Theprehistory of Africa spans from the earliest human presence inAfrica until theancient period in thehistory of Africa.

The first knownhominids evolved in Africa. According topaleontology, the early hominids' skull anatomy was similar to that of thegorilla and thechimpanzee,great apes that also evolved in Africa, but the hominids had adopted abipedal locomotion which freed their hands. This gave them a crucial advantage, enabling them to live in both forested areas and on the opensavanna at a time when Africa was drying up and the savanna was encroaching on forested areas.

By 4 million years ago, severalaustralopithecine hominid species had developed throughoutSouthern,Eastern andCentral Africa. They were tool users, and makers of tools. They scavenged for meat and were omnivores.^[1]

By approximately 3.3 million years ago, primitive stone tools were first used to scavenge kills made by other predators and to harvest carrion and marrow from their bones. In hunting,Homo habilis was probably not capable of competing with large predators and was still more prey than hunter.H. habilis probably did steal eggs from nests and may have been able to catch smallgame and weakened larger prey (cubs and older animals). The tools were classed asOldowan.^[2]

Around 1.8 million years ago,Homo ergaster first appeared in the fossil record in Africa. FromHomo ergaster,Homo erectus evolved 1.5 million years ago. Some of the earlier representatives of this species were still fairly small-brained and used primitive stone tools, much likeH. habilis. The brain later grew in size, andH. erectus eventually developed a more complex stone tool technology called theAcheulean. Possibly the first hunters,H. erectus mastered the art of making fire and was the first hominid to leave Africa, colonizing most ofAfro-Eurasia and perhaps later giving rise toHomo floresiensis. Although some recent writers have suggested thatHomo georgicus was the first and primary hominid ever to live outside Africa, many scientists considerH. georgicus to be an early and primitive member of theH. erectus species.^[3]

The fossil record showsHomo sapiens (also known as "modern humans" or "anatomically modern humans") living in Africa by about 350,000-260,000 years ago. The earliest knownHomo sapiens fossils include theJebel Irhoud remains from Morocco (c. 315,000 years ago),[4] theFlorisbad Skull from South Africa (c. 259,000 years ago), and theOmo remains from Ethiopia (c. 233,000 years ago).[5]^[6][7][8][9] Scientists have suggested thatHomo sapiens may have arisen between 350,000 and 260,000 years ago through a merging of populations inEast Africa andSouth Africa.^[10][11]

Evidence of a variety of behaviors indicative ofBehavioral modernity date to the AfricanMiddle Stone Age, associated with earlyHomo sapiens and their emergence. Abstract imagery, widened subsistence strategies, and other "modern" behaviors have been discovered from that period in Africa, especially South, North, and East Africa. TheBlombos Cave site in South Africa, for example, is famous for rectangular slabs ofochre engraved withgeometric designs. Using multiple dating techniques, the site was confirmed to be around 77,000 and 100–75,000 years old.^[12][13] Ostrich egg shell containers engraved with geometric designs dating to 60,000 years ago were found atDiepkloof, South Africa.^[14] 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,^[15] and shell beads dating to about 75,000 years ago have been found at Blombos Cave, South Africa.^[16][17][18]

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 asSibudu Cave (along with an early bone needle also found at Sibudu) dating approximately 60,000-70,000 years ago,^{[19][20][21][22][23]} and bone harpoons at the Central African site of Katanda dating to about 90,000 years ago.^[24] 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 ofPinnacle Point and becoming common there for the creation of microlithic tools at about 72,000 years ago.^[25][26] Early stone-tipped projectile weapons (a characteristic tool ofHomo sapiens), the stone tips of javelins or throwing spears, were discovered in 2013 at the Ethiopian site ofGademotta, and date to around 279,000 years ago.^[27]

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.^[28][29][30]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.^[31]

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, in particular, shows exploitation of marine resources as early as 120,000 years ago, perhaps in response to more arid conditions inland.^[32] 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.^[15] Humans in North Africa (Nazlet Sabaha,^[33]Egypt) are known to have dabbled inchertmining, as early as ≈100,000 years ago, for the construction ofstone tools.^[34][35]

