Brief History of Africa

Human origins & migrations

Africa is the most enduring and most ancient landmass in the globe. When you are on African soil, more than 90 percent of what is underneath your feet has been in existence for over 300 million years. In that period, Africa has had a feel of everything ranging from dinosaurs to proto-bacteria and about five to ten million years ago, a unique type of ape known as Australopithecines, which diverted and began to walk on its own two legs down a diverse track to evolution.

This move led to the various hairy early men being developed. They were also known as hominids. About 2.4 million years ago they were known as Homo habilis and Homo erectus 1.8million years ago and lastly Homo sapiens or modern humans around 200,000 years ago.

Africa is believed to be the first continent humans first lived on earth. In the early history of Africa, groups were made up of hunter-gatherers who followed a nomadic way of life. Little communities situated themselves in locations that were fertile and began to defend their local territory.

African kingdoms began to form starting from 1000 AD and this was partly due to the fact that Africans saw a need to take charge of the resources and land as European and Arab traders came to trade for food, goods, and slaves. The African empires boundaries went through changes over time as leaders rose and fell.

A massive part of North Africa became controlled by the Islamic states while a very powerful Christian Kingdom was created around Ethiopia in the eastern part.

Takeover by the Europeans

European countries started taking control of the coastal regions in Africa and by 1880 only little sections of the African continent were ruled by the Europeans.

Then in a period of 30years, the entire Africa was overtaken by the major European powers and by 1913, boundaries had been drawn by the Europeans for their new colonies. These boundaries make the basis of the African Nations in existence today.

After world war II, European countries no longer had any economic strength to rule Africa and starting from the 1950s, African nations started to attain independence.