# Africans discovered America - they both have pyramids **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 17, 2003, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/africans-discovered-america-they-both-have-pyramids/213694 "2003-11-17T14:02:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2013, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/africans-discovered-america-they-both-have-pyramids/213694/61 "2013-06-23T06:02:14Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I think this owes as much to artistic convention as it does to actual skin colour - it’s nationalistic colour-coding. _Some_ Egyptians were, no doubt, Black as we would understand it - the Nile Valley was a conduit, not a barrier, to the rest of Africa. There is even the reign of the Nubian Pharaohs of the [XXVth Dynasty](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_dynasty_of_Egypt) - _ethnically_ Kushite, but completely, even conservatively, _culturally_ Egyptian. And you can’t tell me their followers didn’t intermingle with the brown Egyptians. > > Which has got jack to do with the better-known Egyptian pyramids, of course (Kushites [made their own](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nubian_pyramids), though) but does go to show that there were no hard-and-fast absolute ethnic divisions between “Egypt” and “The Rest of Africa” - it was a continuum. A very good point. I don’t claim to have any knowledge of the ethnic composition of ancient Egypt. But I do know that the way skin color is thought of can be pretty different in different places. In Cameroon, people were always telling me things like “Go ask Amadou- the black one…” Of course to me, everyone was black. But what I lumped together as “black” was seen as a whole range of skin tones. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2013, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/africans-discovered-america-they-both-have-pyramids/213694/62 "2013-06-23T06:14:49Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > Did a quick Google but no joy . > > Is there any significant history of Sub Saharan Africans having a seagoing, exploration/trading culture ? > [@Tamerlane](#): > > Just to add some specificity to **orcenio** ’s excellent answer, the city-states and petty states of the [Swahili Coast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swahili_Coast), the [Somali coast](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarapion) and further north states like [Aksum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Aksum#Foreign_relations.2C_trade_and_economy) in particular were substantial trade entrepots from at least the 1rst century. So coastal sub-Saharan East Africa from the Sahara south to about modern Sofala in Mozambique had a lot of maritime ties to the Indian Ocean trade system from classical times. Sure, those states absolutely had those maritime ties, but were those states south of Axum actively out on the ocean, trading? I’d always had in mind Arab and Indian traders who made stops along the Swahili coast, not Sub-Saharan Africans out on the sea lanes going to India and Egypt. I honestly have no idea why I think that; maybe I made a bad assumption. But I thought the traders in question were Arabs and Indians, not Africans. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2013, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/africans-discovered-america-they-both-have-pyramids/213694/63 "2013-06-23T10:39:19Z")
> [@appleciders](#): > > Sure, those states absolutely had those maritime ties, but were those states south of Axum actively out on the ocean, trading? Yes, at least to some extent. > [@](#): > > I’d always had in mind Arab and Indian traders who made stops along the Swahili coast, not Sub-Saharan Africans out on the sea lanes going to India and Egypt. I honestly have no idea why I think that; maybe I made a bad assumption. But I thought the traders in question were Arabs and Indians, not Africans. Well, they were actually all of the above, all mixed into a cultural stew pot - the word Swahili of course derives from the Arabic word for “coast.” This entry on the [Kilwa Sultanate](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilwa_Sultanate) goes into a little detail on the cosmopolitan blended Arabo-Perso-Bantu culture that eventually emerged. That loose state was snuffed by the Portuguese, who themselves were largely ( north of Sofala anyway ) driven out ~200 years later by the [Omani Arabs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oman#18th_and_19th_century) who, fair to say considering the lingering ties to the Arabian peninsula, were probably a bit more explicitly Arab than their Swahili predecessors. But the earlier Swahili state does seem to have been rather more deeply multi-ethnic. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2013, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/africans-discovered-america-they-both-have-pyramids/213694/64 "2013-06-23T22:26:36Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > If we go for the pre Clovis theory then the Americas were discovered by people from what is now France long before anyone else. No. Almost everyone goes with a “pre-Clovis” hypothesis now, and only a fringe few think those pre-Clovis people were from Europe. There are indisputable pre-Clovis sites like [Monte Verde in Chile](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_verde) and there is no evidence those people came from Europe. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/africans-discovered-america-they-both-have-pyramids/213694.md?page=3)