Evidence was found in 2018, dating to about 320,000 years ago, at the Kenyan site ofOlorgesailie, 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 knownHomo sapiens fossil remains from Africa (such as at Jebel Irhoud and Florisbad), and they suggest that complex and modern behaviors began in Africa around the time of the emergence ofHomo sapiens.^[36][37][38] In 2019, further evidence of early complex projectile weapons in Africa was found at Adouma, Ethiopia dated 80,000-100,000 years ago, in the form of points considered likely to belong to darts delivered by spear throwers.^[39]

Around 65–50,000 years ago, the species' expansionout of Africa launched the colonization of the planet by modern human beings.^{[40][41][42][43]} By 10,000 BC,Homo sapiens had spread to most corners ofAfro-Eurasia. Their dispersals are traced by linguistic, cultural andgenetic evidence.^[2][44][45] Eurasian back-migrations, specificallyWest-Eurasian backflow, started in the earlyHolocene or already earlier in thePaleolithic period, sometimes between 30-15,000 years ago, followed by pre-Neolithic andNeolithic migration waves from theMiddle East, mostly affecting Northern Africa, the Horn of Africa, and wider regions of the Sahel zone and East Africa.^[46]

Affad 23 is anarchaeological site located in theAffad region of southern Dongola Reach in northernSudan,^[47] which hosts "the well-preserved remains of prehistoric camps (relics of the oldestopen-airhut in the world) and diversehunting andgathering loci some 50,000 years old".^[48][49][50]

The earliest physical evidence ofastronomical activity may be alunar calendar found on theIshango bone dated to between 23,000 and 18,000 BC from in what is now theDemocratic Republic of the Congo.^[51] However, this interpretation of the object's purpose is disputed.^[52]

Scholars have argued that warfare was absent throughout much of humanity's prehistoric past, and that it emerged from more complex political systems as a result ofsedentism, agriculturalfarming, etc.^[53] However, the findings at the site ofNataruk inTurkana County,Kenya, where the remains of 27 individuals who died as the result of an intentional attack by another group 10,000 years ago, suggest that inter-human conflict has a much longer history.^[54]

Around 16,000 BC, from theRed Sea Hills to the northernEthiopian Highlands, nuts, grasses and tubers were being collected for food. By 13,000 to 11,000 BC, people began collecting wild grains. This spread toWestern Asia, which domesticated its wild grains,wheat andbarley. Between 10,000 and 8000 BC,Northeast Africa was cultivating wheat and barley and raising sheep and cattle from Southwest Asia. A wet climatic phase in Africa turned the Ethiopian Highlands into a mountain forest.Omotic speakers domesticatedenset around 6500–5500 BC. Around 7000 BC, the settlers of the Ethiopian highlands domesticateddonkeys, and by 4000 BC domesticated donkeys had spread to Southwest Asia.Cushitic speakers, partially turning away from cattle herding, domesticatedteff andfinger millet between 5500 and 3500 BC.^[55]

During the 11th millenniumBP, pottery was independently invented in Africa, with the earliest pottery there dating to about 9,400 BC from central Mali.^[56] It soon spread throughout the southernSahara andSahel.^[57] In thesteppes andsavannahs of theSahara andSahel in Northern West Africa, theNilo-Saharan speakers andMandé peoples started to collect and domesticate wild millet,African rice andsorghum between 8000 and 6000 BC. Later,gourds,watermelons,castor beans, andcotton were also collected and domesticated. The people started capturing wild cattle and holding them in circular thorn hedges, resulting indomestication.^[58] They also started makingpottery and built stone settlements (e.g.,Tichitt,Oualata).Fishing, using bone-tippedharpoons, became a major activity in the numerous streams and lakes formed from the increased rains.^[59] Mande peoples have been credited with the independent development of agriculture about 4000–3000 BC.^[60]

In West Africa, the wet phase ushered in an expandingrainforest and wooded savanna fromSenegal toCameroon. Between 9000 and 5000 BC,Niger–Congo speakers domesticated theoil palm andraffia palm. Two seed plants,black-eyed peas andvoandzeia (African groundnuts), were domesticated, followed byokra andkola nuts. Since most of the plants grew in the forest, the Niger–Congo speakers invented polished stone axes for clearing forest.^[61]

