Prehistory

The History of this continent is initially the fruit of its geography (see geography). At the time of its Prehistory, the Rift Valley was the framework where the first Hominidés evolved/moved and where appeared the first Homo sapiens there is 160  000 years.

Development of agriculture and metallurgy

At the end of the last Glaciation, estimated at approximately 10  500 before J. - C., the Sahara was a fertile and populated area. However, it was drained gradually under the effect of the warming 5000 years later. Its inhabitants then started to go up the valley of the the Nile in more accessible ground search, beyond the second cataract.

In Africa, the domestication of the Bétail precedes the Agriculture and seems to have existed at the same time as the tribes of hunters-gatherers - the breeding would have been practiced in North Africa as of 6000 before J. - C.

The first traces of culture of the Rice and the Sorgho go back to 5000 before J. - C. in the area of the the Sahel.

From 4000 before J. - C., the projection of the desert in the Sahara intensified quickly, draining lakes and rivers, which caused migrations towards West Africa, wetter.

Towards - 3000, agriculture developed about simultaneously in West Africa, with the culture of the Yam and the palm tree with oil, and in Ethiopia, with the Café and the Teff.

The work of the Fer was introduced in North Africa during the first millenium before J. - C. and was spread quickly towards the south through the Sahara. Towards 500 before J. - C., the Métallurgie was well established in West Africa, perhaps brought by the Carthaginois. Objects in Cuivre coming from Egypt, from North Africa, Nubie and Ethiopia found in West Africa are gone back with approximately - 500, which tends to think that trade route existed already.

Neolithic civilizations

The Petroglyphs and the Megaliths found in the Sahara, on the territory of current the Libya, testify to a culture of hunters-gatherers in the dry meadows of North Africa during the glacial era. After the turning into a desert of the area, the North-African populations were sédentarisèrent along the valley of the Nile, where they were going to give rise to the the first civilizations Egyptian.

The Linguistique suggests that people Bantous emigrated towards the south-west of the Cameroun and towards the south-east of the Nigeria and pushed back civilization Khoisan during 4000 years. The culture of the Yam and the Manioc enabled them to support a population denser than the tribes of hunters-gatherers. The bantous would be originating in the area of the Bénoué in the south-east of Nigeria, from where they would have dispersed in most of the sub-Saharan Africa, until in Zambia. The migrations bantoues towards the tropical forests of central Africa would have started during the second millenium before J. - C., undergoing the demographic pressure of the populations of the Sahara which fled the projection of the desert. The second phase of migration, approximately thousand years later, brought them as far as Southern Africa and Eastern.

Ethiopia is distinguished clearly from its neighbor and maintains the intermittent contacts with the Eurasia after the expansion the mankind out of Africa. The culture, the language as well as the species cultivated in Ethiopia (coffee, sorghum, teff) are particular with this area.

Both Africa

At the end of its prehistory, the Sahara, which was in turn an inland sea, a marshy lake, and cut the continent in two parts simply connected then an immense pasture traversed by wandering pastors became arid, the Désert of the Sahara that we currently know during a long time by the valley of the the Nile. During all the Antiquity and until the first centuries of the Christian era, the Histoire of North Africa was combined with that of the the Mediterranean, while in the south of the the Sahara, the Histoire of the Black Africa, which is known for us by the means of its Eastern kingdoms such those of Méroé, of Koush, etc, and of its great migrations, of which that of the Bantous which occupy most of the continent, experienced a different and autonomous development. The ancient Egypt is the point which connects these two Stories.

Medieval empires and kingdoms

West Africa

The great marketing activity and the fertile grounds of West Africa supported there the emergence of kingdoms and powerful empires such as the civilization Nok, the Empire of Mali, the Oba of Benign the, the Royaume of Kanem-Bornou, the empire Fulani, the Dahomey, the Royaume of Oyo, the empire Ashanti and the Empire Songhai.

Looser federations of city-States such as the Yoruba and the Haoussa also transfer the day.

Islamization

As from the 7th century, the armies Arab S invaded the North Africa. The trade caravaneer and the Islamic expansion tied new relations between the two Africa.

Centuries of the draft

Historically, the first great draft of the African blacks sent out of their continent began after the 7th century with the Moslem Traite. That began in 652, when the Arab general Abdallah Ben Sayd imposes on the Nubie NS (inhabitants of the higher valley of the Nile) the delivery of 360 slaves per annum. The affected area extended from the territories in the south of the the Sahara as the Mali with the East Africa while passing by the Sudan and while following the Trans-Saharan roads.

The Black Africa had its first contacts with the European at the 15th century. They established competitor counters of the Eastern Traite; initially to trade, then also for the blacks at the origin of the African Diaspora Treats.

It is estimated that at the end of the 18th century and at the beginning of the 19th century, a quarter of the men had a statute of Esclave or of worker forced in Black Africa. Also, the colonists are helped in this company by the leaders or dominant African.

Europeans, following the colonization of the America S, and in order to replace Amerindian labor, import African. Indeed, the Esclavage of Amerindian gradually was interdict at the 16th century, that it is by the European Catholic church or Kings who dominated the Latin America. On more than 400 years (1500 - 1888), Esclave S are bought at various places of the African coasts: Benign West Africa, Guinea, , Nigeria, Senegal and Sud of Africa. Starting from 1800, black movements and abolitionists appear, and in spite of the abolition of slavery (around 1850 according to the countries), an illegal draft continued until the beginning of the Années 1900.

Colonization

At the 19th century, after the Abolition of slavery, the European States invaded the North Africa and the sub-Saharan Africa thanks to their technological advance and in spite of the resistance of the African people.

The colonial period in Africa extends from the Conférence of Berlin (1884 - 1885) to independences of the years 1960 and constitutes the founding document of the current African States: the colonial powers then divide Africa at the time of the Conférence of Berlin in 1884-1885.

Colonization worked the space and the economic guidelines of the countries. At the beginning, the colonizing countries do not intend to divide the territories but they want only to protect their companies against the foreign interventions. So the colonists share space according to the meridian lines, the latitudes, the rivers and seldom the populations.

If one draws aside the short occupation Italy (of October 1935 with 1941) by Mussolini, the Ethiopia is the only African State which was not colonized by a European power. One of the reasons is that following the example rare African countries (Egypt, Morocco), the Ethiopia is a State historically made up (the country of Kousch describes in the Bible). She “was not invented” because of European colonizations of the 19th century. That explains, at least partly, the choice of Addis-Abeba for the reception of the seat of the African Union in 1963.

See also: Africa at the XIXe century, Colonization

The search of the political autonomy and independences

See also: Decolonization of Africa

The African nationalist aspirations led to independences which were spread out 1910 with 1975 according to the countries. The modes which settled were not democratic and pained to develop their countries. The Africa until the Années 1990 was instrumentalisée by the powers of the Cold war. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the African countries oscillate between civil wars and process of democratization, whose risks are often related to the strategies of multinational firms.

External bonds

• Byzantine Africa by Jean-Claude Cheynet, professor of Byzantine history at the university of Paris Iv-Sorbonne.
• Christian Africa, of the invasion vandal in the Moslem Maghreb by François Decree, professor emeritus of the universities.
• Christian Africa, of the “great persecution” to the invasion vandal by François Decree, professor emeritus of the universities.

Random links:

Beuvraignes | WarioWare: Smooth Moves | Segni | Cut caribéenne of the nations 2001 | Case number one, case number two