African History

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:

* Ancient Egypt, Kush, Carthage, Masuna, Makuria, the Fatimids, Almoravids, Almohads, Ayyubids, Mamluks, Marinids, and Hafsids in North Africa;
* Wagadu, Mali, Songhai, Jolof, Ife, Oyo, Benin, Bonoman, Nri, Ségou, Asante, Fante, Massina, Sokoto, Tukulor, and Wassoulou in West Africa;
* Dʿmt, Aksum, Ethiopia, Damot, Ifat, Adal, Ajuran, Funj, Kitara, Kilwa, Sakalava, Imerina, Bunyoro, Buganda, and Rwanda in East Africa;
* Kanem-Bornu, Kongo, Anziku, Ndongo, Mwene Muji, Kotoko, Wadai, Mbunda, Luba, Lunda, Kuba, and Utetera in Central Africa; and
* Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe, Mutapa, Butua, Rozvi, Maravi, Lozi, Lobedu, Mthwakazi, and amaZulu in Southern Africa.
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 historians deprecated oral sources, claiming that Africa had no history other than that of Europeans in Africa. 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.

History in Africa

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

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