Most ofSouthern Africa was occupied bypygmy peoples andKhoisan who engaged in hunting and gathering. Some of the oldestrock art was produced by them.^[62]

For several hundred thousand years theSahara has alternated between desert and savanna grassland in a 41,000 year cycle caused by changes ("precession") in the Earth's axis as it rotates around the Sun which change the location of theNorth African Monsoon.^[63] When the North African monsoon is at its strongest annual precipitation and subsequent vegetation in the Sahara region increase, resulting in conditions commonly referred to as the "green Sahara". For a relatively weak North African monsoon, the opposite is true, with decreased annual precipitation and less vegetation resulting in a phase of the Sahara climate cycle known as the "desert Sahara". The Sahara has been a desert for several thousand years, and is expected to become green again in about 15,000 years time (17,000 AD).^[64]

Just prior toSaharandesertification, the communities that developed south of Egypt, in what is nowSudan, were full participants in theNeolithic Revolution and lived a settled to semi-nomadic lifestyle, with domesticated plants and animals.^[65] It has been suggested thatmegaliths found atNabta Playa are examples of the world's first knownarchaeoastronomical devices, predatingStonehenge by some 1,000 years.^[66] The sociocultural complexity observed at Nabta Playa and expressed by different levels of authority within the society there has been suggested as forming the basis for the structure of both the Neolithic society at Nabta and theOld Kingdom of Egypt.^[67] By 5000 BC, Africa entered a dry phase, and the climate of the Sahara region gradually became drier. The population trekked out of the Sahara region in all directions, including towards theNile Valley below theSecond Cataract, where they made permanent or semipermanent settlements. A major climatic recession occurred, lessening the heavy and persistent rains in Central and Eastern Africa.

Evidence of the early smelting of metals – lead,copper, andbronze – dates from the fourth millennium BC.^[68]

Egyptians smelted copper during thepredynastic period, and bronze came into use after 3,000 BC at the latest^[69] in Egypt andNubia. Nubia became a major source of copper as well as ofgold.^[70] The use of gold andsilver in Egypt dates back to the predynastic period.^[71][72]

In theAïr Mountains of present-dayNiger people smelted copper independently of developments in the Nile valley between 3,000 and 2,500 BC. They used a process unique to the region, suggesting that the technology was not brought in from outside; it became more mature by about 1,500 BC.^[72]

By the 1st millennium BCiron working had reachedNorthwestern Africa, Egypt, and Nubia.^[73] Zangato and Holl document evidence of iron-smelting in theCentral African Republic andCameroon that may date back to 3,000 to 2,500 BC.^[74]Assyrians using iron weapons pushed Nubians out of Egypt in 670 BC, after which the use of iron became widespread in the Nile valley.^[75]

The theory thatiron spread toSub-Saharan Africa via the Nubian city ofMeroe^[76] is no longer widely accepted, and some researchers^[which?] believe that sub-Saharan Africans invented iron metallurgy independently.Metalworking in West Africa has been dated as early as 2,500 BC at Egaro west of theTermit in Niger, and iron working was practiced there by 1,500 BC.^[77] Iron smelting has been dated to 2,000 BC in southeastNigeria.^[78]Central Africa provides possible evidence of iron working as early as the 3rd millennium BC.^[79] Iron smelting developed in the area betweenLake Chad and theAfrican Great Lakes between 1,000 and 600 BC, and in West Africa around 2,000 BC, long before the technology reached Egypt. Before 500 BC, theNok culture in theJos Plateau was already smelting iron.^{[80][81][82][83][need quotation to verify][84][85]} Archaeological sites containing iron-smelting furnaces and slag have been excavated at sites in theNsukka region of southeast Nigeria inIgboland: dating to 2,000 BC at the site ofLejja (Eze-Uzomaka 2009)^[78][86] and to 750 BC and at the site ofOpi (Holl 2009).^[86] The site of Gbabiri (in the Central African Republic) has also yielded evidence of iron metallurgy, from a reduction furnace and blacksmith workshop; with earliest dates of 896–773 BC and 907–796 BC respectively.^[85]

• History of Africa
• Prehistoric Africa
• Stone Age Africa

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