Comparing Two Societies, Essay Example

Comparing two societies from the very remote parts of the world is not an easy task indeed. Even though most civilizations being developed through the history of humanity follow somewhat generally similar patterns, there are numerous peculiarities typical for the process of each society formation. When considering the development of civilizations in Africa and Pre-Columbian Americas, for instance, we face processes that seem to be drastically different, yet are quite alike from a more general point of view.

Let us take a more precise look at two greatly advanced early African and American societies. The Maya, developed deep in the heart of the tropical jungles of Mesoamerica, is still referred to as one of the most highly developed first American society. The Mayan community was represented as a network of some fifty self-governing city-states that had a mutual culture.   Its way of life was mainly focused on religion and related rituals. The Maya were advanced in math, astrology and engineering, they also developed a pictographic alphabet. Aksum, that emerged in what is today Eritrea and northern Ethiopia, was as well one of African most advanced societies. However, its expansion was mostly due to commercial prosperity rather than scientific and cultural development.  It came out as a major trading partner and the exclusive source for ivory, frankincense, and myrrh. Aksum community was professing Christianity, which was brought from Egypt. The Rise of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula prevented Aksum from being a long-living power. Unlike the Maya, Aksum society was not collapsed but was rather established as a new empire, renamed and pushed further into the highlands.

The similarities the two mentioned societies had were predetermined by some specific features typical for the two continents. Both communities were less advanced and developed than those formatted in Eurasia. They both were largely suppressed by their more progressive contemporaries, who were inclined to make use of those states that were not fully formed and to impose own religious and cultural values on them. While the Maya were practically destroyed by Spanish conquerors, Aksum expansion was repressed by Islamic states. They both were also developed pretty much isolated from the outside world.

In many ways, Pre-Columbian Americas and Africa share analogous developmental obstacles. For both civilizations, north-south migrations pattern for humans, animals, and vegetation is typical, which is caused by the fact that Africa, the North and South American continents are longer than they are wide. This land mass distinctive feature caused the more gradual progress of human migration since crops grown in one climate zone could not be effectively produced in the shifting climate zones to the north or south. Both African and American early civilizations have always been believed to be primitive. While the reasons for such a phenomenon are different, we observe how both these continents’ societies were typically slower in development and were less advanced than most of those in Eurasia.

However, Africa has been inhabited by humans longer than any other continent, while American civilization was started much later than all the other ones. Scientists attribute African societies’ slower development to the wide range of diseases being developed due to the specific climate and geography. As a result, local inhabitants tended to avoid large communities and to keep urban settings small. Being short of large urban sites, civilizations in Central and Southern Africa remained small and progressed only as far as necessary to maintain their smaller populations.  American civilization, on the other hand, is an example of an amazingly quick and effective formation. While African society faced discriminatory racial practices of all possible kinds (African slavery, apartheid, segregation), America came out to be the winner of the world.