![1993 161-14 Olduvai Gorge (Leakey)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/1993_161-14_Olduvai_Gorge_%28Leakey%29.jpg)
Africa has the longest record of human habitation in the world. The first hominins emerged 6-7 million years ago, and among the earliest anatomically modern human skulls found so far were discovered at
Omo Kibish,
Jebel Irhoud
Jebel Irhoud or Adrar n Ighoud ( zgh, ⴰⴷⵔⴰⵔ ⵏ ⵉⵖⵓⴷ, Adrar n Iɣud; ar, جبل إيغود, žbəl iġud), is an archaeological site located just north of the locality known as Tlet Ighoud, approximately south-east of the cit ...
, and
Florisbad
Florisbad is a health resort 45 km northwest of Bloemfontein and 47 km south-west of Brandfort
Brandfort, officially renamed Winnie Mandela in 2021, is a small agricultural town in the central Free State province of South Africa, about ...
.
European archaeology, as well as that of
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
, is generally divided into the
Stone Age (comprising the
Lower Paleolithic, the
Middle Paleolithic, the
Upper Paleolithic
The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories coin ...
, the
Mesolithic, and the
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...
), the
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...
, and the
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...
. For
Africa south of the Sahara, African archaeology is classified in a slightly different way, with the Paleolithic generally divided into the
Early Stone Age
The Lower Paleolithic (or Lower Palaeolithic) is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 3 million years ago when the first evidence for stone tool production and use by hominins appears in t ...
, the
Middle Stone Age, and the
Later Stone Age. After these three stages come the
Pastoral Neolithic
The Pastoral Neolithic (5000 BP - 1200 BP) refers to a period in Africa's prehistory, specifically Tanzania and Kenya, marking the beginning of food production, livestock domestication, and pottery use in the region following the Later Stone Age. ...
, the Iron Age and then later historical periods.
Africa's prehistory has been largely ignored, with the exception of research into early human evolution.
However, it is overseen by the
PanAfrican Archaeological Association
The PanAfrican Archaeological Association (PAA) is a pan-African professional organisation for archaeologists, geologists and palaeoanthropologists.
History
The association was founded by Louis Leakey and its first congress was held in Nairo ...
, whose members consist of professional archaeologists from all over Africa.
Early Stone Age Africa
The Early Stone Age (ESA), which spanned from approximately 2.6 million years ago (mya) - 280,000 years ago (ya), describes a period in African prehistory in which the first stone tools were developed, including both Oldowan and Acheulean.
Early sites along the East African Rift include
Lomekwi
Lomekwi 3 is the name of an archaeological site in Kenya where ancient stone tools have been discovered dating to 3.3 million years ago, which make them the oldest ever found.
Discovery
In July 2011, a team of archeologists led by Sonia Harma ...
in the
Turkana Basin
An '' Acacia'' tree in the Kokiselei river, northern Kenya
The greater Turkana Basin in East Africa (mainly northwestern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, smaller parts of eastern Uganda and southeastern South Sudan) determines a large endorheic ba ...
, Kenya, and
Olduvai Gorge
The Olduvai Gorge or Oldupai Gorge in Tanzania is one of the most important paleoanthropological localities in the world; the many sites exposed by the gorge have proven invaluable in furthering understanding of early human evolution. A steep-si ...
farther south in modern-day Tanzania. The earliest hominids were discovered in Ethiopia and titled ''
Ardipithecus ramidus
''Ardipithecus ramidus'' is a species of australopithecine from the Afar region of Early Pliocene Ethiopia 4.4 million years ago (mya). ''A. ramidus'', unlike modern hominids, has adaptations for both walking on two legs ( bipedality) and life i ...
