*In some languages it is called “Tanganika” but in some others it is called “Tanganyika”.
Tanganika is the name of an East African territory.
And lying between the largest of the African great lakes: Lake Victoria, Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganika.
The name “Tanganyika” is derived from the Swahili words.
Tanga meaning is “sail” and nyika meaning is an “uninhabited plain” or “wilderness”.
At its simplest it might therefore be understood as a description of the lake – “Sail in the Wilderness”.
The leading model of human origins is the “Out of Africa” theory. And as an anthropologist, I am close to this thesis too.
I am not but our company name is coming from Tanganyika.
We say, let’s come and start your www, internet life here in Tanganika.com,
like first human being was born in Africa close to Tanganyika.
The world’s oldest humans: Proof, we came from Africa
Scientists hail discovery of 160,000-year-old remains in Ethiopian desert as breakthrough in search for answers to evolution puzzle.
Few things can grow in the dry, sandy soil of Ethiopia’s Middle Awash region. For Tim White, however, the land has – once again – produced a rich crop of discoveries that can further explain the complicated origins of humankind.
Professor White, one of the world’s most prominent anthropologists, yesterday (11 June 2003) unveiled the fruits of his latest research – three well- preserved skulls belonging to the earliest members of our own species, Homo sapiens.
The three individuals, two adults and one child, lived about 160,000 years ago, making their skulls about 60,000 years older than the previous oldest fossils of anatomically “modern” humans.
Professor White, who is based at the University of California, Berkeley, said that the three very probably belonged to the group of ancient humans from which everyone alive today is descended.
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Tanganika is the name of an East African territory lying between the largest of the African great lakes: Lake Victoria, Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganika.
From 9 December 1961 to 26 April 1964 it was also an independent nation. Later becoming a United Nations Trust Territory. Britain changed the name to the Tanganika Territory.
On 9 December 1961 Tanganika became independent as a constitutional monarchy, and on 9 December 1962 it became the Republic of Tanganika within the Commonwealth of Nations. In 1964, it joined with the islands of Zanzibar to form the United Republic of Tanganika and Zanzibar, later in the year changed to the United Republic of Tanzania.
Although Tanganika still exists within Tanzania, the name is no longer used formally for the territory and its use can be politically sensitive, not only as throwback to colonial times, but also if it implies opposition to the union with Zanzibar. These days the name Tanganika is used almost exclusively to mean the lake.
Lake Tanganika is a large lake in central Africa. It is estimated to be the second largest freshwater lake in the world by volume, and the second deepest, in both cases after Lake Baikal in Siberia. The lake is divided between four countries – Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania and Zambia, with the DRC and Tanzania possessing the majority of the lake. The water flows into the Congo River system and ultimately into the Atlantic Ocean.
The major inflows are the Ruzizi River, entering the north of the lake from Lake Kivu, and the Malagarasi River, which is Tanzania’s second largest river, entering in the east side of Lake Tanganika. The Malagarasi pre-dates Lake Tanganika and was formerly continuous with the Congo river.
The lake holds at least 250 species of cichlid fish and 150 non-cichlid species, most of which live along the shore line down to a depth of approximately 600 feet (180 m). Lake Tanganika is thus an important biological resource for the study of speciation in evolution.
There are two ferries which carry passengers and cargo along the eastern shore of the lake – the MV Liemba between Kigoma and Mpulungu and the MV Mwongozo, which runs between Kigoma and Bujumbura.
The first known Westerners to find the lake were the Great British explorers Richard Burton and John Speke, in 1858. They located it while searching for the source of the Nile River. Speke continued and found the actual source, Lake Victoria.
In 1965 Argentinian revolutionary Che Guevara used the western shores of Lake Tanganika as a training camp for guerrilla forces in the Congo. From his camp, Che and his forces attempted to overthrow the government, but ended up pulling out in less than a year since the National Security Agency (NSA) had been monitoring him the entire time and aided government forces in ambushing his guerrillas.
Since 2004 the lake has been the focus of a massive Water and Nature Initiative by the IUCN. The project is scheduled to take five years at a total cost of US$ 27 million. The initiative is attempting to monitor the resources and state of the lake, set common criteria for acceptable level of sediments, pollution, and water quality in general, and design and establish a lake basin management authority.
The lake has been identified as a place where man-eating crocodile Gustave has been seen. Gustave has killed many humans over the years, and many scientists are interested in studying him.