Archaic humans emerged out of Africa between 0.5 and 1.8 million years ago. This was followed by the emergence of modern humans (Homo sapiens) in East Africa around 300,000–250,000 years ago who spread across the world. The oral word is revered in most African cultures, and history has predominantly been passed down through oral tradition. In the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE Ancient Egypt and Kerma arose in the northeast, while the Tichitt Tradition flourished in West Africa. Between around 3000 BCE and 500 CE, the Bantu expansion swept from north-western Central Africa (modern day Cameroon) across much of Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa, displacing or absorbing groups such as the Khoisan and Pygmies.
Some societies were heterarchical and egalitarian, while others organised into chiefdoms. At its peak it is estimated that Africa had around 10,000 polities, with most following traditional religions. The continent has seen the rise and fall of many states, and there have long been extensive trading networks between its regions. Some African empires and kingdoms include:
Kush, Carthage, Numidia, Masuna, Makuria, the Fatimids, Almoravids, Almohads, Ayyubids, Mamluks, Marinids, Zianids and Hafsids in North Africa; Wagadu, Mali, Songhai, Jolof, Ife, Oyo, Benin, Bonoman, Nri, Ségou, Asante, Fante, Massina, Sokoto, Tukulor, and Wassoulou in West Africa; , Aksum, Ethiopia, Damot, Ifat, Adal, Ajuran, Funj, Kitara, Kilwa, Sakalava, Imerina, Rombo, Bunyoro, Buganda, and Rwanda in East Africa; Kanem-Bornu, Kongo, Anziku, Loango, Ndongo, Mwene Muji, Kotoko, Wadai, Mbunda, Luba, Lunda, Kuba, and Utetera in Central Africa; and Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe, Mutapa, Butua, Rozvi, Maravi, Oukwanyama, Lozi, Lobedu, Mthwakazi, and amaZulu in Southern Africa. From the 7th century CE, Islam spread west amid the Arab conquest of North Africa, and by proselytization to the Horn of Africa, bringing with it a new social system. It later spread southwards to the Swahili coast assisted by Muslim dominance of the Indian Ocean trade, and across the Sahara into the western Sahel and Sudan, catalysed by the Fula jihads of the 18th and 19th centuries. When the trans-Saharan, Red Sea, Indian Ocean and Atlantic long-distance slave trades began, local slave systems started supplying captives for markets outside Africa. This reorientated many African economies, and created various diasporas, especially in the Americas.
Between 1870 and 1914, driven by the Second Industrial Revolution European colonisation of Africa grew rapidly in the "Scramble for Africa", and saw the major European powers partition the continent at the 1884 Berlin Conference, resulting in territory under European imperial control increasing from one-tenth of the continent to over nine-tenths. European colonialism had significant impacts on Africa's societies, and colonies were maintained for the purpose of economic exploitation of human and natural resources. Though Christianity has had a long history in Africa, widespread conversions occurred under European rule in southern West Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa due to successful missions, and the syncretization of Christianity with local beliefs.
The rise of nationalism gave birth to independence movements in many parts of the continent, and with a weakened Europe after the Second World War, a wave of decolonisation took place, culminating in the 1960 Year of Africa and the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963 (the predecessor to the African Union), with countries deciding to keep their colonial borders. Traditional power structures, which had been incorporated into the colonial administration, remained partly in place in many parts of Africa, and their roles, powers, and influence vary greatly. Many countries have experienced the rise and fall of nationalism, and continue to face challenges such as internal conflict, neocolonialism, and climate change.
History in Africa The oral word is revered in most African cultures, and history has predominantly been passed down through oral tradition. In accordance with African cosmology, African historical consciousness viewed historical change and continuity, order and purpose within the framework of a person and their environment, the gods, and their ancestors, who believed themselves to be part of a holistic spiritual entity. In African societies, the historical process is largely a communal one, with eyewitness accounts, hearsay, reminiscences, and occasionally visions, dreams, and hallucinations crafted into narrative oral traditions which are performed and transmitted through generations. In oral traditions time is sometimes mythical and social, and ancestors were considered historical actors. Mind and memory shapes traditions, as events are condensed over time and crystallise into clichés. Jan Vansina said that interpretation requires a proficient (or better yet native) understanding of the language and culture. Oral tradition can be exoteric or esoteric. Philosopher Anselm Jimoh wrote that in African epistemology, the epistemic subject "experiences the epistemic object in a sensuous, emotive, intuitive, abstractive understanding, rather than through abstraction alone, as is the case in Western epistemology" to arrive at a "complete knowledge", and as such oral traditions, music, proverbs, and the like were used in the preservation and transmission of knowledge.
