Editing Niger River (section)

==History==

[[File:African rice niger.png|thumb|Growing African rice, ''Oryza glaberrima'' along the Niger River in [[Niger]]. The crop was first domesticated along the river.]]

[[File:Ravenna Cosmography 1889 Africa crop.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|A reconstruction of the [[Ravenna Cosmography]] placed on a [[Ptolemy's world map|Ptolemaic map]].  The '''River Ger''' is visible at bottom.  Note it is placed, following [[Ptolemy]], as just south of the land of the [[Garamantes]], in modern [[Libya]], constricting the continent to the land from the central [[Sahara]] north.]]

[[File:1561 map of West Africa by Girolamo Ruscelli.JPG|thumb|upright=1.35|1561 map of West Africa by Girolamo Ruscelli, from Italian translation of Ptolemy's Atlas "La geografia di Claudio Tolomeo alessandrino, Nuovamente tradotta di Greco in Italiano".  The writer was attempting to square information gleaned from Portuguese trade along the coast with [[Ptolemy's world map]].  The mouths of the [[Senegal River]] and [[Gambia River]] are postulated to flow into a lake, which also feeds the "Ger"/"Niger River", which in turn feeds the "Nile Lake" and [[Nile River]].]]

At the end of the [[African humid period]] around 5,500 years before present, the modern Sahara Desert, once a [[savanna]], underwent [[desertification]]. As plant species sharply declined,<ref name="Cubry">{{cite journal |last1=Cubry |first1=Philippe |title=The Rise and Fall of African Rice Cultivation Revealed by Analysis of 246 New Genomes |journal=Current Biology |volume=28 |issue=14 |pages=2274–2282 |year=2018 |doi=10.1016/j.cub.2018.05.066 |issn=0960-9822 |pmid=29983312 |doi-access=free|bibcode=2018CBio...28E2274C }}</ref> humans migrated to the fertile Niger River bend region, with abundant resources including plants for grazing and fish.<ref name="Mayor">{{cite journal |last1=Mayor |first1=Anne |title=Ceramic Traditions and Ethnicity in the Niger Bend, West Africa |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261296160 |journal=Ethnoarchaeology |year=2010 |volume=2 |pages=5–48 |publisher=University of Geneva |doi=10.1179/eth.2010.2.1.5 |s2cid=128409342 |issn=1944-2890}}</ref> Like in the [[Fertile Crescent]], many food crops were [[Domestication#Plants|domesticated]] in the Niger River region, including [[Yam (vegetable)|yams]], African rice ([[Oryza glaberrima]]), and [[Pearl millet#Africa|pearl millet]].<ref name="Scarcelli">{{cite journal |last1=Scarcelli |first1=Nora |title=Yam genomics supports West Africa as a major cradle of crop domestication |url= |journal=Science Advances |volume=5 |issue=5 |pages=eaaw1947 |bibcode=2019SciA....5.1947S |year=2019 |doi=10.1126/sciadv.aaw1947 |issn=2375-2548 |pmid=31114806 |pmc=6527260}}</ref> The Sahara [[aridification]] may have triggered, or at least accelerated, these domestications.<ref name="Cubry"/> Agriculture, as well as fishing and animal husbandry, led to the rise of settlements like [[Djenné-Djenno]] in the Inner Delta, now a [[World Heritage Site]].<ref name="sub">{{cite journal |last1=Mcintosh |first1=Susan Keech |last2=Mcintosh |first2=Roderick J. |title=Initial Perspectives on Prehistoric Subsistence in the Inland Niger Delta (Mail) |journal=World Archaeology |date=Oct 1979 |volume=11 |issue=2 Food and Nutrition |pages=227–243 |doi=10.1080/00438243.1979.9979762 |issn=0043-8243 |pmid=16470987}}</ref>

The region of the Niger bend, in the [[Sahel]], was a key origin and destination for [[trans-Saharan trade]], fueling the wealth of great empires such as the [[Ghana Empire|Ghana]], Mali, and [[Songhai Empire]]s. Major trading ports along the river, including Timbuktu and Gao, became centers of learning and culture. Trade to the Niger bend region also [[Islamization of the Sudan region|brought Islam to the region]] in approximately the 14th century CE. Much of the northern Niger basin remains Muslim today, although the southern reaches of the river tend to be Christian.

