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by Professor Runoko Rashidi (Editor), Professor Ivan Van Sertima (Editor)
The story of the African presence in early Asia is as fascinating as it is obscure. It covers a period of more than 500,000 years beginning with the first Homo erectus migrations out of Africa. Both Peking and Java Man were only regional varieties of these early Africoid hominids. The story continues with the first modern human populations (Homo sapiens sapiens), Diminutive Africans, who traveled and sojourned from one corner of Asia to the other, beginning perhaps 90,000 years ago.
The Diminutive Africans were followed by others of slightly larger bodily proportions and further distinguished by straight to wavy hair textures. Variously called Austrics, Austro-Asiatics, Mons, Mundas, Kolarians, and Veddas, these people were probably at their zenith 25,000 years ago, and are still prevalent in large numbers throughout Asia. Africans were also the first in the development of Asia's early civilizations.
The hard factual evidence has borne this out in case after case. Although the story of the Africans presence in early Asia is obscure, its documentation is by no means new, and the works of Drusilla D. Houston, Joel A. Rogers, and most recently, John G. Jackson, can be singled out for broadening our awareness of the subject and providing a solid foundation from which we can move forward.
- Runoko Rashidi
Contributors to this volume state that Africans were a formative civilizing influence on Asian societies. Presenting their case with persuasive eloquence and research, the authors examine cultural forms, art motifs, weapons, scripts, and skeletal evidence to link Asian civilizations to Africa's Nile Valley. Articles detail both the physical and cultural presence of Africans in Asia.
Topics covered include the African presence and heavy intermittent influence in Sumer, Elam, and Arabia; contributions of Dravidians and Ethiopians to the Indus Valley civilizations; the history of the first Chinese emperor, Fu-Hsi; the origin of martial arts; parallels between Krishna, Guatama Buddha, and Jesus; and the nature of slavery in Arabia and Asia. Five major chapters have been added to this new edition, adding substantially to the range and depth of the original volume.
Runoko Rashidi is a historian, research specialist, writer, world traveler, and public lecturer focusing on the African presence globally and the African foundations of world civilizations. He is particularly drawn to the African presence in Asia, Australia, and the Pacific Islands. In March 1999, he coordinated a historic tour to India called Looking at India through African Eyes. In March 2000, he toured Viti Levu, Fiji, while in July 2000, he coordinated an educational tour to Aboriginal Australia titled Looking at Australia through African Eyes.
In regards to the mass media, Runoko is much sought out for radio, television, and newspaper interviews, having now been interviewed on more than 100 radio broadcasts and more than fifty television programs. As a public lecturer, during the past twenty years he has made major presentations at more than 110 colleges and universities and scores of public and private schools, libraries and book stores, churches and community centers.
On the international circuit, he has lectured in Australia, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Costa Rica, Curacao, Egypt, England, France, Guyana, India, Japan, Namibia, the Netherlands, Russia, Thailand, Trinidad, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. Rashidi's presentations are customized and suitable for all audiences and ages, and are lively, engaging, and vividly illustrated.
Runoko is the author of Introduction to the Study of African Classical Civilizations (published by Karnak House in London in 1993), the editor, along with Dr. Ivan Van Sertima of Rutgers University, of the African Presence in Early Asia, considered "the most comprehensive volume on the subject yet produced," and a major pamphlet titled the Global African Community: The African Presence in Asia, Australia and the South Pacific. In 1995, he completed editing Unchained African Voices, a collection of poetry and prose by Death Row inmates at California's San Quentin maximum-security prison.
Runoko Rashidi is a prolific writer and essayist. As an essayist and contributing writer, Runoko's articles have appeared in more than seventy-five publications. As a scholar, Runoko Rashidi has been called the world's leading authority on the African presence in Asia. Since 1986, he has worked actively with the Dalits (India's Black Untouchables). In 1987, he was a keynote speaker at the first All-India Dalits Writer's Conference, held in Hyderabad, India, and spoke on the "Global Unity of African People." To date he has made major presentations in twenty countries and at more than 120 colleges and universities, in addition to scores of public and private schools, churches, community centers, prisons and book stores. Runoko has been described as "one of the foremost scholars of our time" and possesses one of the most extensive slide collections in the world.
Ivan Van Sertima is professor of African studies at Rutgers University. Van Sertima was an undergraduate at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, where he graduated with honors. He has been visiting professor at Princeton University and lectured at more than one hundred colleges and universities. Ivan Van Sertima’s pioneering work in linguistics and anthropology has appeared in numerous scholarly journals. He edits the Journal of African Civilizations, which has greatly changed the way in which African history and culture are taught and studied.
In 1983 he edited a book titled Blacks in Science: Ancient and Modern. He also treated that topic in his contribution to the volume African Renaissance, published in 1999 as a record of the conference held in Johannesburg in September 1998 on the theme of the African Renaissance. His article (pp. 305-330) is titled "The Lost Sciences of Africa: An Overview". In it he presents early African advances in metallurgy, astronomy, mathematics, architecture, engineering, agriculture, navigation, medicine and writing. He notes that such higher learning, in Africa as elsewhere, was the preserve of elites in the centers of civilizations, rendering them very vulnerable in the event (as happened in Africa) of the destruction of those centers.
Some of his works include Blacks in Science, Nile Valley Civilizations, African Presence in Early America, Black Women in Antiquity, Egypt Revisited, Egypt: Child of Africa, African Presence in Early Europe, Golden Age of the Moor, African Presence in the Art of the Americas, Great Black Leaders, Great African Thinkers (co-edited with Larry Obadele Williams), and African Presence in Early Asia (co-edited with Runoko Rashidi). In 1998 Transaction Press produced produced Van Sertima's Early America Revisited, the definitive statement on the subject.
ISBN: 0887387179
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