View source for History:Prehistoric West Africa

{{Short description|Prehistory of the West African subregion of the African continent}}
[[File:Fondazione Passaré V1 056.jpg|thumb|[[History:Round Head Period|Round Head rock art]] figures and zoomorphic figures, including a Barbary sheep<ref name="Soukopova XX">{{cite book |last1=Soukopova |first1=Jitka |title=Round Heads: The Earliest Rock Paintings in the Sahara |chapter=Round Head Paintings and Landscape |date=16 January 2013 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |pages=45–55 |isbn=9781443845793 |oclc=826685273 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=07wwBwAAQBAJ&q=Tuareg&pg=PR5}}</ref>]]

The '''prehistory of West Africa''' spans from the earliest human presence in the region until the emergence of the [[Place:History of West Africa#Iron Age|Iron Age]] in [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]]. West African populations were considerably mobile and interacted with one another throughout the [[History:Population history of West Africa|population history of West Africa]].<ref name="Haour">{{cite book |last1=Haour |first1=Anne |title=Outsiders and Strangers: An Archaeology of Liminality in West Africa |date=Jul 25, 2013 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-969774-8 |page=38 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xYBpAgAAQBAJ&dq=%22population+history+of+west+africa%22&pg=PP1 |chapter=Wealth-in-people |doi=10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199697748.001.0001 |oclc=855890703 |s2cid=127485241}}</ref> [[Engineering:Acheulean|Acheulean]] tool-using [[Biology:Archaic humans|archaic humans]] may have dwelled throughout West Africa since at least between 780,000 BP and 126,000 BP ([[Earth:Middle Pleistocene|Middle Pleistocene]]).<ref name="Scerri">{{cite book |last1=Scerri |first1=Eleanor |title=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History |chapter=The Stone Age Archaeology of West Africa |date=26 October 2017 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780190277734 |page=1 |chapter-url=https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:1442d1c1-7f76-454d-97db-8fd52a4c6c1e/files/m02a1cd8d0c2ef8eb3ffee57a58c4b335 |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.137 |oclc=1013546425 |s2cid=133758803}}</ref> During the [[Earth:Pleistocene|Pleistocene]], Middle Stone Age peoples (e.g., Iwo Eleru people,<ref name="MacDonald">{{cite journal |last1=MacDonald |first1=Kevin |title=Korounkorokalé revisited: The Pays Mande and the West African microlithic technocomplex |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02968406 |journal=African Archaeological Review |year=1997 |volume=14 |issue=3 |pages=192–196 |doi=10.1007/BF02968406 |jstor=25130625 |issn=0263-0338 |oclc=5547019636 |s2cid=161691927}}</ref> possibly Aterians), who dwelled throughout West Africa between MIS 4 (71,000 BP) and MIS 2 (29,000 BP, [[Earth:Last Glacial Maximum|Last Glacial Maximum]]),<ref name="Niang">{{cite journal |last1=Niang |first1=Khady |display-authors=0 |title=The Middle Stone Age occupations of Tiémassas, coastal West Africa, between 62 and 25 thousand years ago |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347705395 |journal=Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports |year=2020 |volume=34 |page=102658 |doi=10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102658 |bibcode=2020JArSR..34j2658N |issn=2352-409X |oclc=8709222767 |s2cid=228826414}}</ref> were gradually replaced by incoming Late Stone Age peoples, who migrated into West Africa<ref name="Schlebusch">{{cite journal |last1=Schlebusch |first1=Carina M. |last2=Jakobsson |first2=Mattias |title=Tales of Human Migration, Admixture, and Selection in Africa |url=http://jakobssonlab.iob.uu.se/pdfs_Jakobssonlab/SchlebuschANDJakobsson_ANNREVGenHuGen_2019.pdf |journal=Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics |date=May 4, 2018 |volume=19 |pages=405–428 |doi=10.1146/annurev-genom-083117-021759 |pmid=29727585 |issn=1527-8204 |oclc=7824108813 |s2cid=19155657}}</ref> as an increase in humid conditions resulted in the subsequent expansion of the West African forest.<ref name="Scerri II">{{cite journal |last1=Scerri |first1=Eleanor M. L. |title=Continuity of the Middle Stone Age into the Holocene |journal=Scientific Reports |year=2021 |volume=11 |issue=1 |page=70 |doi=10.1038/s41598-020-79418-4 |pmid=33431997 |pmc=7801626 |oclc=8878081728 |s2cid=231583475}}</ref> [[History:West African hunter-gatherers|West African hunter-gatherers]] occupied western [[Place:Central Africa|Central Africa]] (e.g., Shum Laka) earlier than 32,000 BP,<ref name="MacDonald" /> dwelled throughout [[Place:Guinea (region)|coastal West Africa]] by 12,000 BP,<ref name="MacDonald II">{{cite book |last1=MacDonald |first1=Kevin C. |title=Archaeology and Language II: Archaeological Data and Linguistic Hypotheses |chapter=Archaeology, language and the peopling of West Africa: a consideration of the evidence |date=Sep 2, 2003 |publisher=Routledge |pages=39–40, 43–44, 49-50 |isbn=9780203202913 |doi=10.4324/9780203202913-11 |oclc=815644445 |s2cid=163304839 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=48iKiprsRMwC&q=%22West+African+hunter-gatherers%22&pg=PA37}}</ref> and migrated northward between 12,000 BP and 8000 BP as far as Mali, Burkina Faso,<ref name="MacDonald II" /> and Mauritania.<ref name="Abd-El-Moniem">{{cite book |last1=Abd-El-Moniem |first1=Hamdi Abbas Ahmed |title=A New Recording Of Mauritanian Rock Art |url=https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1444476/1/U591781.pdf |date=May 2005 |page=221 |publisher=University of London |oclc=500051500 |s2cid=130112115}}</ref>

During the [[Earth:Holocene|Holocene]], Niger-Congo speakers independently created pottery in Ounjougou, Mali<ref name="Ness">{{cite book |last1=Ness |first1=Immanuel |title=The Global Prehistory of Human Migration |chapter=Sub-Saharan Africa: Linguistics |date=Nov 10, 2014 |publisher=Wiley Blackwell |page=100 |isbn=9781118970591 |oclc=890071926 |s2cid=160957067 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2HMTBwAAQBAJ&q=niger+congo+bce&pg=PA100}}</ref><ref name="Ehret V">{{cite book |last1=Ehret |first1=Christopher |title=Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE |date=2023 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=9780691244105 |pages=14–17 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5KjEAAAQBAJ |chapter=African Firsts in the History of Technology |doi=10.2307/j.ctv34kc6ng.5 |jstor=j.ctv34kc6ng.5 |oclc=1330712064}}</ref><ref name="Jesse">{{cite journal |last1=Jesse |first1=Friederike |title=Early Pottery in Northern Africa – An Overview |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/jaa/8/2/article-p219_4.xml |journal=Journal of African Archaeology |date=25 Oct 2010 |volume=8 |issue=2 |page=223 |doi=10.3213/1612-1651-10171 |jstor=43135518 |issn=2191-5784 |s2cid=162209490}}</ref> – the earliest pottery in Africa<ref name="Huysecom">{{cite book |last1=Huysecom |first1=Eric |title=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology |chapter=The First Emergence of Ceramic Production in Africa |chapter-url=https://oxfordre.com/anthropology/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.001.0001/acrefore-9780190854584-e-66 |date=30 July 2020 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.013.66 |isbn=9780190854584 |oclc=1312757953 |s2cid=225392406}}</ref> – by at least 9400 BCE,<ref name="Ness" /> and along with their pottery,<ref name="Huysecom" /> as well as wielding independently invented bows and arrows,<ref name="Blench">{{cite journal |last1=Blench |first1=Roger |title=Africa over the last 12000 years: how we can interpret the interface of archaeology and linguistics? |date=21 October 2017 |url=https://www.academia.edu/28768228 |pages=13, 25 |publisher=University of Cambridge}}</ref><ref name="Roy">{{cite book |last1=Roy |first1=Kaushik |title=A Global History of Pre-Modern Warfare: Before the Rise of the West, 10,000 BCE–1500 CE |date=Sep 15, 2021 |page=Unnumbered |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781000432121 |oclc=1261367188 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yE85EAAAQBAJ&q=Bows+arrows+West+Africa+independently+hunting |chapter=Military Convergence And The Bronze Age Civilisations of Eurasia}}</ref> migrated into the Central Sahara,<ref name="Huysecom" /> which became their primary region of residence by 10,000 BP.<ref name="Blench" /> The emergence and expansion of ceramics in the Sahara may be linked with the origin of Round Head and Kel Essuf rock art, which occupy rockshelters in the same regions (e.g., Djado, Acacus, [[Earth:Tadrart Rouge|Tadrart]]).<ref name="Achrati">{{cite journal |last1=Ahmed |first1=Achrati |title=RAR Review |date=May 2020 |volume=37 |issue=1 |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/0672a3f225f577d7efc873adae4ba3d3/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=376312 |journal=Rock Art Research |page=109 |issn=0813-0426 |oclc=809603634}}</ref> Hunters in the Central Sahara farmed, stored, and cooked undomesticated central Saharan [[Earth:Flora|flora]],<ref name="Mercuri">{{cite journal |last1=Mercuri |first1=Anna Maria |title=Plant behaviour from human imprints and the cultivation of wild cereals in Holocene Sahara |journal=Nature Plants |date=January 29, 2018 |volume=4 |issue=2 |page=73 |doi=10.1038/s41477-017-0098-1 |url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29379157/ |pmid=29379157 |hdl=11567/979083 |oclc=1187338100 |s2cid=3302383|hdl-access=free }}</ref> underwent domestication of [[Biology:Antelope|antelope]],<ref name="Aïn-Séba">{{cite journal |last1=Aïn-Séba |first1=Nagète |title=Saharan Rock Art, A Reflection Of Climate Change In The Sahara |journal=Tabona: Revista de Prehistoria y Arqueología |date=June 3, 2022 |volume=22 |issue=22 |pages=309–310 |doi=10.25145/j.tabona.2022.22.15 |url=https://riull.ull.es/xmlui/bitstream/handle/915/27450/TB_22_%282022%29_15.pdf |issn=2530-8327 |oclc=1201160646 |s2cid=249349324}}</ref> and domesticated and shepherded [[Biology:Barbary sheep|Barbary sheep]].<ref name="Mercuri" /> After the [[History:Kel Essuf Period|Kel Essuf Period]] and [[History:Round Head Period|Round Head Period]] of the Central Sahara, the Pastoral Period followed.<ref name="Soukopova I">{{cite journal |last1=Soukopova |first1=Jitka |title=Central Saharan rock art: Considering the kettles and cupules |journal=Journal of Arid Environments |date=August 2017 |volume=143 |url=https://www.academia.edu/33092285 |pages=10–14 |doi=10.1016/J.JARIDENV.2016.12.011 |s2cid=132225521 |issn=0140-1963 |oclc=7044514678 |bibcode=2017JArEn.143...10S}}</ref> Some of the hunter-gatherers who created the Round Head rock art may have adopted pastoral culture, and others may have not.<ref name="Soukopova">{{cite journal |last1=Soukopova |first1=Jitka |title=Tassili Paintings: Ancient roots of current African beliefs? |date=September 2015 |url=https://www.academia.edu/24483825 |journal=Expression |issn=2499-1341 |pages=116–120}}</ref> As a result of increasing [[Earth:Aridification|aridification]] of the Green Sahara, Central Saharan hunter-gatherers and cattle herders may have used seasonal waterways as the migratory route taken to the Niger River and Chad Basin of West Africa.<ref name="Soukopova II">{{cite journal |last1=Soukopova |first1=Jitka |title=Rain and rock art in the Sahara: a possible interpretation |date=2020 |url=https://www.academia.edu/43418786 |journal=Expression |issn=2499-1341 |page=79-90}}</ref> In 2000 BCE, "Thiaroye Woman",<ref name="Holl" /> also known as the "[[History:Venus figurine|Venus]] of Thiaroye,"<ref name="Thiam" /><ref name="Holl" /> may have been the earliest statuette created in Sub-Saharan [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]]; it may have particularly been a fertility statuette, created in the region of Senegambia,<ref name="Thiam" /> and may be associated with the emergence of complexly organized [[History:Pastoral period|pastoral societies]] in [[Place:History of West Africa#Iron Age|West Africa]] between 4000 BCE and 1000 BCE.<ref name="LaGamma" /> Though possibly developed as early as 5000 BCE,<ref name="Akpan" /> Nsibidi may have also developed in 2000 BCE,<ref name="Hales" /><ref name="Akpan" /> as evidenced by depictions of the West African script on [[Unsolved:Ikom monoliths|Ikom monoliths]] at Ikom, in Nigeria.<ref name="Akpan" /> Migration of Saharan peoples south of the Sahelian region resulted in seasonal interaction with and gradual absorption of West African hunter-gatherers, who primarily dwelt in the savannas and forests of [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]].<ref name="MacDonald II" /> In West Africa, which may have been a major regional cradle in Africa for the domestication of crops and animals,<ref name="Shen" /><ref name="Scarcelli"/> Niger-Congo speakers domesticated the [[Biology:Helmeted guineafowl|helmeted guineafowl]]<ref name="Murunga" /> between 5500 BP and 1300 BP;<ref name="Shen" /> domestication of field crops occurred throughout various locations in West Africa, such as [[Biology:Yam (vegetable)|yams]] (d. praehensilis) in the Niger River basin between eastern Ghana and western Nigeria (northern Benin), [[Biology:Rice|rice]] ([[Biology:Oryza glaberrima|oryza glaberrima]]) in the Inner Niger Delta region of Mali, [[Biology:Pearl millet#Africa|pearl millet]] (cenchrus americanus) in northern Mali and Mauritania, and cowpeas in northern Ghana.<ref name="Scarcelli"/> After having persisted as late as 1000 BP,<ref name="MacDonald II" /> or some period of time after 1500 CE,<ref name="Van Beek">{{cite book |last1=Van Beek |first1=Walter E.A. |last2=Banga |first2=Pieteke M. |title=Bush Base, Forest Farm: Culture, Environment, and Development |chapter=The Dogon and their trees |date=Mar 11, 2002 |publisher=Routledge |page=66 |isbn=9781134919567 |doi=10.4324/9780203036129-10 |oclc=252799202 |s2cid=126989016 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ppuKAgAAQBAJ&q=%22Tellem%22+%22Dogon%22&pg=PA57}}</ref> remaining West African hunter-gatherers, many of whom dwelt in the forest-savanna region, were ultimately acculturated and admixed into the larger groups of West African agriculturalists, akin to the migratory Bantu-speaking agriculturalists and their [[History:Bantu expansion#Central Africa|encounters]] with Central African hunter-gatherers.<ref name="MacDonald II" /> Iron metallurgy may have been developed independently in West Africa <ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Nok: African Sculpture in Archaeological Context|last=Eggert|first=Manfred|publisher=Africa Magna Verlag Press|year=2014|editor-last=Breunig|editor-first=P|location=Frankfurt, Germany|pages=51–59|chapter=Early iron in West and Central Africa}}</ref><ref name=Holl-2009>{{cite journal|last1=Holl|first1=Augustin F. C.|title=Early West African Metallurgies: New Data and Old Orthodoxy|journal=Journal of World Prehistory|date=6 November 2009|volume=22|issue=4|pages=415–438|doi=10.1007/s10963-009-9030-6|s2cid=161611760}}</ref> sometime between around 3,000-1,000 BC, with archaeological sites containing iron smelting furnaces found at sites at Lejja, Nigeria (Eze-Uzomaka 2009),<ref name=Eze-Uzomaka>{{cite journal|last1=Eze–Uzomaka|first1=Pamela|title=Iron and its influence on the prehistoric site of Lejja|url=https://www.academia.edu/4103707|website=Academia.edu|publisher=University of Nigeria,Nsukka, Nigeria|access-date=12 December 2014}}</ref><ref name=Holl-2009/> Opi (Holl 2009),<ref name=Holl-2009/><ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Nok: African Sculpture in Archaeological Context|last=Eggert|first=Manfred|publisher=Africa Magna Verlag Press|year=2014|isbn=9783937248462|editor-last=Breunig|editor-first=P|location=Frankfurt, Germany|pages=53–54|chapter=Early iron in West and Central Africa|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BBn1BQAAQBAJ&q=Nok+Breunig&pg=PA38}}</ref> the Nok culture,<ref name="Champion II" /><ref name="Ehret">{{cite book |last1=Ehret |first1=Christopher |title=Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE |date=2023 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=9780691244105 |page=19|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5KjEAAAQBAJ |chapter=African Firsts in the History of Technology |doi=10.2307/j.ctv34kc6ng.5 |jstor=j.ctv34kc6ng.5 |oclc=1330712064}}</ref> Oboui, and others.<ref name="Bandama">{{cite journal |last1=Bandama |first1=Foreman |last2=Babalola |first2=Abidemi Babatunde |title=Science, Not Black Magic: Metal and Glass Production in Africa |journal=African Archaeological Review |date=13 September 2023 |volume=40 |issue=3 |pages=531–543 |doi=10.1007/s10437-023-09545-6 |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10437-023-09545-6 |issn=0263-0338 |oclc=10004759980 |s2cid=261858183|doi-access=free }}</ref>