Classical writings on the interior of the Sahara begin with [[Ptolemy]], who mentions two rivers in the desert: the "Gir" (Γειρ)<ref>Geographia, [https://books.google.com/books?id=4ksBAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA222 Book IV, Chapter 6, Section 13].</ref><ref>{{cite book |author1=Claudii Ptolemaei |title=Geographia |date=1843 |publisher=Sumptibus et typis Caroli Tauchnitii |at=Book IV, Chapter 6, Section 13 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4ksBAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA222 |access-date= |language=el}}</ref> and farther south, the "Nigir" (Νιγειρ).<ref name="meek1960">{{cite journal |first=C. K. |last=Meek |jstor=179702 |title=The Niger and the Classics: The History of a Name |journal=Journal of African History |volume=1 |issue=1 |year=1960 |pages=1–17 |doi=10.1017/S0021853700001456 |s2cid=163134704 |issn=0021-8537}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Law |first=R. C. C. |year=1967 |title=The Garamantes and Trans-Saharan Enterprise in Classical Times |journal=Journal of African History |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=181–200 |doi=10.1017/S0021853700007015 |s2cid=165234947 |issn=0021-8537}}. Law carefully ties together the classical sources on this, and explains the mix of third hand reports and mythology that was current in both the European and Arab worlds.</ref>  The first has been since identified as the [[Oued Guir|Wadi Ghir]] on the north-western edge of the [[Tuat]], along the borders of modern [[Morocco]] and [[Algeria]].<ref name="meek1960" /><ref>{{cite book |last1=Bunbury |first1=Edward Herbert |last2=Stahl |first2=William H. |title=A History of Ancient Geography Among the Greeks and Romans: From the Earliest Ages Till the Fall of the Roman Empire |date=1879 |publisher=J. Murray |location=London |isbn= |pages=626–627 |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_MktN8xy48XcC |access-date=}}</ref>  This would likely have been as far as Ptolemy would have had consistent records.  The Ni-Ger was likely speculation, although the name stuck as that of a river south of the Mediterranean's "known world". [[Suetonius]] reports Romans traveling to the "Ger", although in reporting any river's name derived from a [[Berber languages|Berber]] language, in which "gher" means "watercourse", confusion could easily arise.{{sfn|Thomson|1948|pp=258–259}} [[Pliny the Elder|Pliny]] connected these two rivers as one long watercourse which flowed (via lakes and underground sections) into the Nile,{{sfn|Thomson|1948|p=258}} a notion which persisted in the Arab and European worlds – and further added the Senegal River as the "Ger" –  until the 19th century.

While the true course of the Niger was presumably known to locals, it was a mystery to the outside world until the late 18th century. The connection to the [[Nile River]] was made not simply because this was then known as the great river of "[[Aethiopia]]" (by which all lands south of the desert were called by Classical writers), but because the Nile like the Niger flooded every summer.{{Sfn|Law|1967|pp=182-184}} Through the descriptions of Leo Africanus and even [[Ibn Battuta]] – despite his visit to the river – the myth connecting the Niger to the Nile persisted.

Many European expeditions to plot the river were unsuccessful.{{Sfn|Plumb|1952}} In 1788 the [[African Association]] was formed in [[England]] to promote the exploration of Africa in the hopes of locating the Niger, and in June 1796 the Scottish explorer [[Mungo Park (explorer)|Mungo Park]] was the first European to lay eyes on the middle portion of the river since antiquity (and perhaps ever). He wrote an account in 1799, ''[[Travels in the Interior of Africa]]''.<ref>{{citation |last=de Gramonte |first=Sanche |year=1991 |title=The Strong Brown God: Story of the Niger River |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |isbn=978-0-395-56756-2}}</ref> Park proposed a theory that the Niger and [[Congo River|Congo]] were the same river. Although the Niger Delta would seem like an obvious candidate, it was a maze of streams and swamps that did not look like the head of a great river. He died in 1806 on a second expedition attempting to prove the Niger-Congo connection.<ref name="Maclachlan" /> The theory became the leading one in Europe.<ref name="Maclachlan" /> Several failed expeditions followed; however the mystery of the Niger would not be solved for another 25 years, in 1830, when [[Richard Lander]] and his brother became the first Europeans to follow the course of the Niger to the ocean.<ref name="Maclachlan">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/mungopark00maclrich |pages=[https://archive.org/details/mungopark00maclrich/page/130 130]–142 |title=Mungo Park |publisher=Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier |location=Edinburgh |last=Maclachlan |first=T. Banks |year=1898}}</ref>

In 1946, three Frenchmen, Jean Sauvy, Pierre Ponty and movie maker [[Jean Rouch]], former civil servants in the African [[French colonial empire|French colonies]], set out to travel the entire length of the river, as no one else seemed to have done previously. They travelled from the beginning of the river near [[Kissidougou]] in Guinea, walking at first till a raft could be used, then changing to various local crafts as the river broadened and changed. Two of them reached the ocean on March 25, 1947, with Ponty having left the expedition at [[Niamey]], somewhat past the halfway mark. They carried a [[16 mm film|16mm movie camera]], the resulting footage giving Rouch his first two ethnographic documentaries: "Au pays des mages noirs", and "La chasse à l’hippopotame". A camera was used to illustrate Rouch's subsequent book "Le Niger En Pirogue" (Fernand Nathan, 1954), as well as Sauvy's "Descente du Niger" (L'Harmattan, 2001). A typewriter was brought as well, on which Ponty produced newspaper articles he mailed out whenever possible.<ref>{{Citation |last=Baugh |first=Brenda |title=About Jean Rouch |publisher=Documentary Education Resources |url=http://www.der.org/jean-rouch/content/index.php?id=about |access-date=27 Jan 2010 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090820055522/http://www.der.org/jean-rouch/content/index.php?id=about |archive-date=2009-08-20}}</ref>