Sub-Saharan African

Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the African countries and territories that are situated fully in that specified region, the term may also include polities that only have part of their territory located in that region, per the definition of the United Nations (UN). This is considered a non-standardized geographical region with the number of countries included varying from 46 to 48 depending on the organization describing the region (e.g. UN, WHO, World Bank, etc.). The African Union uses a different regional breakdown, recognizing all 55 member states on the continent - grouping them into 5 distinct and standard regions.

The term serves as a grouping counterpart to North Africa, which is instead grouped with the definition of MENA (i.e. Middle East–North Africa) as it is part of the Arab world, and most North African states are likewise members of the Arab League. However, while they are also member states of the Arab League, the Comoros, Djibouti, Somalia, and Mauritania (and sometimes Sudan) are all geographically considered to be part of sub-Saharan Africa. Overall, the UN Development Programme applies the "sub-Saharan" classification to 46 of Africa's 55 countries, excluding Djibouti, SADR, Somalia, and Sudan.

Since probably 3900 BCE, the Saharan and sub-Saharan regions of Africa have been separated by the extremely harsh climate of the sparsely populated Sahara, forming an effective barrier that is interrupted only by the Nile in Sudan, though navigation on the Nile was blocked by the Sudd and the river's cataracts. There is also an evident genetic divide between North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa that dates back to the Neolithic. The Sahara pump theory explains how flora and fauna (including ''Homo sapiens'') left Africa to penetrate Eurasia and beyond. African pluvial periods are associated with a "Wet Sahara" phase, during which larger lakes and more rivers existed.

Nomenclature

The ancient Greeks sometimes referred to sub-Saharan Africa as ''Aethiopia'', but sometimes also applied this name more specifically to a state, originally applied to the Kingdom of Kush and the Sudan area, but then usurped by Axum in the 4th century which led to the name being designated to the nation of Ethiopia.

Geographers historically divided the region into several distinct ethnographic sections based on each area's respective inhabitants.

Commentators in Arabic in the medieval period used the general term ''bilâd as-sûdân'' ('Land of the Blacks') for the vast Sudan region (an expression denoting West and Central Africa), or sometimes extending from the coast of West Africa to Western Sudan.Nehemia Levtzion, Randall Lee Pouwels, The History of Islam in Africa, (Ohio University Press, 2000), p. 255. Its equivalent in Southeast Africa was ''Zanj'' ('Country of the Blacks'), which was situated in the vicinity of the Great Lakes region.

The geographers drew an explicit ethnographic distinction between the Sudan region and its analogue Zanj, from the area to their extreme east on the Red Sea coast in the Horn of Africa. In modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea was '' Al-Habash'' or Abyssinia,Sven Rubenson, The survival of Ethiopian independence, (Tsehai, 2003), p. 30. which was inhabited by the ''Habash'' or Abyssinians, who were the forebears of the Habesha.Jonah Blank, Mullahs on the mainframe: Islam and modernity among the Daudi Bohras, (University of Chicago Press, 2001), p. 163. In northern Somalia was ''Barbara'' or the ''Bilad al-Barbar'' ("Land of the Berbers"), which was inhabited by the Eastern ''Baribah'' or ''Barbaroi'', as the ancestors of the Somalis were referred to by medieval Arab and ancient Greek geographers, respectively.F.R.C. Bagley et al., ''The Last Great Muslim Empires'', (Brill: 1997), p. 174 Bethwell A. Ogot, ''Zamani: A Survey of East African History'', (East African Publishing House: 1974), p. 104James Hastings, ''Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics Part 12: V. 12'', (Kessinger Publishing, LLC: 2003), p. 490

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the populations south of the Sahara were divided into three broad ancestral groups: Hamites and Semites family; Negroes in most of the rest of the subcontinent (hence, the toponym ''Black Africa'' for Africa south of the Sahara), who spoke languages belonging to the Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan families; and Khoisan in Southern Africa, who spoke languages belonging to the Khoisan family.

The term "sub-Saharan" has been criticized by Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe as racist because it refers to the area south of the Sahara by geographical conventions (as opposed to North Africa, which refers to a cardinal direction). Ekwe-Ekwe considers the term to imply a linguistic connotation of inferiority through its use of the prefix '' sub-'' (Latin for 'under' or 'below'; cf. sub-arctic), which he sees as a linguistic vestige of European colonialism.

