1.
Ngorongoro District
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Ngorongoro District is one of the five districts of the Arusha Region of Tanzania. It is bordered to the north by Kenya, to the east by Monduli District, to the south by the Karatu District, according to the 2002 Tanzania National Census, the population of the Ngorongoro Region was 129,776. Within the district are the Ngorongoro Crater and active volcano Ol Doinyo Lengai, the district plays host to parts of the wildebeest migration. While not part of the park, as such, much of the district is within the same Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem, the major ethnic group in the district are the Maasai people. The District Headquarters, including the office of the District Commissioner are located in Loliondo village, the entire southern half of the district is designated as the Ngorongoro Conservation Area which is governed by the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority. The Conservation Area is the one of its kind in Tanzania with all other of the countrys protected areas designated as Game Reserves. The NCAA uniquely allows human habitation within the area, but places restrictions on land-use in the NCA, including cultivation. Whilst watering of cattle is permitted, human habitation and livestock grazing is forbidden in the Ngorongoro Crater which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, for parliamentary elections, Arusha Region is divided into constituencies. As of the 2010 elections Ngorongoro District had one constituency, Ngorongoro Constituency. W, homewood and W. A. Rodgers 24 October 1991, CUP Deocampo, D. M. Hydrogeochemistry in the Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania, and implications for use in a World Heritage Site. Applied Geochemistry, volume 19, p. 755-767 Deocampo, D. M, evaporative evolution of surface waters and the role of aqueous CO2 in magnesium silicate precipitation, Lake Eyasi and Ngorongoro Crater, northern Tanzania. South African Journal of Geology, volume 108, p. 493-504
2.
International Union for Conservation of Nature
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The International Union for Conservation of Nature is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. It is involved in gathering and analysis, research, field projects, advocacy, lobbying. IUCNs mission is to influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve nature and to ensure that any use of resources is equitable. Over the past decades, IUCN has widened its focus beyond conservation ecology and now incorporates issues related to equality, poverty alleviation. Unlike other international NGOs, IUCN does not itself aim to mobilize the public in support of nature conservation and it tries to influence the actions of governments, business and other stakeholders by providing information and advice, and through lobbying and partnerships. The organization is best known to the public for compiling and publishing the IUCN Red List. IUCN has a membership of over 1200 governmental and non-governmental organizations, some 11,000 scientists and experts participate in the work of IUCN commissions on a voluntary basis. It employs approximately 1000 full-time staff in more than 60 countries and its headquarters are in Gland, Switzerland. IUCN has observer and consultative status at the United Nations, and plays a role in the implementation of several conventions on nature conservation. It was involved in establishing the World Wide Fund for Nature, in the past, IUCN has been criticized for placing the interests of nature over those of indigenous peoples. In recent years, its relations with the business sector have caused controversy. It was previously called the International Union for Protection of Nature, establishment In 1947, the Swiss League for the Protection of Nature organised an international conference on the protection of nature in Brunnen. It is considered to be the first government-organized non-governmental organization, the initiative to set up the new organisation came from UNESCO and especially from its first Director General, the British biologist Julian Huxley. At the time of its founding IUPN was the international organisation focusing on the entire spectrum of nature conservation Early years. Its secretariat was located in Brussels and its first work program focused on saving species and habitats, increasing and applying knowledge, advancing education, promoting international agreements and promoting conservation. Providing a solid base for conservation action was the heart of all activities. IUPN and UNESCO were closely associated and they jointly organized the 1949 Conference on Protection of Nature. In preparation for this conference a list of endangered species was drawn up for the first time
3.
Arusha Region
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Arusha Region is one of Tanzanias 30 administrative regions. Its capital and largest city is the city of Arusha, major towns include Monduli, Namanga, Longido, and Loliondo to the north, Mto wa Mbu and Karatu to the west, and Usa River to the east. The region is comparable in size to the land and water areas of the United States state of Maryland. Arusha Region is a global tourist destination and is the center of the northern Tanzania safari circuit, the national parks and reserves in this region include Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Arusha National Park, the Loliondo Game Controlled Area, and part of Lake Manyara National Park. Remains of 600-year-old stone structures are found at Engaruka, just off the road between Mto wa Mbu and Lake Natron. With a HDI of 0.721, Arusha is one among the most developed regions of Tanzania, much of the present area of Arusha Region used to be Maasai land. The Maasai are still the dominant community in the region and their influence is reflected in the present names of towns, regional culture, cuisine, and geographical features. The administrative region of Arusha existed in 1922 while mainland Tanzania was a British mandate under the League of Nations, in 1948, the area was in the Northern Province, which includes the present day regions of Manyara and Kilimanjaro. In 1966, under the newly independent Tanzanian government, Arusha was given its own regional status, in 2002, Manyara Region was created and was split from Arusha Region. Portions of the former Arusha Region districts of Kiteto, Babati, Mbulu, Hanang, Arusha was the largest region in Tanzania from 1966-2002. The Great Rift Valley runs through the middle of the region north-to-south, oldonyo Lengai is an active volcano to the north of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Altitudes throughout the region vary widely, but much of it ranges from 900 to 1,600 metres in elevation, Mount Meru, the second highest mountain in Tanzania after Mount Kilimanjaro, peaks at 4,655 metres. Arusha Region has the highest number of craters and extinct volcanoes in Tanzania, other geographical features include the Monduli Mountains, Mount Loolmalasin, Mount Longido, and the Olduvai Gorge. The city of Arusha, the capital of the region, is located at the foot of Mount Meru. The majority of Arusha residents live in the city and the southeastern part of Arusha Region. Arusha Region is divided into one city and six districts, each administered by a council, the region is inhabited by various ethnolinguistic groups and communities. Among these are the Iraqw, Arusha, Maasai, Wameru, Sonjo, Chagga, Pare, nyama Choma, northern Tanzanian barbecue, is a popular dish among some communities in the Arusha Region, particularly the Maasai. Nyama Choma is properly served with a side of Pili Pili sauce, the A-23 Arusha-Himo road runs east-west and enters the region near Kilimanjaro International Airport
4.
Tanzania
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Tanzania /ˌtænzəˈniːə/, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in Eastern Africa within the African Great Lakes region. Parts of the country are in Southern Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro, Africas highest mountain, is in northeastern Tanzania. Tanzanias population of 51.82 million is diverse, composed of ethnic, linguistic. Dar es Salaam, the capital, retains most government offices and is the countrys largest city, principal port. Tanzania is a one party dominant state with the Chama Cha Mapinduzi party in power, from its formation until 1992, it was the only legally permitted party in the country. Elections for president and all National Assembly seats were last held in October 2015, the CCM holds approximately 75% of the seats in the assembly. Prehistoric population migrations include Southern Cushitic speakers, who are ancestral to the Iraqw, Gorowa, and Burunge and who moved south from Ethiopia into Tanzania. Based on linguistic evidence, there may also have two movements into Tanzania of Eastern Cushitic people at about 4,000 and 2,000 years ago. These movements took place at about the time as the settlement of the iron-making Mashariki Bantu from West Africa in the Lake Victoria. They brought with them the west African planting tradition and the staple of yams. They subsequently migrated out of these regions across the rest of Tanzania, European colonialism began in mainland Tanzania during the late 19th century when Germany formed German East Africa, which gave way to British rule following World War I. The mainland was governed as Tanganyika, with the Zanzibar Archipelago remaining a separate colonial jurisdiction, following their respective independence in 1961 and 1963, the two entities merged in April 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. Tanzania is mountainous and densely forested in the northeast, where Mount Kilimanjaro is located, three of Africas Great Lakes are partly within Tanzania. To the north and west lie Lake Victoria, Africas largest lake, and Lake Tanganyika, the eastern shore is hot and humid, with the Zanzibar Archipelago just offshore. The Menai Bay Conservation Area is Zanzibars largest marine protected area, over 100 different languages are spoken in Tanzania, making it the most linguistically diverse country in East Africa. Among the languages spoken in Tanzania are all four of Africas language families, Bantu, Cushitic, Nilotic, Swahili and English are Tanzanias official languages. In connection with his Ujamaa social policies, President Nyerere encouraged the use of Swahili, approximately 10% of Tanzanians speak Swahili as a first language, and up to 90% speak it as a second language. Most Tanzanians thus speak both Swahili and a language, many educated Tanzanians are trilingual, also speaking English
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
Tanzania National Parks Authority
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The Tanzania National Parks Authority commonly known as TANAPA is responsible for the management of Tanzanias national parks. TANAPA is a corporation and all its income is reinvested into the organization. It is governed by a number of instruments including the National Parks Act, Chapter 282 of the 2002 and the Wildlife Conservation Act No.5 of 2009. TANAPA manages the nations 17 National parks which cover ~15% of the area and has the mandate to conserve and manage wildlife in Tanzania. It manages the biodiversity of the country, protecting and conserving the flora, currently TANAPA is governed by the National Parks Ordinance Chapter 282 of the 2002 and manages 17 national parks. TANAPA manages 17 national parks covering an area of 57,024 km2 approximately the area of Croatia. TANAPA is responsible for the parks, TANAPAs main source of revenue is sourced from tourist arrivals. TANAPA in collaboration with the Tanzania Tourist Board markets the national parks locally and internationally to attract visitors, TANAPA has also been mandated to promote domestic tourism. It is TANAPAs first and foremost goal to protect the wildlife and natural living in the park. The organization has received donations of vehicles and aircraft to help train rangers with modern technology. TANAPA also pays to maintain the facilities for tourists and conservation activities such as Roads, Gates, Boundaries. TANAPA currently manages 26 airstrips throughout its network of national parks, often forest fires break out in the parks and it is under TANAPAs mandate to put them out. List of protected areas of Tanzania Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute Official Website
7.
World Heritage Site
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A World Heritage Site is a landmark which has been officially recognized by the United Nations, specifically by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Sites are selected on the basis of having cultural, historical, scientific or some form of significance. UNESCO regards these sites as being important to the interests of humanity. The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common culture, under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The program was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the Worlds Cultural and Natural Heritage, since then,192 state parties have ratified the convention, making it one of the most adhered to international instruments. As of July 2016,1052 sites are listed,814 cultural,203 natural, in 1959, the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO to assist their countries to protect and rescue the endangered monuments and sites. In 1960, the Director-General of UNESCO launched an appeal to the Member States for an International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the campaign, which ended in 1980, was considered a success. The project cost $80 million, about $40 million of which was collected from 50 countries, the projects success led to other safeguarding campaigns, saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, and the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia. UNESCO then initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the United States initiated the idea of cultural conservation with nature conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, the Convention came into force on 17 December 1975. As of June 2016, it has been ratified by 192 states, including 188 UN member states plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See, Niue, a country must first list its significant cultural and natural sites, the result is called the Tentative List. A country may not nominate sites that have not been first included on the Tentative List, next, it can place sites selected from that list into a Nomination File. The Nomination File is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and these bodies then make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee. There are ten selection criteria – a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list, up to 2004, there were six criteria for cultural heritage and four criteria for natural heritage. In 2005, this was modified so there is now only one set of ten criteria. Nominated sites must be of outstanding value and meet at least one of the ten criteria. Thus, the Geneva Convention treaty promulgates, Article 53, PROTECTION OF CULTURAL OBJECTS AND OF PLACES OF WORSHIP. There are 1,052 World Heritage Sites located in 165 States Party, of these,814 are cultural,203 are natural and 35 are mixed properties
8.
