History of Africa

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. In the 4th millennium BC written history arose in Ancient Egypt, and later in Nubia's Kush, the Horn of Africa's Dʿmt, and Ifrikiya's Carthage. 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. The oral word is revered in most African societies, and history has generally been recorded via oral tradition. This has led anthropologists to term them "oral civilisations", contrasted with "literate civilisations" which pride the written word. Traditions were crafted utilising various sources from the community, performed, and passed down through generations.
Many kingdoms and empires came and went in all regions of the continent. Most states were created through conquest or the borrowing and assimilation of ideas and institutions, while some developed through internal, largely isolated development. Some African empires and kingdoms include:
Some societies were heterarchical and egalitarian, while others remained organised into chiefdoms. The continent has between 1250 and 2100 languages, and at its peak it is estimated that Africa had around 10,000 polities, with most following traditional religions.
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. Systems of servitude and slavery were historically widespread and commonplace in parts of Africa, as they were in much of the ancient and medieval world. When the trans-Saharan, Red Sea, Indian Ocean and Atlantic slave trades began, local slave systems started supplying captives for slave markets outside Africa. This reorientated many African economies, and created various diasporas, especially in the Americas.
From 1870 to 1914, driven by the great force and hunger of the Second Industrial Revolution, European colonisation of Africa developed rapidly, as the major European powers partitioned the continent in the 1884 Berlin Conference, from one-tenth of the continent being under European imperial control to over nine-tenths in the Scramble for Africa. European colonialism had significant impacts on Africa's societies, and colonies were maintained for the purpose of economic exploitation of human and natural resources. Colonial histories were written under the pretence of white supremacism, with Africans considered racially inferior and their viewpoint ignored. Oral sources were deprecated and dismissed by most historians, who claimed that Africa had no history. Pre-colonial Christian states include Ethiopia, Makuria, and Kongo. Widespread conversion to Christianity occurred under European rule in southern West Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa due to efficacious missions, as people syncretised Christianity with their local beliefs.
The rise of nationalism facilitated struggles for independence in many parts of the continent, and, with a weakened Europe after the Second World War, waves of decolonisation took place. This culminated 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 regimes, remained partly in place in many parts of Africa, and their roles, powers, and influence vary greatly. Political decolonisation was mirrored by a movement to decolonise African historiography by incorporating oral sources into a multidisciplinary approach, culminating in UNESCO publishing the General History of Africa from 1981. Many countries have undergone the triumph and defeat of nationalistic fervour, and continue to face challenges such as internal conflict, neocolonialism, and climate change.
In accordance with African cosmology, African historical consciousness viewed historical change and continuity, order and purpose within the framework of human and their environment, the gods, and their ancestors, and they believed themself 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 were 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. Oral tradition can be exoteric or esoteric. It speaks to people according to their understanding, unveiling itself in accordance with their aptitudes. 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.
The first known hominids evolved in Africa. According to paleontology, the early hominids' skull anatomy was similar to that of the gorilla and the chimpanzee, great apes that also evolved in Africa, but the hominids had adopted a bipedal locomotion which freed their hands. This gave them a crucial advantage, enabling them to live in both forested areas and on the open savanna at a time when Africa was drying up and the savanna was encroaching on forested areas. This would have occurred 10 to 5 million years ago, but these claims are controversial because biologists and genetics have humans appearing around the last 70 thousand to 200 thousand years.
The fossil record shows Homo sapiens (also known as "modern humans" or "anatomically modern humans") living in Africa by about 350,000–260,000 years ago. The earliest known Homo sapiens fossils include the Jebel Irhoud remains from Morocco (c. 315,000 years ago), the Florisbad Skull from South Africa (c. 259,000 years ago), and the Omo remains from Ethiopia (c. 233,000 years ago). Scientists have suggested that Homo sapiens may have arisen between 350,000 and 260,000 years ago through a merging of populations in East Africa and South Africa.
Evidence of a variety of behaviors indicative of Behavioral modernity date to the African Middle Stone Age, associated with early Homo 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.
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, 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, and shell beads dating to about 75,000 years ago have been found at Blombos Cave, South Africa.
Around 65–50,000 years ago, the species' expansion out of Africa launched the colonization of the planet by modern human beings. By 10,000 BC, Homo sapiens had spread to most corners of Afro-Eurasia. Their dispersals are traced by linguistic, cultural and genetic evidence. Eurasian back-migrations, specifically West-Eurasian backflow, started in the early Holocene or already earlier in the Paleolithic period, sometimes between 30 and 15,000 years ago, followed by pre-Neolithic and Neolithic migration waves from the Middle East, mostly affecting Northern Africa, the Horn of Africa, and wider regions of the Sahel zone and East Africa.
Affad 23 is an archaeological site located in the Affad region of southern Dongola Reach in northern Sudan, which hosts "the well-preserved remains of prehistoric camps (relics of the oldest open-air hut in the world) and diverse hunting and gathering loci some 50,000 years old".
Around 16,000 BC, from the Red Sea Hills to the northern Ethiopian Highlands, nuts, grasses and tubers were being collected for food. By 13,000 to 11,000 BC, people began collecting wild grains. This spread to Western Asia, which domesticated its wild grains, wheat and barley. Between 10,000 and 8,000 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 domesticated enset around 6,500–5,500 BC. Around 7,000 BC, the settlers of the Ethiopian highlands domesticated donkeys, and by 4,000 BC domesticated donkeys had spread to Southwest Asia. Cushitic speakers, partially turning away from cattle herding, domesticated teff and finger millet between 5,500 and 3,500 BC.
During the 11th millennium BP, pottery was independently invented in Africa, with the earliest pottery there dating to about 9,400 BC from central Mali. It soon spread throughout the southern Sahara and Sahel. In the steppes and savannahs of the Sahara and Sahel in Northern West Africa, the Nilo-Saharan speakers and Mandé peoples started to collect and domesticate wild millet, African rice and sorghum between 8,000 and 6,000 BC. Later, gourds, watermelons, castor beans, and cotton were also collected and domesticated. The people started capturing wild cattle and holding them in circular thorn hedges, resulting in domestication.
They also started making pottery and built stone settlements (e.g., Tichitt, Oualata). Fishing, using bone-tipped harpoons, became a major activity in the numerous streams and lakes formed from the increased rains. Mande peoples have been credited with the independent development of agriculture about 4,000–3,000 BC.
Evidence of the early smelting of metals – lead, copper, and bronze – dates from the fourth millennium BC.
Egyptians smelted copper during the predynastic period, and bronze came into use after 3,000 BC at the latest in Egypt and Nubia. Nubia became a major source of copper as well as of gold. The use of gold and silver in Egypt dates back to the predynastic period.
In the Aïr Mountains of present-day Niger 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.
By the 1st millennium BC iron working had reached Northwestern Africa, Egypt, and Nubia. Zangato and Holl document evidence of iron-smelting in the Central African Republic and Cameroon that may date back to 3,000 to 2,500 BC. Assyrians using iron weapons pushed Nubians out of Egypt in 670 BC, after which the use of iron became widespread in the Nile valley.
The theory that iron spread to Sub-Saharan Africa via the Nubian city of Meroe is no longer widely accepted, and some researchers 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 the Termit in Niger, and iron working was practiced there by 1,500 BC. Iron smelting has been dated to 2,000 BC in southeast Nigeria. Central Africa provides possible evidence of iron working as early as the 3rd millennium BC. Iron smelting developed in the area between Lake Chad and the African 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, the Nok culture in the Jos Plateau was already smelting iron. Archaeological sites containing iron-smelting furnaces and slag have been excavated at sites in the Nsukka region of southeast Nigeria in Igboland: dating to 2,000 BC at the site of Lejja (Eze-Uzomaka 2009) and to 750 BC and at the site of Opi (Holl 2009). 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.
From around 3,500 BCE, a coalition of Horus-worshipping nomes in the western Nile Delta conquered the Andjety-worshipping nomes of the east to form Lower Egypt, whilst Set-worshipping nomes in the south coalesced to form Upper Egypt. Egypt was first united when Narmer of Upper Egypt conquered Lower Egypt, giving rise to the 1st and 2nd dynasties of Egypt whose efforts presumably consisted of conquest and consolidation, with unification completed by the 3rd dynasty to form the Old Kingdom of Egypt in 2,686 BCE. The Kingdom of Kerma emerged around this time to become the dominant force in Nubia, controlling an area as large as Egypt between the 1st and 4th cataracts of the Nile, with Egyptian records speaking of its rich and populous agricultural regions.
The height of the Old Kingdom came under the 4th dynasty who constructed numerous great pyramids, however under the 6th dynasty of Egypt power began to decentralise to the nomarchs, culminating in anarchy exacerbated by drought and famine in 2,200 BCE, and the onset of the First Intermediate Period in which numerous nomarchs ruled simultaneously. Throughout this time, power bases were built and destroyed in Memphis, and in Heracleopolis, when Mentuhotep II of Thebes and the 11th dynasty conquered all of Egypt to form the Middle Kingdom in 2,055 BCE. The 12th dynasty oversaw advancements in irrigation and economic expansion in the Faiyum Oasis, as well as expansion into Lower Nubia at the expense of Kerma. In 1,700 BCE, Egypt fractured in two, ushering in the Second Intermediate Period.