==Climate==

[[File:Seasonal westafrica rainfall mean 20070501 20070930.gif|thumb|400px|West African monsoon season]]

===Early Stone Age===

In the Falémé River Valley zone, with the exception of [[Earth:Stadial|stadial]] phases and interstadial phases, there has been a fairly steady state of humidity and temperature throughout a span of 120,000 years.<ref name="Cerasoni">{{cite journal |last1=Cerasoni |first1=Jacopo Niccolò |title=Archaeological sites and palaeoenvironments of Pleistocene West Africa |journal=Journal of Maps |date=Apr 1, 2022 |volume=18 |issue=4 |page=4 |doi=10.1080/17445647.2022.2052767 |bibcode=2022JMaps..18..630C |s2cid=247914897|doi-access=free }}</ref> Additionally, for at least the previous 100,000 years, the presence of flora (e.g., trees) has remained quite consistent.<ref name="Cerasoni" /> Consequently, this area has remained habitable for human populations, from the Early Stone Age, through the Middle Stone Age, to the Later Stone Age.<ref name="Cerasoni" /> Furthermore, for the previous 100,000 years, compared to the climate of [[Place:East Africa|East Africa]], the [[Earth:Pleistocene|Pleistocene]] climate in West Africa has been more steady and humid.<ref name="Cerasoni" />

In the Atakora mountainous zone, the [[Earth:Pleistocene|Pleistocene]] climate has supported continuity in human habitation, from the Early Stone Age, through the Middle Stone Age, to the Later Stone Age, which spanned the previous 120,000 years.<ref name="Cerasoni" />

===Middle Stone Age===

In the Falémé River Valley zone, with the exception of [[Earth:Stadial|stadial]] phases and interstadial phases, there has been a fairly steady state of humidity and temperature throughout a span of 120,000 years.<ref name="Cerasoni" /> Additionally, for at least the previous 100,000 years, the presence of flora (e.g., trees) has remained quite consistent.<ref name="Cerasoni" /> Consequently, this area has remained habitable for human populations, from the Early Stone Age, through the Middle Stone Age, to the Later Stone Age.<ref name="Cerasoni" /> Furthermore, for the previous 100,000 years, compared to the climate of [[Place:East Africa|East Africa]], the [[Earth:Pleistocene|Pleistocene]] climate in West Africa has been more steady and humid.<ref name="Cerasoni" />

In the Jos Plateau zone, the [[Earth:Pleistocene|Pleistocene]] climate has fluctuated mostly during stadial phases and interstadial phases, throughout the previous 120,000 years; specifically, stable climate occurred between MIS 4 and MIS 2, and climate fluctuations occurred during the periods and sub-periods of MIS 1 and MIS 5.<ref name="Cerasoni" /> Consequently, the human habitation areas in Jos Plateau, which is only composed of Middle Stone Age sites, has been distinct in terms of culture and environment in comparison to the Falémé River Valley.<ref name="Cerasoni" />

In the Atakora mountainous zone, the [[Earth:Pleistocene|Pleistocene]] climate has supported continuity in human habitation, from the Early Stone Age, through the Middle Stone Age, to the Later Stone Age, which spanned the previous 120,000 years.<ref name="Cerasoni" />

===Later Stone Age===

In the Falémé River Valley zone, with the exception of [[Earth:Stadial|stadial]] phases and interstadial phases, there has been a fairly steady state of humidity and temperature throughout a span of 120,000 years.<ref name="Cerasoni" /> Additionally, for at least the previous 100,000 years, the presence of flora (e.g., trees) has remained quite consistent.<ref name="Cerasoni" /> Consequently, this area has remained habitable for human populations, from the Early Stone Age, through the Middle Stone Age, to the Later Stone Age.<ref name="Cerasoni" /> Furthermore, for the previous 100,000 years, compared to the climate of [[Place:East Africa|East Africa]], the [[Earth:Pleistocene|Pleistocene]] climate in West Africa has been more steady and humid.<ref name="Cerasoni" />

In the Atakora mountainous zone, the [[Earth:Pleistocene|Pleistocene]] climate has supported continuity in human habitation, from the Early Stone Age, through the Middle Stone Age, to the Later Stone Age, which spanned the previous 120,000 years.<ref name="Cerasoni" />

In 15,000 BP, the West African monsoon transformed the landscape of [[Earth:Africa|Africa]] and began the Green Sahara period; greater rainfall during the summer season resulted in the growth of humid conditions (e.g., lakes, wetlands) and the savanna (e.g., [[Earth:Grassland|grassland]], shrubland) in [[Place:North Africa|North Africa]].<ref name="Pausata">{{cite journal |last1=Pausata |first1=Francesco S.R. |display-authors=0 |title=Impacts of dust reduction on the northward expansion of the African monsoon during the Green Sahara period |journal=Earth and Planetary Science Letters |year=2016 |volume=434 |pages=298–307 |doi=10.1016/j.epsl.2015.11.049 |bibcode=2016E&PSL.434..298P |doi-access=free }}</ref> Between 5500 BP and 4000 BP, the Green Sahara period ended.<ref name="Pausata" />

During the 1st millennium cal BCE, between the Later Stone Age and [[Place:History of West Africa#Iron Age|Early Iron Age]], the environment was conducive for the growth of [[Biology:Pearl millet#Sahel|pearl millet]] in the basin area of Lake Chad.<ref name="Ozainne II" />

===Pastoral Neolithic===

By 4500 BP, sources of water in the Sahara had dried, and subsequently, [[Earth:Drought|drought]] occurred, which resulted in a decrease in the presence of humidity in the region.<ref name="Ozainne II" /> Concurrent with the decrease in Saharan humidity, between 3500 BP and 2500 BP, the [[Place:Sahel|Sahel]] underwent an increase in humidity within the region.<ref name="Ozainne II" />

==Early Stone Age==

[[Engineering:Acheulean|Acheulean]] tool-using [[Biology:Archaic humans|archaic humans]] may have dwelled throughout West Africa since at least between 780,000 BP and 126,000 BP ([[Earth:Middle Pleistocene|Middle Pleistocene]]).<ref name="Scerri" />

At Ounjougou, in Mali, a yet-to-be-dated Lower Paleolithic economy (e.g., pebble cores, pebble tools, polyhedrons, [[Engineering:Spheroid (lithic)|spheroids]], sub-spheroids), with unpreserved Acheulean implements (e.g., cleavers, handaxes), is present.<ref name="Chevrier">{{cite journal |last1=Chevrier |first1=Benoît |display-authors=0 |title=Between continuity and discontinuity: An overview of the West African Paleolithic over the last 200,000 years |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321473386 |journal=Quaternary International|year=2018 |volume=466 |pages=3–22 |doi=10.1016/j.quaint.2017.11.027 |bibcode=2018QuInt.466....3C |issn=1040-6182 |oclc=8017132446 |s2cid=134069175|doi-access=free }}</ref>

==Middle Stone Age==

[[File:Journal.pone.0024024.g001-1.jpg|thumb|350px|Iwo Eleru site and Iwo Eleru skull]]

Middle Stone Age West Africans may have dwelled at Ounjougou, Mali (71,000 BP – 59,000 BP, 59,000 BP – 28,000 BP), Faleme Valley, Senegal (Late MIS 5), Tiemassas, Senegal (62,000 BP – 25,000 BP),<ref name="Niang" /><ref name="Scerri II"/> Birimi, Ghana (50,000 BP – 20,000 BP),<ref name="Scerri II"/> Missira, Senegal (MIS 4),<ref name="Niang" /> Toumboura, Senegal (33,000 BP),<ref name="Niang" /><ref name="Scerri II"/> Laminia, Gambia (24,000 BP – 21,000 BP),<ref name="Scerri II"/> Ndiayène Pendao, Senegal (11,600 BP),<ref name="Niang" /><ref name="Scerri II"/> and Saxonomunya (11,000 BP), near Falémé, Mali.<ref name="Scerri II"/> There is also scant evidence of Middle Stone Age settlement at Ounjougou, Mali between 191,000 BP – 130,000 BP.<ref name="Niang" />

Aside the scant evidence, Middle Stone Age West Africans likely dwelled continuously in West Africa between MIS 4 and MIS 2 and likely were not present in West Africa before MIS 5.<ref name="Niang" /> Amid MIS 5, Middle Stone Age West Africans may have migrated across the West Sudanian savanna and continued to reside in the region (e.g., West Sudanian savanna, West African [[Place:Sahel|Sahel]]).<ref name="Niang" /> In the [[Earth:Late Pleistocene|Late Pleistocene]], Middle Stone Age West Africans began to dwell along parts of the forest and [[Place:Guinea (region)|coastal]] region of West Africa (e.g., Tiemassas, Senegal).<ref name="Niang" /> More specifically, by at least 61,000 BP, Middle Stone Age West Africans may have begun to migrate south of the West Sudanian savanna, and, by at least 25,000 BP, may have begun to dwell near the coast of West Africa.<ref name="Niang" /> Amid aridification in MIS 5 and regional change of climate in MIS 4, in the Sahara and the Sahel, Aterians may have migrated southward into West Africa (e.g., Baie du Levrier, Mauritania; Tiemassas, Senegal; Lower Senegal River Valley).<ref name="Niang" />

In 35,000 BP, Middle Stone Age West Africans and West African [[Biology:Archaic humans|archaic humans]] may have admixed with one another, resulting in the development of the Iwo Eleru people (e.g., Iwo Eleru skull), who may have remained rather isolated in West Africa, and thus, remained distinct from both contemporaneous Africans in the Sahara and from any other African populations amid the transitory period between the Pleistocene and Holocene.<ref name="Scerri III">{{cite journal |last1=Scerri |first1=Eleanor M.L. |title=Persistence of Middle Stone Age technology to the Pleistocene/Holocene transition supports a complex hominin evolutionary scenario in West Africa |url=http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/129212/3/Scerri%20et%20al%20Manuscript%20R2-1.pdf |journal=Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports |year=2017 |volume=11 |pages=639–646 |doi=10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.01.003 |bibcode=2017JArSR..11..639S |issn=2352-409X |oclc=6919828990 |s2cid=4768764}}</ref>

==Later Stone Age==

===32,000 BP – 20,000 BP (30,000 BCE – 18,000 BCE)===

[[File:Two steatopyous figures said to represent Dahomey pygmies, Wellcome M0012407.jpg|thumb|200px|Representations of West African hunter-gatherers from the Dahomey region of Benin]]

Earlier than 32,000 BP,<ref name="MacDonald" /> or by 30,000 BP,<ref name="Scerri II"/><ref name="MacDonald II" /> Late Stone Age [[History:West African hunter-gatherers|West African hunter-gatherers]] were dwelling in the forests of western Central Africa<ref name="MacDonald II" /><ref name="Scerri II"/> (e.g., earlier than 32,000 BP at de Maret in Shum Laka,<ref name="MacDonald" /> 12,000 BP at Mbi Crater).<ref name="MacDonald II" /> An excessively dry Ogolian period occurred, spanning from 20,000 BP to 12,000 BP.<ref name="MacDonald" /> By 15,000 BP, the number of settlements made by Middle Stone Age West Africans decreased as there was an increase in humid conditions, expansion of the West African forest, and increase in the number of settlements made by Late Stone Age West African hunter-gatherers.<ref name="Scerri II"/> Macrolith-using late Middle Stone Age peoples (e.g., the possibly [[Biology:Interbreeding between archaic and modern humans#Archaic African hominins|archaic human admixed]]<ref name="Schlebusch" /> or late-persisting early modern human<ref name="Bergström">{{cite journal |last1=Bergström |first1=Anders |display-authors=0 |title=Origins of modern human ancestry |url=https://iranvarjavand.ir/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/paperhub.ir10.1038@s41586-021-03244-5.pdf |journal=Nature |year=2021 |volume=590 |issue=7845 |pages=229–237 |doi=10.1038/s41586-021-03244-5 |pmid=33568824 |bibcode=2021Natur.590..229B |issn=0028-0836 |oclc=8911705938 |s2cid=231883210}}</ref><ref name="Eborka">{{cite book |last1=Eborka |first1=Kennedy |title=Migration and Urbanization in Contemporary Nigeria: Policy Issues and Challenges |chapter=Migration and Urbanization in Nigeria from Pre-colonial to Post-colonial Eras: A Sociological Overview |chapter-url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348995565 |date=February 2021 |page=6 |publisher=University of Lagos Press |isbn=9789785435160 |oclc=986792367}}</ref> Iwo Eleru fossils of the late Middle Stone Age), who dwelled in Central Africa, to western Central Africa, to West Africa, were displaced by microlith-using Late Stone Age Africans (e.g., non-archaic human admixed Late Stone Age Shum Laka fossils dated between 7000 BP and 3000 BP) as they migrated from [[Place:Central Africa|Central Africa]], to western Central Africa, into [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]].<ref name="Schlebusch" /> Between 16,000 BP and 12,000 BP, Late Stone Age West Africans began dwelling in the eastern and central forested regions (e.g., Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria;<ref name="Scerri II"/> between 18,000 BP and 13,000 BP at Temet West and Asokrochona in the southern region of Ghana, 13,050 ± 230 BP at Bingerville in the southern region of Ivory Coast, 11,200 ± 200 BP at Iwo Eleru in Nigeria)<ref name="MacDonald II" /> of West Africa.<ref name="Scerri II"/> By 11,000 BP, the late settlement made by Middle Stone Age West Africans and earliest settlement made by Late Stone Age West African hunter-gatherers emerged in the westernmost region (e.g., Falémé Valley, Senegal) of West Africa.<ref name="Scerri II"/> Middle Stone Age West Africans and Late Stone Age West African hunter-gatherers likely did not become admixed with one another and were culturally and ecologically distinct from one another.<ref name="Scerri II"/>

