the only way to get to gold country from the Sahara
 * 26) There was only one way to get to Gold country and Ghana had the monopoly
 * 27) Salt is an essential mineral for the body and important for preserving food
 * 28) Kumbi-Saleh was the town for traders a few miles from al-Ghaba, the capital of the kingdom of Ghana
 * 29) The Almoravids captured Ghana in 1076 AD
 * 30) Salt: economic; needed by everyone, used for preserving food, traded for gold; biological, needed to help muscles move, helps food to be digested, helps cells receive nutrients
 * 31) Gold is an element and salt is a compound
 * 32) The Sahara is about the size of the United States
 * 33) There north south across the sahara desert was shorter than east-west
 * 34) Dates, pottery, oil lamps, cotton cloth, beads, swords, knives and copper, ostrich feathers, ivory, hides, kola nuts, slaves
 * 35) Sand storms, robbers, heat, floods, lack of food and water ||