Protected area
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Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the laws of each country or the regulations of the international organisations involved. There are over 161,000 protected areas in the world with more added daily, by contrast, only 1. 17% of the worlds oceans is included in the worlds ~6,800 Marine Protected Areas. Protected areas are essential for biodiversity conservation, often providing habitat, Protection helps maintain ecological processes that cannot survive in most intensely managed landscapes and seascapes. Generally, protected areas are understood to be those in human occupation or at least the exploitation of resources is limited. As a result, Protected Areas can encompass a range of governance types. Indeed, governance of protected areas has emerged a critical factor in their success, subsequently, the range of natural resources that any one protected area may guard is vast. Of all global terrestrial carbon stock,15. 2% is contained within protected areas, Protected areas in South America hold 27% of the worlds carbon stock, which is the highest percentage of any country in both absolute terms and as a proportion of the total stock. Rainforests,18. 8% of the worlds forest is covered by protected areas, of the 670 ecoregions with forest cover, 54% have 10% or more of their forest cover protected under IUCN Categories I – VI. Mountain protected area coverage has increased globally by 21% since 1990, the categories provide international standards for defining protected areas and encourage conservation planning according to their management aims. Protecting places and resources is by no means a modern concept, over 2000 years ago, royal decrees in India protected certain areas. In Europe, rich and powerful people protected hunting grounds for a thousand years, moreover, the idea of protection of special places is universal, for example, it occurs among the communities in the Pacific and in parts of Africa. However, the protected areas movement doesnt begin until late nineteenth-century in North America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. While the idea of protected areas spread around the world in the twentieth century, thus, in North America, protected areas were about safeguarding dramatic and sublime scenery, in Africa, the concern was with game parks, in Europe, landscape protection was more common. The spectrum of benefits and values of protected areas is recognised not only ecologically, international programmes for the protection of representative ecosystems remain relatively progressive, with less advances in marine and freshwater biomes. There is increasing pressure to take account of human needs when setting up protected areas. Such negotiations are never easy but usually stronger and longer-lasting results for both conservation and people. In some countries, protected areas can be assigned without the infrastructure and networking needed to substitute consumable resources, one of the main concerns regarding protected areas on land and sea is their effectiveness at preventing the ongoing loss of biodiversity
9.
Arusha
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Arusha is a city in northern Tanzania and the capital of the Arusha Region, with a population of 416,442 plus 323,198 in the surrounding Arusha District. Located below Mount Meru on the edge of the eastern branch of the Great Rift Valley. Arusha is an international diplomatic hub. The city hosts the East African Community, from 1994 to 2015, the city also hosted the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, but that entity has ceased operations. Religions of the Arushan population are Christian, Muslim, and Hindu, the current site of Arusha was first settled in the 1830s by the agro-pastoral Arusha Maasai from the Arusha Chini community, south of Mount Kilimanjaro. They traded grains, honey, beer, and tobacco with the pastoral Kisongo Maasai in exchange for livestock, milk, meat, and skins. Demand for Arushas foodstuffs increased substantially during the 1860s when the Pangani Valley trade route was extended through Old Moshi, Arusha, although it was not yet a town, it was a regional centre and had a number of urban features. Arusha was conquered by the Germans in 1896 after the murder of the first two missionaries who attempted to settle on nearby Mount Meru, the Germans established a permanent presence in 1900 when a military fort was built and soldiers were garrisoned there. The boma was a statement, meant to impress German moral and political order on the surrounding countryside. Set on a rise overlooking the plains, the building dominated the surrounding landscape complete with a machine gun. Many Africans were forcibly displaced from their lands by the Germans. The British took Arusha from the Germans in 1916 during World War I, German officials left the area, the British deported German missionaries and settlers, and only a skeletal military administration of the town remained. The extension of the railroad from Moshi to Arusha in 1928-29 greatly increased commerce, the Great Depression soon thereafter, however, squelched commerce, and Arusha in 1940 had less than 2,000 residents. Growth resumed during World War II and by 1948, the population had increased to more than 5,000, in the 1960s parts of the movie Hatari. with John Wayne were filmed at Momella. Arusha has been a city in the history of modern Tanzania. Official documents ceding independence to Tanganyika were signed by the United Kingdom at Arusha in 1961, also, the Arusha Declaration was signed in 1967 in Arusha. The Arusha Accords were signed at the city of Arusha on August 4,1993 and it provided that all SPLM members who were dismissed be reinstated to their previous positions and a secret ballot system be adopted. In 1994 the UN Security Council decided by its Resolution 955 of 8 November 1994 that Arusha should host the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the establishment of the tribunal with its foreign employees has influenced the local economy of the city increasing the cost of living for residents
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Crater Highlands
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The highlands are named for the many craters and calderas present. As common in spreading zones, volcanoes can be found here, magma, rising to fill the gaps, reaches the surface and builds cones. Calderas form if a volcano explodes or collapses, following the emptying of the chamber below. The following are considered to be within the Crater Highlands, Lake Eyasi Ngorongoro Crater Ela Naibori Crater Kitumbeine Mountain Gelai Mountain Mount Loolmalasin Meto Hills
11.
Caldera
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A caldera is a large cauldron-like depression that forms following the evacuation of a magma chamber/reservoir. When large volumes of magma are erupted over a time period. The ground surface then collapses downward into the emptied magma chamber. Although sometimes described as a crater, the feature is actually a type of sinkhole, as it is formed through subsidence, only seven known caldera-forming collapses have occurred since the start of the 20th century, most recently at Bárðarbunga volcano in Iceland. The word comes from Spanish caldera, and this from Latin caldaria, in some texts the English term cauldron is also used. If enough magma is ejected, the chamber is unable to support the weight of the volcanic edifice above it. A roughly circular fracture, the fault, develops around the edge of the chamber. Ring fractures serve as feeders for fault intrusions which are known as ring dykes. Secondary volcanic vents may form above the ring fracture, as the magma chamber empties, the center of the volcano within the ring fracture begins to collapse. The collapse may occur as the result of a cataclysmic eruption. The total area that collapses may be hundreds or thousands of square kilometers, some calderas are known to host rich ore deposits. One of the worlds best-preserved mineralized calderas is the Sturgeon Lake Caldera in northwestern Ontario, Canada, if the magma is rich in silica, the caldera is often filled in with ignimbrite, tuff, rhyolite, and other igneous rocks. Silica-rich magma has a high viscosity, and therefore does not flow easily like basalt, as a result, gases tend to become trapped at high pressure within the magma. Further lava flows may be erupted, if volcanic activity continues, the center of the caldera may be uplifted in the form of a resurgent dome such as is seen at Cerro Galán, Lake Toba, Yellowstone, etc. by subsequent intrusion of magma. A silicic or rhyolitic caldera may erupt hundreds or even thousands of kilometers of material in a single event. Even small caldera-forming eruptions, such as Krakatoa in 1883 or Mount Pinatubo in 1991, may result in significant local destruction, large calderas may have even greater effects. When Yellowstone Caldera last erupted some 650,000 years ago, it released about 1,000 km3 of material, by comparison, when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, it released ~1.2 km3 of ejecta. The ecological effects of the eruption of a large caldera can be seen in the record of the Lake Toba eruption in Indonesia, more recently several geneticists, including Lynn Jorde and Henry Harpending have proposed that the human species was reduced to approximately five to ten thousand people
12.
Maasai people
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The Maasai are a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. They are among the best known local populations due to their residence near the game parks of the African Great Lakes. The Maasai speak the Maa language, a member of the Nilo-Saharan family that is related to Dinka and they are also educated in the official languages of Kenya and Tanzania, Swahili and English. The Maasai population has been reported as numbering 841,622 in Kenya in the 2009 census, the Tanzanian and Kenyan governments have instituted programs to encourage the Maasai to abandon their traditional semi-nomadic lifestyle, but the people have continued their age-old customs. Recently, Oxfam has claimed that the lifestyle of the Maasai should be embraced as a response to change because of their ability to produce food in deserts. Many Maasai tribes throughout Tanzania and Kenya welcome visits to their villages to experience their culture, traditions, the Maasai speak a Nilo-Saharan language. They inhabit the African Great Lakes region and arrived via the South Sudan, most Nilotic speakers in the area, including the Maasai, the Samburu and the Kalenjin, are pastoralists, and are famous for their fearsome reputations as warriors and cattle-rustlers. The Nilotic ancestors of the Kalenjin and Samburu likewise absorbed some early Cushitic populations, the Maasai territory reached its largest size in the mid-19th century, and covered almost all of the Great Rift Valley and adjacent lands from Mount Marsabit in the north to Dodoma in the south. At this time the Maasai, as well as the larger Nilotic group they were part of, raiders used spears and shields, but were most feared for throwing clubs which could be accurately thrown from up to 70 paces. In 1852, there was a report of a concentration of 800 Maasai warriors on the move in what is now Kenya, in 1857, after having depopulated the Wakuafi wilderness in what is now southeastern Kenya, Maasai warriors threatened Mombasa on the Kenyan coast. Because of this migration, the Maasai are the southernmost Nilotic speakers, the period of expansion was followed by the Maasai Emutai of 1883–1902. This period was marked by epidemics of contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, rinderpest, the estimate first put forward by a German lieutenant in what was then northwest Tanganyika, was that 90 percent of cattle and half of wild animals perished from rinderpest. German doctors in the area claimed that every second African had a pock-marked face as the result of smallpox. Rains failed completely in 1897 and 1898, warriors scarcely able to crawl on all fours, and apathetic, languishing elders. Swarms of vultures followed them from high, awaiting their certain victims, by one estimate two-thirds of the Maasai died during this period. Maasai in Tanganyika were displaced from the lands between Mount Meru and Mount Kilimanjaro, and most of the fertile highlands near Ngorongoro in the 1940s. Maasai are pastoralist and have resisted the urging of the Tanzanian and Kenyan governments to adopt a sedentary lifestyle. They have demanded grazing rights to many of the parks in both countries
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Pastoralism
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Pastoralism is the branch of agriculture concerned with the raising of livestock. It is animal husbandry, the care, tending and use of such as camels, goats, cattle, yaks, llamas. Pastoralism generally has an aspect, moving the herds in search of fresh pasture. Pastoralism is a strategy to support a population on less productive land. For example, in savannas, pastoralists and their animals gather when rain water is abundant, pastoralists often use their herds to affect their environment. Grazing herds on savannas can ensure the biodiversity of the savannas, pastoralists may also use fire to make ecosystems more suitable for their food animals. For instance, the Turkana people of northwest Kenya use fire to prevent the invasion of the savanna by woody plant species, biomass of the domesticated and wild animals was increased by a higher quality of grass. Pastoralism is found in many variations throughout the world, composition of herds, management practices, social organization and all other aspects of pastoralism vary between areas and between social groups. Many traditional practices have also had to adapt to the circumstance of the modern world. Ranches of the United States and sheep stations and cattle stations of Australia are seen by some as modern variations, one theory is that pastoralism was created from mixed farming. Bates and Lees proposed that it was the incorporation of irrigation into farming which ensued in specialization, advantages of mixed farming include reducing risk of failure, spreading labour, and re-utilizing resources. The increased productivity of agriculture led to an increase in population. Bordering areas of land remained in use for animal breeding and this meant that large distances had to be covered by herds to collect sufficient forage. Specialization occurred as a result of the importance of both intensive agriculture and pastoralism. Both agriculture and pastoralism developed alongside other, with continuous interactions. There is another theory that suggests pastoralism evolved from hunting and gathering, hunters of wild goats and sheep were knowledgeable about herd mobility and the needs of the animals. Such hunters were mobile and followed the herds on their seasonal rounds, undomesticated herds were chosen to become more controllable for the proto-pastoralist nomadic hunter and gatherer groups by taming and domesticating them. Hunter-gatherers strategies in the past have been diverse and contingent upon the local environment conditions
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History of Tanzania
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The African Great Lakes nation of Tanzania dates formally from 1964, when it was formed out of the union of the much larger mainland territory of Tanganyika and the coastal archipelago of Zanzibar. The former was a colony and part of German East Africa from the 1880s to 1919 and it served as a military outpost during World War II, providing financial help, munitions, and soldiers. In 1947, Tanganyika became a United Nations Trust Territory under British administration, Zanzibar was settled as a trading hub, subsequently controlled by the Portuguese, the Sultanate of Oman, and then as a British protectorate by the end of the nineteenth century. Julius Nyerere, independence leader and baba wa taifa for Tanganyika, ruled the country for decades, assisted by Abeid Amaan Karume, following Nyereres retirement in 1985, various political and economic reforms began. He was succeeded in office by President Ali Hassan Mwinyi, Tanzania is home to some of the oldest hominid settlements unearthed by archaeologists. Prehistoric stone tools and fossils have found in and around Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania. Acheulian stone tools were discovered there in 1931 by Louis Leakey, the same year, Louis Leakey found older, more primitive stone tools in Olduvai Gorge. These were the first examples of the oldest human technology ever discovered in Africa, other finds including Homo habilis fossils were subsequently made. The oldest hominid fossils discovered in Tanzania also come from Laetoli and are the 3.6 to 3. Reaching back about 10,000 years, Tanzania is believed to have populated by hunter-gatherer communities. Between three and six years ago, they were joined by Cushitic-speaking people who came from the north. Cushitic peoples introduced basic techniques of agriculture, food production, and later, about 2000 years ago, Bantu-speaking people began to arrive from western Africa in a series of migrations. These groups brought and developed ironworking skills and new ideas of social and political organization and they absorbed many of the Cushitic peoples who had preceded them, as well as most of the remaining Khoisan-speaking inhabitants. Later, Nilotic pastoralists arrived, and continued to immigrate into the area through to the 18th century, one of Tanzanias most important archeological sites is Engaruka in the Great Rift Valley, which includes an irrigation and cultivation system. Travellers and merchants from the Persian Gulf and Western India have visited the East African coast since early in the first millennium CE, greek texts such as the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and Ptolemys Geography list a string of market places along the coast. Finds of Roman-era coins along the coast confirm the existence of trade, archaeologists have not yet succeeded in identifying the location of Rhapta, though many believe it lies deeply buried in the silt of the delta of the Rufiji River. A long documentary silence follows these ancient texts, and it is not until Arab geographical treatises were written about the coast that our information resumes, remains of those towns material culture demonstrate that they arose from indigenous roots, not from foreign settlement. And the language that was spoken in them, Swahili, is a member of the Bantu language family that spread from the northern Kenya coast well before significant Arab presence was felt in the region
15.