===20,000 BP – 10,000 BP (18,000 BCE – 8000 BCE)===

[[File:Africa Climate 14000bp.png|thumb|Africa in 12,000 BCE]]

According to MacDonald (2003), the regional birthplace of Nilo-Saharan speakers and Niger-Congo speakers spanned from the Nile Valley to the [[Place:Maghreb|Maghreb]], after the Aterian period.<ref name="MacDonald II" /> In 20,000 BP, amid the [[Earth:Late Pleistocene|Late Pleistocene]], Proto-Niger-Saharan speakers, who are identified as Mechtoids, persisted along the coasts and in the mountainous areas of [[Place:North Africa|North Africa]].<ref name="MacDonald II" /> Between 12,000 BP and 10,000 BP, amid the [[Earth:Holocene|Holocene]], Niger-Saharan speakers migrated southward into the Sahara and linguistic divergence began to increase; subsequently, they gradually encountered, assimilated, and absorbed [[History:West African hunter-gatherers|West African populations]] that persisted along [[Place:Guinea (region)|coastal West Africa]].<ref name="MacDonald II" /> Libyco-Berber epigraphy, while possibly being composed in playfulness, as a form of code, or as an unknown language unrelated to modern Berber languages, may have also been composed in a Nilo-Saharan language.<ref name="Blench II">{{cite book |last1=Blench |first1=Roger |title=Burials, Migration and Identity in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond |date=Feb 14, 2019 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-47408-5 |page=446 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FOeADwAAQBAJ |chapter=The Linguistic Prehistory of the Sahara |doi=10.1017/9781108634311.014 |s2cid=197854997}}</ref>

As of 19,000 years ago, Africans, bearing [[Biology:Haplogroup E-V38|haplogroup E1b1a-V38]], likely traversed across the Sahara, from [[Place:East Africa|east]] to [[Place:West Africa|west]].<ref name="Shriner">{{cite journal |last1=Shriner |first1=Daniel |last2=Rotimi |first2=Charles N. |title=Whole-Genome-Sequence-Based Haplotypes Reveal Single Origin of the Sickle Allele during the Holocene Wet Phase |journal=American Journal of Human Genetics |year=2018 |volume=102 |issue=4 |pages=547–556 |doi=10.1016/j.ajhg.2018.02.003 |pmid=29526279 |pmc=5985360 |oclc=8158698745 |s2cid=4636822}}</ref>

Around 18,000 BP, the ancestors of Mende people, along with Gambian peoples, grew in population size.<ref name="Miller">{{cite journal |last1=Miller |first1=Eleanor F. |display-authors=0 |title=Global demographic history of human populations inferred from whole mitochondrial genomes |journal=Royal Society Open Science |year=2018 |volume=5 |issue=8 |page=180543 |doi=10.1098/rsos.180543 |pmid=30225046 |pmc=6124094 |bibcode=2018RSOS....580543M |oclc=7856278064 |s2cid=52289534}}</ref>

The Taforalts of Morocco, who have been radiocarbon dated between 15,100 cal BP and 13,900 cal BP, and were found to be 63.5% Natufian, were also found to be 36.5% Sub-Saharan African (e.g., Hadza), which is drawn out, most of all, by West Africans (e.g. Yoruba, Mende).<ref name="Van De Loosdrecht">{{cite journal |last1=Van De Loosdrecht |first1=Marieke |display-authors=0 |title=Pleistocene North African genomes link Near Eastern and sub-Saharan African human populations |journal=Science |year=2018 |volume=360 |issue=6388 |pages=548–552 |doi=10.1126/science.aar8380 |pmid=29545507 |bibcode=2018Sci...360..548V |oclc=9579960874 |s2cid=206666517|doi-access=free }}</ref> In addition to having similarity with the remnant of a more [[Biology:Basal (phylogenetics)|basal]] Sub-Saharan African lineage (e.g., a [[Biology:Basal West African|basal West African]] lineage shared between Yoruba and Mende peoples), the Sub-Saharan African DNA in the Taforalt people of the Iberomaurusian culture may be best represented by modern West Africans.<ref name="Jeong">{{cite book |last1=Jeong |first1=Choongwon |chapter=Current Trends in Ancient DNA Study: Beyond Human Migration in and Around Europe |title=The Handbook of Mummy Studies |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-981-15-1614-6_10-1 |year=2020 |pages=1–16 |publisher=Springer |doi=10.1007/978-981-15-1614-6_10-1 |isbn=978-981-15-1614-6 |oclc=1182512815 |s2cid=226555687}}</ref>

In 15,000 BP, Niger-Congo speakers may have migrated from the Sahelian region of West Africa, along the Senegal River, and introduced [[Biology:Haplogroup L2 (mtDNA)#Haplogroup L2a1|haplogroup L2a1]] into [[Place:North Africa|North Africa]], resulting in modern Mauritanian peoples and Berbers of Tunisia inheriting it.<ref name="Frigi">{{cite journal |last1=Frigi |first1=Sabeh |display-authors=0 |title=Ancient Local Evolution of African mtDNA Haplogroups in Tunisian Berber Populations |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/47810347 |journal=Human Biology |year=2010 |volume=82 |issue=4 |pages=367–384 |doi=10.3378/027.082.0402 |pmid=21082907 |issn=0018-7143 |oclc=706674857 |jstor=41466688 |s2cid=27594333}}</ref>

Between 12,000 BP and 8000 BP, West African hunter-gatherers then likely migrated from [[Place:Guinea (region)|coastal West Africa]], toward the north of West Africa<ref name="MacDonald II" /><ref name="MacDonald" /> as far as Mali, Burkina Faso,<ref name="MacDonald II" /> and Mauritania,<ref name="Abd-El-Moniem" /> as evidenced by their microlithic industries (e.g., quartz, sandstone).<ref name="MacDonald" /> Amid the early period of the Holocene, West African hunter-gatherers may have had Sahelian stone industries, from Senegal to Niger, which, while it may have derived from a distinct Sub-Saharan African stone tradition, may have derived from the Shum Laka stone tradition of Cameroon.<ref name="MacDonald II" />

While the Niger-Congo migration may have been from West Africa into Kordofan, possibly from Kordofan, Sudan, Niger-Congo speakers<ref name="Murunga">{{cite journal |last1=Murunga |first1=Philip |display-authors=0 |title=Mitochondrial DNA D-Loop Diversity of the Helmeted Guinea Fowls in Kenya and Its Implications on HSP70 Gene Functional Polymorphism |journal=BioMed Research International |year=2018 |volume=2018 |pages=1–12 |doi=10.1155/2018/7314038 |pmid=30539018 |pmc=6258102 |oclc=8754386965 |s2cid=54463512 |doi-access=free}}</ref> (e.g., Mande),<ref name="Welmers">{{cite book |last1=Welmers |first1=WM E. |title=Linguistics in Sub-Saharan Africa |chapter=Niger-Congo, Mande |date=Aug 21, 2017 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |page=119 |isbn=9783111562520 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qYhdDwAAQBAJ&q=By+way+of+conclusion+to+this+general+overview+of+the+Mande+languages%2C+abit+of+judicious+speculation+about+Mande+origins+and+migrations+may+not+be+out&pg=PA119 |doi=10.1515/9783111562520-006 |oclc=1039697513 |s2cid=133735359}}</ref> accompanied by undomesticated [[Biology:Helmeted guineafowl|helmeted guineafowl]]s, may have traversed into West Africa, domesticated the helmeted guineafowls by 3000 BCE, and via the [[History:Bantu expansion|Bantu expansion]], traversed into other parts of [[Place:Sub-Saharan Africa|Sub-Saharan Africa]] (e.g., [[Place:Central Africa|Central Africa]], [[Place:East Africa|East Africa]], [[Place:Southern Africa|Southern Africa]]).<ref name="Murunga" />

According to Steverding (2020), Near the [[Place:African Great Lakes|African Great Lakes]], schistosomes (e.g., S. mansoni, S. haematobium) underwent evolution.<ref name="Steverding">{{cite journal |last1=Steverding |first1=Dietmar |title=The spreading of parasites by human migratory activities |journal=Virulence |year=2020 |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=1177–1191 |doi=10.1080/21505594.2020.1809963 |pmid=32862777 |pmc=7549983 |s2cid=221383467}}</ref> Subsequently, there was an expansion alongside the Nile River.<ref name="Steverding" /> From [[Place:Egypt|Egypt]], the presence of schistosomes expanded into Western Africa and then subsequently to Central and Southern Africa. Whether this was specifically due to the migration of Yoruba people, into Western Africa<ref name="Steverding" /> as well as the  migratory Bantu-speaking peoples, into the rest of [[Place:Sub-Saharan Africa|Sub-Saharan Africa]] (e.g., [[Place:Southern Africa|Southern Africa]], [[Place:Central Africa|Central Africa]]) is uncertain.<ref name="Steverding" />

In the 10th millennium BCE, Niger-Congo speakers developed [[Biology:Control of fire by early humans|pyrotechnology]] and employed subsistence strategy at Ounjougou, Mali.<ref name="Ness" /> Prior to 9400 BCE, Niger-Congo speakers independently created and used matured ceramic technology<ref name="Ness" /><ref name="Ehret V" /><ref name="Jesse" /> (e.g., pottery, pots) to contain and cook grains (e.g., ''[[Biology:Digitaria exilis|Digitaria exilis]]'', [[Biology:Pearl millet|pearl millet]]);<ref name="Ness" /><ref name="Bradley">{{cite web |last1=Bradley |first1=Simon |title=Swiss archaeologist digs up West Africa's past |date=January 18, 2007 |url=https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-archaeologist-digs-up-west-africa-s-past/5675736 |publisher=SWI}}</ref> ethnographically and historically, West African women have been the creators of pottery in most West African ceramic traditions<ref name="Gijanto">{{cite book |last1=Gijanto |first1=Liza |title=Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures |chapter=Ceramics in West Africa |year=2014 |pages=1–6 |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-94-007-3934-5_9856-1 |publisher=Springer |doi=10.1007/978-94-007-3934-5_9856-1 |bibcode=2008ehst.book.....S |isbn=978-94-007-3934-5 |oclc=1111738181 |s2cid=160716376}}</ref><ref name="Gilbert">{{cite journal|last1=Gilbert |first1=Michelle |title=Bura Funerary Urns: Niger Terracottas: An Interpretive Limbo? |url=https://direct.mit.edu/afar/article/53/1/66/55147/Bura-Funerary-Urns-Niger-Terracottas-An |journal=African Arts|year=2020 |volume=53 |pages=66–75 |doi=10.1162/afar_a_00515 |issn=0001-9933 |oclc=8515828212 |s2cid=210872397 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="Ehret V" /> and their production of ceramics is closely associated with creativity and fertility.<ref name="Gilbert" /> Amid the tenth millennium BCE, [[History:West African hunter-gatherers|microlith-using West Africans]] migrated into and dwelt in Ounjougou alongside earlier residing West Africans in Ounjougou.<ref name="Huysecom II">{{cite journal|last1=Huysecom |first1=Eric |display-authors=0 |title=Ounjougou (Mali): A history of Holocene settlement at the southern edge of the Sahara |date=September 2004 |volume=78 |issue=301 |pages=589–591 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256006602 |journal=Antiquity |doi=10.1017/S0003598X00113237 |oclc=1156688873 |s2cid=129493039}}</ref> Among two existing cultural areas, earlier residing West Africans in Ounjougou were of a cultural area encompassing the Sahara region (e.g., Tenere, Niger/Chad; Air, Niger; [[History:Acacus Mountains|Acacus]], Libya/Algeria;<ref name="Huysecom II" /> Tagalagal, Niger; Temet, Niger)<ref name="Chevrier II">{{cite journal |last1=Chevrier |first1=Benoît |display-authors=0 |title=New data on settlement and environment at the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary in Sudano-Sahelian West Africa: Interdisciplinary investigation at Fatandi V, Eastern Senegal |journal=PLOS ONE |year=2020 |volume=15 |issue=12 |pages=e0243129 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0243129 |pmid=33296412 |pmc=7725507 |issn=1932-6203 |oclc=9530421458 |bibcode=2020PLoSO..1543129C |s2cid=228088701 |doi-access=free}}</ref> of [[Earth:Africa|Africa]] and microlith-using West Africans were of a cultural area encompassing the forest region of West Africa.<ref name="Huysecom II" />

[[File:Fondazione Passaré V31 474.jpg|thumb|250px|[[History:Round Head Period|Round Head]] figure wearing a Barbary sheep-styled mask<ref name="Soukopova XX" />]]

Following the Ogolian period, between the late 10th millennium BCE and the early 9th millennium BCE, the creators of the Ounjougou pottery – the earliest pottery in Africa – migrated, along with their pottery, from Ounjougou, Mali into the Central Sahara.<ref name="Huysecom" /> The emergence and expansion of ceramics in the Sahara may be linked with the origin of both the Round Head and Kel Essuf rock art, which occupy rockshelters in the same regions (e.g., Djado, Acacus, [[Earth:Tadrart Rouge|Tadrart]]) as well as have a common resemblance (e.g., traits, shapes).<ref name="Achrati" /> Whether or not Ounjougou ceramic culture spread as far as Bir Kiseiba, Egypt, which had pottery that resembled Ounjougou pottery, had implements used for grinding like at Ounjougou, and was followed by subsequent ceramic cultures (e.g., Wadi el Akhdar, Sarurab, [[Astronomy:Nabta Playa|Nabta Playa]]), remains to be determined.<ref name="Huysecom" /> Between 8200 BCE and 6400 BCE, Central Saharan hunter-gatherers of Libya (e.g., [[History:Takarkori|Takarkori]], Uan Afuda) gathered a diverse selection of [[Earth:Flora|flora]] (e.g., aquatic plants from lakes, grasses from savanna grasslands) and utilized ceramic pots to process and cook the flora.<ref name="Dunne">{{cite journal |last1=Dunne |first1=Julie |display-authors=0 |title=Earliest direct evidence of plant processing in prehistoric Saharan pottery |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311765166 |journal=Nature Plants |year=2016 |volume=3 |page=16194 |doi=10.1038/nplants.2016.194 |pmid=27991880 |hdl=11380/1121484 |oclc=6915697539 |s2cid=28162195|hdl-access=free }}</ref> By 10,000 BP, the primary region of residence for Niger-Congo speakers, who wielded bows and arrows, may have been the southern region of the Central Sahara.<ref name="Blench" /> Amid an early period of the Holocene, semi-settled Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic hunters, who created a refined material culture (e.g., stone tools, decorated pottery) as early as 10,000 BP,<ref name="Soukopova III">{{cite journal |last1=Soukopova |first1=Jitka |title=Leading role of male hunters in Central Saharan prehistoric rituals |date=March 2016 |url=https://www.academia.edu/31487599 |journal=Expression |issn=2499-1341 |page=68-71}}</ref> also created the engraved Kel Essuf and painted Round Head rock art styles located in the region (e.g., some in the Acacus, some in the Tadrart, some in the Jebel Uweinat) of Libya, in the region (e.g., some in the [[Earth:Tadrart Rouge|Tadrart]], most abundant in [[Earth:Tassili n'Ajjer|Tassili n'Ajjer]]) of Algeria, in the region (e.g., Djado) of Nigeria, and the region (e.g., Djado) of Niger.<ref name="Soukopova III" /><ref name="Soukopova IV">{{cite journal |last1=Soukopova |first1=Jitka |title=Penis only for Gods? Sexual Imagery in the Earliest Central Saharan Rock Art |date=March 2017 |url=https://www.academia.edu/35186723 |journal=Expression |issn=2499-1341 |page=69}}</ref><ref name="Noguera">{{cite journal |last1=Noguera |first1=Alessandro Menardi |title=Uweinat Roundhead: Body Proportions and Postures |journal=What Ever Happened to the People? Humans and Anthropomorphs in the Rock Art of Northern Africa |date=September 2015 |url=https://www.academia.edu/36842386 |publisher=Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences |pages=321-323, 325-330 |isbn=978-90-756-5260-4 |oclc=1091181355}}</ref> Amid the early Sahara, Round Head rock artists, who had a sophisticated culture and engaged in the activity of hunting and gathering, also developed pottery, utilized vegetation, and managed animals.<ref name="Barich">{{cite book |last1=Barich |first1=Barbara |editor-first1=Timothy |editor-last1=Insoll |title=The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines |date=December 2018 |chapter-url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329571626 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=108 |chapter=The Sahara |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199675616.001.0001 |isbn=9780199675616 |oclc=944462988 |s2cid=164464991}}</ref> The cultural importance of shepherded [[Biology:Barbary sheep|Barbary sheep]] (Ammotragus lervia) is shown via their presence in Round Head rock art throughout the Central Sahara (e.g., Libyan region of Tadrart Acacus, Algerian region of Tassili n’Ajjer).<ref name="Rotunno">{{cite journal |last1=Rotunno |first1=Rocco |display-authors=0 |title=Coprolites from Rock Shelters: Hunter-Gatherers "Herding" Barbary Sheep in the Early Holocene Sahara |date=Jul 9, 2019 |volume=17 |issue=1 |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/jaa/17/1/article-p76_5.xml |journal=Journal of African Archaeology |pages=76–94 |doi=10.1163/21915784-20190005 |s2cid=198731047 |issn=2191-5784 |oclc=8197143305}}</ref> Barbary sheep were corralled in stone enclosures near Uan Afuda cave.<ref name="Rotunno" /> From up to 9500 BP, this continued until the beginning of the [[History:Pastoral Neolithic|Pastoral Neolithic]] in the Sahara.<ref name="Rotunno" /> Between 7500 BCE and 3500 BCE, amid the Green Sahara, undomesticated central Saharan flora were farmed, stored, and cooked, and domesticated animals (e.g., Barbary sheep) were milked and managed, by hunter-gatherers near the Takarkori rockshelter, which is representative of the broader Sahara; this continued until the beginning of the Pastoral Neolithic in the Sahara.<ref name="Mercuri" />