''. The diverging species of hominin are known as
australopithecine
Australopithecina or Hominina is a subtribe in the tribe Hominini. The members of the subtribe are generally ''Australopithecus'' (cladistically including the genera ''Homo'', '' Paranthropus'', and ''Kenyanthropus''), and it typically includ ...
s and were first discovered in Olduvai. Australopithecines and their fossils include ''
Paranthropus boisei'', the most famous being nicknamed "Zinj" or "Nutcracker man" by
Mary Leakey
Mary Douglas Leakey, FBA (née Nicol, 6 February 1913 – 9 December 1996) was a British paleoanthropologist who discovered the first fossilised ''Proconsul'' skull, an extinct ape which is now believed to be ancestral to humans. She also disc ...
, the archaeologist who found it. Another older, famous australopithecine, related to those found at Olduvai Gorge but found approximately 2000 kilometers to the north east in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia, is
Lucy
Lucy is an English feminine given name derived from the Latin masculine given name Lucius with the meaning ''as of light'' (''born at dawn or daylight'', maybe also ''shiny'', or ''of light complexion''). Alternative spellings are Luci, Luce, Lu ...
, who was discovered by
Donald Johanson
Donald Carl Johanson (born June 28, 1943) is an American paleoanthropologist. He is known for discovering, with Yves Coppens and Maurice Taieb, the fossil of a female hominin australopithecine known as "Lucy" in the Afar Triangle region of Hada ...
and his team in 1974.
The earliest relative dating for stone tool use was discovered in 2015, by Sonia Harmand, at Lomekwi 3 in West Turkana, Kenya with stone tools dating to 3.3 million years ago. Lomekwi tools differ from Oldowan tools in their primitive technological features making them large and heavy. The Lomekwi are thought to have been made by ''
Australopithecus afarensis
''Australopithecus afarensis'' is an extinct species of australopithecine which lived from about 3.9–2.9 million years ago (mya) in the Pliocene of East Africa. The first fossils were discovered in the 1930s, but major fossil finds would not ...
''. Prior to this discovery, some of the oldest stone tools were found at Lokalalei 2C in West Turkana, where artifacts exhibiting
knapping
Knapping is the shaping of flint, chert, obsidian, or other conchoidal fracturing stone through the process of lithic reduction to manufacture stone tools, strikers for flintlock firearms, or to produce flat-faced stones for building or facing w ...
processes conducted by ''
Australopithecus africanus'' date to about 2.34 million years ago, marking the beginning of the ESA. Incorporation of tools provided early hominins the ability to respond to changes more readily outside of the immediate needs of daily-life and extended adaptability behavioral patterns into long-term trends experienced over generations.
Around a million years later, ''
Homo erectus'' evolved into a more advanced species and made tools known as the
Acheulean handaxes. These handaxes were a multipurpose bifacial technology that remained unchanged for thousands of years. The technology demonstrates an increase in brain development and complexity in ''Homo erectus,'' as shown by the increased level of forethought and knowledge of material required for production of the tools. ''Homo erectus'' are also associated with the first instances of "modern human living," such as fire, "modern emotions," and art. The earliest evidence for hominins controlling fire is found in
Wonderwerk Cave
Wonderwerk Cave is an archaeological site, formed originally as an ancient solution cavity in dolomite rocks of the Kuruman Hills, situated between Danielskuil and Kuruman in the Northern Cape Province, South Africa. It is a National Heritage ...
, South Africa. Along with their new technologies, they were also a part of the first "
Out of Africa
''Out of Africa'' is a memoir by the Danish author Karen Blixen. The book, first published in 1937, recounts events of the seventeen years when Blixen made her home in Kenya, then called British East Africa. The book is a lyrical meditation on ...
" movement and spread to all parts of the world. This movement took place somewhere around 1.8-0.8 million years ago, where ''Homo erectus'' spread out from Africa and into
Eurasia
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago ...
. One of the most notable ''Homo erectus'' skeletons ever found was that of
Nariokotome Boy, who was found near
Lake Turkana in
Kenya
)
, national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Nairobi
, coordinates =
, largest_city = Nairobi
...