The Hyksos, a militaristic people from Palestine, capitalised on this fragmentation and conquered Lower Egypt, establishing the 15th dynasty of Egypt, whilst Kerma coordinated invasions deep into Egypt to reach its greatest extent, looting royal statues and monuments. A rival power base developed in Thebes with Ahmose I of the 18th dynasty eventually expelling the Hyksos from Egypt, forming the New Kingdom in 1,550 BCE. Utilising the military technology the Hyksos had brought, they conducted numerous campaigns to conquer the Levant from the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, and Mitanni, and extinguish Kerma, incorporating Nubia into the empire, sending the Egyptian empire into its golden age. Internal struggles, drought and famine, and invasions by a confederation of seafaring peoples, contributed to the New Kingdom's collapse in 1,069 BCE, ushering in the Third Intermediate Period which saw Egypt fractured into many pieces amid widespread turmoil.
Egypt's disintegration liberated the more Egyptianized Kingdom of Kush in Nubia, and later in the 8th century BCE the Kushite king Kashta would expand his power and influence by manoeuvring his daughter into a position of power in Upper Egypt, paving the way for his successor Piye to conquer Lower Egypt and form the Kushite Empire. The Kushites assimilated further into Egyptian society by reaffirming Ancient Egyptian religious traditions, and culture, while introducing some unique aspects of Kushite culture and overseeing a revival in pyramid-building. After a century of rule they were forcibly driven out of Egypt by the Assyrians as reprisal for the Kushites agitating peoples within the Assyrian Empire in an attempt to gain a foothold in the region. The Assyrians installed a puppet dynasty which later gained independence and once more unified Egypt, with Upper Egypt becoming a rich agricultural region whose produce Lower Egypt then sold and traded.
In 525 BCE Egypt was conquered by the expansionist Achaemenids, however later regained independence in 404 BCE until 343 BCE when it was re-annexed by the Achaemenid Empire. Persian rule in Egypt ended with the defeat of the Achaemenids by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, marking the beginning of Hellenistic rule by the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt. The Hellenistic rulers, seeking legitimacy from their Egyptian subjects, gradually Egyptianized and participated in Egyptian religious life. Following the Syrian Wars with the Seleucid Empire, the Ptolemaic Kingdom lost its holdings outside Africa, but expanded its territory by conquering Cyrenaica from its respective tribes, and subjugated Kush.
Beginning in the mid second century BCE, dynastic strife and a series of foreign wars weakened the kingdom, and it became increasingly reliant on the Roman Republic. Under Cleopatra VII, who sought to restore Ptolemaic power, Egypt became entangled in a Roman civil war, which ultimately led to its conquest by Rome in 30 BCE. The Crisis of the Third Century in the Roman Empire freed the Levantine city state of Palmyra who conquered Egypt, however their rule lasted only a few years before Egypt was reintegrated into the Roman Empire. In the midst of this, Kush regained total independence from Egypt, and they would persist as a major regional power until, having been weakened from internal rebellion amid worsening climatic conditions, invasions by both the Aksumites and the Noba caused their disintegration into Makuria, Alodia, and Nobatia in the 5th century CE. The Romans managed to hold on to Egypt for the rest of the ancient period.
In the Horn of Africa there was the Land of Punt, a kingdom on the Red Sea, likely located in modern-day Eritrea or northern Somaliland. The Ancient Egyptians initially traded via middle-men with Punt until in 2,350 BCE when they established direct relations. They would become close trading partners for over a millennium, with Punt exchanging gold, aromatic resins, blackwood, ebony, ivory and wild animals. Towards the end of the ancient period, northern Ethiopia and Eritrea bore the Kingdom of D'mt beginning in 980 BCE, whose people developed irrigation schemes, used ploughs, grew millet, and made iron tools and weapons. In modern-day Somalia and Djibouti there was the Macrobian Kingdom, with archaeological discoveries indicating the possibility of other unknown sophisticated civilisations at this time.
After D'mt's fall in the 5th century BCE the Ethiopian Plateau came to be ruled by numerous smaller unknown kingdoms who experienced strong south Arabian influence, until the growth and expansion of Aksum in the 1st century BCE. Along the Horn's coast there were many ancient Somali city-states which thrived off of the wider Red Sea trade and transported their cargo via beden, exporting myrrh, frankincense, spices, gum, incense, and ivory, with freedom from Roman interference causing Indians to give the cities a lucrative monopoly on cinnamon from ancient India.
The Kingdom of Aksum grew from a principality into a major power on the trade route between Rome and India through conquering its unfortunately unknown neighbours, gaining a monopoly on Indian Ocean trade in the region. Aksum's rise had them rule over much of the regions from the Lake Tana to the valley of the Nile, and they further conquered parts of the ailing Kingdom of Kush, led campaigns against the Noba and Beja peoples, and expanded into South Arabia. This led the Persian prophet Mani to consider Aksum as one of the four great powers of the 3rd century CE alongside Persia, Rome, and China. In the 4th century CE Aksum's king converted to Christianity and Aksum's population, who had followed syncretic mixes of local beliefs, slowly followed.
In the early 6th century C, Cosmas Indicopleustes later described his visit to the city of Aksum, mentioning rows of throne monuments, some made out of "excellent white marble" and "entirely...hewn out of a single block of stone", with large inscriptions attributed to various kings, likely serving as victory monuments documenting the wars waged. The turn of the 6th century saw Aksum balanced against the Himyarite Kingdom in southwestern Arabia, as part of the wider Byzantine-Sassanian conflict. In 518, Aksum invaded Himyar against the persecution of the Christian community by Dhu Nuwas, the Jewish Himyarite king. Following the capture of Najran, the Aksumites implanted a puppet on the Himyarite throne, however a coup d'état in 522 brought Dhu Nuwas back to power who again began persecuting Christians. The Aksumites invaded again in 525, and with Byzantine aid conquered the kingdom, incorporating it as a vassal state after some minor internal conflict. In the late 6th century the Aksumites were driven out of Yemen by the Himyarite king with the aid of the Sassanids.
Further north-west, the Maghreb and Ifriqiya were mostly cut off from the cradle of civilisation in Egypt by the Libyan desert, exacerbated by Egyptian boats being tailored to the Nile and not coping well in the open Mediterranean Sea. This caused its societies to develop contiguous to those of Southern Europe, until Phoenician settlements came to dominate the most lucrative trading locations in the Gulf of Tunis, initially searching for sources of metal. Phoenician settlements subsequently grew into Ancient Carthage after gaining independence from Phoenicia in the 6th century BCE, and they would build an extensive empire, countering Greek influence in the Mediterranean, as well as a strict mercantile network reaching as far as west Asia and northern Europe, distributing an array of commodities from all over the ancient world along with locally produced goods, all secured by one of the largest and most powerful navies in the ancient Mediterranean.
Carthage's political institutions received rare praise from both Greeks and Romans, with its constitution and aristocratic council providing stability, with birth and wealth paramount for election. In 264 BCE the First Punic War began when Carthage came into conflict with the expansionary Roman Republic on the island of Sicily, leading to what has been described as the greatest naval war of antiquity, causing heavy casualties on both sides, but ending in Carthage's eventual defeat and loss of Sicily. The Second Punic War broke out when the Romans opportunistically took Sardinia and Corsica whilst the Carthaginians were putting down a ferocious Libyan revolt, with Carthage initially experiencing considerable success following Hannibal's infamous crossing of the alps into northern Italy. In a 14 year long campaign Hannibal's forces conquered much of mainland Italy, only being recalled after the Romans conducted a bold naval invasion of the Carthaginian homeland and then defeated him in climactic battle in 202 BCE.
Carthage was forced to give up their fleet, and the subsequent collapse of their empire would produce two further polities in the Maghreb; Numidia, a polity made up of two Numidian tribal federations until the Massylii conquered the Masaesyli, and assisted the Romans in the Second Punic War; Mauretania, a Mauri tribal kingdom, home of the legendary King Atlas; and various tribes such as Garamantes, Musulamii, and Bavares. The Third Punic War would result in Carthage's total defeat in 146 BCE and the Romans established the province of Africa, with Numidia assuming control of many of Carthage's African ports. Towards the end of the 2nd century BCE Mauretania fought alongside Numidia's Jugurtha in the Jugurthine War against the Romans after he had usurped the Numidian throne from a Roman ally. Together they inflicted heavy casualties that quaked the Roman Senate, with the war only ending inconclusively when Mauretania's Bocchus I sold out the Jugurtha to the Romans.
At the turn of the millennium they both would face the same fate as Carthage and be conquered by the Romans who established Mauretania and Numidia as provinces of their empire, whilst Musulamii, led by Tacfarinas, and Garamantes were eventually defeated in war in the 1st century CE however weren't conquered. In the 5th century CE the Vandals conquered north Africa precipitating the fall of Rome. Swathes of indigenous peoples would regain self-governance in the Mauro-Roman Kingdom and its numerous successor polities in the Maghreb, namely the kingdoms of Ouarsenis, Aurès, and Altava. The Vandals ruled Ifriqiya for a century until Byzantine's reconquest in the early 6th century CE. The Byzantines and the Berber kingdoms fought minor inconsequential conflicts, such as in the case of Garmul, however largely coexisted. Further inland to the Byzantine Exarchate of Africa were the Sanhaja in modern-day Algeria, a broad grouping of three groupings of tribal confederations, one of which is the Masmuda grouping in modern-day Morocco, along with the nomadic Zenata; their composite tribes would later go onto shape much of North African history.
