Early African Cultures

The pre-history of Africa contains a far longer period of human habitation than any other area on Earth, thanks to it being the cradle of humankind's evolution (see feature link for more). Much of this pre-history involves a great deal of uncertainty in which small windows of opportunity to view events can be gained through archaeology.

Masses of material are found each year by archaeologists, and a system was long ago needed to help organise all these findings (especially those which flourished after around 60,000-40,000 BC, when humans in Africa began exhibiting a noticeable progression towards eventual civilisation). The earliest cultures saw basic stone tools used across Africa, the Near East, Europe, Asia (including early China, Japan, and Siberia), before subtle changes began to appear.

The system which has evolved to catalogue the various archaeological expressions of human progress is one which involves cultures. For well over a century, archaeological cultures have remained the framework for global prehistory. The earliest cultures which emerge from Africa are perhaps the easiest to catalogue, right up until human expansion reaches the Americas.

The task of cataloguing that vast range of human cultures is covered in the related feature (see link, right). Archaeological cultures remain the framework for global prehistory.

As with the model used for Europe, archaeological classification for North Africa is generally divided into the various stages of Stone Age: Palaeolithic (lower, middle, and upper, with the last being the most recent), Mesolithic, and Neolithic, and then Bronze Age and Iron Age.

Sub-Saharan Africa is classified slightly differently as technological progression here was not driven by ice age retreat and recovery but by the increase and decrease in aridisation in the Sahara and elsewhere. Comparatively little study in sub-Saharan Africa has additionally yet to produce the detailed view of progression which Europe already has, making classification here somewhat more tentative and uncertain.

The sub-Saharan Palaeolithic is generally divided into early, middle, and later stone ages. After these three come what is known as the 'Pastoral Neolithic' (due to the fact that farming took far longer to progress southwards through Africa than it did in Europe or the Near East, and pastoralism was initially far more important - and easy to measure through archaeology).

Then comes the African Iron Age and then the historical periods. A specific Bronze Age is generally not applied as, for the most part, the jump was direct from Neolithic to Iron Age (with regional variations, naturally).

Researchers in 2014 published the biggest-ever comparative study of stone tools, with those tools being dated between 130,000 BC and 75,000 BC and with them having been found in the region between sub-Saharan Africa and Eurasia. It was discovered that there are marked differences in the way in which these stone tools were made, something which reflects a diversity of cultural traditions.

The study also identified at least four distinct populations, each relatively isolated from the others with their own different cultural characteristics. The research also suggested that early populations quite naturally took advantage of rivers and lakes which criss-crossed the Saharan desert.

A climate model which was coupled with data about these ancient water courses was matched with the new findings to reveal the fact that populations which were connected by rivers bore similarities in their cultures. The picture of Africa around 100,000 BC shows that there were a number of populations, varying in size and degree of genetic contact, which were distributed over a wide geographical area.

This population model supports other recent theories which together confirm the idea of anatomically modern humans first successfully leaving Africa earlier than the usual window around 70,000-60,000 BC, albeit in small groups which may or may not have been successful.

African Kingdoms

Early Cultures

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