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History

Africa is home to the oldest inhabited territory on earth, with the human race originating from this continent. The Ishango Bone, dated 25,000 years ago, shows tallies in mathematical notation.

Throughout humanity's prehistory, Africa (and all other continents) had no nation states, and were instead inhabited by groups of hunter-gatherers. Later, agriculture was used in Egypt along the Nile river. Egypt was one of the earliest nation states ever formed. Other civilizations emerged in Ethiopia, in Nubia (Kush), in the Sahel (Sahelian kingdoms, including the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, and the Songhai Empire). In the search for the kingdom of Prester John, 14th century European explorers arrived in Africa.

In the millennia before the nineteenth century, indentured servants and slaves could be had for capture by bargaining with local warlords or tribal leaders. This practice was spread across continents. Arabians and Europeans were able to capture millions of Africans, and export them for labour around the world in what became known as the global slave trade, which ceased by law by the nineteenth century in most European countries.

But at the same time that serfdom was ending in Europe, in the early 19th century the European imperial powers staged a massive "scramble for Africa" and occupied most of the continent, creating many colonial nation states, leaving only two independent nations (Liberia and Ethiopia). This occupation continued until the conclusion of the Second World War, after which all colonial nation states gradually obtained formal independence.

Today, Africa is home to over 50 independent countries, many of which still have borders drawn during the era of European colonialism.

thoughts

More Pre-European links Start European arrival as new paragraph