, discovered by
Richard Leakey
Richard Erskine Frere Leakey (19 December 1944 – 2 January 2022) was a Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist and politician. Leakey held a number of official positions in Kenya, mostly in institutions of archaeology and wildlife conse ...
and
Kamoya Kimeu
Kamoya Kimeu (1938 – 20 July 2022) was a Kenyan paleontologist and curator, whose contributions to the field of paleoanthropology were recognised with the National Geographic Society's LaGorce Medal and with an honorary doctorate of science deg ...
. Nariokotome Boy was a teenager when he died, and his skeleton exhibits the first evidence for caring in the archaeological record, because he was cared for through his debilitating
scoliosis.
Just recently discovered was a new addition to the line of human ancestors named ''
Homo naledi
'' Homo naledi'' is an extinct species of archaic human discovered in 2013 in the Rising Star Cave, Cradle of Humankind, South Africa dating to the Middle Pleistocene 335,000–236,000 years ago. The initial discovery comprises 1,550 specimens ...
.'' Found in
Rising Star Cave
The Rising Star cave system (also known as Westminster or Empire cave) is located in the
Malmani dolomites, in Bloubank River valley, about southwest of Swartkrans, part of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site in South Africa. Recreati ...
in South Africa, ''
Homo naledi
'' Homo naledi'' is an extinct species of archaic human discovered in 2013 in the Rising Star Cave, Cradle of Humankind, South Africa dating to the Middle Pleistocene 335,000–236,000 years ago. The initial discovery comprises 1,550 specimens ...
'' is undated but has features of both primitive and modern humans.
Middle Stone Age Africa
The
Middle Stone Age (MSA), dating to roughly 280,000 to 40,000 years ago, is characterized by the continuation of
hunter-gatherer lifestyles and, as more recently recognized, perhaps the origins of
modern human behavior and cognition.
[ Even though hominin species' brains were reorganized and modernized at a fast rate, the behavior of these hominins did not adapt quite as fast. This caused the hominin species to be quite primitive.][ African hunter-gatherers hunted larger mammals and relied on an assortment of edible plants, both in the grasslands that are now the Sahara desert, and the rain forests of Central Africa. Coastal peoples also subsisted on seafood and numerous middens indicate their diet.][
'']Homo sapiens
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
'' appear for the first time in the archaeological record around 300–270,000 years ago in Africa. They soon developed a more advanced method of flint tool manufacture involving striking flakes from a prepared core
Core or cores may refer to:
Science and technology
* Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages
* Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding
* Core (optical fiber), the signal-carrying portion of an optical fiber
* Core, the centra ...
. This permitted more control over the size and shape of finished tool and led to the development of composite tools, projectile point
In North American archaeological terminology, a projectile point is an object that was hafted to a weapon that was capable of being thrown or projected, such as a javelin, dart, or arrow. They are thus different from weapons presumed to have ...
s and scrapers, which could be hafted onto spears, arrows or handles. In turn, this technology permitted more efficient hunting such as that demonstrated by the Aterian
The Aterian is a Middle Stone Age (or Middle Palaeolithic) stone tool industry centered in North Africa, from Mauritania to Egypt, but also possibly found in Oman and the Thar Desert. The earliest Aterian dates to c. 150,000 years ago, at the sit ...
industry. In eastern Africa, stone tools were made from raw materials such as quartz and obsidian using the prepared core method, which varied by region. It was during the late Middle Pleistocene that many groups began to migrate away from eastern Africa, especially southward. Technological improvements such as Aterian methods and the development of new skills helped these people adapt to new landscapes.[
Although still hunter-gatherers, there is evidence that these early humans also actively managed food resources as well as simply harvesting them. The Congo Basin was first occupied around this time; different conditions and diet there produced recognizably different behaviors and tool types. There are also the earliest signs of ]art
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
appearing through the use of ochre as a body decoration and paint, and burial ritual
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized ...
s may have been practiced as well.