Serengeti National Park
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The Serengeti National Park is a Tanzanian national park in the Serengeti ecosystem in the Mara and Simiyu regions. It is famous for its annual migration of over 1.5 million white-bearded wildebeest and 250,000 zebra and for its numerous Nile crocodile and honey badger. The name Serengeti is an approximation of the used by the Maasai to describe the area, siringet. The first American to enter the Serengeti, Stewart Edward White and he returned to the Serengeti in the 1920s and camped in the area around Seronera for three months. During this time, he and his companions shot 50 lions, because the hunting of lions made them scarce, the British colonial administration made a partial game reserve of 800 acres in the area in 1921 and a full one in 1929. These actions were the basis for Serengeti National Park, which was established in 1951, the Serengeti gained more fame after the initial work of Bernhard Grzimek and his son Michael in the 1950s. Together, they produced the book and film Serengeti Shall Not Die, to preserve wildlife, the British evicted the resident Maasai from the park in 1959 and moved them to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. There is still controversy surrounding this move, with claims made of coercion. It has over 2,500 lions and more than 1 million wildebeest, the park covers 14,750 square kilometres of grassland plains, savanna, riverine forest, and woodlands. The park lies in northwestern Tanzania, bordered to the north by the Kenyan border, together, these areas form the larger Serengeti ecosystem. The park is described as divided into three regions- Serengeti plains, the almost treeless grassland of the south is the most emblematic scenery of the park. This is where the wildebeest breed, as remain in the plains from December to May. Other hoofed animals - zebra, gazelle, impala, hartebeest, topi, buffalo, kopjes are granite florations that are very common in the region, and they are great observation posts for predators, as well as a refuge for hyrax and pythons. Western corridor, the clay soil covers the savannah of this region. The Grumeti River and its gallery forests is home to Nile crocodiles, patas monkeys, hippopotamus, the migration passes through from May to July. Northern Serengeti, the landscape is dominated by open woodlands and hills, apart from the migratory wildebeest and zebra, this is the best place to find elephant, giraffe, and dik dik. The main settlement is Seronera, which houses the majority of research staff, the park is worldwide known for its incredible scenery and magnificent wildlife. Some of the most popular animals among tourists include, Masai lion, more than 3,000 lions live in this ecosystem
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Onomatopoeia
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An onomatopoeia is a word that phonetically imitates, resembles or suggests the sound that it describes. As an uncountable noun, onomatopoeia refers to the property of such words, common occurrences of onomatopoeias include animal noises such as oink, miaow, roar or chirp. Although in the English language, the term means the imitation of a sound. For words that imitate sounds, the term Ηχομιμητικό is used, Ηχομιμητικό derives from Ηχώ, meaning echo or sound, and μιμητικό, meaning mimetic or imitation. Some other very common English-language examples include hiccup, zoom, bang, beep, moo, machines and their sounds are also often described with onomatopoeia, as in honk or beep-beep for the horn of an automobile, and vroom or brum for the engine. When someone speaks of an involving a audible arcing of electricity. Human sounds sometimes provide instances of onomatopoeia, as when mwah is used to represent a kiss, for animal sounds, words like quack, moo, bark or woof, roar, meow/miaow or purr, cluck and baa are typically used in English. Some of these words are used both as nouns and as verbs, some languages flexibly integrate onomatopoeic words into their structure. This may evolve into a new word, up to the point that it is no longer recognized as onomatopoeia, verba dicendi are a method of integrating onomatopoeia and ideophones into grammar. Sometimes things are named from the sounds they make, in English, for example, there is the universal fastener which is named for the onomatopoeic of the sound it makes, the zip or zipper. In Tamil and Malayalam, the word for crow is kaakaa and this practice is especially common in certain languages such as Māori and, therefore, in names of animals borrowed from these languages. Although a particular sound is heard similarly by people of different cultures, for example, the snip of a pair of scissors is cri-cri in Italian, riqui-riqui in Spanish, terre-terre or treque-treque in Portuguese, krits-krits in modern Greek and katr-katr in Hindi. Similarly, the honk of a horn is ba-ba in Mandarin, tut-tut in French, pu-pu in Japanese, bbang-bbang in Korean, bært-bært in Norwegian, fom-fom in Portuguese. Onomatopoeic effect can also be produced in a phrase or word string with the help of alliteration and consonance alone, the most famous example is the phrase furrow followed free in Samuel Taylor Coleridges The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It may be noted that the words followed and free are not onomatopoeic in themselves, similarly, alliteration has been used in the line as the surf surged up the sun swept shore. To recreate the sound of breaking waves, in the poem I, She, comic strips and comic books made extensive use of onomatopoeia. Crane had fun with this, tossing in an occasional ker-splash or lickety-wop along with what would become the standard effects. Words as well as images became vehicles for carrying along his increasingly fast-paced storylines, in 2002, DC Comics introduced a villain named Onomatopoeia, an athlete, martial artist and weapons expert who often speaks sounds
17.
Cowbell
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A cow bell or cowbell is a bell worn by freely roaming livestock, making animals easier to locate should they wander off. Although they are referred to as cow bells, due to their extensive use with cattle. The bell and clapper are commonly crafted from iron, bronze, brass, copper, the collar used to hold the bell is traditionally made with leather and wood fibers. Most cow bells are made of thin, flat pieces of plated sheet metal, plating causes the sheet metal to have a surface which can be decorated or left plain. The craftsmanship of cow bells varies by location and culture. The cow bell is used to track of grazing animal herds such as goats, reindeer, sheep. They are mainly used in Europe, Mediterranean areas and Latin America, different bells can have specific sounds to identify important characteristics of the animals, such as age, sex, and species. Each of these bells possess unique sounds, shapes, and sizes and it is difficult to pinpoint when exactly the use of cow bells began, but the earliest examples of truly recognizable cow bells date back to the Iron Age. The use of bells in sub-Saharan African music and the Niger–Congo area is linked to the early iron-making technology spread during the Bantu migrations. The earliest archaeological evidence of bells dates back to more than 5000 years ago, during this era, there is evidence of early forms of pottery cowbells, which were likely used to track goats, sheep, and cattle. The pottery bells were replaced by metal bells. In West Asia, the first bells appeared in 1000 BC, the earliest metal bells, one found in the Taosi site, and four in the Erlitou site, are dated to about 2000 BC. Kuhschelle points to a 1410 mention in a Frankfurt archive, the OED lists 1440 as the earliest attestation of a bell-wether, in 15th-century Germany, a cow bell was worn only by the best and leading piece of livestock. The wider distribution of the worn by livestock was a gradual process of the Early Modern period. The importance of the cow bell is highlighted in Swiss folklore, as opposed to regular cast-metal bells, trychlen are made of hammered sheet metal. This results in a clanking, less sound, but at the same time results in a bell that is lighter. In Southern Germany, such cow bells are called Kuhglocke, modern-day manufacturing of cow bells continues today in Korea, Indonesia, and India, created as village handicrafts. S. In Western Europe, when the snow has melted in the spring and this event, called Alpaufzug, is celebrated in each village with a procession through the village to the high pastures
18.
Olduvai Gorge
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Olduvai Gorge, or Oldupai Gorge, in Tanzania is one of the most important paleoanthropological sites in the world, it has proven invaluable in furthering understanding of early human evolution. Homo sapiens is dated to have occupied the site 17,000 years ago, the site is significant in showing the increasing developmental and social complexities in the earliest humans, or hominins, largely as revealed in the production and use of stone tools. And prior to tools, the evidence of scavenging and hunting—highlighted by the presence of gnaw marks that predate cut marks—and of the ratio of meat versus plant material in the hominin diet. The collecting of tools and animal remains in an area is evidence of developing social interaction. All these factors indicate increase in cognitive capacities at the beginning of the period of transitioning to hominin—that is, to human—form. German neurologist Wilhelm Kattwinkel traveled to Olduvai Gorge in 1911, where he observed many fossil bones of an extinct three-toed horse, inspired by Kattwinkels discovery, German geologist Hans Reck led a team to Olduvai in 1913. There, he found remains, but the start of World War I halted his research. In 1929, Louis Leakey visited Reck and viewed the Olduvai fossils, he convinced that Olduvai Gorge held critical information on human origins. Louis and Mary Leakey are responsible for most of the excavations and their finds and research in East Africa and the prior work of Raymond Dart and Robert Broom in South Africa eventually convinced most paleoanthropologists that humans did indeed evolve in Africa. In addition to an abundance of remains the Leakeys found more than 2,000 stone tools and lithic flakes. In 1960, the Leakeys son Jonathan found a jaw fragment that proved to be the first fossil specimen of Homo habilis, researchers have dated Olduvai Gorge layers with radiometric dating of the embedded artifacts, using potassium-argon and argon-argon methodology. Hay studied the Olduvai Gorge and surrounding region between 1961 and 2002 and his findings revealed that the site once contained a large lake, with shores covered by deposits of volcanic ash. Around 500,000 years ago, seismic activity diverted a nearby stream which proceeded to cut down through the sediments, the name Olduvai is a misspelling of Oldupai Gorge, which was adopted as the official name in 2005. Oldupai is the Maasai word for the wild sisal plant Sansevieria ehrenbergii, Homo habilis occupied Olduvai from 1.9 mya. The australopithecine Paranthropus boisei was found to occupy the site from approximately 1.8 until 1.2 mya, remains of Homo erectus have been dated at the site from 1.2 mya until 700,000 years ago. Homo sapiens came to occupy the gorge some 17,000 years ago, in the 1930s, as Mary and Louis Leakey opted to search for stone tools in East Africa, many, if not most, scholars were skeptical that Africa was the place where humans evolved. The Leakeys soon turned the evidence that confirmed their intuition and they found stone tools in the lowest geological beds. These tools presented both shaped edges and sharp points, and lithic flakes—struck off the stone in the intentional shaping of those points
19.