Climate zones and ecoregions

Sub-Saharan Africa has a wide variety of climate zones or biomes. South Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in particular are considered megadiverse countries. It has a dry winter season and a wet summer season.
* The Sahel extends across all of Africa at a latitude of about 10° to 15° N. Countries that include parts of the Sahara Desert proper in their northern territories and parts of the Sahel in their southern region include Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Sudan. The Sahel has a hot semi-arid climate.
* South of the Sahel, a belt of savanna (the West and East Sudanian savannas) stretch from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ethiopian Highlands. The more humid Guinean and Northern Congolian forest–savanna mosaic lie between the savannas and the equatorial forests.
* The Horn of Africa includes hot desert climate along the coast but a hot semi-arid climate can be found much more in the interior, contrasting with savanna and moist broadleaf forests in the Ethiopian Highlands.
* Tropical Africa encompasses tropical rainforest stretching along the southern coast of West Africa and across most of Central Africa (the Congo) west of the African Great Lakes.
* In East Africa, woodlands, savannas, and grasslands are found in the equatorial zone, including the Serengeti ecosystem in Tanzania and Kenya.
* Distinctive Afromontane forests, grasslands, and shrublands are found in the high mountains and mountain ranges of eastern Africa, from the Ethiopian Highlands to South Africa.
* South of the equatorial forests, the Western and Southern Congolian forest–savanna mosaic are transition zones between the tropical forests and the miombo woodland belt that spans the continent from Angola to Mozambique and Tanzania.
* The Namib and Kalahari Deserts lie in Southern Africa, and are surrounded by semi-deserts including the Karoo region of South Africa. The Bushveld grasslands lie to the east of the deserts.
* The Cape Floristic Region is at Africa's southern tip, and is home to diverse subtropical and temperate forests, woodlands, grasslands, and shrublands.

History

Prehistory

According to paleontology, early hominid skull anatomy was similar to that of their close cousins, the great African forest apes, gorilla and chimpanzee. However, they had adopted a bipedal locomotion and freed hands, giving 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, with savanna encroaching on forested areas. This occurred 10 million to 5 million years ago.Shillington, Kevin(2005). History of Africa, Rev. 2nd Ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 2, .

By 3 million years ago several australopithecine hominid species had developed throughout southern, eastern and central Africa. They were tool users rather than tool manufacturers. The next major evolutionary step occurred around 2.3 million BCE, when primitive stone tools were used to scavenge the carcasses of animals killed by other predators, both for their meat and their marrow. In hunting, ''H. habilis'' was most likely not capable of competing with large predators and was more prey than hunter, although ''H. habilis'' probably did steal eggs from nests and may have been able to catch small game and weakened larger prey such as cubs and older animals. The tools were classed as Oldowan.Shillington, Kevin(2005). History of Africa, Rev. 2nd Ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 2–3, .

Roughly 1.8 million years ago, ''Homo ergaster'' first appeared in the fossil record in Africa. From ''Homo ergaster'', ''Homo erectus'' (upright man) evolved 1.5 million years ago. Some of the earlier representatives of this species were small-brained and used primitive stone tools, much like '' H. habilis''. The brain later grew in size, and ''H. erectus'' eventually developed a more complex stone tool technology called the Acheulean. Potentially the first hominid to engage in hunting, ''H. erectus'' mastered the art of making fire. They were the first hominids to leave Africa, going on to colonize the entire Old World, and perhaps later on giving rise to ''Homo floresiensis''. Although some recent writers suggest that ''H. georgicus'', a ''H. habilis'' descendant, was the first and most primitive hominid to ever live outside Africa, many scientists consider ''H. georgicus'' to be an early and primitive member of the ''H. erectus'' species.

The fossil and genetic evidence shows ''Homo sapiens'' developed in southern and eastern Africa by around 350,000 to 260,000 years ago. and gradually migrated across the continent in waves.
Between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago, their expansion out of Africa launched the colonization of the planet by modern humans. By 10,000 BCE, ''Homo sapiens'' had spread to all corners of the world. This dispersal of the human species is suggested by linguistic, cultural and genetic evidence.

During the 11th millennium BP, pottery was independently invented in West Africa, with the earliest pottery there dating to about 9,400 BC from central Mali. Simon Bradley, ''A Swiss-led team of archaeologists has discovered pieces of the oldest African pottery in central Mali, dating back to at least 9,400BC''
, SWI swissinfo.ch – the international service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC), 18 January 2007 It spread throughout the Sahel and southern Sahara.

After the Sahara became a desert, it did not present a totally impenetrable barrier for travelers between north and south because of the application of animal husbandry towards carrying water, food, and supplies across the desert. Prior to the introduction of the camel, the use of oxen, mule, and horses for desert crossing was common, and trade routes followed chains of oases was in full motion by 500 BCE with Carthage being a major economic force for its establishment. It is thought that the camel was first brought to Egypt after the Persian Empire conquered Egypt in 525 BCE, although large herds did not become common enough in North Africa for camels to be the pack animal of choice for the trans-saharan trade.

West Africa

The Bantu expansion is a major migration movement that originated in West Central Africa (possibly around Cameroon) around 2500 BCE, reaching East and Central Africa by 1000 BCE and Southern Africa by the early centuries CE.

The Djenné-Djenno city-state flourished from 250 BCE to 900 CE and was influential to the development of the Ghana Empire.

The Nok culture of Nigeria (lasting from 1,500 BCE to 200 CE) is known from a type of terracotta figure.Breunig, Peter. 2014. Nok: African Sculpture in Archaeological Context: p. 21.

There were a number of medieval empires of the southern Sahara and the Sahel, based on trans-Saharan trade, including the Ghana Empire and the Mali Empire, Songhai Empire, the Kanem Empire and the subsequent Bornu Empire

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