Evidence of a variety behaviors indicative of Behavioral modernity
Behavioral modernity is a suite of behavioral and cognitive traits that distinguishes current '' Homo sapiens'' from other anatomically modern humans, hominins, and primates. Most scholars agree that modern human behavior can be characterize ...
date to the African Middle Stone age, associated with early ''Homo sapiens''. Abstract imagery, widened subsistence strategies, and other "modern" behaviors have been discovered from that period in Africa, especially South, North, and East Africa. The Blombos Cave site in South Africa, for example, is famous for rectangular slabs of ochre engraved with geometric designs. Using multiple dating techniques, the site was confirmed to be around 77,000 and 100–75,000 years old. Ostrich egg shell containers engraved with geometric designs dating to 60,000 years ago were found at Diepkloof
Diepkloof is a large zone of Soweto township in the Gauteng province of South Africa. It is also sometimes referred to as Diepmeadow, if considered as a single township with the nearby Meadowlands (although there is Orlando in between). Diepkloo ...
, South Africa. Beads and other personal ornamentation have been found from Morocco which might be as much as 130,000 years old; as well, the Cave of Hearths in South Africa has yielded a number of beads dating from significantly prior to 50,000 years ago.[ These types of ornamentations represent some of the earliest signs of symbolic behavior amongst human ancestors, including developments in cognition and social relations.] The beads from Bizmoune Cave, in southwest Morocco, are thought to be over 142,000 years old. Shell beads dating to about 75,000 years ago have been found at Blombos Cave, South Africa.
Specialized projectile weapons as well have been found at various sites in Middle Stone Age Africa, including bone and stone arrowheads at South African sites such as Sibudu Cave
Sibudu Cave is a rock shelter in a sandstone cliff in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is an important Middle Stone Age site occupied, with some gaps, from years ago to years ago.
Evidence of some of the earliest examples of modern h ...
(along with an early bone needle also found at Sibudu) dating approximately 60,000-70,000 years ago, and bone harpoons at the Central African site of Katanda dating to about 90,000 years ago. Evidence also exists for the systematic heat treating of silcrete stone to increase its flake-ability for the purpose of toolmaking, beginning approximately 164,000 years ago at the South African site of Pinnacle Point
Pinnacle Point a small promontory immediately south of Mossel Bay, a town on the southern coast of South Africa. Excavations since the year 2000 of a series of caves at Pinnacle Point have revealed occupation by Middle Stone Age people between ...
and becoming common there for the creation of microlithic tools at about 72,000 years ago. Early stone-tipped projectile weapons (a characteristic tool of ''Homo sapiens''), the stone tips of javelins or throwing spears, were discovered in 2013 at the Ethiopian site of Gademotta, and date to around 279,000 years ago.
In 2008, an ochre processing workshop likely for the production of paints was uncovered dating to ca. 100,000 years ago at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Analysis shows that a liquefied pigment-rich mixture was produced and stored in the two abalone shells, and that ochre, bone, charcoal, grindstones and hammer-stones also formed a composite part of the toolkits. Evidence for the complexity of the task includes procuring and combining raw materials from various sources (implying they had a mental template of the process they would follow), possibly using pyrotechnology to facilitate fat extraction from bone, using a probable recipe to produce the compound, and the use of shell containers for mixing and storage for later use.
Modern behaviors, such as the making of shell beads, bone tools and arrows, and the use of ochre pigment, are evident at a Kenyan site by 78,000-67,000 years ago.
Expanding subsistence strategies beyond big-game hunting and the consequential diversity in tool types has been noted as signs of behavioral modernity. A number of South African sites have shown an early reliance on aquatic resources from fish to shellfish. Pinnacle Point
Pinnacle Point a small promontory immediately south of Mossel Bay, a town on the southern coast of South Africa. Excavations since the year 2000 of a series of caves at Pinnacle Point have revealed occupation by Middle Stone Age people between ...