Hominidae
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Several revisions in classifying the great apes have caused the use of the term hominid to vary over time. Its original meaning referred only to humans and their closest non-extant relatives and that restrictive meaning has now been largely assumed by the term hominin, which comprises all members of the human clade after the split from the chimpanzees. The current, 21st-century meaning of hominid includes all the great apes including humans, the most recent common ancestor of all Hominidae lived roughly 14 million years ago, when the ancestors of the orangutans speciated from the ancestral line of the other three genera. Those ancestors of the family Hominidae had already speciated from the family Hylobatidae, in the early Miocene, about 22 million years ago, there were many species of arboreally adapted primitive catarrhines from East Africa, the variety suggests a long history of prior diversification. Fossils at 20 million years ago include fragments attributed to Victoriapithecus, the most recent of these far-flung Miocene apes is Oreopithecus, from the fossil-rich coal beds in northern Italy and dated to 9 million years ago. Species close to the last common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans may be represented by Nakalipithecus fossils found in Kenya and Ouranopithecus found in Greece. Molecular evidence suggests that between 8 and 4 million years ago, first the gorillas, and then the split off from the line leading to the humans. Human DNA is approximately 98. 4% identical to that of chimpanzees when comparing single nucleotide polymorphisms, the earliest fossils argued by some to belong to the human lineage are Sahelanthropus tchadensis and Orrorin tugenensis, followed by Ardipithecus, with species Ar. kadabba and Ar. ramidus. The classification of the apes has been revised several times in the last few decades. The original meaning of the referred to only humans and their closest relatives—what is now the modern meaning of the term hominin. And the meaning of the taxon Hominidae changed gradually, leading to a different usage of hominid that today all the great apes including humans. A hominid is a member of the family Hominidae, the apes, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees. A hominine is a member of the subfamily Homininae, gorillas, chimpanzees, a hominin is a member of the tribe Hominini, Chimpanzees and humans. A homininan is a member of the subtribe Hominina of the tribe Hominini, a human is a member of the genus Homo, of which Homo sapiens is the only extant species, and within that Homo sapiens sapiens is the only surviving subspecies. For each clade it is indicated approximately when newer extant clades emerged, some texts will refer to Homonini as the Hominina branch. Many scientists, including paleoanthropologists, continue to use the term hominid to mean humans, as mentioned, Hominidae was originally the name given to the family of humans and their close relatives, with the other great apes all being placed in a separate family, the Pongidae. However, that eventually made Pongidae paraphyletic because at least one great ape species proved to be more closely related to humans than to other great apes. Most taxonomists today encourage monophyletic groups—this would require, in this case, thus, many biologists now assign Pongo to the family Hominidae
20.
Oscar Baumann
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Oscar Baumann was an Austrian explorer, cartographer and ethnographer. He attended classes on history and geography at the University of Vienna. However, because of illness, Baumann would be forced to leave the expedition prior to its conclusion. In 1886 he conducted research on the island of Fernando Po. When he returned to Europe, he received his PhD from the University of Leipzig, Baumann is best known for his exploration of the interior of German East Africa, and for producing maps of the region. In 1888, with geographer Hans Meyer, he explored the Usambara region, the two explorers progress was stopped, however, due to ramifications associated with the so-called Abushiri Revolt. Within a matter of days Baumann and Meyer were captured and held as prisoners, only after a large ransom was paid to rebel leader Abushiri ibn Salim al-Harthi were the two men released. Baumanns most celebrated mission was the 200-member Maasai Expedition of 1891-1893, on the expedition, he performed map-making duties, and was the first European to enter Rwanda. He was also the first European to visit Lake Eyasi, Lake Manyara, on the expedition, he explored the headwaters of the Kagera River, which he reasoned, was the true source of the Nile. As a result of the journey, he produced a book titled Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle, in 1896, Baumann was appointed consul to Zanzibar by the Austro-Hungarian government. However, he died a few years later of a disease at the age of 35. In 1902 the thoroughfare Baumannstraße, in the district of Landstraße, was named in his honor, beiträge zur Ethnologie des Congo,1887. Versuch einer Monographie von Fernando Póo,1888, in Deutsch-Ostafrika während des Aufstandes, Vienna. Die kartographischen Ergebnisse der Massai-Expedition, In, Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen, Ergebnisheft 111, maps and Expedition Information on German East Africa Dr. Oscar Baumann
21.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
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German East Africa
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German East Africa was a German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included what are now Burundi, Rwanda, and the mainland part of present Tanzania. Its area was 994,996 km2, nearly three times the area of present-day Germany, the colony was organized when the German military was called upon to put down a revolt against the activities of a colonial company during the late 1880s. It ended with Imperial Germanys defeat in World War I, ultimately it was divided between Britain and Belgium and reorganized as a mandate of the League of Nations. Like other powers, the Germans expanded their empire in the Africa Great Lakes region on the basis of fighting slavery, unlike other imperial powers, however, they never actually formally abolished it, preferring instead to curtail the production of new recruits and regulate the extant slaving business. The colony began with Carl Peters, an adventurer who founded the Society for German Colonization, on 3 March 1885, the German government announced it had granted an imperial charter to Peters company and intended to establish a protectorate in the Africa Great Lakes region. Peters then recruited specialists, who began exploring south to the Rufiji River and north to Witu, the British and Germans agreed to divide the mainland between themselves, and the Sultan had no option but to agree. The Abushiri Revolt of 1888 was put down the following year, in 1890, London and Berlin concluded the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty, returning Heligoland to Germany and deciding on the borders of German East Africa. Between 1891 and 1894, the Hehe tribe, led by Chief Mkwawa and they were defeated because rival tribes supported the Germans. After years of warfare, Mkwawa himself was cornered and committed suicide in 1898. The Maji Maji Rebellion occurred in 1905 and was put down by the governor, but scandal soon followed, with stories of corruption and brutality, and in 1907 Chancellor Bülow appointed Bernhard Dernburg to reform the colonial administration. It became a model of efficiency and commanded extraordinary loyalty among the natives during the First World War. German colonial administrators relied heavily on native chiefs to keep order, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, was a successful general in German East Africa during World War I. Commerce and growth started in earnest under German direction, early on it was realized that economic development would depend on reliable transportation. Over 100,000 acres were under sisal cultivation – the biggest cash crop, two million coffee trees were planted and rubber trees grew on 200,000 acres, along with large cotton plantations. To bring these agricultural products to market, beginning in 1888, the longest line, the Central Railroad covered 775 miles from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro, Tabora and Kigoma. The final link to the shore of Lake Tanganyika had been completed in July 1914 and was cause for a huge and festive celebration in the capital with an agricultural fair. Harbor facilities were built or improved with electrical cranes, with rail access, wharves were remodeled at Tanga, Bagamoyo and Lindi. In 1912 Dar es Salaam and Tanga received 356 freighters and passenger steamers and over 1,000 coastal ships and local trading vessels
23.
Wildebeest
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The wildebeests, also called gnus, are a genus of antelopes, scientific name Connochaetes. They belong to the family Bovidae, which includes antelopes, cattle, goats, sheep, Connochaetes includes two species, both native to Africa, the black wildebeest, or white-tailed gnu, and the blue wildebeest, or brindled gnu. Fossil records suggest these two species diverged about one years ago, resulting in a northern and a southern species. The most obvious way of telling the two species apart are the differences in their colouring and in the way their horns are oriented. In East Africa, the blue wildebeest is the most abundant big game species, some populations perform an annual migration to new grazing grounds, but the black wildebeest is merely nomadic. Breeding in both takes place over a period of time at the end of the rainy season. Nevertheless, some fall prey to large carnivores, Wildebeest often graze in mixed herds with zebra which gives heightened awareness of potential predators. They are also alert to the signals emitted by other animals such as baboons. Wildebeest are a tourist attraction but compete with domesticated livestock for pasture and are blamed by farmers for transferring diseases and parasites to their cattle. Some illegal hunting goes on but the trend is fairly stable. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists both as least-concern species, the wildebeest, also called the gnu is an antelope of the genus Connochaetes. Wildebeest is Dutch for wild beast or wild cattle in Afrikaans, while Connochaetes derives from the Greek words κόννος, kónnos, beard, some sources claim the name gnu originates from the Khoikhoi name for these animals, tgnu. Others contend the name and its pronunciation in English go back to the word. nu, the name Connochaetes was given by German zoologist Hinrich Lichtenstein in 1814. Wildebeest were first discovered about 1700 by Dutch settlers on their way to the interior of South Africa, due to their resemblance to wild cattle, these people called them wild ox or wildebeest. The black wildebeest was first known to westerners in the part of South Africa a century later. In the early century, one species of the wildebeest. In 1914, two races of the wildebeest were introduced, namely Gorgon a. albojubatus and G. a. mearnsi. However, in 1939, the two were again merged into a single race, Connochaetes taurinus albojubatus
24.
UNESCO
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The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Paris. It is the heir of the League of Nations International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, UNESCO has 195 member states and nine associate members. Most of its offices are cluster offices covering three or more countries, national and regional offices also exist. UNESCO pursues its objectives through five major programs, education, natural sciences, social/human sciences, culture and it is also a member of the United Nations Development Group. UNESCO and its mandate for international cooperation can be traced back to a League of Nations resolution on 21 September 1921, on 18 December 1925, the International Bureau of Education began work as a non-governmental organization in the service of international educational development. However, the work of predecessor organizations was largely interrupted by the onset of World War II. On 30 October 1943, the necessity for an organization was expressed in the Moscow Declaration, agreed upon by China, the United Kingdom, the United States. This was followed by the Dumbarton Oaks Conference proposals of 9 October 1944, a prominent figure in the initiative for UNESCO was Rab Butler, the Minister of Education for the United Kingdom. At the ECO/CONF, the Constitution of UNESCO was introduced and signed by 37 countries, the Preparatory Commission operated between 16 November 1945, and 4 November 1946—the date when UNESCOs Constitution came into force with the deposit of the twentieth ratification by a member state. The first General Conference took place between 19 November to 10 December 1946, and elected Dr. Julian Huxley to Director-General and this change in governance distinguished UNESCO from its predecessor, the CICI, in how member states would work together in the organizations fields of competence. In 1956, the Republic of South Africa withdrew from UNESCO claiming that some of the organizations publications amounted to interference in the racial problems. South Africa rejoined the organization in 1994 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, UNESCOs early work in the field of education included the pilot project on fundamental education in the Marbial Valley, Haiti, started in 1947. This project was followed by missions to other countries, including, for example. In 1948, UNESCO recommended that Member States should make free primary education compulsory, in 1990, the World Conference on Education for All, in Jomtien, Thailand, launched a global movement to provide basic education for all children, youths and adults. Ten years later, the 2000 World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, UNESCOs early activities in culture included, for example, the Nubia Campaign, launched in 1960. The purpose of the campaign was to move the Great Temple of Abu Simbel to keep it from being swamped by the Nile after construction of the Aswan Dam, during the 20-year campaign,22 monuments and architectural complexes were relocated. This was the first and largest in a series of campaigns including Mohenjo-daro, Fes, Kathmandu, Borobudur, the organizations work on heritage led to the adoption, in 1972, of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The World Heritage Committee was established in 1976 and the first sites inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1978, since then important legal instruments on cultural heritage and diversity have been adopted by UNESCO member states in 2003 and 2005
25.
