by Daniel Onyango

Created on: November 29, 2008

In this essay, I offer a moderately researched and fair assessment of Africa's apparent stagnation in its technology. Technology has various definitions, but one that fits this essay is that which describes technology as the sum of ways in which social groups provide themselves with material objects of their civilization (dictionary.com).

People often erroneously think of technology only in terms of modern computer gadgets and star wars, but forget that technology must first and foremost address the immediate pressing needs of a society. Most importantly also, is the fact that technology, once it comes into play, acquires modification or becomes obsolete with time.

Africa has since the 3000 BC, been providing itself with material objects for its civilization. Before being annexed as part of a province of the Roman Empire in 31 BC, and its technological advancement rudely interrupted, ancient Egypt was a highly developed civilization with advanced technology that suited it. Some of Egypt's technological facilities included irrigation canals, scientific and mathematical formulae that enabled them to construct architectural designs like Pyramids that have for ages stood as testimonials of its technological capabilities.

These developments in ancient Egypt, were only possible due to a period of relative stability (3 millennia), but thanks to conquests by the Romans and then the Arabs, its prosperity began to decline, and eventually fell into stagnation. A similar scenario occurred in other African beacons of social and technological development.

The Great Zimbabwe stone ruins are evidence that the Monomotapa kingdom, founded by the Shona in 500AD, was a thriving civilization with a productive agricultural, mining and livestock economy. They mined gold and traded it at the coast for goods they lacked. The Great Zimbabwe stone monument had three parts: The Hill complex, which was a sort of temple for worship. The second part was The Great Enclosure where their king lived and the last part, The Valley Ruins had huts for its citizens.

These ruins built around 1100AD had stood the test of time, and were mistakenly thought to have been built by some European conquerors. Research by David Randal MacIvern and Gertrude Caton-Thomson (1905-1929) confirmed that these were the work of the Shonas. But thanks to the violent conquest of the Zulus in the 1800s this civilization came to a halt.

Without seeming to be apologetic to the current political, technological and economic chaos

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