Prehistory
Africa is considered by most paleoanthropologists to be the oldest inhabited territory on Earth, with the Human species originating from the continent. During the mid-20th century, anthropologists discovered many fossils and evidence of human occupation perhaps as early as seven million years ago ("Before Present"; BP). Fossil remains of several species of early apelike humans thought to have evolved into modern humans, such as Australopithecus afarensis radiometrically dated to approximately 3.9–3.0 million years BP,Kimbel, William H. and Yoel Rak and Donald C. Johanson. (2004) The Skull of Australopithecus Afarensis, Oxford University Press US. . Paranthropus boisei (c. 2.3–1.4 million years BP)Tudge, Colin. (2002) The Variety of Life., Oxford University Press. and Homo ergaster (c. 1.9 million–600,000 years BP) have been discovered.Sayre, April Pulley (1999), Africa, Twenty-First Century Books. .
After the evolution of Homo sapiens approximately 350,000 to 260,000 years BP in Africa, the continent was mainly populated by groups of hunter-gatherers.Mokhtar, G. (1990) UNESCO General History of Africa, Vol. II, Abridged Edition: Ancient Africa, University of California Press. .Eyma, A. K. and C. J. Bennett. (2003) Delts-Man in Yebu: Occasional Volume of the Egyptologists' Electronic Forum No. 1, Universal Publishers. p. 210. . These first modern humans left Africa and populated the rest of the globe during the Out of Africa II migration dated to approximately 50,000 years BP, exiting the continent either across Bab-el-Mandeb over the Red Sea,Wells, Spencer (December 2002) The Journey of Man, . National Geographic.Oppenheimer, Stephen. The Gates of Grief, . bradshawfoundation.com. the Strait of Gibraltar in Morocco, or the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt.
Other migrations of modern humans within the African continent have been dated to that time, with evidence of early human settlement found in Southern Africa, Southeast Africa, North Africa, and the Sahara. At the end of the Ice ages, estimated to have been around 10,500BCE, the Sahara had again become a green fertile valley, and its African populations returned from the interior and coastal highlands in Africa, with rock art paintings depicting a fertile Sahara and large populations discovered in Tassili n'Ajjer dating back perhaps 10 millennia. However, the warming and drying climate meant that by 5000BCE, the Sahara region was becoming increasingly dry and hostile. Around 3500BCE, due to a tilt in the Earth's orbit, the Sahara experienced a period of rapid desertification."Sahara's Abrupt Desertification Started by Changes in Earth's Orbit, Accelerated by Atmospheric and Vegetation Feedbacks", , Science Daily. The domestication of cattle in Africa preceded agriculture and seems to have existed alongside hunter-gatherer cultures. It is speculated that by 6000BCE, cattle were domesticated in North Africa.Diamond, Jared. (1999) Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: Norton, p. 167. .
In West Africa, a wet phase ushered in an expanding rainforest and wooded savanna from Senegal to Cameroon. Between 9000 and 5000BCE, Niger–Congo speakers domesticated the oil palm and raffia palm. Black-eyed peas and voandzeia (African groundnuts), were domesticated, followed by okra and kola nuts. Since most of the plants grew in the forest, the Niger–Congo speakers invented polished stone axes for clearing forest. Pygmies have inhabited Central Africa for many millennia, likely splitting into eastern and western groups around 5000BP. Over 150,000 BP, there was an early dispersal of anatomically modern humans to Eastern and Southern Africa, equated with the modern-day Khoekhoe and San, the latter of whom have preserved their traditional hunter-gatherer way of life.
c. 4000BCE – c. 600CE
Northeast Africa
During the 4th millennium BCE, settled agro-pastoralist populations along the Nile transitioned to ranked societies, legitimised by local belief systems. From around 3500BCE, nomes (ruled by nomarchs) competed and expanded, with one centred in Abydos coming to rule Upper Egypt. Around 3100BCE Upper Egypt conquered Lower Egypt to unify the region under the 1st dynasty, with the process of consolidation and assimilation completed by the time of the 3rd dynasty who formed the Old Kingdom of Egypt in 2686BCE. The Kingdom of Kerma emerged around this time to become the dominant force in Nubia, controlling territory as large as Egypt between the 1st and 4th cataracts of the Nile. She states, "To date, Kerma-culture has been found from the region of the First Cataract to upstream of the Fourth Cataract." The height of the Old Kingdom saw the construction of many great pyramids, though under the 6th dynasty power gradually decentralised to the nomarchs, culminating in the disintegration of the kingdom, exacerbated by drought and famine. Around 2055BCE, the 11th dynasty, based in Thebes, conquered the others to form the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, and the 12th dynasty expanded into Lower Nubia at the expense of Kerma. Around 1700BCE, the Middle Kingdom fractured in two, and the Hyksos (a militaristic people from Palestine) invaded and conquered Lower Egypt, while Kerma coordinated invasions deep into Egypt to reach its greatest extent. In 1550BCE, the 18th dynasty expelled the Hyksos, and established the New Kingdom of Egypt. The New Kingdom conquered the Levant from the Canaanites, Mittani, Amorites, and Hittites, and extinguished Kerma, incorporating Nubia into the empire and sending the Egyptian empire into its golden age. Internal struggles, drought, famine, and invasions by a confederation of seafaring peoples contributed to the New Kingdom's collapse in 1069BCE.