Serengeti
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The Serengeti ecosystem is a geographical region in Africa. It is located mainly in northern Tanzania and extends into south-western Kenya between 1 and 3 degrees south and between 34 and 36 degrees east, the Kenyan part of the Serengeti is known as Maasai Mara. The Serengeti hosts the largest terrestrial mammal migration in the world, the Serengeti is also renowned for its large lion population and is one of the best places to observe prides in their natural environment. The region contains the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania and several game reserves, approximately 70 large mammal and 500 bird species are found there. This high diversity is a function of diverse habitats, including forests, swamps, kopjes, grasslands. Blue wildebeests, gazelles, zebras, and buffalos are some of the commonly found large mammals in the region, there has been controversy about a proposed road to be built through the Serengeti. Serengeti is derived from the Maasai language, Maa, specifically, much of the Serengeti was known to outsiders as Maasailand. The Maasai are known as warriors and live alongside most wild animals with an aversion to eating game and birds. Historically, their strength and reputation kept the newly arrived Europeans from exploiting the animals, a rinderpest epidemic and drought during the 1890s greatly reduced the numbers of both Maasai and animal populations. The Tanzanian government later in the 20th century re-settled the Maasai around the Ngorongoro Crater, poaching and the absence of fires, which had been the result of human activity, set the stage for the development of dense woodlands and thickets over the next 30–50 years. Tsetse fly populations now prevented any significant human settlement in the area, by the mid-1970s, wildebeest and the Cape buffalo populations had recovered and were increasingly cropping the grass, reducing the amount of fuel available for fires. The reduced intensity of fires has allowed acacia to once again become established and this migration is a natural phenomenon determined by the availability of grazing. Few calves are born ahead of time and of these, hardly any survive, the main reason is that very young calves are more noticeable to predators when mixed with older calves from the previous year. As the rains end in May, the start moving northwest into the areas around the Grumeti River. The crossings of the Grumeti and Mara rivers beginning in July are a popular attraction because crocodiles are lying in wait. The herds arrive in Kenya in late July / August, where they stay for the remainder of the dry season, except that the Thomsons and Grants gazelles move only east/west. About 250,000 wildebeest die during the journey from Tanzania to the Maasai Mara National Reserve in southwestern Kenya, death is usually from thirst, hunger, exhaustion, or predation. The Serengeti has some of East Africas finest game areas, besides being known for the great migration, the Serengeti is also famous for its abundant large predators
26.
Transhumance
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Transhumance is a type of nomadism or pastoralism, a seasonal movement of people with their livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures. In montane regions, it implies movement between higher pastures in summer and lower valleys in winter, herders have a permanent home, typically in valleys. Generally only the travel, with a certain number of people necessary to tend them. In contrast, horizontal transhumance is more susceptible to being disrupted by climatic, economic or political change, traditional or fixed transhumance occurs or has occurred throughout the inhabited world, particularly Europe and western Asia. It is often of importance to pastoralist societies, as the dairy products of transhumance flocks. In many languages there are words for the summer pastures. The term transhumance is also used in correlation with nomadic pastoralism – the regular migration of people. The word transhumance comes from French and derives from the Latin words trans across, transhumance developed on every inhabited continent. Although there are cultural and technological variations, the underlying practices for taking advantage of remote seasonal pastures are similar. Transhumance is a form of pastoralism or nomadism, in the Balkans, the Sarakatsani, Aromanian and Yörük peoples traditionally spent summer months in the mountains and returned to lower plains in the winter. When the area was part of the Austro-Hungary and Ottoman empires, in summer, some groups went as far north as the Balkan Mountains, and they would spend the winter on warmer plains in the vicinity of the Aegean Sea. The Morlach were a population of Vlach shepherds who lived in the Dinaric Alps, but as national states appeared in the area of the former Ottoman Empire, new state borders were developed that divided the summer and winter habitats of many of the pastoral groups. These prevented easy movement across borders, particularly at times of war, in most parts of Wales, farm workers and sometimes the farmer would spend the summer months at a hillside summer house, or hafod, where the livestock would graze. During the late autumn the farm family and workers would drive the flocks down to the valleys, both Hafod and Hendref survive in Wales as place names and house names. Today, cattle and sheep that summer on many farms are still transported to lowland winter pastures. In many hilly and mountainous areas of Scotland, agricultural workers spent summer months in bothies or shielings, major drovers roads in the eastern part of Scotland include the Cairnamounth, Elsick Mounth and Causey Mounth. This practice has died out, but was practised within living memory in the Hebridean Islands. Today much transhumance is carried out by truck, with upland flocks being transported under agistment to lower-lying pasture during winter, in southern England, where the climate is mild and the hills low, transhumance historically took the opposite form to more mountainous areas
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East African Rift
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The East African Rift is an active continental rift zone in East Africa. The EAR began developing around the onset of the Miocene, 22–25 million years ago, in the past, it was considered to be part of a larger Great Rift Valley that extended north to Asia Minor. As extension continues, lithospheric rupture will occur within 10 million years, the Somalian plate will break off, a series of distinct rift basins, the East African Rift System extends over thousands of kilometers. The EAR consists of two main branches, the Eastern Rift Valley includes the Main Ethiopian Rift, running eastward from the Afar Triple Junction, which continues south as the Kenyan Rift Valley. The Western Rift Valley includes the Albertine Rift, and farther south, to the north of the Afar Triple Junction, the rift follows one of two paths, west to the Red Sea Rift or east to the Aden Ridge in the Gulf of Aden. The EAR runs from the Afar Triple Junction in the Afar Triangle of Ethiopia through eastern Africa, the EAR transects through Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique. The Davie Ridge ranges between 30–120 km wide, with a west facing scarp along the half of its length that rises up to 2300 m above the sea floor. Its movement is concurrent with the EAR, over time, many theories have tried to clarify the evolution of the East African Rift. In 1972 it was proposed that the EAR was not caused by tectonic activity, others proposed an African superplume causing mantle deformation. However, the varying geochemical signatures of a suite of Ethiopian lavas suggest multiple plume sources, at least one of deep mantle origin, additionally, the subject of deep-rooted mantle plumes is still a matter of controversy, and therefore cannot be confirmed. The most recent and accepted view is the theory put forth in 2009, at that time it was suggested that lithospheric thinning generated volcanic activity, further increasing the magmatic processes at play such as intrusions and numerous small plumes. These processes further thin the lithosphere in saturated areas, forcing the thinning lithosphere to behave like a mid-ocean ridge, prior to rifting, enormous continental flood basalts erupted on the surface and uplift of the Ethiopian, Somalian, and East African plateaus occurred. The first stage of rifting of the EAR is characterized by rift localization, periods of extension alternated with times of relative inactivity. There was also the reactivation of a weakness in the crust, a suture zone of multiple cratons, displacement along large boundary faults. The second stage of rifting is characterized by the deactivation of large boundary faults, the development of internal fault segments, today, the narrow rift segments of the East African Rift system form zones of localized strain. These rifts are the result of the actions of numerous faults which are typical of all tectonic rift zones. The African continental crust is generally cool and strong, many cratons are found throughout the EAR, such as the Tanzania and Kaapvaal cratons. The cratons are thick, and have survived for billions of years with little tectonic activity and they are characterized by greenstone belts, tonalites, and other high-grade metamorphic lithologies
28.
Ol Doinyo Lengai
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Ol Doinyo Lengai, Mountain of God in the Maasai language, is an active volcano located in the Gregory Rift, south of Lake Natron within the Arusha Region of Tanzania. Part of the system of the East African Rift, it uniquely produces natrocarbonatite lava. The 1960 eruption of Ol Doinyo Lengai led to investigations that finally confirmed the view that carbonatite rock is derived from magma. Ol Doinyo Lengai is unique among active volcanoes in that it produces natrocarbonatite lava, a few older extinct carbonatite volcanoes are located nearby, including Homa Mountain. Whereas most lavas are rich in minerals, the lava of Ol Doinyo Lengai is a carbonatite. It is rich in the sodium and potassium carbonates, nyerereite and gregoryite. Due to this composition, the lava erupts at relatively low temperatures of approximately 510 °C. This temperature is so low that the molten lava appears black in sunlight and it is also much more fluid than silicate lavas, often less viscous than water. The resulting volcanic landscape is different from any other in the world, the carbonatite ash spread over the surrounding grasslands leads to a uniquely succulent, enriched pasture. This makes the area a stage on the annual wildebeest beast migration. The record of eruptions on the dates to 1883. Flows were recorded between 1904 and 1910 and between 1913 and 1915, a major eruption in June 1917 deposited volcanic ash up to 48 kilometres away. An eruption took place for months in 1926. An eruption between July and December 1940 deposited ash as far as Loliondo,100 kilometres away, several minor eruptions of lava were observed in 1954,1955, and 1958. Minor eruptions of lava were observed in the early 1960s, a major eruption occurred on 14 August 1966. When they climbed the cone-shaped vent, they reported seeing a continuous discharge of gas and whitish-grey ash, volcanic activity in the mountain caused daily earth tremors in Kenya and Tanzania from 12 July 2007 until 18 July 2007 at 8. 30pm in Nairobi. The strongest tremor measured 6.0 on the Richter scale, geologists suspected that the sudden increase of tremors was indicative of the movement of magma through the Ol Doinyo Lengai. The volcano erupted on 4 September 2007, sending a plume of ash and steam at least 18 kilometres downwind and covering the north, the 2007 eruption continued intermittently into 2008
29.
Montane ecosystems
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Montane ecosystems refers to any ecosystem found in mountains. These ecosystems are affected by climate, which gets colder as elevation increases. They are stratified according to elevation, dense forests are common at moderate elevations. However, as the elevation increases, the climate becomes harsher, as elevation increases, the climate becomes cooler, due to a decrease in the greenhouse effect. The characteristic flora and fauna in the mountains tend to depend on elevation. This dependency causes life zones to form, bands of similar ecosystems at similar altitude, one of the typical life zones on mountains is the montane forest, at moderate elevations, the rainfall and temperate climate encourages dense forests to grow. Holdridge defines the climate of montane forest as having a biotemperature of between 6 and 12 °C, where biotemperature is the mean temperature considering temperatures below 0 °C to be 0 °C. Above the elevation of the montane forest, the trees thin out in the zone, become twisted krummholz. Therefore, Montane forests often contain trees with twisted trunks and this phenomenon is observed due to the increase in the wind strength with the elevation. The elevation where trees fail to grow is called the tree line. The biotemperature of the zone is between 3 and 6 °C. Above the tree line the ecosystem is called the zone or alpine tundra, dominated by grasses. The biotemperature of the zone is between 1.5 and 3 °C. Many different plant species live in the environment, including perennial grasses, sedges, forbs, cushion plants, mosses. Alpine plants must adapt to the conditions of the alpine environment, which include low temperatures, dryness, ultraviolet radiation. Alpine plants display adaptations such as structures, waxy surfaces. Because of the characteristics of these zones, the World Wildlife Fund groups a set of related ecoregions into the montane grassland and shrubland biome. Climates with biotemperatures below 1.5 °C tend to consist purely of rock, Montane forests occur between the submontane zone and the subalpine zone. The elevation at which one habitat changes to another varies across the globe, the upper limit of montane forests, the forest line or timberline, is often marked by a change to hardier species that occur in less dense stands
30.