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 beginning in the 4th millennium BCE, which had crucially developed iron metallurgy by 1,200 BCE, in both smelting and forging for tools and weapons. Extensive east-west belts of deserts, grasslands, and forests from north to south were crucial in the moulding of their respective societies and meant that prior to the accession of trans-Saharan trade routes, symbiotic trade relations developed in response to the opportunities afforded by north–south diversity in ecosystems, trading meats, copper, iron, salt, and gold.
Various civilisations prospered in this period. From 4,000 BCE, the Tichitt culture in modern-day Mauritania and Mali was the oldest known complexly organised society in West Africa, with a four tiered hierarchical social structure. Other civilisations include the Kintampo culture from 2,500 BCE in modern-day Ghana, the Nok culture from 1,500 BCE in modern-day Nigeria, the Daima culture around Lake Chad from 550 BCE, and Djenné-Djenno from 250 BCE in modern-day Mali.
Towards the end of the 3rd century CE, a wet period in the Sahel opened areas for human habitation and exploitation which had not been habitable for the better part of a millennium. Based on large tumuli scattered across West Africa dating to this period, it has been proposed that there were several contemporaneous kingdoms which have unfortunately been lost to history. Some important polities likely founded in the early-to-middle 1st millennium who did make it into the historical record include Mema, Takrur, Silla, and Wagadu (commonly called the Ghana Empire).
Soninke traditions mention four previous foundings of Wagadu, and hold that the final founding of Wagadu occurred after their first king did a deal with Bida [fr], a serpent deity who was guarding a well, to sacrifice one maiden a year in exchange for assurance regarding plenty of rainfall and gold supply. Soninke tradition portrays early Ghana as warlike, with horse-mounted warriors key to increasing its territory and population, although details of their expansion are extremely scarce.
In the 4th millennium BCE the Congo Basin was inhabited by the Bambenga, Bayaka, Bakoya, and Babongo in the west, the Bambuti in the east, and the Batwa who were widely scattered and also present in the Great Lakes region; together they are grouped as Pygmies. On the later-named Swahili coast there were Cushitic-speaking peoples, and the Khoisan (a neologism for the Khoekhoe and San) in the continent's south. Early San society left a rich legacy of cave paintings across Southern Africa.
The Bantu expansion constituted a major series of migrations of Bantu-speaking peoples from Central Africa to Eastern and Southern Africa and was substantial in the settling of the continent. Commencing in the 2nd millennium BCE, the Bantu began to migrate from Cameroon to the Congo Basin, and eastward to the Great Lakes region to form the Urewe culture from the 5th century BC. In the 7th century AD, Bantu spread to the Upemba Depression, forming the Upemba culture [es].
During the 1st millennium BCE the Bantu spread further from the Great Lakes to Southern and East Africa. One early movement headed south to the upper Zambezi basin in the 2nd century BCE. The Bantu then split westward to the savannahs of present-day Angola and eastward into Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe in the 1st century CE, forming the Gokomere culture in the 5th century CE. The second thrust from the Great Lakes was eastward, also in the 1st century AD, expanding to Kenya, Tanzania, and the Swahili coast.
Prior to this migration, the northern part of the Swahili coast was home to the elusive Azania, most likely a Southern Cushitic polity, extending southwards to modern-day Tanzania. The Bantu populations crowded out Azania, with Rhapta being its last stronghold by the 1st century CE, and traded via the Indian Ocean trade Madagascar was possibly first settled by Austronesians from 350 BC-550 CE, termed the Vazimba in Malagasy oral traditions, although there is considerable academic debate.
The eastern Bantu group would eventually meet with the southern migrants from the Great Lakes in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe and both groups continued southward, with eastern groups continuing to Mozambique and reaching Maputo in the 2nd century CE. Further to the south, settlements of Bantu peoples who were iron-using agriculturists and herdsmen were well established south of the Limpopo River by the 4th century CE, displacing and assimilating the Khoisan.
By the Chari River south of Lake Chad the Sao civilisation flourished for over a millennium beginning in the 6th century BCE, in territory that later became part of present-day Cameroon and Chad. Sao artifacts show that they were skilled workers in bronze, copper, and iron, with finds including bronze sculptures, terracotta statues of human and animal figures, coins, funerary urns, household utensils, jewellery, highly decorated pottery, and spears. Nearby, around Lake Ejagham in south-west Cameroon, the Ekoi civilisation rose circa 2nd century CE, and are most notable for constructing the Ikom monoliths and developing the Nsibidi script.
The turn of the 7th century saw much of North Africa controlled by the Byzantine Empire. Christianity was the state religion of the empire, and Semitic and Coptic subjects in Roman Egypt faced persecution due to their 'heretical' Miaphysite churches, paying a heavy tax. The Exarchate of Africa covered much of Ifriqiya and the eastern Maghreb, surrounded by numerous Berber kingdoms that followed Christianity heavily syncretised with traditional Berber religion. The interior was dominated by various groupings of tribal confederations, namely the nomadic Zenata, the Masmuda of Sanhaja in modern-day Morocco, and the other two Sanhaja in the Sahara in modern-day Algeria, who all mainly followed traditional Berber religion. In 618 the Sassanids conquered Egypt during the Byzantine-Sasanian War, however the province was reconquered three years later.
The early 7th century saw the inception of Islam and the beginning of the Arab conquests intent on converting peoples to Islam and monotheism. The nascent Rashidun Caliphate won a series of crucial victories and expanded rapidly, forcing the Byzantines to evacuate Syria. With Byzantine regional presence shattered, Egypt was quickly conquered by 642, with the Egyptian Copts odious of Byzantine rule generally putting up little resistance. The Muslims' attention then turned west to the Maghreb where the Exarchate of Africa had declared independence from Constantinople under Gregory the Patrician. The Muslims conquered Ifriqiya and in 647 defeated and killed Gregory and his army decisively in battle. The Berbers of the Maghreb proposed payment of annual tribute, which the Muslims, not wishing to annex the territory, accepted. After a brief civil war in the Muslim empire, the Rashidun were supplanted by the Umayyad dynasty in 661 and the capital moved from Medina to Damascus.
With intentions to expand further in all directions, the Muslims returned to the Maghreb to find the Byzantines had reinforced the Exarchate and allied with the Berber Kingdom of Altava under Kusaila, who was approached prior to battle and convinced to convert to Islam. Initially having become neutral, Kusaila objected to integration into the empire and in 683 destroyed the poorly supplied Arab army and conquered the newly-found Kairouan, causing an epiphany among the Berber that this conflict was not just against the Byzantines. The Arabs returned and defeated Kusaila and Altava in 690, and, after a set-back, expelled the Byzantines from North Africa. To the west, Kahina of the Kingdom of the Aurès declared opposition to the Arab invasion and repelled their armies, securing her position as the uncontested ruler of the Maghreb for five years. The Arabs received reinforcements and in 701 Kahina was killed and the kingdom defeated. They completed their conquest of the rest of the Maghreb, with large swathes of Berbers embracing Islam, and the combined Arab and Berber armies would use this territory as a springboard into Iberia to expand the Muslim empire further.
Large numbers of Berber and Coptic people willingly converted to Islam, and followers of Abrahamic religions ("People of the Book") constituting the Dhimmi class were permitted to practice their religion and exempted from military service in exchange for a tax, which was improperly extended to include converts. Followers of traditional Berber religion, which were mostly those of tribal confederations in the interior, were violently oppressed and often given the ultimatum to convert to Islam or face captivity or enslavement. Converted natives were permitted to participate in the governing of the Muslim empire in order to quell the enormous administrative problems owing to the Arabs' lack of experience governing and rapid expansion. Unorthodox sects such as the Kharijite, Ibadi, Isma'ili, Nukkarite and Sufrite found fertile soil among many Berbers dissatisfied with the oppressive Umayyad regime, with religion being utilised as a political tool to foster organisation. In the 740s the Berber Revolt rocked the caliphate and the Berbers took control over the Maghreb, whilst revolts in Ifriqiya were suppressed.
The Abbasid dynasty came to power via revolution in 750 and attempted to reconfigure the caliphate to be multi-ethnic rather than Arab exclusive, however this wasn't enough to prevent gradual disintegration on its peripheries. Various short-lived native dynasties would form states such as the Barghawata of Masmuda, the Ifranid dynasty, and the Midrarid dynasty, both from the Zenata. The Idrisid dynasty would come to rule most of modern-day Morocco with the support of the Masmuda, whilst the growing Ibadi movement among the Zenata culminated in the Rustamid Imamate, centred on Tahert, modern-day Algeria. At the turn of the 9th century the Abbasids' sphere of influence would degrade further with the Aghlabids controlling Ifriqiya under only nominal Abbasid rule and in 868 when the Tulunids wrestled the independence of Egypt for four decades before again coming under Abbasid control. Late in the 9th century, a revolt by East African slaves in the Abbasid's homeland of Iraq diverted its resources away from its other territories, devastating important ports in the Persian Gulf, and was eventually put down after decades of violence, resulting in between 300,000 and 2,500,000 dead.
