# Is Subsaharan Africa lagging behind New Guinea? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 10, 2011, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865 "2011-04-10T13:25:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/81 "2011-04-11T12:30:11Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Call us when New Guinea builds a VLA, manufactures attack helicopters or has an Antarctic research station, m’kay? I’ll do. Wait a decade and you’ll see it. ---
**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:** [April 11, 2011, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/82 "2011-04-11T13:28:54Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No, I said Nubians were using \*chariots \*while Europe was in the Neolithic. The implication being that Nubia was a Bronze Age civilization while most of Europe was still just banging rocks together. OK. Can we see a cite for that? ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/83 "2011-04-11T13:48:20Z")
I thought wagons / chariots were hypothesized to have arisen in easternmost Ukraine into Central Asia among the horse using nomadic peoples of the Eurasian steppe, and have diffused down into the fertile crescent? I seem to have read it once. If that’s so, I suppose we have to say what is meant by Europe… ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/84 "2011-04-11T14:02:49Z")
No, you’re right, I exaggerated a teeny bit. Europe would mostly have been in the early Bronze Age. I’d put chariot adoption in Nubia at ~1500BCE (see pg 116 [here](http://books.google.com/books?id=VvkQ8lZbAugC&pg=PA106&lpg=PA106&dq=nubian+chariot&source=bl&ots=WfvU0JSr4X&sig=ul9HVGRStDgVABIjF8NX0ev7WVo&hl=en&ei=VQmjTaS9HM218QPjicmoAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=nubian%20chariot&f=false)), while the usual date for the end of the Neolithic even in Britain is 2500 BCE. My bad, let the rhetoric get away from the facts. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/85 "2011-04-11T14:09:10Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > I thought wagons / chariots were hypothesized to have arisen in easternmost Ukraine into Central Asia among the horse using nomadic peoples of the Eurasian steppe, and have diffused down into the fertile crescent? I seem to have read it once. That’s one theory. The other is that it arose in Mesopotamia, and that ox/onager chariots were adopted to horses when they came along. > [@](#): > > If that’s so, I suppose we have to say what is meant by Europe… To me, I mean West of the Caucasus, North of Turkey. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/86 "2011-04-11T14:25:54Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > That’s one theory. The other is that it arose in Mesopotamia, and that ox/onager chariots were adopted to horses when they came along. > To me, I mean West of the Caucasus, North of Turkey. Well, I guess like the Nubians, we confront then the dodginess of applying modern categories to people who lived millennia ago. As far as I can tell, these sorts usually mean “White western Europeans” except when it is to their advantage to include others. ---
**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:** [April 11, 2011, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/87 "2011-04-11T14:47:42Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No, you’re right, I exaggerated a teeny bit. Europe would mostly have been in the early Bronze Age. I’d put chariot adoption in Nubia at ~1500BCE (see pg 116 [here](http://books.google.com/books?id=VvkQ8lZbAugC&pg=PA106&lpg=PA106&dq=nubian+chariot&source=bl&ots=WfvU0JSr4X&sig=ul9HVGRStDgVABIjF8NX0ev7WVo&hl=en&ei=VQmjTaS9HM218QPjicmoAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=nubian%20chariot&f=false)), while the usual date for the end of the Neolithic even in Britain is 2500 BCE. My bad, let the rhetoric get away from the facts. Thanks. At any rate, I think the larger issue is that \*\*pinguin \*\*is simply wrong in his characterization of development in Africa. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/88 "2011-04-11T14:56:04Z")
So did the wheel make it farther south into Africa? I know the Nubians traded with the interior, so it would seem odd for the people they made contact with not to adopt it, but I’ve seen a couple places that seem to say there wasn’t any use of the wheel in the Southern parts of Africa in the pre-colonial era. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/89 "2011-04-11T15:08:59Z")
Ask Livingston if he saw wheels in tropical Africa. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/90 "2011-04-11T15:22:04Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > Ask Livingston if he saw wheels in tropical Africa. Thats not really helpful. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/91 "2011-04-11T15:25:42Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > The question is then, who is winning the race to development? Subsaharan Africa or New Guinea? No, the question is, why are you the first person in human history to suggest that there is any competition between the two? ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/92 "2011-04-11T15:28:53Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No, I said Nubians were using \*chariots \*while Europe was in the Neolithic. The implication being that Nubia was a Bronze Age civilization while most of Europe was still just banging rocks together. What’s the importance of that? Who cares if Nubians used chariots when we know very well that Egyptians spread the Hycsos technology around. And the Hycsos brought charriots from Mesopotamia. And who cares if Europeans lagged behind in technology at that time? Do you care? I don’t. To say “Nubians used charriots” is like saying “Sri Lankas invented cell phones” just because they can buy them today. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/93 "2011-04-11T15:29:55Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > So did the wheel make it farther south into Africa? I know the Nubians traded with the interior, so it would seem odd for the people they made contact with not to adopt it, but I’ve seen a couple places that seem to say there wasn’t any use of the wheel in the Southern parts of Africa in the pre-colonial era. There are paintings in the Sahara from its wet period of chariots. They seem to have fallen out of use. But so did the wheel in the Middle East, it was out competed by the camel as an efficient transport means (relative to the technology - that is pre-engine). I’d guess with the Tse Tse zone(\*), which puts something of a wall to animals of burden usage, the wheel diffusion was limited. (\*: I have no idea what it was in the eras we’re talking about, maybe farther north?) ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/94 "2011-04-11T15:31:10Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, the question is, why are you the first person in human history to suggest that there is any competition between the two? Why not? ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/95 "2011-04-11T15:31:40Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > What’s the importance of that? Who cares if Nubians used chariots when we know very well that Egyptians spread the Hycsos technology around. And the Hycsos brought charriots from Mesopotamia. And who cares if Europeans lagged behind in technology at that time? Do you care? I don’t. > > To say “Nubians used charriots” is like saying “Sri Lankas invented cell phones” just because they can buy them today. And so? The only folks who seem to have invented chariots on their own seem to have been a few tribes up in Central Asia. Everyone else, W. Europeans, etc. borrowed em. Of course the phrase “no sense re-inventing the wheel” comes to mind as to the absurdity of your argument and its constantly shifting goal posts. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/96 "2011-04-11T15:37:27Z")
I said no Wheels existed in SS Africa. With exceptions, that is true for most of the region, except for its borders. The point is, the interior of Africa was a tribal region, and that’s why its development started late. I wonder why this reality is so hard to grasp for some people. Now, I was comparing two regions of similar level of development and how they are doing. That’s all. Who cares about Egypt, Nubians, Tumbuctu, the Chinese, the Inuits or the Martians. Let’s focus in the topic. Besides, I already was convinced New Guinea perform as an average SS African country. That’s OK the question is answered. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/97 "2011-04-11T15:40:10Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > And so? > > The only folks who seem to have invented chariots on their own seem to have been a few tribes up in Central Asia. > > Everyone else, W. Europeans, etc. borrowed em. > > Of course the phrase “no sense re-inventing the wheel” comes to mind as to the absurdity of your argument and its constantly shifting goal posts. Certainly, the Wheel was invented just once and spread from Mesopotamia or Central Asia. But, unfortunately, didn’t entered the interior of Africa, and Nubia was just an exception rather than a rule. Don’t worry, New Guineans, Australians and Native Americans didn’t know the Wheel either, so what’s the problem. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/98 "2011-04-11T15:41:01Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > I said no Wheels existed in SS Africa. With exceptions, that is true for most of the region, except for its borders. This is got to win a prize: “What I said was true except that it’s false.” > [@](#): > > The point is, the interior of Africa was a tribal region, and that’s why its development started late. I wonder why this reality is so hard to grasp for some people. I’d say it is hard to grasp because it’s bollocks. > [@](#): > > Besides, I already was convinced New Guinea perform as an average SS African country. That’s OK the question is answered. Oddly earlier you were writing that PNG was “winning” the development race. Really queer definition of winning if that means “performing about on average.” ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/99 "2011-04-11T15:43:52Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > Certainly, the Wheel was invented just once and spread from Mesopotamia or Central Asia. But, unfortunately, didn’t entered the interior of Africa, and Nubia was just an exception rather than a rule. > > Don’t worry, New Guineans, Australians and Native Americans didn’t know the Wheel either, so what’s the problem. The problem is that your argument - such as it is - is pretty incoherent and largely characterised as several people have pointed out by constantly shifting goal posts. (I’m not going to touch ‘exception’ since I just alluded to chariot paintings throughout the Sahara…) ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865/100 "2011-04-11T15:50:07Z")
My question was precise: to compare two regions. But a smoke curtain of retoric blinded us all. The question was already answered. Why we continue arguing with medieval schollastic? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-subsaharan-africa-lagging-behind-new-guinea/577865.md?page=6)