Understanding the developing civilizations of Africa means understanding the interplay between geography and human experience. In spite of, or indeed sometimes because of, the often inhospitable land they inhabited, African people adapted their cultures to their surroundings. Jungles, mountains, plains, and deserts each demanded different sacrifices of Africans and provided varying rewards and opportunities. Interactions with people of the Mediterranean, Egypt, and Persia that came with trade also influenced the development of African civilization, but the basic culture of this vast continent evolved in direct response to the environment. People from the north moved south in waves for a thousand years. Each group brought ideas and skills of their own and developed and learned new ones as they moved on, thereby bringing new ideas to successive settlements and generations.
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