This gradual bubbling of disintegration of the caliphate boiled over when the Fatimid dynasty rose out of the Bavares tribal confederation and in 909 conquered the Aghlabids to gain control over all of Ifriqiya. Proclaiming Isma'ilism, they established a caliphate rivalling the Abbasids, who followed Sunni Islam. The nascent caliphate quickly conquered the ailing Rustamid Imamate and fought a proxy war against the remnants of the Umayyad dynasty centred in Cordoba, resulting the eastern Maghreb coming under the control of the vassalized Zirid dynasty, who hailed from the Sanhaja. In 969 the Fatimids finally conquered Egypt against a weakened Abbasid Caliphate after decades of attempts, moving their capital to Cairo and deferring Ifriqiya to the Zirids. From there they conquered up to modern-day Syria and Hejaz, securing the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The Fatimids became absorbed by the eastern realms of their empire, and in 972, after encouragement from faqirs, the Zirids changed their allegiance to recognise the Abbasid Caliphate.
In retaliation the Fatimids commissioned an invasion by nomadic Arab tribes to punish them, leading to their disintegration with the Khurasanid dynasty and Arab tribes ruling Ifriqiya, to be later displaced by the Norman Kingdom of Africa. In the late 10th and early 11th centuries the Fatimids would lose the Maghreb to the Hammadids in modern-day Algeria and the Maghrawa in modern-day Morocco, both from Zenata. In 1053 the Saharan Sanhaja, spurred on by puritanical Sunni Islam, conquered Sijilmasa and captured Aoudaghost from the Ghana Empire to control the affluent trans-Saharan trade routes in the Western Sahara, forming the Almoravid empire before conquering Maghrawa and intervening in the reconquest of Iberia by the Christian powers on the side of the endangered Muslim taifas, which were produced from the fall of the remnant Umayyad Caliphate in Cordoba. The Almoravids incorporated the taifas into their empire, enjoying initial success, until a devastating ambush crippled their military leadership, and throughout the 12th century they gradually lost territory to the Christians.
To the east, the Fatimids saw their empire start to collapse in 1061, beginning with the loss of the holy cities to the Sharifate of Mecca and exacerbated by rebellion in Cairo. The Seljuk Turks, who saw themselves as the guardian of the Abbasid Caliphate, capitalised and conquered much of their territories in the east, however the Fatimids repelled them from encroaching on Egypt. Amid the Christians' First Crusade against the Seljuks, the Fatimids opportunistically took back Jerusalem, but then lost it again to the Christians in decisive defeat. The Fatimids' authority collapsed due to intense internal struggle in political rivalries and religious divisions, amid Christian invasions of Egypt, creating a power vacuum in North Africa. The Zengid dynasty, nominally under Seljuk suzerainty, invaded on the pretext of defending Egypt from the Christians, and usurped the position of vizier in the caliphate.
Following the assassination of the previous holder, the position of vizier passed onto Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub (commonly referred to as Saladin). After a joint Zengid-Fatimid effort repelled the Christians and after he had put down a revolt from the Fatimid army, Saladin eventually deposed the Fatimid caliph in 1171 and established the Ayyubid dynasty in its place, choosing to recognise the Abbasid Caliphate. From there the Ayyubids captured Cyrenaica, and went on a prolific campaign to conquer Arabia from the Zengids and the Yemeni Hamdanids, Palestine from the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, and Syria and Upper Mesopotamia from other Seljuk successor states. To the west, there was a new domestic threat to Almoravid rule; a religious movement headed by Ibn Tumart from the Masmuda tribal grouping, who was considered by his followers to be the true Mahdi. Initially fighting a guerilla war from the Atlas Mountains, they descended from the mountains in 1130 but were crushed in battle, with Ibn Tumart dying shortly after.
The movement consolidated under the leadership of self-proclaimed caliph Abd al-Mu'min and, after gaining the support of the Zenata, swept through the Maghreb, conquering the Hammadids, the Hilalian Arab tribes, and the Norman Kingdom of Africa, before gradually conquering the Almoravid remnant in Al-Andalus, proclaiming the Almohad Caliphate and extending their rule from the western Sahara and Iberia to Ifriqiya by the turn of the 13th century. Later, the Christians capitalised on internal conflict within the Almohads in 1225 and conquered Iberia by 1228, with the Emirate of Granada assuming control in the south. Following this, the embattled Almohads faced invasions from an Almoravid remnant in the Balearics and gradually lost territory to the Marinids in modern-day Morocco, the Zayyanids in modern-day Algeria, both of Zenata, and the Hafsids of Masmuda in modern-day Tunisia, before finally being extinguished in 1269. Meanwhile, after defeating the Christians' Fifth Crusade in 1221, internal divisions involving Saladin's descendants appeared within the Ayyubid dynasty, crippling the empire's unity. In the face of Mongol expansion, the Ayyubids became increasingly reliant on Mamluk generals.
At the end of the 6th century, the Kingdom of Aksum ruled over much of modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea, with the Harla Kingdom to its east, while ancient Somali city-states such as Mosylon, Opone, Sarapion, Avalites, and Aromata on the Somali Peninsula continued to thrive off of the lucrative Indian Ocean trade and their preferential relations with India.
Following the birth of Islam in the early 7th century, the north-central Harar Plateau was settled by early Muslims fleeing persecution, intermingling with the Somali who became some of the first non-Arabs to convert to Islam. Muslim-Aksumite relations were initially positive with Aksum giving refuge to early Muslims in 613, however relations soured after Aksum made incursions along the Arab coast and Muslims settled the Dahlak archipelago. Despite having ancient roots, the Red Sea slave trade expanded and flourished following the Muslim conquests with Bejas, Nubians, and Ethiopians exported to Hejaz. Aksum gradually lost their control of the Red Sea, and the expulsion of the Byzantines from the region isolated them, causing their society to become introspective, drawing inspiration from biblical traditions of the Old Testament.
Meanwhile, during the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries Islam spread through the Somali Peninsula, largely via da'wah. The Harla Kingdom of Hubat also converted to Islam circa 700. The Somalis were organised into various clans, and relations with Arabs led tradition to hold their lineages to Samaale, Daarood or Sheikh Ishaaq, traditionally descendants of Muhammad's cousins. To the west from the 7th to 15th century, Arab tribes migrated into the Sudan, during which time the Beja Islamised and adopted Arab customs. In the 8th century, Beja nomads invaded Aksum's northern territories and occupied the Eritrean Highlands, leading punitive raids into Aksum, with the Beja establishing various kingdoms. The Aksumite population migrated further inland into the Ethiopian Highlands, moving their capital from Aksum to Kubar, and later in the 9th century expanded southwards.
The history becomes murky, however tradition holds that Aksum's expansion brought it into conflict in 960 with the Jewish Kingdom of Beta Israel, led by queen Gudit and located in the Simien Mountains. Accordingly, Gudit defeated and killed Aksum's king, and burnt their churches. It's possible that Gudit was a pagan queen who led resistance to Aksum's southward expansion. To the east in the 9th and 10th centuries, the Somali clans such as the Dir and other groups formed states in the Harar Plateau, including Fatagar, Dawaro, Bale, Hadiya, Hargaya, Mora, Kwelgora, and Adal, with the latter centred on the port city of Zeila (previously Avalites). They neighboured the Sultanate of Shewa to their south, whose dynasty hailed from the Meccan Banu Makhzum. On the Horn's southeast coast the Tunni clan established the Tunni Sultanate, and the clans of Sarapion formed the Sultanate of Mogadishu.
Traditionally, Gudit's dynasty reigned until 1137 when they were overthrown or conquered by Mara Takla Haymanot who established the Zagwe dynasty, with traditions differing on whether he was an Aksumite general or relative of Gudit. In Ethiopia tradition holds that prior to his accession to the throne, Gebre Meskel Lalibela was guided by Christ on a tour of Jerusalem, and instructed to build a second Jerusalem in Ethiopia. Accordingly, this led to the commissioning of eleven rock-hewn churches outside the capital in Roha, which was renamed Lalibela in his honour, and quickly became a holy city in Ethiopian Christianity. Possibly formed in the 10th century, the Kingdom of Damot, following a traditional religion, had become a powerful state by the 13th century (and is possibly synonymous with the Kingdom of Wolaita founded by Motolomi Sato).
The history continues to be murky, however regional hegemony was contested between the Kingdom of Damot, the Zagwe, and the Sultanate of Shewa. Damot likely drew its economic power from gold production, which was exported to Zeila. The Zagwe and Shewa were forced into a conditional alliance to counter Damot, with Shewa at times forced to pay tribute to the pagans. In the 13th century the Ajuran clan established the Ajuran Sultanate on the eastern coast of the Horn and expanded, conquering the Tunni and vassalising Mogadishu, coming to dominate the Indian Ocean trade, while the Warsangali clan formed the Warsangali Sultanate on the Horn's north-eastern coast.