Between 11,000 BP and 10,000 BP, the population ancestral to Yoruba people and Esan people grew in population size.<ref name="Miller" />

As early as 11,000 years ago, Sub-Saharan West Africans, bearing [[Biology:Macro-haplogroup L (mtDNA)|macrohaplogroup L]] (e.g., [[Biology:Haplogroup L1 (mtDNA)#L1b|L1b1a11]], L1b1a6a, L1b1a8, L1b1a9a1, [[Biology:Haplogroup L2 (mtDNA)#Haplogroup L2a1|L2a1k]], [[Biology:Haplogroup L3 (mtDNA)#Subclade distribution|L3d1b1a]]), may have migrated through [[Place:North Africa|North Africa]] and into [[Earth:Europe|Europe]], mostly into [[Place:Southern Europe|southern Europe]] (e.g., Iberia).<ref name="Soares">{{cite journal |last1=Soares |first1=Pedro |title=The genetic impact of the lake chad basin population in north africa as documented by mitochondrial diversity and internal variation of the L3e5 haplogroup |url=https://www.academia.edu/22244709 |journal=Annals of Human Genetics |year=2013 |volume=77 |issue=6 |pages=513–523 |doi=10.1111/ahg.12040 |pmid=25069842 |issn=0003-4800 |oclc=6998015647 |s2cid=24672148}}</ref>

In West Africa, the Holocene Wet Phase ushered in expanding rainforest and wooded savannah from Senegal to Cameroon.<ref name="Ehret">{{cite book |last1=Ehret |first1=Christopher |title=The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800 |date=2002 |publisher=University Press of Virginia |pages=82–84 |isbn=9780813920856 |doi=10.2307/3559333 |oclc=318419921 |jstor=3559333 |s2cid=130341334 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ga7QqZw6VPYC}}</ref> Between 9000 BCE<ref name="Ehret" /> and 5000 BCE,<ref name="Ehret" /><ref name="Ehret II">{{cite book |last1=Ehret |first1=Christopher |title=Agricultural and Pastoral Societies in Ancient and Classical History |chapter=Sudanic Civilization |date=2001 |publisher=Temple University Press |page=235 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qcSsoJ0IXawC&q=niger+congo+bce&pg=PA235 |isbn=9781566398329 |oclc=44493265 |s2cid=160513624}}</ref> Niger-Congo speakers independently developed [[Earth:Agriculture|agriculture]] (e.g., [[Biology:Yam (vegetable)#Africa|Yams]]/[[Biology:Dioscorea|Dioscorea]]).<ref name="Ehret II" /> [[Biology:Elaeis guineensis|Oil palm]] and raffia palm were domesticated as early as 9000 BCE.<ref name="Ehret" /> Two seed plants, [[Biology:Black-eyed pea|black-eyed pea]]s and voandzeia (African groundnuts) were domesticated, followed by [[Biology:Okra|okra]] and kola nuts.<ref name="Ehret" /> Prior to 5000 BCE, their agricultural practices were spread throughout the woodland savanna, and afterward, were introduced southward into the West African forest.<ref name="Ehret II"/> Since most of the plants grew in the forest, the Niger-Congo speakers invented polished stone axes for clearing forest.<ref name="Ehret" />

===10,000 BP – 7500 BP (8000 BCE – 5500 BCE)===

During the Green Sahara, at [[History:Gobero|Gobero]], there were two groups: the Kiffians and the Tenerians.<ref name="UChicago">{{cite web |last1=UChicago News |title=Stone Age Graveyard reveals Lifestyles of a 'Green Sahara': Two Successive Cultures Thrived Lakeside |date=Aug 14, 2008 |url=https://news.uchicago.edu/story/stone-age-graveyard-reveals-lifestyles-green-sahara-two-successive-cultures-thrived-lakeside |publisher=University of Chicago}}</ref> Between 10,000 BP and 8000 BP, the Kiffians hunted (e.g., harpoons) undomesticated animals, constructed stylized (e.g., zig zags, wavy lines) pottery, and fished (e.g., [[Engineering:Fish hook|fish hook]]s).<ref name="UChicago"/> Between 7000 BP and 4500 BP, the Tenerians hunted, fished, herded cattle, and constructed pointillistic-designed ceramics.<ref name="UChicago"/>

In the steppes and savannah of the Sahara and Sahel, the Nilo-Saharan speakers started to collect and domesticate wild millet and [[Biology:Sorghum|sorghum]] between 8000 BCE and 6000 BCE.<ref name="Ehret III">{{cite book |last1=Ehret |first1=Christopher |title=The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800 |date=2002 |publisher=University Press of Virginia |pages=64–75 |isbn=9780813920856 |doi=10.2307/3559333 |oclc=318419921 |jstor=3559333 |s2cid=130341334 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ga7QqZw6VPYC}}</ref> Later, [[Biology:Gourd|gourd]]s, [[Biology:Watermelon|watermelon]]s, castor beans, and [[Biology:Cotton|cotton]] were also collected and domesticated.<ref name="Ehret III" /> The people started capturing wild cattle and holding them in circular thorn hedges, resulting in domestication.<ref name="Ehret III" />

Amid the early Holocene Wet Phase, Asselar man may have occupied Asselar, in the Saharan region of northern Mali,<ref name="Vialet">{{cite journal |last1=Vialet |first1=Amélie |display-authors=0 |title=Fossil Man from Asselar (current Mali). Critical study, historical perspective and new interpretations |journal=L'Anthropologie |date=June–August 2013 |volume=117 |issue=3 |pages=345–361 |doi=10.1016/j.anthro.2013.06.002 |url=https://coek-info.translate.goog/pdf-lhomme-fossile-dasselar-actuel-mali-etude-critique-mise-en-perspective-historiqu.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US |issn=0003-5521 |oclc=5130630043 |s2cid=129102995}}</ref> near what was likely a lake,<ref name="Dumesnil">{{cite journal |last1=Dumesnil |first1=J. |last2=Valentin |first2=F. |last3=Vialet |first3=A. |title=Archeothanatological Observations on the Human Skeleton from Asselar (Early Holocene, Mali) |journal=Lavoisier |date=April 2018 |volume=30 |issue=1–2 |pages=102–106 |doi=10.3166/S13219-017-0199-4 |url=https://bmsap.revuesonline.com/articles/lvbmsap/pdf/2018/02/lvbmsap2018301p102.pdf |s2cid=202851961}}</ref> between 9500 BP and 7000 BP.<ref name="Vialet" />

During the early period of the [[Earth:Holocene|Holocene]], in 9000 BP, Khoisan-related peoples admixed with the ancestors of the Igbo people, possibly in the western Sahara.<ref name="Busby">{{cite journal |last1=Busby |first1=George BJ |display-authors=0 |title=Admixture into and within sub-Saharan Africa |journal=eLife |date=June 21, 2016 |volume=5 |page=e15266 |doi=10.7554/eLife.15266 |pmid=27324836 |pmc=4915815 |s2cid=6885967 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Gurdasani">{{cite journal |last1=Gurdasani |first1=Deepti |display-authors=0 |title=The African Genome Variation Project shapes medical genetics in Africa |journal=Nature |date=December 3, 2014 |volume=517 |issue=7534 |pages=327–332 |doi=10.1038/nature13997 |pmid=25470054 |issn=0028-0836 |pmc=4297536 |oclc=9018039409 |bibcode=2015Natur.517..327G |s2cid=4463627}}</ref>

By 8000 [[Earth:Before Present|BP]], canoes (e.g., Dufuna canoe) were being utilized in West Africa.<ref name="Blench" /> While some Niger-Congo speakers may have utilized bows and arrows to hunt, other Niger-Congo speakers (e.g., Atlantic, Bak, [[Social:Kru languages|Kru]], Kwa, [[Social:Ijaw languages|Ịjọ]]), who diverged from the hunters, may have utilized canoes to search for resources in and along the river systems, toward the [[Place:Guinea (region)|seacoast]], of West Africa.<ref name="Blench"/> In Western Africa, there may have been independent invention of bows and arrows.<ref name="Roy">{{cite book |last1=Roy |first1=Kaushik |title=A Global History of Pre-Modern Warfare: Before the Rise of the West, 10,000 BCE–1500 CE |date=Sep 15, 2021 |page=Unnumbered |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781000432121 |oclc=1261367188 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yE85EAAAQBAJ&q=Bows+arrows+West+Africa+independently+hunting |chapter=Military Convergence And The Bronze Age Civilisations of Eurasia}}</ref>

==Pastoral Neolithic==

[[File:Africa Climate 7000bp.png|thumb|Africa in 5000 BCE]]

===7500 BP – 6500 BP (5500 BCE – 4500 BCE)===

[[File:Fondazione Passaré V31 417.jpg|thumb|350px|Warrior/Shepherd figures and animals of the Pastoral period]]

As cattle pastoralism<ref name="Soukopova V">{{cite book |last1=Soukopova |first1=Jitka |title=Round Heads: The Earliest Rock Paintings in the Sahara |date=16 January 2013 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |pages=19–24, 105 |isbn=9781443845793 |oclc=826685273 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=07wwBwAAQBAJ&q=Tuareg&pg=PR5}}</ref> (also known as the African cattle complex)<ref name="Nováčková">{{cite journal |last1=Nováčková |first1=Jana |display-authors=0 |title=Subsistence strategy was the main factor driving population differentiation in the bidirectional corridor of the African Sahel |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338551587 |journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology|year=2020 |volume=171 |issue=3 |pages=496–508 |doi=10.1002/ajpa.24001 |pmid=31930493 |issn=0002-9483 |oclc=8531048875 |s2cid=210192706}}</ref> had endured in the Sahara since 7500 BP, amid the [[History:Pastoral period|Pastoral period]], Central Saharan hunters and herders may have lived together in a common area for a long period of time.<ref name="Soukopova V" /> The [[History:Round Head Period|Round Head painting]] tradition was brought to its formal conclusion as the Green Sahara underwent desertification.<ref name="Soukopova" /> Desertification may have resulted in migrations from the Central Saharan region, where the Round Head paintings are located, toward Lake Chad, the Niger Delta,<ref name="Soukopova V" /> and the Nile Valley.<ref name="Tohamy">{{cite journal |last1=Tohamy |first1=Adel Kamel Tohamy Geady |last2=Farag |first2=Handouqa Ibrahim |last3=Ali |first3=Asmaa Abdelalim |title=Economic Life in the Age of the Round Heads in North Africa through Rock Art (7000-3000) BC |journal=Journal of Aswan Faculty of Arts |date=October 2022 |volume=12 |issue=1 |doi=10.21608/mkasu.2022.133968.1041 |s2cid=250636445 |issn=2735-4164 |url=https://mkasu.journals.ekb.eg/article_247593_93943016e9978c063b37eecf0a0cec40.pdf?lang=en}}</ref> While some migrated south of the Sahara, other Central Saharan hunter-gatherers may have taken on the custom of pastoralism<ref name="Soukopova" /> (e.g., herding domesticated cattle and goats).<ref name="Soukopova V" /> Meanwhile, as late as 2500 BP in the Central Sahara, some of the creators of the Round Head rock art may have continued to persist as hunters.<ref name="Soukopova VI">{{cite journal |last1=Soukopova |first1=Jitka |title=Round Heads: Religion and spirituality of ancient central Saharan hunters |date=September 2015 |journal=What Ever Happened to the People? Humans and Anthropomorphs in the Rock Art of Northern Africa |url=https://www.academia.edu/24498304 |publisher=Royal Academy For Overseas Sciences |page=8, 14 |isbn=978-90-756-5260-4 |oclc=1091181355}}</ref>

With the exception of the guineafowl and very recent experiments with the domestication of local wild species, none of the domestic animals kept in west Africa are indigenous to the region. The first pastoral populations in Africa came from Northeast Africa and gradually migrated Southwest into Sub-Saharan West Africa during the onset of the mid to late Holocene dry phase.<ref>{{cite book |last=Linseele |first=Veerle |title=Pastoralism in Africa: Past, Present and Future |editor-last=Bollig |editor-first=Michael |editor2-last=Schnegg |editor2-first=Michael |editor3-last=Wotzka |editor3-first=Hans-Peter |year=2013 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-0-85745-909-1 |pages=145–170 |chapter=From the First Stock Keepers to Specialised Pastoralists in the West African Savannah}}</ref>

