MEDIEVAL HISTORY VOCABULARY FOR CHAPTER 2
CIVILIZATIONS OF AFRICA
Savanna: An area of grassland with scattered trees and bushes
Sahara: A huge desert stretching across most of North Africa
Oral History: Accounts of the past that people pass down by word of
mouth
Clan: A group of families who trace their roots to the same ancestor
Mansa Musa: A king of Mali in the 1300s
Mali: A rich kingdom of the West African savanna
Ghana: The first West African kingdom based on the gold and salt trade
Songhai: A powerful kingdom of the West African savanna
Ile-Ife: The capital of a kingdom of the West African rain forest
Benin: A kingdom of the West African rain forest
City-State: A city that is also a separate, independent state
Swahili: A Bantu language with Arabic words, spoken along the East
African coast
Great Zimbabwe: A powerful southeast African city