Vachellia xanthophloea
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Vachellia xanthophloea is a tree in the Fabaceae family and is commonly known in English as the fever tree. This species of Vachellia is native to eastern and southern Africa and it can be found in Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Somalia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It has also become a tree in other warm climates. The trees grow to a height of 15–25 m, the characteristic bark is smooth, powdery and greenish yellow, although new twigs are purple, flaking later to reveal the characteristic yellow. It is one of the few trees where photosynthesis takes place in the bark, straight, white spines grow from the branch nodes in pairs. The leaves are compound, with small leaflets. The flowers are produced in scented pale cream spherical inflorescences, clustered at the nodes, as the pods mature they change colour from green to pale greyish brown. Fever trees are fast growing and short lived and they have a tendency to occur as single-aged stands, and are subject to stand-level diebacks that have been variously attributed to elephants, water tables, and synchronous senescence. The name xanthophloea is derived from Greek and means yellow bark, the common name, fever tree, comes from its tendency to grow in swampy areas, early European settlers in the region noted that malarial fever was contracted in areas with these trees. It is now understood that malarial fever is spread by mosquitos living in the areas that often support this tree species. This tree has been used for thousands of years by African tribes as a divination tool, bark from this tree and four other herbs including Silene capensis and Synaptolepis kirkii are boiled into a brew. This is taken to induce lucid dreams, which they call white paths, before going to sleep a question is asked that will be answered in their dreams. Medicinally, the roots and a made from bark stripped from the trunk are used as an emetic. Vachellia xanthophloea is found growing near swamps, riverine forests or on lake shores, in seasonally flooded areas it often forms dense single species stands. The leaves and pods are used to food for livestock while the young branches and foliage are eaten by African elephants while giraffe and vervet monkeys eat the pods. The flowers are used for foraging by bees and provides favoured nesting sites for birds, like other acacias and Fabaceae it is a nitrogen fixer, so improves soil fertility. The gum is part of the diet of the Senegal bushbaby especially in the dry season, butterflies recorded as feeding on Vachellia xanthophloea in Kenya included the Kikuyu ciliate blue, Pitmans hairtail, common ciliate blue, African babul blue, Victorias bar and common zebra blue. In addition 30 species of moths have been recorded as feeding on this tree
31.
Hippopotamus
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The common hippopotamus, or hippo, is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae, the other being the pygmy hippopotamus. The name comes from the ancient Greek for river horse, after the elephant and rhinoceros, the common hippopotamus is the third-largest type of land mammal and the heaviest extant artiodactyl. The common ancestor of whales and hippos split from other even-toed ungulates around 60 million years ago, the earliest known hippopotamus fossils, belonging to the genus Kenyapotamus in Africa, date to around 16 million years ago. Despite its stocky shape and short legs, it is capable of running 30 km/h over short distances, the hippopotamus is a highly aggressive and unpredictable animal and is ranked among the most dangerous animals in Africa. Nevertheless, they are threatened by habitat loss and poaching for their meat. The common hippopotamus is semiaquatic, inhabiting rivers, lakes and mangrove swamps, during the day, they remain cool by staying in the water or mud, reproduction and childbirth both occur in water. They emerge at dusk to graze on grasses, while hippopotamuses rest near each other in the water, grazing is a solitary activity and hippos are not territorial on land. The Latin word hippopotamus is derived from the ancient Greek ἱπποπόταμος, hippopotamos, from ἵππος, hippos, horse, in English, the plural is hippopotamuses, but hippopotami is also used, hippos can be used as a short plural. Hippopotamuses are gregarious, living in groups of up to thirty animals, a group is called a pod, herd, dale, or bloat. The hippopotamus is the genus of the family Hippopotamidae. The pygmy hippopotamus belongs to a different genus in Hippopotamidae, either Choeropsis or Hexaprotodon, Hippopotamidae are sometimes known as hippopotamids. Sometimes, the subfamily Hippopotaminae is used, further, some taxonomists group hippopotamuses and anthracotheres in the superfamily Anthracotheroidea. Hippopotamidae are classified along with other even-toed ungulates in the order Artiodactyla, other artiodactyls include camels, cattle, deer and pigs, although hippopotamuses are not closely related to these groups. Genetic analyses have tested the existence of three of these putative subspecies, a study examining mitochondrial DNA from skin biopsies taken from 13 sampling locations, considered genetic diversity and structure among hippo populations across the continent. The authors found low, but significant, genetic differentiation among H. a. amphibius, H. a. capensis, neither H. a. tschadensis nor H. a. constrictus has been tested. Until 1909, naturalists grouped hippos with pigs, based on molar patterns, the common ancestor of hippos and whales branched off from Ruminantia and the rest of the even-toed ungulates, the cetacean and hippo lineages split soon afterwards. The most recent theory of the origins of Hippopotamidae suggests that hippos and this hypothesized ancestral group likely split into two branches around 54 million years ago. All branches of the anthracotheres, except that which evolved into Hippopotamidae, merycopotamus, Libycosaurus and all hippopotamids can be considered to form a clade, with Libycosaurus being more closely related to hippos
32.
Elephant
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Elephants are large mammals of the family Elephantidae and the order Proboscidea. Three species are recognised, the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, Elephants are scattered throughout sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Elephantidae is the surviving family of the order Proboscidea, other, now extinct, members of the order include deinotheres, gomphotheres, mammoths. Male African elephants are the largest extant terrestrial animals and can reach a height of 4 m, all elephants have several distinctive features, the most notable of which is a long trunk or proboscis, used for many purposes, particularly breathing, lifting water, and grasping objects. Their incisors grow into tusks, which can serve as weapons and as tools for moving objects, Elephants large ear flaps help to control their body temperature. Their pillar-like legs can carry their great weight, African elephants have larger ears and concave backs while Asian elephants have smaller ears and convex or level backs. Elephants are herbivorous and can be found in different habitats including savannahs, forests, deserts and they prefer to stay near water. They are considered to be keystone species due to their impact on their environments, other animals tend to keep their distance from elephants while predators, such as lions, tigers, hyenas, and wild dogs, usually target only young elephants. Females tend to live in groups, which can consist of one female with her calves or several related females with offspring. The groups are led by a known as the matriarch. Elephants have a society in which multiple family groups come together to socialise. Males leave their family groups when they reach puberty and may live alone or with other males, calves are the centre of attention in their family groups and rely on their mothers for as long as three years. Elephants can live up to 70 years in the wild and they communicate by touch, sight, smell, and sound, elephants use infrasound, and seismic communication over long distances. Elephant intelligence has been compared with that of primates and cetaceans and they appear to have self-awareness and show empathy for dying or dead individuals of their kind. African elephants are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature while the Asian elephant is classed as endangered, one of the biggest threats to elephant populations is the ivory trade, as the animals are poached for their ivory tusks. Other threats to elephants include habitat destruction and conflicts with local people. Elephants are used as working animals in Asia, in the past, they were used in war, today, they are often controversially put on display in zoos, or exploited for entertainment in circuses. Elephants are highly recognisable and have featured in art, folklore, religion, literature
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Lion
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The lion is one of the big cats in the genus Panthera and a member of the family Felidae. The commonly used term African lion collectively denotes the several subspecies in Africa, with some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger. Wild lions currently exist in sub-Saharan Africa and in India, in ancient historic times, their range was in most of Africa, including North Africa, and across Eurasia from Greece and southeastern Europe to India. Lion populations are untenable outside designated reserves and national parks, although the cause of the decline is not fully understood, habitat loss and conflicts with humans are the greatest causes of concern. Within Africa, the West African lion population is particularly endangered, in the wild, males seldom live longer than 10 to 14 years, as injuries sustained from continual fighting with rival males greatly reduce their longevity. In captivity they can more than 20 years. They typically inhabit savanna and grassland, although they may take to bush, Lions are unusually social compared to other cats. A pride of lions consists of related females and offspring and a number of adult males. Groups of female lions typically hunt together, preying mostly on large ungulates, Lions are apex and keystone predators, although they are also expert scavengers obtaining over 50 percent of their food by scavenging as opportunity allows. While lions do not typically hunt humans, some have, sleeping mainly during the day, lions are active primarily at night, although sometimes at twilight. Highly distinctive, the lion is easily recognised by its mane. It has been depicted in sculptures, in paintings, on national flags. Lions have been kept in menageries since the time of the Roman Empire, Zoos are cooperating worldwide in breeding programs for the endangered Asiatic subspecies. The lions name, similar in many Romance languages, is derived from the Latin leo, the Hebrew word לָבִיא may also be related. It was one of the originally described by Linnaeus, who gave it the name Felis leo, in his eighteenth-century work. The lions closest relatives are the species of the genus Panthera, the tiger, the snow leopard, the jaguar. P. leo evolved in Africa between 1 million and 800,000 years ago, before spreading throughout the Holarctic region and it appeared in the fossil record in Europe for the first time 700,000 years ago with the subspecies Panthera leo fossilis at Isernia in Italy. From this lion derived the later cave lion, which appeared about 300,000 years ago, Lions died out in northern Eurasia at the end of the last glaciation, about 10,000 years ago, this may have been secondary to the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna
34.
Oldupai Gorge
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Olduvai Gorge, or Oldupai Gorge, in Tanzania is one of the most important paleoanthropological sites in the world, it has proven invaluable in furthering understanding of early human evolution. Homo sapiens is dated to have occupied the site 17,000 years ago, the site is significant in showing the increasing developmental and social complexities in the earliest humans, or hominins, largely as revealed in the production and use of stone tools. And prior to tools, the evidence of scavenging and hunting—highlighted by the presence of gnaw marks that predate cut marks—and of the ratio of meat versus plant material in the hominin diet. The collecting of tools and animal remains in an area is evidence of developing social interaction. All these factors indicate increase in cognitive capacities at the beginning of the period of transitioning to hominin—that is, to human—form. German neurologist Wilhelm Kattwinkel traveled to Olduvai Gorge in 1911, where he observed many fossil bones of an extinct three-toed horse, inspired by Kattwinkels discovery, German geologist Hans Reck led a team to Olduvai in 1913. There, he found remains, but the start of World War I halted his research. In 1929, Louis Leakey visited Reck and viewed the Olduvai fossils, he convinced that Olduvai Gorge held critical information on human origins. Louis and Mary Leakey are responsible for most of the excavations and their finds and research in East Africa and the prior work of Raymond Dart and Robert Broom in South Africa eventually convinced most paleoanthropologists that humans did indeed evolve in Africa. In addition to an abundance of remains the Leakeys found more than 2,000 stone tools and lithic flakes. In 1960, the Leakeys son Jonathan found a jaw fragment that proved to be the first fossil specimen of Homo habilis, researchers have dated Olduvai Gorge layers with radiometric dating of the embedded artifacts, using potassium-argon and argon-argon methodology. Hay studied the Olduvai Gorge and surrounding region between 1961 and 2002 and his findings revealed that the site once contained a large lake, with shores covered by deposits of volcanic ash. Around 500,000 years ago, seismic activity diverted a nearby stream which proceeded to cut down through the sediments, the name Olduvai is a misspelling of Oldupai Gorge, which was adopted as the official name in 2005. Oldupai is the Maasai word for the wild sisal plant Sansevieria ehrenbergii, Homo habilis occupied Olduvai from 1.9 mya. The australopithecine Paranthropus boisei was found to occupy the site from approximately 1.8 until 1.2 mya, remains of Homo erectus have been dated at the site from 1.2 mya until 700,000 years ago. Homo sapiens came to occupy the gorge some 17,000 years ago, in the 1930s, as Mary and Louis Leakey opted to search for stone tools in East Africa, many, if not most, scholars were skeptical that Africa was the place where humans evolved. The Leakeys soon turned the evidence that confirmed their intuition and they found stone tools in the lowest geological beds. These tools presented both shaped edges and sharp points, and lithic flakes—struck off the stone in the intentional shaping of those points
35.
