ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Africa and how developments in human society and livelihoods shaped relationships with lions, wildlife and the environment. Human evolution and the increasing sophistication of hunting methods substantially affected the relationship between people and lions, while domestication of animals, cultivation of crops and expansion of human settlements brought qualitative and quantitative changes in their interactions. Pastoralists killed or drove off lions, while the cultivation of land reduced grazing for lions’ wild prey. In East Africa, pastoralism preceded widespread cultivation of crops; chiefly because settlement and migration from the north and west was into grassland or woodland/savanna, where unreliable rainfall and thinner soils limited crop yields. Grasslands, dry woodland and semi-arid savanna in West Africa provided the habitat and prey species necessary for lion survival. Carthage sent trading caravans into the interior of Africa exchanging its manufactured and agricultural goods for salt, gold, timber, ivory, live animals, skins and hides.