, in particular, shows exploitation of marine resources as early as 120,000 years ago, perhaps in response to more arid conditions inland. Establishing a reliance on predictable shellfish deposits, for example, could reduce mobility and facilitate complex social systems and symbolic behavior. Blombos Cave and Site 440 in Sudan both show evidence of fishing as well. Taphonomic change in fish skeletons from Blombos Cave have been interpreted as capture of live fish, clearly an intentional human behavior.[
Humans in North Africa ( Nazlet Sabaha, ]Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
) are known to have dabbled in chert
Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a ...
mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...
, as early as ≈100,000 years ago, for the construction of stone tools.
Evidence was found in 2018, dating to about 320,000 years ago, at the Kenyan site of Olorgesailie
Olorgesailie is a geological formation in East Africa, on the floor of the Eastern Rift Valley in southern Kenya, southwest of Nairobi along the road to Lake Magadi. It contains a group of Lower Paleolithic archaeological sites. Olorgesaili ...
, of the early emergence of modern behaviors including: long-distance trade networks (involving goods such as obsidian), the use of pigments, and the possible making of projectile points. It is observed by the authors of three 2018 studies on the site, that the evidence of these behaviors is approximately contemporary to the earliest known ''Homo sapiens'' fossil remains from Africa (such as at Jebel Irhoud
Jebel Irhoud or Adrar n Ighoud ( zgh, ⴰⴷⵔⴰⵔ ⵏ ⵉⵖⵓⴷ, Adrar n Iɣud; ar, جبل إيغود, žbəl iġud), is an archaeological site located just north of the locality known as Tlet Ighoud, approximately south-east of the cit ...
and Florisbad
Florisbad is a health resort 45 km northwest of Bloemfontein and 47 km south-west of Brandfort
Brandfort, officially renamed Winnie Mandela in 2021, is a small agricultural town in the central Free State province of South Africa, about ...
), and they suggest that complex and modern behaviors began in Africa around the time of the emergence of ''Homo sapiens''.
In 2019, further evidence of early complex projectile weapons in Africa was found at Aduma, Ethiopia, dated 80,000–100,000 years ago, in the form of points considered likely to belong to darts delivered by spear throwers.
Later Stone Age Africa
The Hofmeyr Skull
The Hofmeyr Skull is a specimen of a 36,000-year-old anatomically modern human skull that was found in 1952 near Hofmeyr, South Africa.
Background
The skull was found in the 1950s on the surface of an erosion gully, a dry channel bed of the Vl ...
is a specimen of a 36,000-year-old human skull
The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, th ...
that was found in 1952 near Hofmeyr
Hofmeyr is a small Karoo town in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, 20 km west of the Bamboesberg mountain range. It lies 64 km north-east of Cradock at an altitude of 1,252 metres. According to the 2011 census, the population ...
, South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
. Osteological analysis of the cranium by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology indicates that the specimen is morphologically distinct from recent groups in subequatorial Africa, including the local Khoisan populations . The Hofmeyr fossil instead has a very close affinity with other Upper Paleolithic skulls from Europe. Some scientists have interpreted this relationship as being consistent with the Out-of-Africa theory, which hypothesizes that at least some Upper Paleolithic human groups in Africa, Europe and Asia should morphologically resemble each other.
Around 10,000 BCE, African hunter-gatherer societies developed microlith
A microlith is a small stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. They were made by humans from around 35,000 to 3,000 years ago, across Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. Th ...
technologies. Composite microlithic tools were useful for harvesting wild grasses and also permitted the production of fine shell and bone fish hooks, which may have allowed for the exploitation of a broader range of food resources. Some of the earliest pottery in Africa has also been found in the Sahara and is associated with hunter/gatherer populations. By 9,400 BCE, in Ounjougou, central Mali, pottery is thought to been independently invented by local hunter-gatherers as they became more sedentary and began to intensively gather local wild grains (such as millet).