The turn of the 7th century saw the Swahili coast continue to be inhabited by the Swahili civilisation, whose economies were primarily based on agriculture, however they traded via the Indian Ocean trade and later developed local industries, with their iconic stone architecture. Forested river estuaries created natural harbours whilst the yearly monsoon winds assisted trade, and the Swahili civilisation consisted of hundreds of settlements and linked the societies and kingdoms of the interior, such as those of the Zambezi basin and the Great Lakes, to the wider Indian Ocean trade. There is much debate around the chronology of the settlement of Madagascar, although most scholars agree that the island was further settled by Austronesian peoples from the 5th or 7th centuries AD who had proceeded through or around the Indian Ocean by outrigger boats, to also settle the Comoros. This second wave possibly found the island of Madagascar sparsely populated by descendants of the first wave a few centuries earlier, with the Vazimba of the interior's highlands being represented as primitive dwarves in Malagasy oral traditions and revered.
The wider region underwent a trade expansion from the 7th century, as the Swahili engaged in the flourishing Indian Ocean trade following the early Muslim conquests. Settlements further centralised and some major states included Gedi, Ungwana [de], Pate, Malindi, Mombasa, and Tanga in the north, Unguja Ukuu on Zanzibar, Kaole, Dar es Salaam, Kilwa, Kiswere [de], Monapo, Mozambique, and Angoche in the middle, and Quelimane, Sofala, Chibuene, and Inhambane in the south. Via mtumbwi [uk], mtepe and later ngalawa they exported gold, iron, copper, ivory, slaves, pottery, cotton cloth, wood, grain, and rice, and imported silk, glassware, jewellery, Islamic pottery, and Chinese porcelain. Relations between the states fluctuated and varied, with Mombasa, Pate, and Kilwa emerging as the strongest. This prosperity led some Arab and Persian merchants to settle and assimilate into the various societies, and from the 8th to the 14th century the region gradually Islamised due to the increased trading opportunities it brought, with some oral traditions having rulers of Arab or Persian descent.
The Kilwa Chronicle, supposedly based on oral tradition, holds that a Persian prince from Shiraz arrived and acquired the island of Kilwa from the local inhabitants, before quarrel with the Bantu king led to the severing Kilwa's land bridge to the mainland. Settlements in northern Madagascar such as Mahilaka [de], Irodo, and Iharana also engaged in the trade, attracting Arab immigration. Bantu migrated to Madagascar and the Comoros from the 9th century, when zebu were first brought. From the 10th century Kilwa expanded its influence, coming to challenge the dominance of Somalian Mogadishu located to its north, however details of Kilwa's rise remain scarce. In the late 12th century Kilwa wrestled control of Sofala in the south, a key trading city linking to Great Zimbabwe in the interior and famous for its Zimbabwean gold, which was substantial in the usurpation of Mogadishu's hegemony, while also conquering Pemba and Zanzibar. Kilwa's administration consisted of representatives who ranged from governing their assigned cities to fulfilling the role of ambassador in the more powerful ones. Meanwhile, the Pate Chronicle [fr] has Pate conquering Shanga, Faza, and prosperous Manda, and was at one time led by the popular Fumo Liyongo. The islands of Pemba, Zanzibar, Lamu, Mafia and the Comoros were further settled by Shirazi and grew in importance due to their geographical positions for trade.
By 1100, all regions of Madagascar were inhabited, although the total population remained small. Societies organised at the behest of hasina, which later evolved to embody kingship, and competed with one another over the island's estuaries, with oral histories describing bloody clashes and earlier settlers often pushed along the coast or inland. An Arab geographer wrote in 1224 that the island consisted of a great many towns and kingdoms, with kings making war on each other. Assisted by climate change, the peoples gradually transformed the island from dense forest to grassland for cultivation and zebu pastoralism. From the 13th century Muslim settlers arrived, integrating into the respective societies, and held high status owing to Islamic trading networks.
The 7th to 13th centuries in West Africa were a period of relatively abundant rainfall that saw the explosive growth of trade, particularly across the Sahara desert, and the flourishing of numerous important states. The introduction of the camel to the western Sahel was a watershed moment, allowing more merchandise to move more easily. These desert-side states are the first to appear in the written record, with Arab and Berber merchants from North Africa leaving descriptions of their power and wealth. Nevertheless, there remain big gaps in the historical record, and many details are speculative and/or based on much later traditions.
One of the most powerful and well known of these states was Wagadu, commonly called the Ghana Empire, likely the dominant player in the western Sahel from the 6th century onwards. Wagadu was the most powerful of a constellation of states stretching from Takrur on the Senegal river valley to Mema in the Niger valley, all of whom were subservient to Ghana at least some of the time. Like Wagadu, the Gao Empire which rose in the 7th century had at least seven kingdoms accepting their suzerainty. Both Gao and Kumbi Saleh (capital of Wagadu) grew fabulously rich through the trans-Saharan trade routes linking these cities with Tadmekka, Kairouan, and Sijilmassa in North Africa along which flowed trade in salt, gold, slaves, and more.
The arrival of Islam in West Africa had seismic consequences for the history of the entire region. By the 10th century, the king of Gao had converted, possibly to Ibadi Islam. In 1035 king War Jabi of Takrur became the first ruler to adopt Sunni Islam. The rise of the Almoravid Sanhaja in the 1050s, perhaps inspired and supported by Muslims in Takrur, pushed the leaders of Sahelian states to institutionalize Islam in the subsequent decades. Historians debate whether the Almoravids conquered Wagadu or merely dominated them politically but not militarily. In any case the period saw significant upheaval and a shift in trade patterns as previously important cities like Awdaghost and Tadmekka fell victim to the Almoravids and their allies. In the confusion, some vassals achieved independence such as Mema, Sosso, and Diarra/Diafunu, with the last two being especially powerful. Despite Wagadu regaining full independence and power throughout the 12th century, this could not counteract the worsening climate and shifts in trade south and east. Around the turn of the 13th century, the Sosso Empire united the region and conquered a weakened Ghana from its south, spurring large-scale Soninke out-migration.
Sosso's Soumaoro Kante conquered Diarra, Gajaaga, and the Manding region. According to the oral Epic of Sundiata, Sundiata Keita, a Mandinka prince in exile, returned to Manden to save his people of the tyrannical Sosso king. Sundiata unified the Mandinka clans, allied with Mema, and defeated Soumaoro Kante at the Battle of Kirina in the early 13th century. He then proclaimed the Kouroukan Fouga of the nascent Mali Empire. Allied kingdoms, including Mema and Wagadu, retained leadership of their province, while conquered leaders were assigned a farin subordinate to the mansa (emperor), with provinces retaining a great deal of autonomy.
In addition to campaigns in the north to subdue Diafunu, Mali established suzerainty over the highlands of Fouta Djallon. After being insulted by the Wolof king of Kita, Sundiata sent Tiramakhan Traore west at the head of a large army, ultimately bringing most of Senegambia under the empire's control and, after defeating the Bainuk king, established dozens of Mandinka vassal kingdoms in the Gambia and Casamance basins, a region known as Kaabu.
While the precise timeline is unknown, archaeological evidence points to settlements in Ile-Ife being one of the earliest south of the Niger river, dating back as early as the 10th to 6th century BCE. The city gradually transitioned into a more urban center around the 4th to 7th centuries CE. By the 8th century, a powerful city-state had formed, laying the foundation for the eventual rise of the Ife Empire (circa 1200–1420). Under figures like the now defied figures such as Oduduwa, revered as the first divine king of the Yoruba, the Ife Empire grew. Ile-Ife, its capital, rose to prominence, its influence extending across a vast swathe of what is now southwestern Nigeria.
The period between 1200 and 1400 is often referred to as the "golden age" of Ile-Ife, marked by exceptional artistic production, economic prosperity, and urban development. The city's artisans excelled in crafting exquisite sculptures from bronze, terracotta, and stone. These works, renowned for their naturalism and technical mastery, were not only objects of aesthetic appreciation but also likely held religious significance, potentially reflecting the cosmology and belief systems of the Ife people.
This artistic tradition coincided with Ile-Ife's role as a major commercial hub. The Ife Empire's strategic location facilitated its participation in extensive trade networks that spanned West Africa. Of note is the evidence of a thriving glass bead industry in Ile-Ife. Archaeological excavations have unearthed numerous glass beads, indicating local production and pointing to the existence of specialized knowledge and technology. These beads, particularly the dichroic beads known for their iridescent qualities, were highly sought-after trade items, found as far afield as the Sahel region, demonstrating the far-reaching commercial connections of the Ife Empire.
In northern modern-day Nigeria, Hausa tradition holds that Bayajidda came to Daura in the 9th century, and his descendants founded the kingdoms of Daura, Kano, Rano, Katsina, Gobir, Zazzau, and Biram in the 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries, with his bastard descendants founding various others. While the historical validity of these legends is unknowable, the Arab geographer al-Yaqubi, writing in 872/873 CE (AH 259), describes a kingdom called "HBShH" with a city named "ThBYR" located between the Niger and the Kanem–Bornu Empire which may refer to Hausa.
Following the Bantu migrations, a period of state and class formation began circa 700 with four centres; one in the west around Pool Malebo, one south around the highlands of Angola, a third north-central around Lake Mai-Ndombe, and a fourth in the far southeast in the Upemba Depression.