Homo habilis
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Homo habilis is a species of the tribe Hominini, during the Gelasian and early Calabrian stages of the Pleistocene period, which lived between roughly 2.1 and 1.5 million years ago. LD 350-1 is a fossil jawbone fragment discovered in 2013 which has dated to 2.8 million years ago. There has been debate regarding its placement in the genus Homo rather than the genus Australopithecus. The small size and rather primitive attributes have led experts to propose excluding H. habilis from the genus Homo. These were later classified as milk teeth, and therefore considered difficult to link to taxa unlike permanent teeth, however, in 1959, Mary Leakey recovered the cranium of a young adult which had a small brain, large face, tiny canines and massive chewing teeth. H. habilis was short and had long arms compared to modern humans, however. H. habilis had a capacity slightly less than half of the size of modern humans. Despite the ape-like morphology of the bodies, H. habilis remains are accompanied by primitive stone tools. Homo habilis has often thought to be the ancestor of the more gracile and sophisticated Homo ergaster. New findings in 2007 seemed to confirm the view that H. habilis and H. erectus coexisted, an alternative explanation would be that any ancestral relationship from H. habilis to H. erectus would have to have been cladogenetic rather than anagenetic. Its brain size has been shown to range from 550 cm3 to 687 cm3, a virtual reconstruction published in 2015 estimated the endocranial volume at between 729 and 824 ml, larger than any previously published value. H. habilis brain capacity of around 640 cm³ was on average 50% larger than australopithecines and these hominins were smaller than modern humans, on average standing no more than 1.3 m tall. A fragment of fossilized jawbone, dated to around 2.8 million years ago, was discovered in the Ledi-Geraru research area in Afar Regional State in 2013. The fossil is considered the earliest evidence of the Homo genus known to date, the individual in question lived just after a major climate shift in the region, when forests and waterways were rapidly replaced by arid savannah. One set of remains, discovered by Donald Johanson and Tim White in Olduvai Gorge in 1986, included the important upper and lower limbs, specifically the humerus. Their finding stimulated some debate at the time, locomotor affinities of OH62 have been assessed primarily on the basis of its forelimb to hind limb proportions, which are known to be associated with locomotor behavior among living primates. Initial analyses concentrated on comparisons to the Australopithecus afarensis A. L. 288-1, in most dimensions—measured or estimated—the OH62 upper limb remains equaled or exceeded those of A. L. 288-1, while its lower limb remains appeared to be smaller. In this sense, it was more ‘‘primitive than A. L. 288-1, KNM ER1813 is a relatively complete cranium which dates to 1.9 million years old, discovered at Koobi Fora, Kenya by Kamoya Kimeu in 1973
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Paranthropus boisei
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Paranthropus boisei or Australopithecus boisei was an early hominin, described as the largest of the Paranthropus genus. It lived in Eastern Africa during the Pleistocene epoch from about 2.4 until about 1.4 million years ago, Paranthropus boisei proved to be a treasure, especially when the anthropologists son Richard Leakey suggested it was the first hominin species to use stone tools. Bernard Wood of the University of Liverpool, England, posits that tools discovered in Ethiopia, a well-preserved jaw, known as the Peninj Mandible, was found by Richards colleague Kamoya Kimeu in 1964 in Peninj, Tanzania. Another skull, specimen KNM ER406, was unearthed in 1969 by Richard at Koobi Fora near Lake Turkana, the brain volume is quite small, about 500 to 550 cm³, not much larger than Australopithecus afarensis and Australopithecus africanus or modern-day chimpanzees. In P. boisei the foramen magnum is much shorter than in P. robustus, in, addition, the cranial variation of P. boisei is remarkably high. The adult males were larger on average than females, as was the case in virtually all australopithecine species, males weighed some 49 kg and stood about 1.37 m tall, while females weighed about 34 kg and were 1.24 m tall. It had a highly specialized for heavy chewing and several traits seen in modern-day gorillas. The molar teeth were large, with an area over twice that of modern humans. The species is referred to as “Nutcracker Man” because it had the biggest, flattest cheek teeth. Boisei had large chewing muscles attached to a sagittal crest. To accommodate their enormous cheek teeth, P. boisei had a wide face, some argue that the craniodental morphology of this taxon is indicative of a diet of hard or tough foods such as ground tubers, nuts and seeds. This work suggests that hard foods were an infrequent part of P. boiseis diet, carbon isotope ratios suggest P. boisei had a diet dominated by C4 vegetation, unlike P. robustus in South Africa. In 1993, A. Amzaye found fossils of P. boisei at Konso, the partial skull is designated as KGA10-525 and is dated to 1.4 million years ago. It is the biggest skull specimen ever found of P. boisei, OH5 Zinjanthropus, Zinj or Nutcracker Man, was the first P. boisei specimen found by Mary Leakey at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, it belonged to an adult male. The name Nutcracker Man may be a misnomer as it may apply to Paranthropus robustus. KNM ER406 is a partial cranium discovered by Richard Leakey and H. Mutua in 1969, found at Koobi Fora, Kenya, which displays large zygomatic arches. KNM WT17000 is a cranium, with similar characteristics to KNM WT17000, Black skull, belonging to Paranthropus aethiopicus. Peninj Mandible is a jaw, found by Kamoya Kimeu in the Lake Natron region
37.
Maasai language
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Maasai or Maa is an Eastern Nilotic language spoken in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania by the Maasai people, numbering about 800,000. It is closely related to the other Maa varieties, Samburu, the language of the Samburu people of central Kenya, Chamus, spoken south and southeast of Lake Baringo, and Parakuyu of Tanzania. The Maasai, Samburu, il-Chamus and Parakuyu peoples are historically related, properly speaking, Maa refers to the language and the culture and Maasai refers to the people who speak Maa. Because the Maasai have resisted forms of colonization and Western expansion, their systems of communication and exchange revolve primarily around the trade they do within the tribe. The loss of the Maasai language, while not rapid, is happening as a result of contact with other tribal groups in East Africa. The Maasai way of life is embedded in their language, specifically, the economic systems of trade that the Maasai rely on in order to maintain their nomadic way of life, relies on the survival of the Maasai language, even in its minority status. With language endangerment, the Maasai tribe would continue to be threatened, the minority status that the language currently faces has already threatened traditional Maasai practices. Less and less groups of Maasai continue to be nomadic in the region, choosing to settle instead in close knit communities to keep their language, tone is extremely important for conveying correct meaning in the Maasai language. In the table of consonant phonemes below, phonemes are represented with IPA symbols, when IPA conventions differ from symbols normally used in practical writing, the latter are given in angle brackets. For some Maasai speakers, the stop consonants are not particularly implosive. In Arusha Maa, /p/ is typically realized as a voiceless fricative, at least in native Maa words, and occur in complementary distribution, with the former occurring directly after consonants and the latter elsewhere. Like the other Maa languages, Maasai has advanced tongue root vowel harmony, there are nine contrasting vowels, with the vowel /a/ being neutral for harmony. Word order is usually verb–subject–object, though order can vary because tone is the most important indicator of subject versus object, what really determines order in a clause is topicality, order in the most simple clauses can be predicted according to the information structure pattern. Thus, if the object is highly topical in the discourse, the Maasai language has only two fully grammatical prepositions, but can use relational nouns along with a most general preposition to designate specific locative ideas. Noun phrases begin with a prefix or a gender-number prefix. Other modifiers follow the noun, including possessive phrases. In Maasai, many morphemes are actually tone patterns, for example, The Maasai language carries three forms of gendered nouns, feminine, masculine, and place. Native speakers of the language attach a gendered prefix to a noun, the meaning of the noun in context then refers to its gender
38.
Sansevieria ehrenbergii
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Sansevieria ehrenbergii is a flowering plant which grows in northeastern Africa from Libya south to Tanzania, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. It occurs notably in proliferation along the Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania, mature leaves are dark green and usually range between 0.5 and 1.5 m in length and 2.45 and 8.0 cm in width. The plant grows in clusters and in close proximity amongst itself. In 1911, the German entomologist Wilhelm Kattwinkel, while searching for butterflies and he asked the indigenous Maasai people what the gorge was called. They did not understand what he was saying and thought he was referring to the plants Sansevieria ehrenbergii, Kattwinkel misinterpreted and mispronounced what they were saying by referring to the gorge as Olduvai Gorge. The Maasai have used S. ehrenbergii for antiseptics, natural bandages, rope, baskets, roofs, during the 1970s, paleoanthropologist Bill Montagne was working in Olduvai Gorge and became injured. He received treatment in the form of a natural bandage made from S. ehrenbergii, after which he was so impressed, sisal Germplasm Resources Information Network, Sansevieria ehrenbergii Hortiscope on Sansevieria Sansevieria International Ngorongoro Cradle of Life
39.
Prehistory
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Prehistory means literally before history, from the Latin word for before, præ, and Greek ιστορία. Neighbouring civilisations were the first to follow, most other civilisations reached the end of prehistory during the Iron Age. The period when a culture is written about by others, but has not developed its own writing is known as the protohistory of the culture. By definition, there are no records from human prehistory. Clear techniques for dating were not well-developed until the 19th century and this article is concerned with human prehistory as defined here above. There are separate articles for the history of the Earth. However, for the race as a whole, prehistory ends when recorded history begins with the accounts of the ancient world around the 4th millennium BC. For example, in Egypt it is accepted that prehistory ended around 3200 BC, whereas in New Guinea the end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently. The three-age system is the periodization of prehistory into three consecutive time periods, named for their respective predominant tool-making technologies, Stone Age Bronze Age Iron Age. The notion of prehistory began to surface during the Enlightenment in the work of antiquarians who used the word primitive to describe societies that existed before written records, the first use of the word prehistory in English, however, occurred in the Foreign Quarterly Review in 1836. The main source for prehistory is archaeology, but some scholars are beginning to more use of evidence from the natural and social sciences. This view has been articulated by advocates of deep history, human population geneticists and historical linguists are also providing valuable insight for these questions. Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology, restricted to material processes, remains and artifacts rather than written records, prehistory is anonymous. Because of this, reference terms that use, such as Neanderthal or Iron Age are modern labels with definitions sometimes subject to debate. Palaeolithic means Old Stone Age, and begins with the first use of stone tools, the Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age. The early part of the Palaeolithic is called the Lower Palaeolithic, evidence of control of fire by early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic Era is uncertain and has at best limited scholarly support. The most widely accepted claim is that H. erectus or H. ergaster made fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP in a site at Bnot Yaakov Bridge, Israel. The use of fire enabled early humans to cook food, provide warmth, Early Homo sapiens originated some 200,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Palaeolithic
40.
Human evolution
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Human evolution from its first separation from the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees is characterized by a number of morphological, developmental, physiological, and behavioral changes. The most significant of these adaptations are bipedalism, increased size, lengthened ontogeny. The relationship between these changes is the subject of ongoing debate, other significant morphological changes included the evolution of a power and precision grip, a change first occurring in H. erectus. Bipedalism is the adaptation of the hominin and is considered the main cause behind a suite of skeletal changes shared by all bipedal hominins. The earliest hominin, of presumably primitive bipedalism, is considered to be either Sahelanthropus or Orrorin, Ardipithecus, a full biped, arose somewhat later. The early bipeds eventually evolved into the australopithecines and still later into the genus Homo, There are several theories of the adaptation value of bipedalism. A new study provides support for the hypothesis that walking on two legs, or bipedalism, evolved because it used less energy than quadrupedal knuckle-walking, however, recent studies suggest that bipedality without the ability to use fire would not have allowed global dispersal. This change in gait saw a lengthening of the legs proportionately when compared to the length of the arms, another change is the shape of the big toe. Recent studies suggest that Australopithecines still lived part of the time in trees as a result of maintaining a big toe. This was progressively lost in Habilines, anatomically, the evolution of bipedalism has been accompanied by a large number of skeletal changes, not just to the legs and pelvis, but also to the vertebral column, feet and ankles, and skull. The femur evolved into a more angular position to move the center of gravity toward the geometric center of the body. The knee and ankle joints became increasingly robust to support increased weight. To support the weight on each vertebra in the upright position, the human vertebral column became S-shaped. In the feet the big toe moved into alignment with the toes to help in forward locomotion. The arms and forearms shortened relative to the making it easier to run. The foramen magnum migrated under the skull and more anterior, during human birth, because of the variation in size of the pelvic region, the fetal head must be in a transverse position during entry into the birth canal and rotate about 90 degrees upon exit. The human species developed a much larger brain than that of other primates—typically 1,330 cm3 in modern humans. This pattern of brain increase happened through the pattern of human postnatal brain growth differs from that of other apes
41.