Archaeological evidence has attested that population settlements occurred in Nubia as early as the Late Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...
era and from the 5th millennium BC onwards, whereas there is "no or scanty evidence" of human presence in the Egyptian Nile Valley during these periods, which may be due to problems in site preservation.
In 2013, Iberomaurusian
The Iberomaurusian is a backed bladelet lithic industry found near the coasts of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. It is also known from a single major site in Libya, the Haua Fteah, where the industry is locally known as the Eastern Oranian.The ...
skeletons from the prehistoric sites of Taforalt
Taforalt or Grotte des Pigeons is a cave in the province of Berkane, Aït Iznasen region, Morocco, possibly the oldest cemetery in North Africa (Humphrey ''et al.'' 2012). It contained at least 34 Iberomaurusian adolescent and adult human skele ...
and Afalou in the Maghreb were analyzed for ancient DNA. All of the specimens belonged to maternal clades associated with either North Africa or the northern and southern Mediterranean littoral, indicating gene flow between these areas since the Epipaleolithic. The ancient Taforalt individuals carried the mtDNA haplogroups U6, H, JT and V, which points to population continuity in the region dating from the Iberomaurusian period.
There is an on-going debate in regards to using modern-day hunter-gatherer societies, like the San, as an analogy to societies of the Later Stone Age.
"Pastoral Neolithic" and Neolithic Africa
Cultural developments during the early Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...
led nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to be slowly supplanted by pastoralism
Pastoralism is a form of animal husbandry where domesticated animals (known as " livestock") are released onto large vegetated outdoor lands (pastures) for grazing, historically by nomadic people who moved around with their herds. The a ...
in northern Africa. Africa's earliest evidence for domesticated animals comes from the Sahara c. 7000-6000 BCE, and evidence for new cattle herding lifestyles are preserved at both archaeological sites such as Gobero and in Saharan rock art
Saharan rock art is a significant area of archaeological study focusing on artwork carved or painted on the natural rocks of the central Sahara desert. The rock art dates from numerous periods starting years ago, and is significant because it sh ...
. As the Sahara increased in size due to aridification, early pastoralists migrated south and eastwards into the Niger
)
, official_languages =
, languages_type = National languages[Nile
The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest ...](_blank)
valleys, bringing with them herding practices that would also spread throughout eastern and southern Africa. The Savanna Pastoral Neolithic
The Savanna Pastoral Neolithic (SPN; formerly known as the Stone Bowl Culture) is a collection of ancient societies that appeared in the Rift Valley of East Africa and surrounding areas during a time period known as the Pastoral Neolithic. The ...
and the Elmenteitan
The Elmenteitan culture was a prehistoric lithic industry and pottery tradition with a distinct pattern of land use, hunting and pastoralism that appeared and developed on the western plains of Kenya, East Africa during the Pastoral Neolithic ...
material culture traditions are found in eastern Africa. Recent aDNA research has provided evidence for the spread of Pastoral Neolithic herders from eastern Africa into southern Africa.
In the western Sahel the rise of settled communities occurred largely as a result of the domestication of millet and of sorghum. Archaeology points to sizable urban populations in West Africa later, beginning by the 2nd millennium BCE. Symbiotic trade relations developed before the trans-Saharan trade
Trans-Saharan trade requires travel across the Sahara between sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa. While existing from prehistoric times, the peak of trade extended from the 8th century until the early 17th century.
The Sahara once had a very d ...
, in response to the opportunities afforded by north–south diversity in ecosystems across deserts, grasslands, and forests. The agriculturists received salt from the desert nomads. The desert nomads acquired meat and other foods from pastoralists and farmers of the grasslands and from fishermen on the Niger River
The Niger River ( ; ) is the main river of West Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in south-eastern Guinea near the Sierra Leone border. It runs in a crescent shape through ...
. The forest-dwellers provided furs and meat.