In the Upemba Depression social stratification and governance began to form after the 10th century based on villages.
By the 4th century, Bantu peoples had established farming villages south of the Zambezi River. The San, having inhabited the region for around 100,000 years, were driven off their ancestral lands or incorporated by Bantu speaking groups. The Zambezi Plateau came to be dotted with the agricultural chiefdoms of the Zhizo people and Leopard's Kopje people, in which cattle was the primary identifier of wealth. External trade began around the 7th century, primarily exporting gold and ivory. Around 900, motivated by the ivory trade, some Zhizo moved south to settle the Limpopo-Shashe Basin. Their capital and most populated settlement was Schroda, and via the coastal Swahili city-state Chibuene they engaged in the Indian Ocean trade.
The 10th century saw increased global demand for gold as various Muslim, European, and Indian states began issuing gold coinage. Around 1000, some Leopard's Kopje people moved south to settle Bambandyanalo (known as K2), as the Zhizo moved west to settle Toutswe in modern-day Botswana. Some scholars believe their relations to have been hostile, however others insist they were more complex, both socially and politically. The San, who were believed to have closer connections to the old spirits of the land, were often turned to by other societies for rainmaking. The community at K2 chose the San rather than the Zhizo, their political rivals, because the San did not believe in ancestors, and by not acknowledging the Zhizo's ancestors they would not be held to ransom by them.
Northwest, the community at Mapela Hill had possibly developed sacral kingship by the 11th century. To the east, an early settlement was Gumanye. Great Zimbabwe was founded around 1000 AD, and construction on the city's iconic dry-stone walls began in the 11th century. From the 12th century Great Zimbabwe wrestled with other settlements, such as Chivowa, for economic and political dominance in the Southern Zambezi Escarpment. Further south by 1200, K2 had a population of 1500. The large wealth generated by the Indian Ocean trade created unprecedented inequalities, evolving over time from a society based on social ranking to one based on social classes. K2's spatial arrangement became unsuited to this development.
Amid a harsh drought which likely troubled the society, royal elites moved the capital to Mapungubwe Hill and settled its flat-topped summit around 1220, while most people settled below, surrounding the sacred leader in a protective circle. Mapungubwe Hill became the sole rainmaking hill, and its habitation by the leader emphasised a link between himself and rainmaking, which was substantial in the development of sacral kingship. The first king had their palace on the western part of the hill, and is called "Shiriyadenga" in Venda oral traditions. His entourage included soldiers and praise singers, along with musicians who played mbiras and xylophones. The state likely covered 30,000 km (12,000 square miles). They traded locally with Toutswe and Eiland among others. High global demand saw gold and ivory exported to the Indian Ocean trade via Sofala. It is unclear to what extent coercion and conflict played in Mapungubwe's growth and dominance due to this being challenging to recognise archaeologically, however the stone walls likely served a defensive purpose, indicating warfare was conventional.
The Ayyubids were in a precarious position. In 1248, the Christians began the Seventh Crusade with intent to conquer Egypt, but were decisively defeated by the embattled Ayyubids who had relied on Mamluk generals. The Ayyubid sultan attempted to alienate the victorious Mamluks, who revolted, killing him and seizing power in Egypt, with rule given to a military caste of Mamluks headed by the Bahri dynasty, whilst the remaining Ayyubid empire was destroyed in the Mongol invasions of the Levant. Following the Mongol Siege of Baghdad in 1258, the Mamluks re-established the Abbasid Caliphate in Cairo, and over the next few decades conquered the Crusader states and, assisted by civil war in the Mongol Empire, defeated the Mongols, before consolidating their rule over the Levant and Syria. To the west, the three dynasties vied for supremacy and control of the trans-Saharan trade.
Following the collapse of the Abbasids, the Hafsids were briefly recognised as caliphs by the sharifs of Mecca and the Mamluks. Throughout the 14th century, the Marinids intermittently occupied the Zayyanids several times, and devastated the Hafsids in 1347 and 1357. The Marinids then succumbed to internal division, exacerbated by plague and financial crisis, culminating in the rise of the Wattasid dynasty from Zenata in 1472, with the Hafsids becoming the dominant power. Throughout the 15th century, the Spanish colonised the Canary Isles in the first example of modern settler colonialism, causing the genocide of the native Berber population in the process. To the east, the turn of the 15th century saw the Mamluks oppose the expansionist Ottomans and Timurids in the Middle East, with plague and famine eroding Mamlukian authority, until internal conflict was reconciled. The following decades saw the Mamluks reach their greatest extent with efficacious economic reforms, however the threat of the growing Ottomans and Portuguese trading practices in the Indian Ocean posed great challenges to the empire at the turn of the 16th century.
The 13th century saw power balanced between the Zagwe dynasty, Sultanate of Shewa, and Kingdom of Damot, with the Ajuran Sultanate on the Horn's eastern coast.
In 1270, supported by the Kebra Nagast painting the Zagwe as illegitimate usurpers, Yekuno Amlak rebelled with assistance from Shewa and defeated the Zagwe king in battle, establishing the Solomonic dynasty of the nascent Ethiopian Empire. In accordance with the Kebra Negast, they claimed their descent from the last king of Aksum, and ultimately from Aksumite queen Makeda and the Israelite king Solomon. Fifteen years later, in the Sultanate of Shewa, which was exhausted following wars with Damot and suffering internal strife, was conquered by Umar Walasma of the Walashma dynasty, who established the Sultanate of Ifat. Over the following decades Ifat incorporated the polities of Adal, Gidaya, Bale, Mora, Hargaya, Hubat, and Fatagar among others. In the 13th century the Afar founded the Dankali Sultanate north of Ethiopia.
In Ethiopia Amda Seyon I came to the throne in 1314 and conquered Harla, Gojjam, Hadiya, and crucially Damot, with Ennarea splitting from the latter. He also campaigned in the north where Beta Israel had been gaining prominence, and reconquered the Tigrayan Enderta Province. In 1321, a religious dispute between Amda Seyon and the Mamluk sultan which involved threats to tamper with the Nile gave Ifat's Haqq ad-Din I pretext to invade and execute an Ethiopian envoy. Seven years later, Amda Seyon's forces overwhelmed Ifat's outposts, defeated Ifat's armies and killed Haqq ad-Din, with lack of unity among the Muslims proving fatal.
The Ethiopian emperor raided the Muslim states and made them tributaries. Following this, sultan Sabr ad-Din I led a rebellion and jihad in 1332 seeking to restore prestige and rule a Muslim Ethiopia, garnering widespread support in the early stages from the Muslim states and even from nomads. They were defeated by Amda Seyon, ushering in a golden age for the Ethiopian Empire. Ethiopia incorporated Ifat, Hadiya, Dawaro, Fatagar, and Shewa as one vassal headed by the Walashma dynasty. The Ethiopian emperor ruled the Muslim states by divide and rule, and had the final say on succession, with various sultans and sheikhs drawn to his court.
Successive sultans rebelled and struggled to shake off Ethiopian vassalage, moving Ifat's capital to Adal in an attempt to escape Ethiopia's sphere of control. To the south-west according to oral traditions, Amda Seyon expanded into the Gurage. According to oral traditions, the Kingdom of Kaffa was established in 1390 after "ousting a dynasty of 32 kings". In the late 14th century the sultans began to expand eastwards into the decentralised Somali interior. Sa'ad ad-Din II propagated insecurity on Ethiopia's eastern frontier, however was defeated by Dawit I. The sultan was repeatedly pursued by the Ethiopian emperor to Zeila on the coast and killed in 1415, leaving the former Sultanate of Ifat fully occupied.
In 1415 Sabr ad-Din III of the Walashma dynasty returned to the region from exile to establish the Adal Sultanate. The Ethiopian armies were defeated, and he and his successors expanded to regain the territory of the former sultanate. Jamal ad-Din II's reign saw a sharp rise in the slave trade, with India, Arabia, Hormuz, Hejaz, Egypt, Syria, Greece, Iraq, and Persia reportedly becoming "full of Abyssinian slaves". In 1445 Badlay attempted an invasion into the Ethiopian Highlands, supported by Mogadishu, however he was defeated by Zara Yaqob, with the successor sultan securing peace between the two states.
In the 1440s Ethiopia conquered much of the Tigray, placing the land under a vassal ruled by the Bahr Negus. Baeda Maryam I campaigned against the Dobe'a with the support of Dankalia, resulting in their defeat and incorporation into the empire. In 1471, a Harari emir leading a militant faction seized power in Adal with the sultan retaining a ceremonious role. His successor raided the Ethiopian frontier against the sultan's wishes, and was defeated by the emperors in 1507 and finally in 1517. For the Ethiopians, the end of the 15th century saw a period of conquest and expansion come to close, and one of defence begin.
Mali continued its expansion after the death of Sundiata. His son conquered Gajaaga and Takrur, and brought the key Saharan trading centres under his rule. The cessation of his reign culminated in a destructive civil war, only reconciled with a militaristic coup, after which Gao was conquered and the Tuareg subdued, cementing Mali's dominance over the trans-Saharan trade. In the 13th century Al-Hajj Salim Suwari, a Soninke Islamic scholar, pioneered the Suwarian tradition which sought to tolerate traditional religions, gaining popularity among West African Muslims. Mossi oral traditions tie the origins of the Mossi Kingdoms (located south of the Niger River) to the Mamprusi and Dagomba kingdoms in the forest regions, involving the Dagomba princess Yennenga. Ouagadougou and Yatenga were the most powerful.
