Africa

=== Emergence of civilization ===
{{See also|Cradle of civilization#Ancient Egypt}}
The size of the Sahara has historically been extremely variable, with its area rapidly fluctuating and at times disappearing depending on global climatic conditions.<ref>{{cite book|author=Keenan, Jeremy|title=The Sahara: Past, Present and Future|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KUKPAQAAQBAJ|year=2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-97001-9|access-date=5 February 2018|archive-date=28 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170228175639/https://books.google.com/books?id=KUKPAQAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref> At the end of the [[Ice age]]s, estimated to have been around 10,500 BCE, the Sahara had again become a green fertile valley, and its African populations returned from the interior and coastal highlands in [[sub-Saharan Africa]], with [[Saharan rock art|rock art paintings]] depicting a fertile Sahara and large populations discovered in [[Tassili n'Ajjer]] dating back perhaps 10 millennia.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Mercier|first1=Norbert|display-authors=etal|date=2012|title=OSL dating of quaternary deposits associated with the parietal art of the Tassili-n-Ajjer plateau (Central Sahara)|journal=Quaternary Geochronology|volume=10|pages=367–373|doi=10.1016/j.quageo.2011.11.010|bibcode=2012QuGeo..10..367M }}</ref> However, the warming and drying climate meant that by 5000 BC, the Sahara region was becoming increasingly dry and hostile. Around 3500 BC, due to a tilt in the Earth's [[orbit]], the Sahara experienced a period of rapid desertification.<ref>[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/07/990712080500.htm "Sahara's Abrupt Desertification Started by Changes in Earth's Orbit, Accelerated by Atmospheric and Vegetation Feedbacks"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140307060153/https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/07/990712080500.htm|date=7 March 2014 }}, ''Science Daily''</ref> The population trekked out of the Sahara region towards the Nile Valley below the [[Cataracts of the Nile|Second Cataract]] where they made permanent or semi-permanent settlements. A major climatic recession occurred, lessening the heavy and persistent rains in Central and [[East Africa|Eastern Africa]]. Since this time, dry conditions have prevailed in Eastern Africa and, increasingly during the last 200 years, in [[Ethiopia]].

The domestication of cattle in Africa preceded agriculture and seems to have existed alongside hunter-gatherer cultures. It is speculated that by 6000 BC, cattle were domesticated in North Africa.<ref>Diamond, Jared. (1999) ''Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies''. New York: Norton, p. 167. {{ISBN|978-0813498027}}</ref> In the Sahara-Nile complex, people domesticated many animals, including the donkey and  a small screw-horned goat which was common from Algeria to [[Nubia]]. Between 10,000 and 9,000 BC, pottery was independently invented in the region of Mali in the savannah of West  Africa.<ref name="Pottery">{{cite journal |last1=Jesse |first1=Friederike |title=Early Pottery in Northern Africa – An Overview |issue=2 |pages=219–238 |journal=[[Journal of African Archaeology]]|volume=8 |jstor=43135518 |year=2010 |doi=10.3213/1612-1651-10171 }}</ref><ref name="swissinfo">[http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/Home/Archive/Swiss_archaeologist_digs_up_West_Africas_past.html?cid=5675736 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''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120306002155/http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/Home/Archive/Swiss_archaeologist_digs_up_West_Africas_past.html?cid=5675736 |date=6 March 2012 }}, SWI swissinfo.ch – the international service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC), 18 January 2007</ref> In the [[steppe]]s and [[savanna]]hs of the Sahara and [[Sahel]] in Northern [[File:Mathendous giraffes.jpg|thumb|left|[[Saharan rock art]] in the [[Fezzan]], [[Libya]]]]

West Africa, people possibly ancestral to modern [[Nilo-Saharan]] and [[Mandé]] cultures started to collect wild [[millet]],<ref>{{cite book | chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-89839-1_22 | doi=10.1007/978-3-319-89839-1_22 | chapter=Evidence of Sorghum Cultivation and Possible Pearl Millet in the Second Millennium BC at Kassala, Eastern Sudan | title=Plants and People in the African Past | year=2018 | last1=Beldados | first1=Alemseged | last2=Manzo | first2=Andrea | last3=Murphy | first3=Charlene | last4=Stevens | first4=Chris J. | last5=Fuller | first5=Dorian Q. | pages=503–528 | isbn=978-3-319-89838-4 | access-date=20 May 2022 | archive-date=20 May 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220520170752/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-89839-1_22 | url-status=live }}</ref> around 8000 to 6000 BCE. Later, [[gourd]]s, [[watermelon]]s, [[castor bean]]s, and [[cotton]] were also collected.<ref>Ehret (2002), pp. 64–75.</ref> Sorghum was first domesticated in Eastern [[Sudan]] around 4000 BC, in one of the earliest instances of agriculture in human history. Its cultivation would gradually spread across Africa, before spreading to India around 2000 BC.<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/693898?journalCode=ca | doi=10.1086/693898 | title=Evidence for Sorghum Domestication in Fourth Millennium BC Eastern Sudan: Spikelet Morphology from Ceramic Impressions of the Butana Group | year=2017 | last1=Winchell | first1=Frank | last2=Stevens | first2=Chris J. | last3=Murphy | first3=Charlene | last4=Champion | first4=Louis | last5=Fuller | first5=Dorianq. | journal=Current Anthropology | volume=58 | issue=5 | pages=673–683 | s2cid=149402650 | access-date=20 May 2022 | archive-date=20 May 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220520170745/https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/693898?journalCode=ca | url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=September 28, 2017 |title=Earliest Evidence of Domesticated Sorghum Discovered &#124; Sci.News |url=https://www.sci.news/archaeology/earliest-evidence-domesticated-sorghum-05271.html |website=Sci.News: Breaking Science News}}</ref>