Amid the Green Sahara, the mutation for sickle cell originated in the Sahara<ref name="Shriner" /> or in the northwest forest region of western Central Africa (e.g., Cameroon)<ref name="Shriner" /><ref name="Esoh">{{cite journal |last1=Esoh |first1=Kevin |last2=Wonkam |first2=Ambroise |title=Evolutionary history of sickle-cell mutation: implications for global genetic medicine |journal=Human Molecular Genetics |year=2021 |volume=30 |issue=R1 |pages=R119–R128 |doi=10.1093/hmg/ddab004 |pmid=33461216 |pmc=8117455 |issn=0964-6906 |oclc=9356325126 |s2cid=231640941}}</ref> by at least 7,300 years ago,<ref name="Shriner" /><ref name="Esoh" /> though possibly as early as 22,000 years ago.<ref name="Laval">{{cite journal |last1=Laval |first1=Guillaume |display-authors=0 |title=Recent Adaptive Acquisition by African Rainforest Hunter-Gatherers of the Late Pleistocene Sickle-Cell Mutation Suggests Past Differences in Malaria Exposure |journal=American Journal of Human Genetics |year=2019 |volume=104 |issue=3 |pages=553–561 |doi=10.1016/j.ajhg.2019.02.007 |pmid=30827499 |pmc=6407493 |oclc=8022398015 |s2cid=73503158}}</ref><ref name="Esoh" /> The ancestral sickle cell haplotype to modern haplotypes (e.g., Cameroon/Central African Republic and Benin/Senegal haplotypes) may have first arose in the ancestors of modern West Africans, bearing haplogroups [[Biology:Haplogroup E-M2#E1b1a1a1f|E1b1a1-L485]] and [[Biology:Haplogroup E-M2#E1b1a1a1g|E1b1a1-U175]] or their ancestral haplogroup E1b1a1-M4732.<ref name="Shriner" /> West Africans (e.g., Yoruba and Esan of Nigeria), bearing the Benin sickle cell haplotype, may have migrated through the [[Place:Northeast Africa|northeastern region of Africa]] into the western region of Arabia.<ref name="Shriner" /> West Africans (e.g., Mende of Sierra Leone), bearing the Senegal sickle cell haplotype,<ref name="Yaseen">{{cite journal |last1=Yaseen |first1=Noor Taha |display-authors=0 |title=Sickle ß-globin haplotypes among patients with sickle cell anemia in Basra, Iraq: A cross-sectional study |url=http://www.ijhonline.org/article.asp?issn=2072-8069;year=2020;volume=9;issue=1;spage=23;epage=29;aulast=Yaseen |journal=Iraqi Journal of Hematology |pages=23–29 |date=2020 |volume=9 |issue=1 |doi=10.4103/ijh.ijh_20_19 |issn=2072-8069 |oclc=8663256900 |s2cid=216082225|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Shriner" /> may have migrated into Mauritania (77% modern rate of occurrence) and Senegal (100%); they may also have migrated across the Sahara, into [[Place:North Africa|North Africa]], and from North Africa, into [[Place:Southern Europe|Southern Europe]], [[Place:Turkey|Turkey]], and a region near northern Iraq and southern Turkey.<ref name="Yaseen" /> Some may have migrated and introduced the Senegal and Benin sickle cell haplotypes into [[Place:Basra|Basra]], Iraq, where both occur equally.<ref name="Yaseen" /> West Africans, bearing the Benin sickle cell haplotype, may have migrated into the northern region of Iraq (69.5%), Jordan (80%), [[Place:Lebanon|Lebanon]] (73%), Oman (52.1%), and [[Place:Egypt|Egypt]] (80.8%).<ref name="Yaseen" />

According to Roger Blench, paleobotanical analysis reveals indisputable evidence of an early material culture link between ancient Egypt and Sub-saharan Africa. The direction of transmission of these crops was from Sub-Saharan West Africa into ancient Egypt. Some of the plants analyzed are citrullus lanatus which is also known as the egusi melon/[[Biology:Watermelon|watermelon]] and was found in King Tutankhamun's tomb, [[Biology:Cajanus cajan|cajanus cajan]] or [[Biology:Pigeon pea|pigeon pea]] which was also found in a 12th dynasty tomb at Thebes, [[Biology:Vigna unguiculata|vigna unguiculata]] or [[Biology:Cowpea|cowpea]] which was found in ancient Egypt during the 5th dynasty and [[Biology:Ricinus communis|ricinus communis]] or castor bean which was found in pre dynastic contexts.  <ref>{{cite book |last=Blench |first=Roger |title=Egypt and Africa: Nubia from Prehistory to Islam |editor-last=Davies |editor-first=W.V. |year=1991 |publisher=British Museum Press |isbn=978-0-7141-0962-6 |pages=47–67 |chapter=Contact between Ancient Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa: the evidence of cultivated plants}}</ref>

Approximated to the [[History:Neolithic|Neolithic]], there were "[[Biology:Negroid|Negroid]]" skeletal remains found in [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]].<ref name="Rightmire">{{cite journal |last1=Rightmire |first1=G. P. |title=Problems in the Study of Later Pleistocene Man in Africa |journal=American Anthropologist |year=1975 |volume=77 |issue=1 |pages=28–52 |doi=10.1525/aa.1975.77.1.02a00030 |jstor=674067 |issn=0002-7294 |oclc=5549127284 |s2cid=162607361 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="Mauny">{{cite book |last1=Mauny |first1=Raymond |title=The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 2 |chapter=The Peoples of West Africa During The Early Iron Age |date=1975 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=335 |isbn=0521215927 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZTNTz3POoZUC&q=%22Tamaya+Mellet%22+%22Negroid%22&pg=PA335 |doi=10.2307/1869016 |jstor=1869016 |oclc=828737806 |s2cid=143521252}}</ref> At El Guettara, Mali, there were two individuals found.<ref name="Rightmire" /> At Karkarichinkat South, Mali, a skull was found.<ref name="Mauny" /> At Ibalaghen, Mali, there was a cranium found,<ref name="Rightmire" /> which has been specifically dated between 7000 BP and 4000 BP.<ref name="Excoffier">{{cite journal |last1=Excoffier |first1=Laurent |title=Genetics and History of Sub-Saharan Africa |journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology |year=1987 |volume=30 |pages=151–194 |doi=10.1002/ajpa.1330300510 |issn=0002-9483 |oclc=5152094223 |s2cid=85930326 |doi-access=free}}</ref> At Tin Lalou, Mali, there was a cranium and mandible found,<ref name="Rightmire" /> which have been specifically dated between 7000 BP and 4000 BP.<ref name="Excoffier" /> At Tamaya Mellet, Niger, there were 12 individuals found,<ref name="Rightmire" /> which have been specifically dated between 7000 BP and 4000 BP.<ref name="Excoffier" />

Though possibly developed as early as 5000 BCE,<ref name="Akpan" /> Nsibidi may have developed in 2000 BCE,<ref name="Hales">{{cite web |last1=Hales |first1=Kevin |title=The Moving Finger: A Rhetorical, Grammatological and Afrinographic Exploration of Nsibidi in Nigeria and Cameroon |url=https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/send_file/send?accession=ohiou1431071905&disposition=inline |publisher=Ohio University |page=15 |oclc=961832645 |s2cid=135240385}}</ref><ref name="Akpan">{{cite book |last1=Akpan |first1=Unwana Samuel |title=African Media Space and Globalization |date=Aug 24, 2023 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-3-031-35060-3 |page=32 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pPPSEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA3 |chapter=African Traditional Media: Looking Back, Looking Forward |doi=10.1007/978-3-031-35060-3_1 |oclc=1395910241}}</ref> as evidenced by depictions of the West African script on [[Unsolved:Ikom monoliths|Ikom monoliths]] at Ikom, in Nigeria.<ref name="Akpan" />

Preceded by assumed earlier sites in the Eastern Sahara, tumuli with megalithic monuments developed as early as 4700 BCE in the Saharan region of Niger.<ref name="Hassan">{{cite book |last1=Hassan |first1=F.A. |chapter=Palaeoclimate, Food And Culture Change In Africa: An Overview |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/0-306-47547-2_2 |year=2002 |pages=11–26 |title=Droughts, Food And Culture: Ecological Change And Food Security In Africa's Later Prehistory |publisher=Springer |doi=10.1007/0-306-47547-2_2 |isbn=0-306-46755-0 |oclc=51874863 |s2cid=126608903}}</ref> These megalithic monuments in the Saharan region of Niger and the Eastern Sahara may have served as antecedents for the mastabas and pyramids of ancient Egypt.<ref name="Hassan" /> During Predynastic Egypt, tumuli were present at various locations (e.g., Naqada, Helwan).<ref name="Hassan" /> The prehistoric tradition of [[Social:Monarch|monarch]]ic tumuli-building is shared by both the [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]]n [[Place:Sahel|Sahel]] and the Middle Nile regions.<ref name="Faraji">{{cite journal |last1=Faraji |first1=Salim |title=Rediscovering the Links between the Earthen Pyramids of West Africa and Ancient Nubia: Restoring William Leo Hansberry's Vision of Ancient Kush and Sudanic Africa |journal=Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections |date=September 2022 |volume=35 |pages=49–67 |isbn=9780964995864 |url=https://www.academia.edu/99787064 |oclc=1343909954}}</ref> Ancient Egyptian pyramids of the early dynastic period and [[History:Kingdom of Kush#Meroitic period (542 BC–4th century AD)|Meroitic Kush]] pyramids are recognized by Faraji (2022) as part of and derived from an earlier architectural “[[Place:Sudan (region)|Sudanic]]-[[Place:Sahel|Sahel]]ian” tradition of monarchic tumuli, which are characterized as “earthen pyramids” or “proto-pyramids.”<ref name="Faraji" /> Faraji (2022) characterized Nobadia as the “last pharaonic culture of the Nile Valley” and described mound tumuli as being “the first architectural symbol of the sovereign’s return and reunification with the primordial mound upon his death.”<ref name="Faraji" /> Faraji (2022) indicates that there may have been a cultural expectation of “postmortem [[Unsolved:Resurrection|resurrection]]” associated with tumuli in the [[Religion:Funerary cult|funerary traditions]] of the West African Sahel (e.g., northern Ghana, northern Nigeria, Mali) and Nile Valley (e.g., Ballana, Qustul, Kerma, [[History:Kingdom of Kush|Kush]]).<ref name="Faraji" /> Based on artifacts found in the tumuli from West Africa and [[Place:Nubia|Nubia]], there may have been “a highly developed corporate ritual in which the family members of the deceased brought various items as offerings and tribute to the ancestors” buried in the tumuli and the tumuli may have “served as immense shrines of spiritual power for the populace to ritualize and remember their connection to the ancestral lineage as consecrated in the royal tomb.”<ref name="Faraji" /> 

Christopher Ehret in his analysis of West African cultures found numerous examples of a sudanic sacral kingship that originated in the Middle Nile. It is likely that it spread to the Niger Bend in West Africa from [[Social:Nilo-Saharan languages|Nilo-Saharan languages]] speakers who arrived there as early as the 6th millennium BCE. Some of these civilizations and cultures defined by Sudanic sacral kingship were Wadai located east of the lake Tchad, Kwarafara which dominated the Benue River from the thirteenth to eighteenth century, the fourteenth century Nri civilization northeast of Igala in Nigeria, the medieval Songhay empire which was built from Gao, the Hausa city states, and the Soninké founders of the Wagadou empire. <ref>{{cite book |last1=Ehret |first1=Christopher |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0K0p8wCNKTQC |title=The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800 |date=2002 |publisher=University Press of Virginia |isbn=978-0-8139-2084-9 |pages=310–316| access-date=}}</ref>

According to Michael Rowlands, there are basic commonalities between the function of [[Social:Pharaoh|Pharaoh]]s and the Mfon of the Bamiléké people in the possession of negative and highly dangerous powers that could be put to ‘good use’ in maintaining order. Both the pharaoh and Bamileke chief authorize executions while mediating between principles of violence and legitimacy. The focus is very distinctively on the king’s body as autochthonous container and a conduit for the dispersal of substances. Rowlands posits that the ancient Egyptians and Sub-Saharan populations such as the Bamiléké share a [[Astronomy:Cosmogony|proto cosmogony]] derived from the same ancient African ancestors. For Rowlands, the role of embodiment and containment of life giving/destructive forces has a certain relevance for understanding the distinctive features of contemporary African politics in the process of sparking an African renaissance to construct a new African history, identity and culture and to reassert the notion of Africanness.<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Rowlands | first1 = Michael | editor1-last = O’Connor | editor1-first = David | editor2-last = Reid | editor2-first = Andrew | title = Ancient Egypt in Africa | publisher = UCL Press | year = 2003 | isbn = 978-1-84472-000-2 | chapter = The Unity of Africa | pages = 31–46 }}</ref>

Between the 8th millennia BCE and the 4th millennia BCE, riverine farmers and savanna herders traversed the interconnected region of the Middle Nile Valley.<ref name="Faraji" /> In the Saharan-[[Place:Sahel|Sahel]]ian and Middle Nile Valley regions, dotted wavy line and wavy line pottery, which was produced between the 8th millennia BCE and the 4th millennia BCE (late [[History:Neolithic|Neolithic]] and early [[History:Bronze Age|Bronze Age]]), preceded the emergence of monarchic tumuli; the spread of the pottery spanned from the savanna region to the eastern Saharan region, and from Mauritania to the Red Sea, which supports the conclusions of trade between the regions and their interconnectedness.<ref name="Faraji" /> Wavy-line pottery developed six ceramic subvariants and dotted wavy-line pottery developed three ceramic subvariants; the locations for the earliest development of both 8th millennium BCE potteries were at Sagai and Sarurab in Sudan.<ref name="Faraji" /> Wavy-line pottery spread throughout multiple locations (e.g., mostly in Central Nile; some in Hoggar Mountains, southern Algeria, Delibo Cave, Chad, Jebel Eghei, Chad, Tibesti, Chad, and Adrar Madet, Niger) in Africa.<ref name="Faraji" /> Dotted wavy-line pottery spread throughout multiple locations (e.g., [[Earth:Ennedi Plateau|Ennedi Plateau]], Niger Plateau, and Wadi Howar of Saharan-Sahelian region, interconnecting the regions of the Middle Nile River, Lake Chad, and Benue-Niger River) in Africa as well.<ref name="Faraji" /> Both potteries also spread along a north-to-west regional axis (e.g., Wadi Howar, Ennedi Plateau, Chad, Jebel Uweinat, Gilf Kebir, Egypt) near the Saharan regions of Sudan and Egypt.<ref name="Faraji" /> The tumuli from the kingdom of Kerma serve as a regional intermediary between the regions of the Nile River and the Niger River.<ref name="Faraji" /> 