In 1312 Mansa Musa came to power in Mali after his predecessor had set out on an Atlantic voyage. Musa supposedly spent much of his early campaign preparing for his infamous hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca. Between 1324 and 1325 his entourage of over 10,000, and hundreds of camels, all carrying around 12 tonnes of gold in total, travelled 2700 miles, giving gifts to the poor along the way, and fostered good relations with the Mamluk sultan, garnering widespread attention in the Muslim world. On Musa's return, his general reasserted dominance over Gao and he commissioned a large construction program, building mosques and madrasas, with Timbuktu becoming a centre for trade and Islamic scholarship, however Musa features comparatively less than his predecessors in Mandinka oral traditions than in modern histories. Despite Mali's fame being attributed to its riches in gold, its prosperous economy was based on arable and pastoral farming, as well as crafts, and they traded commonly with the Akan, Dyula, and with Benin, Ife, and Nri in the forest regions.
Amid a Malian mansa's attempt to coerce the empire back into financial shape after the lacklustre premiership of his predecessor, Mali's northwestern-most province broke away to form the Jolof Empire and the Serer kingdoms. Wolof tradition holds that the empire was founded by the wise Ndiadiane Ndiaye, and it later absorbed neighbouring kingdoms to form a confederacy of the Wolof kingdoms of Jolof, Cayor, Baol, and Waalo, and the Serer kingdoms of Sine and Saloum. In Mali after the death of Musa II in 1387, vicious conflict ensued within the Keita dynasty. In the 14th century Yatenga attacked and sacked Timbuktu and Oualata. The internal conflict weakened Mali's central authority. This provided an opportunity for the previously subdued Tuareg tribal confederations in the Sahara to rebel. Over the next few decades they captured the main trading cities of Timbuktu, Oualata, Nema, and possibly Gao, with some tribes forming the north-eastern Sultanate of Agadez, and with them all usurping Mali's dominance over the trans-Saharan trade.
In the 15th century, the Portuguese, following the development of the caravel, set up trading posts along the Atlantic coast, with Mali establishing formal commercial relations, and the Spanish soon following. In the early 15th century Diarra escaped Malian rule. Previously under Malian suzerainty and under pressure from the expansionist Jolof Empire, a Fula chief migrated to Futa Toro, founding Futa Kingui in the lands of Diarra circa 1450. Yatenga capitalised on Mali's decline and conquered Macina, and the old province of Wagadu. Meanwhile Gao, ruled by the Sonni dynasty, expanded, conquering Mema from Mali, and launched a jihad against Yatenga, in a struggle over the crumbling empire.
In northern Nigeria, the Kano king converted to Islam in 1349 after da'wah (invitation) from some Soninke Wangara, and later absorbed Rano.
By the 13th century there were three main confederations of states in the western Congo Basin around Pool Malebo. The Seven Kingdoms of Kongo dia Nlaza, considered to be the oldest and most powerful, likely included Nsundi, Mbata, Mpangu, and possibly Kundi and Okanga. South of these was Mpemba which stretched from its capital in northern Angola 200 km north to the Congo River. It included various kingdoms such as Mpemba Kasi, its northernmost and remotest component, and Vunda. To its west across the Congo River was a confederation of three small states; Vungu (its leader), Kakongo, and Ngoyo.
The formation of the Kingdom of Kongo began in the late 13th century. Kongo oral traditions hold that Ntinu Wene (lit. "King of the Kingdom") crossed the Congo River from Vungu to conquer Mpemba Kasi, known as the "Mother of Kongo". The first kings ruled from Nsi a Kwilu, a valley and old religious centre, which produced iron and steel, and linked the copper and textile-producing north to the south. Around the 1350s Nimi Nzima established an alliance with the rulers of Mbata, who were looking to break away from the Seven Kingdoms, and agreed to secure each other's dynasties, making them known as the "Grandfather of Kongo".
Tradition holds that Nimi Nzima's son, Lukeni lua Nimi, wishing to aggrandise himself, built a fortress and blocked and taxed commerce. One day his pregnant aunt refused to pay the toll, and in a rage he killed her. While reprehensible, his action won him followers due to his determination and valour and allowed him to embark on conquests. To the south the market town of Mpangala, itself a sub unit of Vunda, was absorbed, with Vunda also styled as a Grandfather. This weakening of the Mpemba confederation precipitated its conquest and integration into the Kingdom of Kongo. Lukeni lua Nimi also conquered Kabunga in the west, whose leaders were regional religious leaders, not dissimilar from popes. From there Soyo and Mbamba were conquered.
The power and resources gained from these conquests allowed Kongo to expand north into Nsundi, which had multiple sub-units. Traditionally, a governor on Nsundi's western border forebode entry until they had fought a symbolic battle. Kongo conquered Nsundi and delegated it to a royal governor, who greatly expanded the territory, conquering Nsanga and Masinga. Northeast, Teke oral tradition holds that Mabiala Mantsi united the Bateke tribes, centralised his governance, and expanded using militaristic and diplomatic skill. Kongo's conquests eastward brought it into conflict with the formidable Teke Kingdom which halted their expansion. This expansion had primarily been done by allying and co-opting polities. By the late 15th century, Kongo had developed a new administrative system which would increase its centralisation, and after integrating Vunda, they set about conquering these polities and converting them into royal provinces.
Small confederations, like Kisama, often put up spirited and successful resistance to either internal consolidation by aggressive components, or external conquest and integration. To the south around the highlands of Angola the Ambundu kingdoms of Ndongo and Matamba formed. The Dembos confederation sat between them and Kongo. Ndongo had come under tributary status to Kongo by the 16th century, and oral traditions collected in the 17th century hold their founder, Ngola Mussuri or Bumbambula, to be a blacksmith who came there from Kongo, and was elected king (Ngola) due to his benevolence.
To its east around Lake Mai-Ndombe, there emerged Mwene Muji, likely around 1400. Their 'empire' status is pending on further archaeological research. With a powerful riverine navy, they expanded along the Kasai, Lukenie, Kamtsha, Kwilu, and Wamba rivers, without venturing much into the interior, coming to dominate trade.
In the late 15th century, Kongo came into contact with the Portuguese. A Kongo delegation was invited to Lisbon in 1487, and relations were initially warm. A Portuguese priest mastered Kikongo and his input led to the baptism of Kongo's king and royal court. At the same time commercial relations developed. Trade in slaves was the most lucrative.
Further southeast in the Upemba Depression, "Lords of the land" held priestly roles due to their special relationship with the spirits of the land and were widely recognised, holding sway over multiple villages and essentially ruling embryonic kingdoms. As lineages grew in size, authority was opportunistically incorporated diplomatically or by force, leading to the formation of states. Some of those of the southern savanna, such as the Luba-Katanga and Songye, had transitioned from being matrilineal to patrilineal by 1500, while others such as the Luba-Hemba and Chokwe remained so, making up the matrilineal belt. An early state formed between the Lualaba and Lomami rivers among the Luba-Katanga, around the 15th century, known as the Kingdom of Luba. Their oral traditions account their people's history and hold their first king, Nkongolo, as a conqueror.
By 1250, Mapungubwe had a population of 5000, and produced textiles and ceramics. The centre of the settlement was the domain of men, and had an area for resolving disputes and making political decisions, while the outer zone was the domain of women, containing domestic complexes. The second king had their palace in the middle of the hill, and is called "Tshidziwelele" in Venda oral traditions. The king had many wives, with some living outside of the capital to help maintain the network of alliances. The economy was based on agriculture, and to make more productive use of the land, cattle (previously held as the primary identifier of wealth) were herded away from the capital and permitted to graze on other communities' land, forming social and political ties and increasing Mapungubwe's influence. A large amount of wealth was accumulated via tributes, which were paid in crops, animals, and sometimes rarer goods.
Meanwhile, at Great Zimbabwe agriculture and cattle played a key role in developing a vital social network, and served to "enfranchise management of goods and services distributed as benefits within traditional political and social institutions", while long-distance trade was crucial for the transformation of localised organisations into regional ones. This process rapidly advanced during the 13th century, which saw large dry masonry stone walls raised, and by 1250 Great Zimbabwe had become an important trade centre.
The events around Mapungubwe's collapse are unknown. It is plausible confidence was lost in the leadership amid the deepening material and spiritual divide between commoners and the king, and a breakdown in common purpose, provoking people to "vote with their feet". By 1300, trade routes had shifted north as merchants bypassed the Limpopo and Mapungubwe by travelling the Save River into the gold-producing interior, precipitating Mapungubwe's rapid decline and the dominance of Great Zimbabwe. Mapungubwe was abandoned as people scattered northwest and south. They didn't regroup.
