page_title: Cushitic peoples
section_title: Origin
hierarchical_section_title: Cushitic peoples / History / Origin
caption_attribution_description: English: LaasGeel
context_page_description: The Cushitic peoples are a grouping of people who are primarily indigenous to Northeast Africa and speak or have historically spoken Cushitic languages of the Afroasiatic language family. Cushitic languages are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, as well as the Nile Valley, and parts of the African Great Lakes region. Some examples of these peoples include the Cushitic speaking ethnic groups.
  Linguistic evidence indicates that Cushitic languages were spoken in Lower Nubia, an ancient region which straddles present day Southern Egypt and Northern Sudan, before the arrival of North Eastern Sudanic languages from Upper Nubia. Many extinct populations of northern Nubia such as the Medjay and the Blemmyes spoke Cushitic languages related to the modern Beja language. Less certain are hypotheses which propose that Cushitic languages were spoken by the people of the C-Group culture in northern Nubia, or the people of the Kerma culture in southern Nubia. Historical linguistic analysis indicates that the languages spoken in the Savanna Pastoral Neolithic culture of the Rift Valley and surrounding areas, may have been languages of the South Cushitic branch.
context_section_description: The exact ethnogenesis of Cushitic peoples is still being researched, however, many Cushitic populations are E1b1b and can also be paternally traced back to having ethnic origins in the Nile Valley through haplogroup E-M78 and the Red Sea region of the Horn of Africa through haplogroup E-V1515.
  Archeological evidence and linguistic evidence gathered from toponyms and ancient Egyptian records suggest that the earliest evidence of Cushitic speech is not found where the language family is most predominant today—namely the Horn of Africa, but in a region of Sudan. Some prehistoric northern Nubian cultures such as the A-Group Culture and C-Group Culture have been regularly linked to early Cushitic populations. Other linguists consider the Horn of Africa to be the original homeland of the proto-Afroasiatic language as it is considered the region the Afroasiatic language family displays the greatest diversity, a sign often viewed to represent a geographic origin.  Ancient DNA offers a new source of information about eastern African Holocene prehistory, and an important next direction is to integrate this information rigorously with insights provided by the longer-established disciplines of archaeology and linguistics.
  Cushitic populations most likely formed and started migrating out of the Nile Valley in prehistory. Laas Geel, ancient cave paintings in Northern Somalia attest to the first signs of a population believed to be ancestral to the Afro-Asiatic speakers in the Horn of Africa. In an excellent state of preservation, the rock art depicts wild animals and decorated cattle (cows and bulls). They also feature herders, possibly pastoral nomads, who are the creators of the paintings. By the 5th millennium BC, the people who inhabited prehistoric Sudan participated in the Neolithic revolution, the domestication of animals usually numbered among the “Neolithic package” brought on by the advent of agriculture. Nubian rock reliefs depict scenes that seem to be suggestive of the same cattle cult, typical of those seen throughout parts of Northeast Africa and the Nile Valley. Domestic sheep, goats, and cattle of southwest Asian origin were first introduced to northeastern Africa in Sudan around ≈8000 years before present (BP), and spread into eastern Africa  beginning ≈5000 BP, ultimately reaching southernmost Africa by ≈2000 BP. How pastoralism—a way of life centered on herding animals—spread into eastern Africa is unclear. Livestock appear in northern Ethiopia and Djibouti relatively late, ≈4500–4000  BP,  and  are  poorly  documented  elsewhere  in  the Horn  of  Africa  and  in  South  Sudan.
  By the 5th millennium BC, Proto-Cushites who inhabited what is now Sudan likely participated in the Neolithic revolution which allowed for the domestication of animals by sedentary groups who were previously cultivators. Donkeys were probably first domesticated by pastoral people in Nubia the ancestors of the modern donkey being the Nubian and Somali subspecies of African wild ass. Donkeys supplanted the ox as the chief pack animal of that culture and its domestication served to increase the mobility of pastoral cultures, having the advantage over ruminants of not needing time to chew their cud, and were vital in the development of long-distance migrations across Africa.  Nubian rock reliefs depict scenes that seem to be suggestive of the same cattle cult, typical of those seen throughout parts of Northeast Africa and the Nile Valley. Puntland and the Somaliland regions of Somalia is home to numerous such archaeological sites and megalithic structures, with similar rock art found at Haadh, Gudmo Biyo Cas, Dhambalin, Dhagah Maroodi and numerous other sites, while ancient edifices are, among others, found at Awbare, Awbube, Amud, Abasa, Sheikh, Aynabo, Aw-Barkhadle, Heis, Maydh, Haylan, Qa’ableh, Qombo'ul and El Ayo. However, many of these old structures have yet to be properly explored, a process which would help shed further light on local history and facilitate their preservation for posterity.
caption: Neolithic rock art at the Laas Geel complex depicting a camel. The camel might have first been domesticated in the Horn of Africa and later contributed to the migratory lifestyle of Cushitic nomads.[23][24]
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