Well the old empires like ghana might have had a harder time survivng as traveling through mountains is hard. Now try moving an army through their. Plus in mountains their isnt alot of grass for the animals to graze making food harder. Another way this would be hard is horses. The ghanians horses were successful because they had land to run on. If these mountains were steep then they probably might have trouble going up them. Also in the mountains its dangerous because thats most likely were thieves are. The only way merchants survived was by traveling in caravans. Now try moving caravans through big steep mountains. Imagine if their was an avalance or they got lost. This would hurt trade immensely.