The “Classical Sudanese” monarchic tumuli-building tradition, which lasted in Sudan (e.g., Kerma, Makuria, Meroe, Napata, Nobadia) until the early period of the 6th century CE as well as in [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]] and [[Place:Central Africa|Central Africa]] until the 14th century CE, notably preceded the spread of [[Religion:Islam|Islam]] into the West African and Sahelian regions of Africa.<ref name="Faraji" /> According to al-Bakrī, “the construction of tumuli and the accompanying rituals was a religious endeavor that emanated from the other elements” that he described, such as “sorcerers, sacred groves, idols, offerings to the dead, and the “tombs of their kings.””<ref name="Faraji" /> Faraji (2022) indicated that the early dynastic period of ancient Egypt, Kerma of [[History:Kingdom of Kush|Kush]], and the Nobadian culture of Ballana were similar to al-Bakrī’s descriptions of the Mande tumuli practices of ancient Ghana.<ref name="Faraji" /> A characteristic of divine kingship sometimes includes monarchic funerary practices (e.g., Ancient Egyptian funerary practices).<ref name="Faraji" /> In the lake region of Niger, two human burial sites included funerary rooms with graves that contain various bones (e.g., human, animal) and items (e.g., beads, ornaments, weapons).<ref name="Faraji" /> In the Inland Niger Delta, 11th century CE and 15th century CE tumuli at El Oualedji and Koï Gourrey contained various bones (e.g., human, horse), human items (e.g., beads, bracelets, rings), and animal items (e.g., bells, harnesses, plaques).<ref name="Faraji" /> Cultural similarities were also found with a Malinke king of Gambia, who along with his senior queen, human subjects within his kingdom, and his weapons, were buried in his home under a large mound the size of the house, as described by V. Fernandes.<ref name="Faraji" /> Levtzion also acknowledged the cultural similarities between the monarchic tumuli-building traditions and practices (e.g., monumental Senegambian megaliths) of West Africa, such as Senegambia, Inland Niger Delta, and Mali, and the Nile Valley; these monarchic tumuli-building practices span the [[Place:Sudanian savanna|Sudanian savanna]] as manifestations of a trans-Sahelian common culture and heritage.<ref name="Faraji" /> From the 5th millennium BCE to the 14th century CE, earthen and stone tumuli were developed between Senegambia and Chad.<ref name="Faraji" /> Among 10,000 burial mounds in Senegambia, 3,000 megalithic burial mounds in Senegambia were constructed between 200 BCE and 100 CE, and 7,000 earthen burial mounds in Senegal were constructed in the 2nd millennium CE.<ref name="Faraji" /> Between 1st century CE and 15th century CE, [[Unsolved:Megalith|megalith]]ic monuments without tumuli were constructed.<ref name="Faraji" /> Megalithic and earthen Senegambian tumuli, which may have been constructed by the Wolof people (Serer people) or Sosse people (Mande peoples).<ref name="Faraji" /> Sudanese tumuli (e.g., Kerma, C-Group), which date to the mid-3rd millennium BCE, share cultural similarities with Senegambian tumuli.<ref name="Faraji" /> Between the 6th century CE and 14th century CE, stone tumuli circles, which at a single site usually encircle a burial site of half-meter that is covered by a burial mound, were constructed in Komaland; the precursors for this 3rd millennium BCE tumuli style of Komaland, Ghana and Senegambia are regarded by Faraji (2022) to be Kerma [[History:Kingdom of Kush|Kush]] and the A-Group culture of ancient [[Place:Nubia|Nubia]].<ref name="Faraji" /> While the stele-circled burial mounds of C-Group culture of Nubia are regarded as precursors for the megalithic burial mounds of Senegambia, Kerma tumuli are regarded as precursors for the stone tumuli circles of Komaland.<ref name="Faraji" /> Based on a founding narrative of the Hausa people, Faraji (2022) concludes the possibility of the “pre-Islamic rulers of Hausaland” being a “dynasty of female monarchs reminiscent of the kandake of Meroitic Kush.”<ref name="Faraji" /> The tumuli of Durbi Takusheyi, which have been dated between the 13th century CE and the 16th century CE, may have connection to tumuli from Ballana and Makuria.<ref name="Faraji" /> Tumuli have also been found at Kissi, in Burkina Faso, and at Daima, in Nigeria.<ref name="Faraji" />

===6500 BP – 5500 BP (4500 BCE – 3500 BCE)===

By 6300 BP, pottery began to appear in Konduga.<ref name="McIntosh II">{{cite book |last1=McIntosh |first1=Susan |title=Encyclopedia of Prehistory Volume 1: Africa |pages=319–322 |chapter=West African Late Stone Age |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4615-1193-9_27 |publisher=Springer |doi=10.1007/978-1-4615-1193-9_27 |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-306-46255-9 |oclc=852789668 |s2cid=127349726}}</ref> Occurring in the era of Mega Lake Chad, the pottery was designed in the custom of Saharan ceramics.<ref name="Breunig">{{cite journal |last1=Breunig |first1=Peter |last2=Neumann |first2=Katharina |last3=Neer |first3=Wim |title=New research on the Holocene settlement and environment of the Chad Basin in Nigeria |journal=African Archaeological Review |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=111–145 |year=1996 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225977994 |doi=10.1007/BF01956304 |jstor=25130590 |issn=0263-0338 |oclc=5655045351 |s2cid=162196033}}</ref>

By at least the 4th millennium BCE, as indicated via the painted rock art of Tassili n’Ajjer, Proto-Fulani culture may have been present in the area of Tassili n’Ajjer.<ref name="Metropolitan">{{cite web |last1=Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas |title=The Fulani/Fulbe People |date=October 2002 |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/fula_2/hd_fula_2.htm |publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art}}</ref> The Agades cross, a fertility amulet worn by Fulani women, may be associated with the hexagon-shaped carnelian piece of jewelry depicted in the rock art at Tin Felki.<ref name="Metropolitan" /> At Tin Tazarift, the depiction of a finger may allude to the hand of the mythic figure, Kikala, the first Fulani pastoralist.<ref name="Metropolitan" /><ref name="Achrati II">{{cite journal| last1=Achrati |first1=Ahmed |title=Hand Prints, Footprints And The Imprints Of Evolution |date=May 2008 |url=https://www.academia.edu/32879184 |journal=Rock Art Research: The Journal of the Australian Rock Art Research Association |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=23–33 |doi=10.1007/BF01956304 |issn=0813-0426 |oclc=7128530168 |s2cid=128003222}}</ref> At Uan Derbuaen rockshelter of eastern Tassili, composition six may depict a white ox, under the spell of serpent-related animals, crossing through a U-shaped gate of vegetation, toward a powerful benevolent figure, in order to undo the spell on the ox.<ref name="Holl II">{{cite journal |last1=Holl |first1=Augustin F.C. |title='Here come the brides': Reading the neolithic paintings from Uan Derbuaen (Tasili-n-Ajjer, Algeria) |journal=Trabajos de Prehistoria |date=2017 |volume=73 |issue=2 |page=222 |doi=10.3989/TP.2016.12170 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312154070 |issn=0082-5638 |oclc=7179753558 |s2cid=54009832|doi-access=free }}</ref> Composition six has been interpreted as portraying the Lotori ceremonial rite of Sub-Saharan West African Fulani herders.<ref name="Holl II" /> The annual Lotori ceremonial rite, held by Fulani herders, occurs at a selected location and period of time,<ref name="Holl III">{{cite book |last1=Holl |first1=Augustin F.C. |last2=Chang |first2=Gao |title=Weapons And Tools In Rock Art: A World Perspective |date=February 2021 |publisher=Oxbow Books |doi=10.2307/j.ctv13pk6wz |jstor=j.ctv13pk6wz |s2cid=244880238 |isbn=9781789254914 |oclc=1236250756 |page=30 |chapter-url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349051470 |chapter=Weapons, Tools, and Objects: Material Culture Systems In African rock Art}}</ref> and commemorates the ox and its origination in a source of water.<ref name="Metropolitan" /><ref name="Achrati" /> The Lotori ceremonial rite promotes good health (e.g., prevent epizooties, prevent illness, prevent sterility)<ref name="Holl III" /><ref name="Holl II" /> and reproductive success of cattle by having the cattle cross through a gate of vegetation, and thus, the continuity of the pastoral wealth of the nomadic pastoralist Fulani.<ref name="Holl III" /> The interpretation of composition six as portraying the Lotori ceremonial rite, along with other forms of evidence, have been used to support the conclusion that modern Sub-Saharan West African Fulani herders are descended from peoples of the Sahara.<ref name="Holl II" />

Following the northward expansion from [[Place:Guinea (region)|coastal West Africa]] refugia, [[History:West African hunter-gatherers|West African hunter-gatherers]] arrived and began dwelling at the Korounkorokale rockshelter, in Pays Mande, Mali, where they engaged in hunting and fishing.<ref name="MacDonald" /> By 4000 BCE, red ocher, used to paint pottery, jewelry, or pictographs, was developed by West African hunter-gatherers, which may have developed as a result of interaction with populations from lake areas to the northeast.<ref name="MacDonald" /> With the increased use of grinded stones, and thus, cultural development of utilizing vegetation for food, this resulted in a decreased use of stone projectiles, and thus, decreased hunting cultural practices.<ref name="MacDonald" /> By 700 CE, along with Niani having been established, Korounkorokale was embedded within the Kingdom of Kangaba.<ref name="MacDonald" /> West African hunter-gatherers and their ancient cultural traditions may have persisted shortly thereafter, as West African hunter-gatherers became fully acculturated, and Malinke [[Chemistry:Metallurgy|metallurgy]] and pottery traditions became predominant.<ref name="MacDonald" />

As a result of [[Earth:Aridification|aridification]] of the Green Sahara, West Africans may have adapted by domesticating animals (e.g., [[Biology:Helmeted guineafowl|Helmeted guineafowl]]) and plants (e.g., [[Biology:Pearl millet|Pearl millet]], African rice, Yams).<ref name="Shen">{{cite journal |last1=Shen |first1=Quan-Kuan |display-authors=0 |title=Genomic analyses unveil helmeted guinea fowl (Numida meleagris) domestication in West Africa |journal=Genome Biology and Evolution |date=1 May 2021 |volume=13 |issue=evab090 |doi=10.1093/gbe/evab090 |pmid=34009300 |pmc=8214406 |oclc=9123485061 |s2cid=234783117 |doi-access=free}}</ref> West Africa may have been a major regional cradle in Africa for the domestication of crops and animals.<ref name="Shen" /> Between 5889 BP and 3685 BP, West Africans domesticated pearl millet.<ref name="Shen" /> Between 5500 BP and 1300 BP, West Africans domesticated the Helmeted guineafowl.<ref name="Shen" />  Between 3200 BP and 2000 BP, West Africans domesticated African rice.<ref name="Shen" />

During the [[Earth:Holocene|Holocene]], the Green Sahara underwent the process of becoming a [[Earth:Desertification|desert]] and became the Sahara; this occurrence may have contributed to the start of domesticating field crops.<ref name="Scarcelli">{{cite journal |last1=Scarcelli |first1=Nora |title=Yam genomics supports West Africa as a major cradle of crop domestication |journal=Science Advances |volume=5 |issue=5 |page=eaaw1947 |year=2019 |doi=10.1126/sciadv.aaw1947 |bibcode=2019SciA....5.1947S |oclc=8291779404 |pmid=31114806 |pmc=6527260 |s2cid=155124324}}</ref> Akin to the [[Place:Fertile Crescent|Fertile Crescent]] of the [[Place:Near East|Near East]], the Niger River region of [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]] served as a cradle for field crop domestication and [[Earth:Agriculture|agriculture]] in Africa.<ref name="Scarcelli"/> [[Biology:Yam (vegetable)|Yams]], [[Biology:Rice|rice]], [[Biology:Sorghum|sorghum]], [[Biology:Pearl millet#Africa|pearl millet]], and [[Biology:Cowpea|cowpea]] are field crops that originate in [[Earth:Africa|Africa]].<ref name="Scarcelli"/> Domesticating of yams (e.g., D. praehensilis) likely began in the basin of the Niger River between eastern Ghana and western Nigeria (e.g., northern Benin).<ref name="Scarcelli"/> Domesticating of rice (e.g., [[Biology:Oryza glaberrima|Oryza glaberrima]]) likely began in the Inner Niger Delta region of Mali.<ref name="Scarcelli"/> Domesticating of pearl millet (e.g., Cenchrus americanus) likely began in the region of northern Mali and Mauritania.<ref name="Scarcelli"/> Domesticating of cowpeas likely began in the region of northern Ghana.<ref name="Scarcelli"/>

Before 5500 BP, Kordofanian hunters may have traversed from [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]], along the Yellow Nile River (Wadi Howar), into the Nuba Hills.<ref name="Blench"/>

===5500 BP – 4500 BP (3500 BCE – 2500 BCE)===

[[File:West African sites with archaeobotanical remains from third to first millennium cal bc.webp|thumb|300px|West African sites with archaeobotanical remains from third to first millennium cal bc. The arrows indicate directions of pearl millet diffusion into sub-Saharan West Africa.]]

Herders from the Central Sahara migrated southward toward areas more fit for pastoralism, as the Green Sahara became increasingly dry after 3500 BCE.<ref name="Ozainne">{{cite book |last1=Ozainne |first1=Sylvain |title=Archaeology, Societies and Environments in Africa |date=January 2014 |publisher=Archaeopress |isbn=9781407312972 |pages=13–20 |chapter-url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266025020 |chapter=Saharan legacies: a history of environmental, economic and cultural change in West Africa during the Late Holocene |oclc=890935192 |s2cid=133443175}}</ref> Seasonal waterways were the likely migratory route taken, by hunter-gatherers and cattle herders, to the Niger River and Chad Basin.<ref name="Soukopova II" /> Dwelling in the Sahelian region began to occur as long inhabited settlement and funerary sites of the northern region of Niger stopped being used.<ref name="Soukopova II" /> Migration of Central Saharan peoples into the Sahelian region of Sub-Saharan Africa is verified via Saharan influenced pottery that appear in the Sahelian region.<ref name="Soukopova II" /> Herders from the Sahara expanded, along with their cord-wrapped, roulette-detailed ceramic culture and the agricultural practice of [[Biology:Pearl millet|pearl millet]], throughout West Africa.<ref name="Ozainne II">{{cite journal |last1=Ozainne |first1=Sylvain |display-authors=0 |title=A question of timing: Spatio-temporal structure and mechanisms of early agriculture expansion in West Africa |date=October 2014 |pages=359–368 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264827078 |journal=Journal of Archaeological Science |volume=50 |doi=10.1016/J.JAS.2014.07.025 |bibcode=2014JArSc..50..359O |issn=0305-4403 |oclc=5900680643 |s2cid=128794167}}</ref> Saharan roulette-detailed ceramics may be associated with herding cultures from southern Algeria or pre-herding cultures from Niger.<ref name="Ozainne II" /> After the first half of the 3rd millennium BCE, domesticated pearl millet emerged for the first time near the Saharan and Sahelian regional boundary, thereafter, it expanded into the Sahelian and West Sudanian savanna regional boundary of [[Place:Sub-Saharan Africa|Sub-Saharan Africa]].<ref name="Ozainne II" /> In adaptation to desertification, Saharan herders developed [[Earth:Agriculture|agriculture]] as an additional subsistence strategy.<ref name="Ozainne II" /> As an adaptation to the desertification of the Sahara amid the Green Sahara period, Saharan herders may have begun increasingly utilizing undomesticated flora near seasonally developed and local water sources (e.g., streams, ponds), and thus, contributed to the increased utilization and agricultural spread of [[Biology:Pearl millet|pearl millet]].<ref name="Ozainne II" /> After 2500 BCE, desertification of the Green Sahara may have resulted in Saharan herders traversing further south in West Africa.<ref name="Ozainne II" /> In 2000 BCE, amid the [[History:Later Stone Age|Later Stone Age]], "Thiaroye Woman",<ref name="Holl">{{cite journal |last1=Holl |first1=Augustin F. C. |title=Alisa LaGamma (Ed.): Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara |journal=African Archaeological Review |date=11 February 2021 |volume=38 |issue=2 |pages=373–377 |doi=10.1007/s10437-020-09419-1 |isbn=9781588396877 |oclc=1111945095 |s2cid=233887452 |doi-access=free}}</ref> also known as the "[[History:Venus figurine|Venus]] of Thiaroye,"<ref name="Thiam" /><ref name="Holl" /> may have been the earliest statuette created in Sub-Saharan [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]]; it may have particularly been a fertility statuette, created in the region of Senegambia;<ref name="Thiam" /> the Thiaroye figure, which was found among [[Chemistry:Quartz|quartz]], [[Earth:Flint|flint]], and ceramic fragments and atop a [[Earth:Tumulus#West Africa|tumulus]], may be associated with the emergence of complexly organized [[History:Pastoral period|pastoral societies]] in West Africa between 4000 BCE and 1000 BCE.<ref name="LaGamma">{{cite book |last1=LaGamma |first1=Alisa |title=Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara |date=2020 |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |isbn=978-1588396877 |pages=74–75 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_cfLDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Thiaroye%22+%22Venus%22&pg=PP2 |chapter=Pre-Islamic Artistic Patronage}}</ref> Amid the 2nd millennium BCE, agriculture, likely along with cord-wrapped, roulette-detailed ceramics, spread throughout the Sahelian and West Sudanian savanna regions of West Africa.<ref name="Ozainne II" /> Cultural experience with the desertification of the Green Sahara may have contributed to adept adjustment to the drying of the Sahelian and West Sudanian savanna regions of Sub-Saharan Africa by agropastoralists.<ref name="Ozainne II" /> Agropastoralists, as early agriculturalists, who likely originated in the Central Sahara, began to migrate southward into these regions around 2200 BCE.<ref name="Ozainne II" /> Agropastoralists traversed through Tilemsi Valley and Ounjougou.<ref name="Garnier">{{cite journal |last1=Garnier |first1=Aline |display-authors=0 |title=Phytolith taphonomy in the middle- to late-Holocene fluvial sediments of Ounjougou (Mali, West Africa) |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235989807 |journal=The Holocene |year=2013 |volume=23 |issue=3 |page=416 |doi=10.1177/0959683612463102 |bibcode=2013Holoc..23..416G |issn=0959-6836 |oclc=9536619776 |s2cid=128776387}}</ref> Additional adaptations to desertification of the southern Sahara may have been the development of transhumance, which was engaged in seasonally among some agricultural herders, and the increased development of cord-wrapped roulette-detailed ceramics in Sub-Saharan Africa, which likely was first developed in the early period of the Holocene in the Central Sahara.<ref name="Ozainne II" /> While also hunting and gathering, agropastoralists engaged in agriculture on a seasonal basis.<ref name="Nováčková" /> Earlier subsistence strategies involved a combined approach (e.g., agriculture, pastoralism, hunting, foraging).<ref name="Nováčková" /> Later, migratory herding, which is solely reliant on pastoralism, developed, and divergence between modern migratory herders and settled agriculturalists occurred.<ref name="Nováčková" /> After 1400 BCE and before 800 BCE the spread of agriculture may have been altered, and greening of the western Sahel occurred amid the 2nd millennium BCE.<ref name="Ozainne II" /> Spread of domesticated pearl millet may reached Lake Chad, via eastern spread from the Niger River or an alternative avenue from the Central Sahara.<ref name="Ozainne II" /> Increased dryness began to recur after 800 BCE in West Africa and Central Africa.<ref name="Ozainne II" /> Amid the 1st millennium BCE, agriculture spread, not only near Lake Chad, but near the Niger Delta, Senegal Valley, Jos Plateau, and the southern region of Cameroon.<ref name="Ozainne II" />

