Early African Cultures - Pastoral Neolithic

Much of Africa's pre-history involves a great deal of uncertainty in which small windows of opportunity to view events can be gained through archaeology. The various stages of the African Palaeolithic are covered (and see feature link for more on human origins), although the archaeological system being used for Africa differs from the standard European model when proceeding south of the Sahara.

The task of cataloguing human cultures is covered in the related feature (see link, right). Archaeological cultures remain the framework for global prehistory, although the record for Africa is surprisingly sparse and has been poorly studied until very recently.

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), and then Mesolithic and Neolithic, followed by 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 sub-divided into early, middle, and later. 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).

Unlike the case in the Near East, pottery did not follow the development of early farming practises. Only in Nubia and Upper Egypt had grindstones been used since about 12,000 BC, probably to produce flour from the seeds of wild grasses. For Africa outside this region pottery came first, arriving by about 7000 BC just as it was being developed in the Near East's Pre-Pottery Neolithic B. In Africa's case it probably originated in the central Sahara region during a period in which rainfall there was slightly higher than it is today.

The appearance of microliths around 8500 BC marks the first post-glacial colonisation of the Sahara. Sites here were probably temporary forager encampments for groups which were spreading into the desert from the Mediterranean coast and from the newly-formed savannah to the Sahara's south.

They were able to specialise (for the greater part) in fishing from Saharan lakes and rivers which flourished in this period. The later Garamantes people of south-western Libya are likely to be a direct continuation of this initial Saharan occupation, although by their time the surviving rivers were underground.

Within a short time after about 8500 BC a series of more permanent settlements became established around the lakes and rivers of the central Saharan massifs and in a wide band along its southern fringe, from the River Niger to the Kenyan rift valley. The people here remained foragers, as Neolithic pastoralism was later in arriving.

The development of pottery saw it being decorated with a distinctive 'wavy line' pattern which was formed by dragging a catfish spine across the surface of the wet clay. Its use reflects the more permanent nature of settlements in this period. It was probably first produced in the central Sahara, but it soon spread westwards to the Niger and eastwards to the Nile and rift valley.

The distribution of 'wavy line' pottery is closely matched by today's spread of the Nilo-Saharan language group, suggesting that Nilo-Saharan-speakers are the linguistic descendants of the fishing peoples of the early post-glacial period.

The first definite evidence of plant cultivation dates to about 6000 BC (and perhaps a little earlier) when wheat and barley were introduced into north-eastern Africa from the Near East. Cultivation soon spread down the Nile valley to Sudan and Ethiopia, and with it spread the use of the plough.

However, cereals were dependent upon winter rainfall and were therefore unable to penetrate the tropics where most of the rain falls in the summer. Other cereals such as millets, rice, and sorghum were native to the grasslands of the Sahara and were independently domesticated in the desert and along its fringes.

By 4000 BC finger millet was being grown alongside sorghum in Sudan. The cultivation of African rice may have begun at about the same time. Elsewhere, especially in the tropical forests to the south, different ranges of plant species were brought into cultivation, usually consisting of tubers and tree crops. Almost all of these indigenous African cultivated plants, cereals, tubers, and tree crops were first domesticated in the band of territory between the Sahara and the equator.

As the Sahara began to desiccate once more, between about 4000-2000 BC, conditions became ever drier and communities which had lived along the Sahara's rivers and its fringes were forced to cultivate grasses and cereals to improve the security of their food supply (see feature link for more on Saharan desiccation).

The same people were also gradually forced move outwards from the Sahara as it became more inhospitable. As a result, the population density around the periphery of the Sahara increased, perhaps leading to the wider adoption of agriculture, most notably in the Nile region as ancient Egypt developed an increasingly advance social system which soon lead to the appearance of the first pharaohs.

To the south of the equator the penetration of farming practises was minimal. Hunting and gathering continued to form the basis of subsistence long after farming and pastoralism had been established further north.

African Kingdoms

Early Cultures

Images and text copyright © all contributors mentioned on this page. An original king list page for the History Files.