Great Zimbabwe's wealth was derived from cattle rearing, agriculture, and the domination of trade routes from the goldfields of the Zimbabwean Plateau to the Swahili coast. The kingdom taxed other rulers throughout the region and was composed of over 150 smaller zimbabwes, and likely covered 50,000 km. The large cattle herd that supplied the city moved seasonally and was managed by the court, and salt, cattle, grain, and copper were traded as far north as the Kundelungu Plateau in present-day DR Congo. At Great Zimbabwe's centre was the Great Enclosure which housed royalty and had demarcated spaces for rituals. Commoners' homes were built out of mud on wooden frame structures, and within the second perimeter wall they surrounded the royalty. The institutionalisation of Great Zimbabwe's politico-religious ideology served to legitimise the position of the king (mambo), with a link between leaders, their ancestors, and God. The community incorporated dhaka pits into a complex water management system.
As with Mapungubwe, it is unclear to what extent coercion and conflict facilitated Great Zimbabwe's dominance. While the Great Enclosure served to display prestige and status, and to reinforce inequalities between elites and commoners, it likely also served to deter contestation for political power amid the close linkage between wealth accumulation and political authority, with rivals for power, such as district chiefs and regional governors, located outside the settlement in prestige enclosures. The perimeter walls also likely served a defensive purpose, indicating warfare was conventional.
It is unclear what caused Great Zimbabwe's decline. Shona oral tradition attributes Great Zimbabwe's demise to a salt shortage, which may be a figurative way of speaking of land depletion for agriculturalists or of the depletion of critical resources for the community. It is plausible the aquifer Great Zimbabwe sat on top of ran out of water, or the growing population contaminated the water. From the early 15th century, international trade began to decline amid a global economic downturn, reducing demand for gold, which adversely affected Great Zimbabwe. In response to this, elites expanded regional trading networks, resulting in greater prosperity for other settlements in the region.
By the late 15th century, the consequences of this decision began to manifest, as offshoots from Great Zimbabwe's royal family formed new dynasties, possibly as a result of losing succession disputes. According to oral tradition, Nyatsimba Mutota, a member of Great Zimbabwe's royal family, led part of the population north in search for salt to found the Mutapa Empire. It was believed that only their most recent ancestors would follow them, with older ancestors staying at Great Zimbabwe and providing protection there. Mutota is said to have found salt in the lands of the Tavara, and settled around the Ruya-Mazowe Basin, conquering and incorporating the pre-existing chiefdoms to control agricultural production and strategic resources. This placed the state at a key position in the gold and ivory trade. Angoche traders opened a new route along the Zambezi via Mutapa and Ingombe Ilede to reach the goldfields west of Great Zimbabwe, precipitating its decline and the rise of Khami (previously a Leopard's Kopje's chiefdom located close to the goldfields), the capital of the Kingdom of Butua. Butua's first mambo was Madabhale of the Torwa dynasty, who had the praise name Chibundule (meaning "sounding of the war horn").
In Mutapa, Mutota's son and successor, Nyanhewe Matope, moved the capital to Mount Fura and extended this new kingdom into an empire encompassing most of the lands between Tavara and the Indian Ocean. Matope's armies overran the Manyika and Tonga as well as the coastal Teve and Madanda. Meanwhile, Butua rapidly grew in size and wealth, and came to border the Mutapa Empire along the Sanyati River. There appear to have intermarriages between the Nembire dynasty of Mutapa and the Torwa dynasty of Butua. According to oral traditions, Changamire was likely a descendant of both dynasties. He had been appointed governor (amir) of the southern portion of the Mutapa Empire (Guruhuswa). In 1490, Changamire I rebelled against the Mwenemutapa, his elder brother Nyahuma, and deposed him, reportedly with help from the Torwa. He ruled Mutapa for four years until he was killed by the rightful heir to the throne, reportedly his nephew. His son Changamire II continued the conflict, ruling the southern portion which broke away from the Mutapa Empire. Whether this breakaway state maintained independence or came back under the rule of the Mwenemutapa is unclear, as we don't hear of the Changamire dynasty again until the 17th century.
Between 1878 and 1898, European states partitioned and conquered most of Africa. For 400 years, European nations had mainly limited their involvement to trading stations on the African coast, with few daring to venture inland. The Industrial Revolution in Europe produced several technological innovations which assisted them in overcoming this 400-year pattern. One was the development of repeating rifles, which were easier and quicker to load than muskets. Artillery was being used increasingly. In 1885, Hiram S. Maxim developed the maxim gun, the model of the modern-day machine gun. European states kept these weapons largely among themselves by refusing to sell these weapons to African leaders.
African germs took numerous European lives and deterred permanent settlements. Diseases such as yellow fever, sleeping sickness, yaws, and leprosy made Africa a very inhospitable place for Europeans. The deadliest disease was malaria, endemic throughout Tropical Africa. In 1854, the discovery of quinine and other medical innovations helped to make conquest and colonization in Africa possible.
There were strong motives for conquest of Africa. Raw materials were needed for European factories. Prestige and imperial rivalries were at play. Acquiring African colonies would show rivals that a nation was powerful and significant. These contextual factors forged the Scramble for Africa.
In the 1880s the European powers had carved up almost all of Africa (only Ethiopia and Liberia were independent). The Europeans were captivated by the philosophies of eugenics and Social Darwinism, and some attempted to justify all this by branding it civilising missions. Traditional leaders were incorporated into the colonial regimes as a form of indirect rule to extract human and natural resources and curb organized resistance. Colonial borders were drawn unilaterally by the Europeans, often cutting across bonds of kinship, language, culture, and established routes, and sometimes incorporating groups who previously had little in common. The threat to trade routes was mitigated by poor policing and African entrepreneurs (viewed as smugglers) who exploited the differing tax and legal schemes.
Imperialism ruled until after World War II when forces of African nationalism grew stronger. In the 1950s and 1960s the colonial holdings became independent states. The process was usually peaceful but there were several long bitter bloody civil wars, as in Algeria, Kenya, and elsewhere. Across Africa the powerful new force of nationalism drew upon the advanced militaristic skills that natives learned during the world wars serving in the British, French, and other armies. It led to organizations that were not controlled by or endorsed by either the colonial powers nor the traditional local power structures who were viewed as collaborators. Nationalistic organizations began to challenge both the traditional and the new colonial structures, and finally displaced them. Leaders of nationalist movements took control when the European authorities evacuated; many ruled for decades or until they died. In recent decades, many African countries have undergone the triumph and defeat of nationalistic fervour, changing in the process the loci of the centralizing state power and patrimonial state.
The wave of decolonization of Africa started with Libya in 1951, although Liberia, South Africa, Egypt and Ethiopia were already independent. Many countries followed in the 1950s and 1960s, with a peak in 1960 with the Year of Africa, which saw 17 African nations declare independence, including a large part of French West Africa. Most of the remaining countries gained independence throughout the 1960s, although some colonizers (Portugal in particular) were reluctant to relinquish sovereignty, resulting in bitter wars of independence which lasted for a decade or more.
The last African countries to gain formal independence were Guinea-Bissau (1974), Mozambique (1975) and Angola (1975) from Portugal; Djibouti from France in 1977; Zimbabwe from the United Kingdom in 1980; and Namibia from South Africa in 1990. Eritrea later split off from Ethiopia in 1993. The nascent countries, despite some prior talk of redrawing borders, decided to keep their colonial borders in the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) conference of 1964 due to fears of civil wars and regional instability, and placed emphasis on Pan-Africanism, with the OAU later developing into the African Union. During the 1990s and early 2000s there were the First and Second Congo Wars, often termed the African World Wars.
Most African societies used oral tradition to record their history, meaning there was little written history. Colonial histories focussed on the exploits of soldiers, colonial administrators, and "colonial figures", using limited sources and written from an entirely European perspective, ignoring the viewpoint of the colonised under the pretence of white supremacism. Africans were considered racially inferior, supporting their "civilising mission". Oral sources were deprecated and dismissed by most historians, giving them the impression Africa had no history and little desire to create it. Some colonisers took interest in the other viewpoint and attempted to produce a more detailed history of Africa using oral sources and archaeology, however they received little recognition at the time.
Post-colonialist historiography studies the relationship between European colonialism and domination in Africa and the construction of African history and representation. It has roots in Orientalism, the construction of cultures from the Asian, Arabian and North African world in a patronizing manner stemming from a sense of Western superiority, first theorized by Edward Said. A general perception of Western superiority throughout European academics and historians prominent during the height of colonialism led to the defining traits of colonial historical works, which post-colonialists have sought to analyse and criticize.
African historiography became organized at the academic level in the mid-20th century. Members of the Ibadan School, such as Kenneth Dike and Saburi Biobaku, pioneered a new methodology of reconstructing African history using the oral traditions, alongside evidence from European-style histories and other historical sciences. This movement towards utilising oral sources in a multi-disciplinary approach culminated in UNESCO commissioning the General History of Africa, edited by specialists drawn from across the African continent, publishing from 1981 to 2024.
There is no agreed upon periodisation for Africa history, with the difference in temporal stages of state formation between parts of the continent providing disagreement. Oliver and Atmore proposed Medieval Africa as from 1250 to 1800, however the European terms "ancient", "medieval", and "modern" have been criticised as failing to represent African realities and capture its complexity. Contemporary historians are still tasked with building the institutional frameworks, incorporating African epistemologies, and representing an African perspective.