Due to the complexity of pottery patterns and vastness of the area, where interactions between peoples occurred during the mid-[[Earth:Holocene|Holocene]], specifying which linguistic group (e.g., Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, Afroasiatic) is the first settling population is challenging.<ref name="MacEachern">{{cite journal |last1=MacEachern |first1=Scott |title=The Holocene history of the southern Lake Chad Basin: archaeological, linguistic and genetic evidence |url=https://www.academia.edu/1241806 |journal=African Archaeological Review |year=2012 |volume=29 |issue=2–3 |pages=253–271 |doi=10.1007/s10437-012-9110-3 |issn=0263-0338 |oclc=5659238881 |jstor=23321047 |s2cid=162290540}}</ref> In any case, pottery in Gajiganna shares cultural similarity, across nearby areas of the southern Sahara, most of all, with northwestern Niger and northwestern Sudan.<ref name="MacEachern"/> Pottery from sites, dated to the second millennium BCE, close to the Mandara Mountains in Cameroon and Nigeria, also share affinity with the ceramics in Gajiganna.<ref name="MacEachern"/>

Amid the middle of the Holocene, West African hunter-gatherers continued to dwell along the rivers and within the forests of [[Place:Guinea (region)|coastal West Africa]].<ref name="MacDonald II" /> West African hunter-gatherer stone industries had little presence to the north of the West Sudanian savanna and [[Place:Sahel|Sahel]] boundary, which may indicate that it served as a type of natural environmental barricade to their greatly mobile hunter-gatherer lifestyle.<ref name="MacDonald II" /> Increased use of ceramics among West African hunter-gatherers also occurred, as evidenced by ceramics dated to 5370 ± 100 BP in Bosumpra Cave, Ghana and ceramics dated to 4180 ± 160 BP in Mbi Crater, Cameroon.<ref name="MacDonald II" /> While likely still maintaining their hunter-gatherer culture, West African hunter-gatherers may have increasingly utilized local flora (e.g., palm oil, tubers).<ref name="MacDonald II" />

At Khant,<ref name="Thiam">{{cite journal |last1=Thiam |first1=Mandiomé |title=Milieu et culture matérielle dans le Néolithique sénégambien |journal=Antropo |date=2012 |volume=27 |pages=13–121 |url=http://www.didac.ehu.es/antropo/27/27-16/Thiam.pdf |oclc=884501689 |s2cid=160637192}}</ref> where people may have started dwelling in 5000 BP,<ref name="Ndeye">{{cite journal |last1=Ndeye |first1=Maurice |display-authors=0 |title=Rehabilitation of the Laboratoire De Carbone 14-Dakar (Senegal) with a Super Low-Level Liquid Scintillation Counting System |journal=Radiocarbon |date=2004 |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=117–122 |doi=10.1017/S0033822200039424 |bibcode=2004Radcb..46..117N |url=https://www.cambridgecloudflare.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/AA9671AD2BFFCCA0194734713C5B109D/S0033822200039424a.pdf/rehabilitation_of_the_laboratoire_de_carbone_14dakar_senegal_with_a_super_lowlevel_liquid_scintillation_counting_system.pdf |oclc=307792537 |s2cid=55779486}}</ref> the Neolithic human skeletal remnants of a tall, middle-aged man was found; the remnants possessed traits closer to other [[Place:Sudan (region)|Sudanese]] of the Neolithic era than modern Senegambians.<ref name="Thiam" />

Watermelons, which may originate in [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]], may have spread into [[Place:North Africa|North Africa]]<ref name="Chomicki">{{cite journal |last1=Chomicki |first1=Guillaume |last2=Renner |first2=Susanne S. |title=Watermelon origin solved with molecular phylogenetics including Linnaean material: another example of museomics |journal=New Phytologist |year=2015 |volume=205 |issue=2 |pages=526–532 |doi=10.1111/nph.13163 |pmid=25358433 |issn=0028-646X |oclc=5711282323 |jstor=newphytologist.205.2.526 |s2cid=17329916 |doi-access=free}}</ref> (e.g., seeds dated to 5000 BP at Uan Muhuggiag in southwestern Libya,<ref name="Van Der Veen">{{cite journal |last1=Van Der Veen |first1=Marijke |display-authors=0 |title=An archaeobotanical contribution to the history of watermelon Citrullus lanatus |url=https://www.academia.edu/4467805 |journal=Vegetation History and Archaeobotany |year=2004 |volume=13 |issue=4 |pages=213–217 |doi=10.1007/s00334-004-0039-6 |jstor=23419585 |issn=0939-6314 |oclc=5659397444 |s2cid=129058509}}</ref><ref name="Chomicki" /> Tutankhamun burial tomb in ancient Egypt) via trade between West Africans and North Africans or may have spread into North Africa naturally amid the Green Sahara (e.g., [[Earth:Pleistocene|Pleistocene]], [[Earth:Holocene|Holocene]]).<ref name="Chomicki" />

West African ancestors may have diverged into distinct ancestral groups of modern West Africans and Bantu-speaking peoples in Cameroon, and, subsequently, around 5000 BP, the Bantu-speaking peoples migrated into other parts of [[Place:Sub-Saharan Africa|Sub-Saharan Africa]] (e.g., Central African Republic, [[Place:African Great Lakes|African Great Lakes]], {{wipe|South Africa}}).<ref name="Shriner" />

From Western Africa, the Bantu-speaking peoples, along with their ceramics, expanded into the rest of [[Place:Sub-Saharan Africa|Sub-Saharan Africa]].<ref name="Vicente">{{cite book |last1=Vicente |first1=Mário |title=Demographic History and Adaptation in African Populations |url=https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1412382/FULLTEXT01.pdf |date=2020 |pages=15–16 |publisher=Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis Uppsala |isbn=978-91-513-0889-0 |issn=1651-6214 |s2cid=215413163}}</ref> The Kalundu ceramic type may have expanded into Southeastern Africa.<ref name="Vicente" /> Additionally, the Eastern African Urewe ceramic type of Lake Victoria may have expanded, via African shores near the Indian Ocean, as the [[Place:Kwale|Kwale]] ceramic type, and expanded, via Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi, as the Nkope ceramic type.<ref name="Vicente" />

As a result of the migrations of Niger-Congo speakers (e.g., [[History:Bantu expansion|Bantu expansion]]), polyrhythmic culture (e.g., dance, music), which is generally associated with being a common trait among modern cultures of Africa, spread throughout Africa.<ref name="Kubik">{{cite book |last1=Kubik |first1=Gerhard |title=Theory of African Music: I. Xylophone playing in southern Uganda |date=1994 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |page=9 |isbn=9780226456911 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jqYpBkpvqsEC&q=%22Niger-Congo%22+%22Bantu%22+polyrhythmic+Africa+music&pg=PA9 |chapter=Introduction |doi=10.2307/768111 |oclc=32124730 |jstor=2844378 |s2cid=128578932}}</ref> Due to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, music of the African diaspora, many of whom descend from Niger-Congo speakers, has had considerable influence upon modern [[Social:Western culture|Western]] forms of [[Social:Popular culture|popular culture]] (e.g., dance, music).<ref name="Kubik" />

In the Aïr Mountains region of Niger, copper was independently [[Engineering:Smelting#Copper and bronze|smelted]] between 3000 BCE and 2500 BCE.<ref name="Ehret IV">{{cite book |last1=Ehret |first1=Christopher |title=The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800 |date=2002 |publisher=University Press of Virginia |pages=136–137 |isbn=9780813920856 |doi=10.2307/3559333 |oclc=318419921 |jstor=3559333 |s2cid=130341334 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ga7QqZw6VPYC}}</ref> The quality of the smelting process being used was not well developed, thereby, indicating that it was not introduced into the Aïr Mountains from an external region, such as the Nile Valley.<ref name="Ehret IV" /> By 1500 BCE, the quality of the smelting process became more developed.<ref name="Ehret IV" />

===4500 BP – 3500 BP (2500 BCE – 1500 BCE)===

The savanna and forest of West Africa and savanna and forest of Central Africa are the areas that chimpanzees originate and dwell.<ref name="Urbani">{{cite journal |last1=Urbani |first1=Bernardo |last2=Youlatos |first2=Dionisios |title=On the Earliest Representations of Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): Were African Apes Traded to Bronze Age Elam? |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10764-020-00169-0 |journal=International Journal of Primatology |year=2020 |volume=41 |issue=4 |pages=654–663 |doi=10.1007/s10764-020-00169-0 |issn=0164-0291 |oclc=8635835414 |s2cid=220076390}}</ref> As such, though rather speculative, by the 2nd millennium BCE, chimpanzees and/or their artistic depictions (e.g., “seated” and “crouched” chimpanzee statuettes developed between 2300 BCE and 1500 BCE) may have been exchanged in a long-distance trade network from West Africa or Central Africa, through East Africa (e.g., [[Engineering:Elmenteitan|Elmenteitan]]) and Arabia, into the [[Place:Near East|Near East]] (e.g., [[Place:Elam|Elam]]).<ref name="Urbani" /> Another possibility (as via report of Hanno the Navigator) is that, via maritime trade from the Gulf of Guinea, to the eastern region of the Mediterranean, along the Incense Route, into the Near East.<ref name="Urbani" /> Additionally, it may have been traded from West Africa, via pathways through [[Place:North Africa|North Africa]] and [[Place:Rome|Rome]] in the 2nd century CE, into the Near East.<ref name="Urbani" />

From 4500 BP, Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan speakers in [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]] came into frequent contact with diverse Afroasiatic immigrants from [[Place:Northeast Africa|Northeast Africa]] as well as speakers of a 'vanished language' to the south as aridity pressed populations into close proximity.<ref name="MacDonald II">{{cite book |last1=MacDonald |first1=Kevin C. |title=Archaeology and Language II: Archaeological Data and Linguistic Hypotheses |chapter=Archaeology, language and the peopling of West Africa: a consideration of the evidence |date=Sep 2, 2003 |publisher=Routledge |pages=39–40, 43–44, 49-50 |isbn=9780203202913 |doi=10.4324/9780203202913-11 |oclc=815644445 |s2cid=163304839 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=48iKiprsRMwC&q=%22West+African+hunter-gatherers%22&pg=PA37}}</ref>

During the [[Place:Israel#Bronze and Iron Ages|Copper Age]] and early Islamic era of ancient Israel, [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]]ns may have migrated into ancient Israel and introduced [[Biology:Head louse#Clade E (sister of clade C)|head louse]] from [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]].<ref name="Amanzougaghene">{{cite journal |last1=Amanzougaghene |first1=Nadia |display-authors=0 |title=High Ancient Genetic Diversity of Human Lice, Pediculus humanus, from Israel Reveals New Insights into the Origin of Clade B Lice |journal=PLOS ONE |date=October 14, 2016 |volume=11 |issue=10 |page=e0164659 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0164659 |pmid=27741281 |pmc=5065229 |bibcode=2016PLoSO..1164659A |s2cid=14033603 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

In 4000 BP, there may have been a population that traversed from [[Earth:Africa|Africa]] (e.g., [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]] or West-[[Place:Central Africa|Central Africa]]), through the Strait of Gibraltar, into the Iberian peninsula, where admixing between Africans and Iberians (e.g., of northern Portugal, of southern {{wipe|Spain}}) occurred.<ref name="González-Fortes">{{cite journal |last1=González-Fortes |first1=G. |display-authors=0 |title=A western route of prehistoric human migration from Africa into the Iberian Peninsula |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |volume=286 |issue=1895 |page=20182288 |date=January 23, 2019 |doi=10.1098/rspb.2018.2288 |pmid=30963949 |pmc=6364581 |oclc=8005228830 |s2cid=104296971}}</ref>