People around modern-day Mauritania started making [[pottery]] and built stone settlements (e.g., [[Tichitt]], [[Oualata]]). Fishing, using bone-tipped [[harpoon]]s, became a major activity in the numerous streams and lakes formed from the increased rains.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/getting-food/katanda-bone-harpoon-point|title=Katanda Bone Harpoon Point|date=22 January 2010|website=The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program|language=en|access-date=19 February 2019|archive-date=14 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200814055506/https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/getting-food/katanda-bone-harpoon-point|url-status=live}}</ref> In West Africa, the wet phase ushered in an expanding [[rainforest]] and wooded savanna from [[Senegal]] to [[Cameroon]]. Between 9,000 and 5,000 BC, [[Niger–Congo languages|Niger–Congo speakers]] domesticated the [[Elaeis guineensis|oil palm]] and [[raffia palm]]. [[Black-eyed pea]]s and [[voandzeia]] (African groundnuts), were domesticated, followed by [[okra]] and [[kola nut]]s. Since most of the plants grew in the forest, the Niger–Congo speakers invented polished stone axes for clearing forest.<ref>Ehret (2002), pp. 82–84.</ref>

Around 4000 BC, the Saharan climate started to become drier at an exceedingly fast pace.<ref name="O'Brien">O'Brien, Patrick K. ed. (2005) ''Oxford Atlas of World History''. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 22–23. {{ISBN|978-0199746538}}</ref> This climate change caused lakes and rivers to shrink significantly and caused increasing [[desertification]]. This, in turn, decreased the amount of land conducive to settlements and encouraged migrations of farming communities to [[File:Abu Simbel Main Temple (2346939149).jpg|thumb|Colossal statues of [[Ramesses II]] at [[Abu Simbel]], [[Egypt]], date from around 1250 BC.]]
the more tropical climate of West Africa.<ref name="O'Brien"/> During the first millennium BC, a reduction in wild grain populations related to changing climate conditions facilitated the expansion of farming communities and the rapid adoption of rice cultivation around the Niger River.<ref>{{cite journal | doi=10.1016/j.cub.2018.05.066 | title=The Rise and Fall of African Rice Cultivation Revealed by Analysis of 246 New Genomes | year=2018 | last1=Cubry | first1=Philippe | last2=Tranchant-Dubreuil | first2=Christine | last3=Thuillet | first3=Anne-Céline | last4=Monat | first4=Cécile | last5=Ndjiondjop | first5=Marie-Noelle | last6=Labadie | first6=Karine | last7=Cruaud | first7=Corinne | last8=Engelen | first8=Stefan | last9=Scarcelli | first9=Nora | last10=Rhoné | first10=Bénédicte | last11=Burgarella | first11=Concetta | last12=Dupuy | first12=Christian | last13=Larmande | first13=Pierre | last14=Wincker | first14=Patrick | last15=François | first15=Olivier | last16=Sabot | first16=François | last17=Vigouroux | first17=Yves | journal=Current Biology | volume=28 | issue=14 | pages=2274–2282.e6 | pmid=29983312 | s2cid=51600014 | doi-access=free | bibcode=2018CBio...28E2274C }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265663363 |title=Searching for the Origins of African Rice Domestication |date=January 2004 |journal=[[Antiquity (journal)|Antiquity]] |issue=78 |author=Shawn Sabrina Murray |via=researchgate.net}}</ref>

By the first millennium BC, [[Ferrous metallurgy|ironworking]] had been introduced in Northern Africa. Around that time it also became established in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, either through independent invention there or diffusion from the north<ref>[http://princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/middle/history1.htm#Irontechnology Martin and O'Meara, "Africa, 3rd Ed."] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011083356/http://princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/middle/history1.htm |date=11 October 2007 }} Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1995</ref><ref name="PB 2014">Breunig, Peter. 2014. Nok: African Sculpture in Archaeological Context: p. 21.</ref> and vanished under unknown circumstances around 500 AD, having lasted approximately 2,000 years,<ref name="FB 1969">Fagg, Bernard. 1969. Recent work in west Africa: New light on the Nok culture. World Archaeology 1(1): 41–50.</ref> and by 500 BC, metalworking began to become commonplace in West Africa. [[Ironworking]] was fully established by roughly 500 BC in many areas of East and West Africa, although other regions did not begin ironworking until the early centuries CE. Copper objects from [[Egypt]], North Africa, Nubia, and Ethiopia dating from around 500 BC have been excavated in West Africa, suggesting that [[Trans-Saharan trade]] networks had been established by this date.<ref name="O'Brien"/>