In West Africa, Dhar Tichitt and Oualata
, settlement_type = Commune and town
, image_skyline = Oualata 03.jpg
, imagesize = 300px
, image_caption = View of the town looking in a southeasterly direction
, image ...
in present-day Mauritania figure prominently among the early urban centers, dated to ~2,000 BCE. About 500 stone settlements litter the region in the former savannah of the Sahara. Its inhabitants fished and grew millet. The ancestors of the Soninke, of the Mandé peoples
The Mandé peoples are ethnic groups who are speakers of Mande languages. Various Mandé speaking ethnic groups are found particularly toward the west of West Africa. The Mandé Speaking languages are divided into two primary groups: East Mandé ...
, may have been responsible for constructing such settlements. Around 300 BCE the region became more desiccated and the settlements began to decline, most likely relocating to Koumbi Saleh
Koumbi Saleh, sometimes Kumbi Saleh is the site of a ruined medieval town in south east Mauritania that may have been the capital of the Ghana Empire.
From the ninth century, Arab authors mention the Ghana Empire in connection with the trans-S ...
. Architectural evidence and the comparison of pottery styles suggest that Dhar Tichitt was related to the subsequent Ghana Empire
The Ghana Empire, also known as Wagadou ( ar, غانا) or Awkar, was a West African empire based in the modern-day southeast of Mauritania and western Mali that existed from c. 300 until 1100. The Empire was founded by the Soninke people, an ...
and Djenné-Djenno
Djenné-Djenno (also Jenne-Jeno; ) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the Niger River Valley in the country of Mali. Literally translated to "ancient Djenné", it is the original site of both Djenné and Mali and is considered to be among ...
cultures (in present-day Mali
Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mal ...
).
Metal-using Africa
Farming societies in Africa developed after the origins and spread of livestock pastoralism throughout the continent. The early use of metallurgy by farming communities may have been developed independently in Africa around 3000-2000 BCE. Pockets of iron usage appeared in subsequent millennia but metal did not supplant stone in the south of the continent until around 500 BCE, when both iron and copper spread southwards through the continent, reaching the Cape around 200 CE. Although some details regarding the Bantu expansion are still controversial amongst archaeologists, linguists, and historians, the widespread use of iron does seem to have played a major role in the spread of Bantu
Bantu may refer to:
*Bantu languages, constitute the largest sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages
*Bantu peoples, over 400 peoples of Africa speaking a Bantu language
* Bantu knots, a type of African hairstyle
*Black Association for National ...
farming communities throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Contact and interaction between hunter/gatherer, pastoralist, and incoming farming communities remains an important topic of interest in African archaeology today.
In 2014, ancient DNA analysis of a 2,330-year-old male forager's skeleton in southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number o ...
found that the specimen belonged to the L0d2c1c mtDNA haplogroup. This maternal clade is today most closely associated with the Ju, a subgroup of the indigenous San people
The San peoples (also Saan), or Bushmen, are members of various Khoe, Tuu, or Kxʼa-speaking indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures that are the first cultures of Southern Africa, and whose territories span Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia ...
, which points to population continuity in the region. In 2016, a Late Iron Age desiccated mummy from the Tuli region in northern Botswana was also found to belong to haplogroup L0.
In central Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
, West Africa, around 1,500 BCE, the Nok culture
The Nok culture (or Nok civilization) is a population whose material remains are named after the Ham village of Nok in Kaduna State of Nigeria, where their terracotta sculptures were first discovered in 1928. The Nok culture appeared in Nige ...
developed on the Jos Plateau
The Jos Plateau is a plateau located near the centre of Nigeria. The plateau has given its name to the Plateau State in which it is found and is named for the state's capital, Jos. The plateau is home to people of diverse cultures and languages ...
. The Nok people produced lifelike representations in terracotta
Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous.
In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...