Mary Leakey
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Mary Leakey was a British paleoanthropologist who discovered the first fossilised Proconsul skull, an extinct ape which is now believed to be ancestral to humans. She also discovered the robust Zinjanthropus skull at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, Mary Leakey developed a system for classifying the stone tools found at Olduvai. She discovered the Laetoli footprints, and at the Laetoli site she discovered hominin fossils that were more than 3.75 million years old, during her career, Leakey discovered fifteen new species of animal. She also brought about the naming of a new genus, in 1972, after the death of her husband, Leakey became director of excavations at Olduvai. She maintained the Leakey family tradition of palaeoanthropology by training her son, Richard, Mary Leakey was born Mary Douglas Nicol on 6 February 1913, in London, England to Erskine Edward Nicol and Cecilia Marion Nicol. The Nicol family moved to locations in the United States, Italy. Mary began to developed an enthusiasm for Egyptology during these travels, on her mothers side, Mary was a 3rd great-granddaughter of antiquarian John Frere. The Frere family had been active abolitionists in the British colonial empire during the 19th century, three of these communities were still in existence when Leakey published her 1984 autobiography, Freretown, Kenya, Freretown, South Africa, and Freretown, India. The Nicols spent much of their time in southern France where young Mary became fluent in French. In 1925, when Mary was 12, the Nicols stayed at the commune, Les Eyzies, at a time when Elie Peyrony, Peyrony was not excavating scientifically during that early stage of archaeology and did not understand the significance of much of what he found. Mary received permission to go through the remnants of his dig and she started a collection of points, scrapers, and blades from the dump and developed her first system of classification. The family then moved to Cabrerets, a village of Lot, there she met Abbé Lemozi, the village priest, who befriended her and became her mentor for a time. The two toured Pech Merle cave to view the paintings of bison and horses. In the spring of 1926, when Mary was thirteen years old, her father died of cancer and Mary, Mary was placed in a local Catholic convent to be educated, and she later boasted of never passing an examination there. Although she spoke fluent French, Mary did not excel at French language studies and she was expelled for refusing to recite poetry, and was later expelled from a second convent school for causing an explosion in a chemistry laboratory. After the second expulsion, her mother hired two tutors, who were no more successful than the nuns, after the unsuccessful tutors, her mother hired a nanny. Marys particular interests centered on illustration and archaeology, but formal university admission was impossible with her academic record and her mother contacted a professor at Oxford University about possible admission, and was encouraged not to apply, as it would be a waste of her time. Mary had no contact with the university until it awarded her an honorary doctoral degree in 1951
42.
Louis Leakey
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Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey, also known as L. S. B. Having established a program of inquiry in eastern Africa, he also motivated many future generations to continue this scholarly work. Several members of Leakeys family became prominent scholars themselves, another of Leakeys legacies stems from his role in fostering field research of primates in their natural habitats, which he saw as key to understanding human evolution. He personally chose three female researchers, Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birutė Galdikas, calling them The Trimates, each went on to become an important scholar in the field of primatology. Leakey also encouraged and supported many other Ph. D. candidates, Leakey also played a major role in creating organizations for future research in Africa and for protecting wildlife there. Louiss parents, Harry and Mary Bazett Leakey, were Church of England missionaries in British East Africa, Harry was the son of James Shirley Leakey, one of the eleven children of the portrait painter James Leakey. Harry Leakey was assigned to an established post of the Church Mission Society among the Kikuyu at Kabete, the station was at that time a hut and two tents. Louiss earliest home had a floor, a leaky thatched roof, rodents and insects. The facilities slowly improved over time, the mission, a center of activity, set up a clinic in one of the tents, and later a girls school. Harry was working on a translation of the Bible into the Gikuyu language and he had a distinguished career in the CMS, becoming canon of the station. Louis had a brother, Douglas, and two older sisters, Gladys and Julia. The Leakey household came to contain Miss Oakes, Miss Higgenbotham, Louis grew up, played, and learned to hunt with Africans. He also learned to walk with the gait of the Kikuyu and speak their language fluently. He was initiated into the Kikuyu ethnic group, an event of which he never spoke, Louis requested and was given permission to build and move into a hut, Kikuyu style, at the end of the garden. It was home to his collection of natural objects, such as birds eggs. All the children developed a keen interest in and appreciation of the natural surroundings in which they found themselves. They raised baby animals, later turning them over to zoos, Louis read a gift book, Days Before History, by H. R. Hall, a juvenile fictional work illustrating the prehistory of Britain. He began to collect tools and was encouraged in this activity by a role model, Arthur Loveridge, first curator of the Natural History Museum in Nairobi
43.
Volcanic ash
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Volcanic ash consists of fragments of pulverized rock, minerals and volcanic glass, created during volcanic eruptions and measuring less than 2 mm in diameter. The term volcanic ash is often loosely used to refer to all explosive eruption products. Volcanic ash is formed during volcanic eruptions when dissolved gases in magma expand. The force of the escaping gas shatters the magma and propels it into the atmosphere where it solidifies into fragments of volcanic rock and glass. Ash is also produced when magma comes into contact with water during phreatomagmatic eruptions, once in the air, ash is transported by wind up to thousands of kilometers away. Volcanic ash is formed during volcanic eruptions, phreatomagmatic eruptions. Explosive eruptions occur when magma decompresses as it rises, allowing dissolved volatiles to exsolve into gas bubbles, as more bubbles nucleate a foam is produced, which decreases the density of the magma, accelerating it up the conduit. Fragmentation occurs when bubbles occupy ~70-80 vol% of the erupting mixture, when fragmentation occurs, violently expanding bubbles tear the magma apart into fragments which are ejected into the atmosphere where they solidify into ash particles. Fragmentation is an efficient process of ash formation and is capable of generating very fine ash even without the addition of water. Volcanic ash is produced during phreatomagmatic eruptions. During these eruptions fragmentation occurs when magma comes into contact with bodies of water groundwater, as the magma, which is significantly hotter than the boiling point of water, comes into contact with water an insulating vapor film forms. Eventually this vapor film will collapse leading to direct coupling of the cold water and this increases the heat transfer which leads to the rapid expansion of water and fragmentation of the magma into small particles which are subsequently ejected from the volcanic vent. Fragmentation causes an increase in area between magma and water creating a feedback mechanism, leading to further fragmentation and production of fine ash particles. Pyroclastic density currents can also produce ash particles and these are typically produced by lava dome collapse or collapse of the eruption column. Within pyroclastic density currents particle abrasion occurs as particles interact with each resulting in a reduction in grain size. In addition, ash can be produced during secondary fragmentation of pumice fragments and these processes produce large quantities of very fine grained ash which is removed from pyroclastic density currents in co-ignimbrite ash plumes. Physical and chemical characteristics of volcanic ash are primarily controlled by the style of volcanic eruption, another parameter controlling the amount of ash produced is the duration of the eruption, the longer the eruption is sustained, the more ash will be produced. The types of minerals present in volcanic ash are dependent on the chemistry of the magma from which it erupted, low energy eruptions of basalt produce a characteristically dark coloured ash containing ~45 - 55% silica that is generally rich in iron and magnesium
44.
Seismology
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Seismology is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves through the Earth or through other planet-like bodies. A related field that uses geology to infer information regarding past earthquakes is paleoseismology, a recording of earth motion as a function of time is called a seismogram. A seismologist is a scientist who does research in seismology, scholarly interest in earthquakes can be traced back to antiquity. Early speculations on the causes of earthquakes were included in the writings of Thales of Miletus, Anaximenes of Miletus, Aristotle. In 132 CE, Zhang Heng of Chinas Han dynasty designed the first known seismoscope, in 1664, Athanasius Kircher argued that earthquakes were caused by the movement of fire within a system of channels inside the Earth. In 1703, Martin Lister and Nicolas Lemery proposed that earthquakes were caused by chemical explosions within the earth, the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, coinciding with the general flowering of science in Europe, set in motion intensified scientific attempts to understand the behaviour and causation of earthquakes. The earliest responses include work by John Bevis and John Michell, Michell determined that earthquakes originate within the Earth and were waves of movement caused by shifting masses of rock miles below the surface. From 1857, Robert Mallet laid the foundation of instrumental seismology and he is also responsible for coining the word seismology. In 1897, Emil Wiecherts theoretical calculations led him to conclude that the Earths interior consists of a mantle of silicates, surrounding a core of iron. In 1906 Richard Dixon Oldham identified the separate arrival of P-waves, S-waves and surface waves on seismograms, in 1910, after studying the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Harry Fielding Reid put forward the elastic rebound theory which remains the foundation for modern tectonic studies. The development of this depended on the considerable progress of earlier independent streams of work on the behaviour of elastic materials. In 1926, Harold Jeffreys was the first to claim, based on his study of waves, that below the mantle. In 1937, Inge Lehmann determined that within the liquid outer core there is a solid inner core. By the 1960s, earth science had developed to the point where a comprehensive theory of the causation of seismic events had come together in the now well-established theory of plate tectonics, seismic waves are elastic waves that propagate in solid or fluid materials. There are two types of waves, Pressure waves or Primary waves and Shear or Secondary waves. S-waves are transverse waves that move perpendicular to the direction of propagation, therefore, they appear later than P-waves on a seismogram. Fluids cannot support perpendicular motion, so S-waves only travel in solids, the two main surface wave types are Rayleigh waves, which have some compressional motion, and Love waves, which do not. Rayleigh waves result from the interaction of vertically polarized P- and S-waves that satisfy the conditions on the surface
45.
African buffalo
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The African buffalo or Cape buffalo is a large African bovine. It is not closely related to the larger wild water buffalo of Asia. Syncerus caffer caffer, the Cape buffalo, is the subspecies. S. c. nanus is the smallest subspecies, common in forest areas of Central and West Africa, while S. c. brachyceros is in West Africa and S. c. aequinoctialis is in the savannas of Central Africa. The adult buffalos horns are its characteristic feature, they have fused bases and they are widely regarded as very dangerous animals, as they gore and kill over 200 people every year. The African buffalo is not an ancestor of cattle and is only distantly related to other larger bovines. Owing to its nature, which makes it highly dangerous to humans, the African buffalo has never been domesticated, unlike its Asian counterpart. Other than humans, African Cape buffaloes have few predators aside from lions and large crocodiles, being a member of the big five game, the Cape buffalo is a sought-after trophy in hunting. The African buffalo is a very robust species and its shoulder height can range from 1.0 to 1.7 m and its head-and-body length can range from 1.7 to 3.4 m. Compared with other bovids, it has a long but stocky body and short but thickset legs. The tail can range from 70 to 110 cm long, savannah-type buffaloes weigh 500 to 1,000 kg, with males normally larger than females, reaching the upper weight range. In comparison, forest-type buffaloes, at 250 to 450 kg, are half that size. Its head is carried low, its top is located below the backline. The front hooves of the buffalo are wider than the rear, which is associated with the need to support the weight of the front part of the body, savannah-type buffaloes have black or dark brown coats with age. Old bulls have whitish circles around their eyes, females tend to have more-reddish coats. Forest-type buffaloes are reddish brown in colour with horns that curve back, calves of both types have red coats. A characteristic feature of the horns of adult male African buffalo is fusion of their bases, from the base, the horns diverge downwards, then smoothly curve upwards and outwards. In large bulls, the distance between the ends of the horns can reach upwards of one metre, the horns form fully when the animal reaches the age of five or six years
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