, including human heads and human figures, elephants, and other animals. By 500 BCE, and possibly a few centuries earlier, they were smelting iron. By 200 AD the Nok culture had vanished. Based on stylistic similarities with the Nok terracottas, the bronze figurines of the Yoruba
The Yoruba people (, , ) are a West African ethnic group that mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute ...
kingdom of Ife and those of the Bini kingdom of Benin
Benin ( , ; french: Bénin , ff, Benen), officially the Republic of Benin (french: République du Bénin), and formerly Dahomey, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the nort ...
are now believed to be continuations of the traditions of the earlier Nok culture.
Another site in southern Africa that used different types of metal was Bosutswe
Bosutswe is an archaeological site at the edge of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana on top of Bosutswe Hill. The site can be dated back to around 700 AD. The location of Bosutswe makes it easy for Archaeology, archaeologists to study as the record ...
. The people who lived there used materials such as copper, bronze, and iron. It was proven that this metalworking was the basis for the trade that was responsible for the site's success and kept the power in the ruling Lose class.
Historical Africa
Trade with the Near East and Europe led to strong mercantile empires growing such as the Ethiopian kingdom of Axum and Harla Kingdom. Various states and polities also developed in West Africa including Ife, the Kingdom of Benin
The Kingdom of Benin, also known as the Edo Kingdom, or the Benin Empire ( Bini: ') was a kingdom within what is now southern Nigeria. It has no historical relation to the modern republic of Benin, which was known as Dahomey from the 17th ce ...
, Igbo Ukwu, Djenné-Djenno
Djenné-Djenno (also Jenne-Jeno; ) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the Niger River Valley in the country of Mali. Literally translated to "ancient Djenné", it is the original site of both Djenné and Mali and is considered to be among ...
, Ghana Empire
The Ghana Empire, also known as Wagadou ( ar, غانا) or Awkar, was a West African empire based in the modern-day southeast of Mauritania and western Mali that existed from c. 300 until 1100. The Empire was founded by the Soninke people, an ...
, Bono State
Bono State (or Bonoman) was a trading state created by the Bono people, located in what is now southern Ghana. Bonoman was a medieval Akan kingdom in what is now Bono, Bono East and Ahafo region respectively named after the (Bono and Ahafo) an ...
and the Ashanti Empire
The Asante Empire (Asante Twi: ), today commonly called the Ashanti Empire, was an Akan state that lasted between 1701 to 1901, in what is now modern-day Ghana. It expanded from the Ashanti Region to include most of Ghana as well as parts of Iv ...
. Bantu peoples in southern Africa built the impressive site of Great Zimbabwe between the 10th and 15th centuries CE. The north of the continent had close cultural and economic ties with the Classical and medieval Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...
. Cattle herding became important in the Horn of Africa and huge earthwork enclosures were built to corral the animals. The people of Christian Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
produced impressive rock-cut monolithic churches such as that of St George at Lalibela
Lalibela ( am, ላሊበላ) is a town in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. Located in the Lasta district and North Wollo Zone, it is a tourist site for its famous rock-cut monolithic churches. The whole of Lalibela is a large and important si ...
during the 13th century and the first Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
forts appeared soon after this, penetrating as far south as Zambia
Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are t ...
.
See also
* African Archaeological Review
The ''African Archaeological Review'' is a peer-reviewed journal focusing on current African archaeology
Africa has the longest record of human habitation in the world. The first hominins emerged 6-7 million years ago, and among the earliest ana ...
* Prehistoric North Africa
The prehistory of North Africa spans the period of earliest human presence in the region to gradual onset of historicity in the Maghreb (Berber:Tamazgha) during classical antiquity. Early anatomically modern humans are known to have been presen ...
* Archaeology of Banda District (Ghana)
* Egyptology
Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , ''-logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious p ...
* Nubiology
References
External links
African Archaeology
– African Archaeology : a web directory on Africa.
Journal of African Archaeology
African Archaeological Review
–Excavations at Karkarichinkat Nord and Sud
{{Africa topic, Archaeology of
Archaeology
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...