After migrating from the Central Sahara, by 4000 BP, the Mande peoples of West Africa established their agropastoral [[Social:Civilization|civilization]] of Tichitt<ref name="Abd-El-Moniem" /> in the Western Sahara.<ref name="Kea">{{cite journal |last1=Kea |first1=Ray |title=Expansions and Contractions: World-Historical Change And The Western Sudan World-System (1200/1000 B.C. – 1200/1250 A.D.) |date=26 November 2004 |volume=X |issue=3 |pages=737–738 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/208574355 |journal=Journal of World-Systems Research |doi=10.5195/JWSR.2004.286 |issn=1076-156X |oclc=30416027 |s2cid=147397386|doi-access=free }}</ref> The painted Pastoral rock art of [[Earth:Tassili n'Ajjer|Tassili n'Ajjer]], Algeria and engraved Pastoral rock art of Niger bear resemblance (e.g., color markings of the cattle) with the engraved cattle portrayed in the Dhar Tichitt rock art in Akreijit.<ref name="Smith">{{cite book |last1=Smith |first1=Andrew |title=Encyclopedia of Prehistory Volume 1: Africa |chapter=Saharo-Sudanese Neolithic |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4615-1193-9_19 |year=2001 |pages=245–259 |publisher=Springer |doi=10.1007/978-1-4615-1193-9_19 |isbn=978-1-4615-1193-9 |oclc=1256699813 |s2cid=127574765}}</ref> The engraved cattle pastoral rock art of Dhar Tichitt, which are displayed in enclosed areas that may have been used to pen cattle, is supportive evidence for cattle bearing [[Religion:Cattle in religion and mythology|ritualistic]] significance for the peoples of Dhar Tichitt.<ref name="Smith" /> The considerable commonalities, absent in modern North African cultures, are present and able to be found between [[History:Round Head Period|Round Head paintings]] and modern Sub-Saharan African cultures.<ref name="Soukopova XVII">{{cite book |last1=Soukopova |first1=Jitka |title=Round Heads: The Earliest Rock Paintings in the Sahara |chapter=Chronology, Origins and Evolution of the Round Head Art |date=Jan 16, 2013 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |page=105 |isbn=9781443845793 |oclc=826685273 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=07wwBwAAQBAJ&q=250&pg=PR5}}</ref> Saharan ceramics are viewed as having clear likeness with the oldest ceramics found in Djenne-Djenno, which have been dated to 250 BCE.<ref name="Soukopova XVII" /> The egalitarian [[Social:Civilization|civilization]] of Djenne-Djenno was likely established by the Mande progenitors of the Bozo people, which spanned from the 3rd century BCE to the 13th century CE.<ref name="Vydrin">{{cite book |last1=Vydrin |first1=Valentin |title=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics |chapter=Mande Languages |chapter-url=https://oxfordre.com/linguistics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.001.0001/acrefore-9780199384655-e-397 |date=30 July 2018 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.397 |isbn=978-0-19-938465-5 |oclc=964555101 |s2cid=240363385}}</ref>

By 4000 BP, interaction between Saharan occupants and Sub-Saharan West African hunter-gatherers increased as Saharan occupants increasingly migrated southward into Sub-Saharan [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]].<ref name="MacDonald II" /> As desertification was underway, West African hunter-gatherers of the Middle Niger were likely the first to encounter southward migrating Saharan occupants.<ref name="MacDonald II" /> Increased interaction may have resulted in the adoption of pottery and production of polished stone production, which, subsequently, may have led to these cultural practices being further diffused unto other West African hunter-gatherers.<ref name="MacDonald II" /> Additionally, pastoralism may have been adopted by some West African hunter-gatherers.<ref name="MacDonald II" /> As West African hunter-gatherers of the Middle Niger became increasingly acculturated and eventually admixed into more numerous, surrounding southward migrating Saharan occupants, some West African hunter-gatherers, further south, may have continued their hunting-gathering and/or basic vegetable cultivation cultures.<ref name="MacDonald II" /> Eventually, even these socially organized West African hunter-gatherers, were likely acculturated and admixed into the more numerous, surrounding West Africans from the Sahara.<ref name="MacDonald II" />

[[File:Pointe_228.2_La_Tourasse_(3).jpg|thumb|250px|An example of a [[Engineering:Microlith|microlith]] projectile point, a very small stone tool. The shape of this one is similar to the ones that have been discovered at Kintampo sites.]]

Desertification of the Green Sahara resulted in the migration of Saharan pastoralists and agropastoralists south of the Sahelian region.<ref name="MacDonald II" /> Consequently, seasonal interaction likely occurred between Saharan pastoralists and agropastoralists and West African hunter-gatherers, who also practiced basic [[Earth:Agriculture|agriculture]] via vegetable cultivation.<ref name="MacDonald II" /> Sites in Ghana (e.g., Ntereso, [[History:Kintampo Complex|Kintampo]], Daboya) provide an example of group contact in 3500 BP, as evidenced by Punpun microlithic industries that appear in close proximity to Saharan projectile points, beads, stone innovations (e.g., stone arm rings, small stone axes), and livestock.<ref name="MacDonald II" /> Rather than Saharan pastoralists and agropastoralists replacing West African hunter-gatherers, there apparently was a merger of groups, as at Kintampo, there was evidence of adaptation to the subsistence conditions of the forest-savanna region of West Africa.<ref name="MacDonald II" />

Domesticated crops (e.g., [[Biology:Pearl millet|pearl millet]], [[Biology:Cowpea|cowpea]], large amounts of oil palm) and undomesticated flora were availed in rockshelters (e.g., B-sites, K6), near the Guinean forest-savanna mosaic, in the southern region of central Ghana.<ref name="Logan">{{cite journal|last1=Logan |first1=Amanda |title=Oil Palm and Prehistoric Subsistence in West Tropical Africa |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/jaa/4/2/article-p195_2.xml |journal=Journal of African Archaeology |date=25 Oct 2006 |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=212–213 |doi=10.3213/1612-1651-10072 |jstor=43135404 |s2cid=162363559}}</ref> West African agriculturalists of [[History:Kintampo Complex|Kintampo]] and [[History:West African hunter-gatherers|West African hunter-gatherers]] of Punpun were migratory peoples, who settled at the sites seasonally for various reasons (e.g., oil palm production); this is evidenced by the varied way in which flora are situated at the rockshelters.<ref name="Logan" /> West African hunter-gatherers may have migrated southward near the forest region or scattered into smaller groups amid arid seasons.<ref name="Logan" /> Various activities (e.g., production of local resources) occurred in partially settled areas of the savanna and forest regions.<ref name="Logan" /> After 4500 BP, desertification may have resulted in Saharan peoples migrating toward the south.<ref name="Logan" /> The southern parts of the forest region, near Kintampo, may have been unfit for the subsistence techniques of farming domesticated crops (e.g., pearl millet) from the region of North Africa.<ref name="Logan" /> As a result, subsistence techniques were adapted to the natural environment of the forest region, and local crops (e.g., oil palm, [[Biology:Yam (vegetable)|yam]]s), may have been introduced into what was usually farmed.<ref name="Logan" /> Successful adaptation to the local ecology seems to have occurred, from the southern part of the forest region to the [[Place:Guinea (region)|coastal region]] of West Africa.<ref name="Logan" /> West African agriculturalists likely formed mutual relations with the West African hunter-gatherers.<ref name="Logan" /> As a result of these relations, West African hunter-gatherers,<ref name="Logan" /> who also practiced basic agriculture via vegetable cultivation,<ref name="MacDonald II" /> likely provided West African agriculturalists with oil-rich and Vitamin A-rich nuts as part of their local food source.<ref name="Logan" /> Additionally, West African agriculturalists may have acquired forest [[Finance:Subsistence economy|subsistence]] knowledge and strategies from West African hunter-gatherers.<ref name="Logan" />

As early as 4000 BP, the engraved petroglyphs of Burkina Faso began to be created.<ref name="Legros">{{cite journal |last1=Legros |first1=Baptiste |title=Rock Art Engravings At Banfora Cliffs Burkina Faso |url=https://www.academia.edu/31515076 |journal=INORA: International Newsletter on Rock Art |volume=74 |pages=1–6 |date=2016 |issn=1022-3282 |oclc=25651555}}</ref> [[Earth:Rock shelter|Rockshelters]] and barns were utilized by the creators of the engraved petroglyphs.<ref name="Legros" /> The engraved rock art was composed of floral radiant circles, anthropomorphs, lizards and herbivores, and streaks/striations and a single spiral-headed cat.<ref name="Legros" /> Anthropomorphs may have been the engraved image of a face composed plant and tree leaves as well as another possible engraved image of a face; one figure may have a hat and ten figures may have been wielding spears, and there may have been a few butterflies.<ref name="Legros" /> Floral radiant circles (cupules within circles).<ref name="Legros" /> At Dokiti, there are hundreds of radiant circles as well as images of what may be woodworms in wood and spindly monkeys.<ref name="Legros" /> Mortars and grindstones as well as a linear arranged set of cupules within a cave with a rock in the center, which could have served as a ceremonial altar, were also found at an archaeological site.<ref name="Legros" /> From a nearby village, potsherds and more fifty stone circles were created and utilized by Neolithic Africans, who were also likely the creators of the engraved rock art.<ref name="Legros" />

From 1700 BCE to 500 BCE, [[Chemistry:Terracotta|Terracotta]] net weights were used at Kolima South, Méma, Mali.<ref name="Linseele">{{cite book |last1=Linseele |first1=Veerle |editor-first1=Umberto |editor-first2=Mauro |editor-first3=Hannah |editor-first4=Kim |editor-first5=Sarah |editor-last1=Albarella |editor-last2=Rizzetto |editor-last3=Russ |editor-last4=Vickers |editor-last5=Viner-Daniels |title=The Oxford Handbook of Zooarchaeology |chapter=The exploitation of aquatic resources in Holocene West Africa |date=2017 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=447 |isbn=9780199686476 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wBcxDgAAQBAJ&q=M%C3%A9ma&pg=PA439 |doi=10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780199686476.013.52 |oclc=951645070 |s2cid=134346912}}</ref>

In the mid-4th millennium BP, four "[[Biology:Negroid|Negroid]]" individuals occupied [[History:Kintampo Complex|Kintampo]], in Ghana.<ref name="Wai-Ogosu">{{cite journal |last1=Wai-Ogosu |first1=Bassey |title=Pleistocene Man In Africa With Special Reference To West Africa |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41857018 |journal=Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria |date=June 1974 |volume=7 |issue=2 |pages=357–368 |jstor=41857018 |issn=0018-2540 |oclc=561101013}}</ref><ref name="Anquandah">{{cite journal |last1=Anquandah |first1=James |title=The People Of Ghana: Their Origins And Cultures |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43855009 |journal=Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana |year=2013 |issue=15 |pages=1–25 |jstor=43855009 |s2cid=164834951}}</ref><ref name="Okoroafor">{{cite journal |last1=Okoroafor |first1=S.I. |title=Rethinking Food Production in West Africa: The Prehistorical Perspective |url=https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ijah/article/view/174577/163968 |journal=International Journal of Arts and Humanities |year=2018 |volume=7 |issue=2 |pages=84–93 |doi=10.4314/ijah.v7i2.11 |issn=2227-5452 |oclc=830041004 |s2cid=158336846 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

Iron metallurgy may have been developed independently in West Africa.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Nok: African Sculpture in Archaeological Context|last=Eggert|first=Manfred|publisher=Africa Magna Verlag Press|year=2014|editor-last=Breunig|editor-first=P|location=Frankfurt, Germany|pages=51–59|chapter=Early iron in West and Central Africa}}</ref><ref name=Holl-2009>{{cite journal|last1=Holl|first1=Augustin F. C.|title=Early West African Metallurgies: New Data and Old Orthodoxy|journal=Journal of World Prehistory|date=6 November 2009|volume=22|issue=4|pages=415–438|doi=10.1007/s10963-009-9030-6|s2cid=161611760}}</ref> Archaeological sites containing iron smelting furnaces and slag have been excavated at sites in the Nsukka region of southeast Nigeria in what is now Igboland: dating to 2000 BC at the site of Lejja (Eze-Uzomaka 2009)<ref name=Eze-Uzomaka/><ref name=Holl-2009/> and to 750 BC and at the site of Opi (Holl 2009).<ref name=Holl-2009/><ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Nok: African Sculpture in Archaeological Context|last=Eggert|first=Manfred|publisher=Africa Magna Verlag Press|year=2014|isbn=9783937248462|editor-last=Breunig|editor-first=P|location=Frankfurt, Germany|pages=53–54|chapter=Early iron in West and Central Africa|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BBn1BQAAQBAJ&q=Nok+Breunig&pg=PA38}}</ref> Iron metallurgy sites are known in the Nok culture from between the 9th century BCE and 550 BCE.<ref name="Champion II" /><ref name="Ehret">{{cite book |last1=Ehret |first1=Christopher |title=Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE |date=2023 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=9780691244105 |page=19|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5KjEAAAQBAJ |chapter=African Firsts in the History of Technology |doi=10.2307/j.ctv34kc6ng.5 |jstor=j.ctv34kc6ng.5 |oclc=1330712064}}</ref> More recently, Bandama and Babalola (2023) have indicated that iron metallurgical development occurred 2631 BCE – 2458 BCE at Lejja, in Nigeria, 2136 BCE – 1921 BCE at Oboui, in Central Africa Republic, 1895 BCE – 1370 BCE at Tchire Ouma 147, in Niger, and 1297 BCE – 1051 BCE at Dekpassanware, in Togo.<ref name="Bandama" />

===3500 BP – 2500 BP (1500 BCE – 500 BCE)===

In 1500 BCE, [[Social:Mande languages|Mande]] speakers may have first domesticated African rice (''Oryza glaberrima'') and established the cultivation systems in the mid-region of the Niger River.<ref name="Osseo-Asare">{{cite book |last1=Osseo-Asare |first1=Fran |title=Food Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa |chapter=Western Africa |date=2005 |publisher=Greenwood Press |page=16 |isbn=9780313324888 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1s-a7EMM6BgC&q=%22western+africa%22+%22irrigation%22+%22bce%22&pg=PA1 |oclc=58527114 |s2cid=127693175}}</ref> Subsequently, West Atlantic speakers may have domesticated rice, utilizing irrigation systems with mangroves, near the Casamance and Sine-Saloum rivers.<ref name="Osseo-Asare" />

In Sub-Saharan [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]], there is rock art.<ref name="Mangut">{{cite journal |last1=Mangut |first1=Joseph |last2=Mangut |first2=Benedicta N. |title=Harnessing the Potentials of Rock Art Sites in Birnin Kudu, Jigawa State, Nigeria for Tourism Development |journal=Journal of Tourism and Heritage Studies |date=2012 |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=36–37 |url=https://atdin.org.ng/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/UNN-FAJH6.pdf |s2cid=111030419}}</ref> At Igbara Oke, in proximity to Akure, Nigeria, there are engraved geometric (e.g., triangle) and fish rock art.<ref name="Mangut" /> In Bauchi State, Nigeria, there is rock art at the Shira and Geji sites; two rock art traditions at Shira are dark reddish monochrome-colored anthropomorphous and realistic (e.g., lactating cattle and their calves, humans) depictions and Geji has a painted depiction of a horse, which may show that Geji rock art does not date earlier than the 15th century BCE.<ref name="Mangut" /> Other rock art in the northern region of Nigeria includes sites in several villages of Marghi, in Borno State and Birnin Kudu, in Jigawa State.<ref name="Mangut" /> The anthropomorphous depictions (e.g., a red-, black-, and white-colored cow; short-horned and long-horned humpless cattle, which may predate the presence of humped cattle in the northern region of Nigeria and may be at least a thousand years old) at Birnin Kudu are distinct from the reddish colored depictions (e.g., 1 antelope and 2 humpless long-horned cows of outlined and striped rock art design; 1 horse, 1 unidentified portrayal, and 8 humpless long-horned cows of outlined rock art design; 2 men, 2 monkeys, 5 humpless long-horned cows, and 6 unidentified portrayals, and 11 antelopes of solid-colored painted rock art design) at Geji, and the depictions (e.g., humans, animals) at Marghi are associated with initiation and marital rites.<ref name="Mangut" />

[[File:Wassu_Stone_Cirles_shaunamullally_01.jpg|thumb|250px|Senegambian megaliths]]

Between 1350 BCE and 1500/1600 CE, Senegambian megaliths (e.g., tumuli) were constructed for the purpose of [[Social:Veneration of the dead#Serer of Senegal and Gambia|ancestral reverence]].<ref name="Holl X">{{cite journal|last1=Holl |first1=Augustin F.C. |title=Megaliths in Tropical Africa: Social Dynamics and Mortuary Practices in Ancient Senegambia (ca. 1350 BCE - 1500 CE) |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350557762 |journal=International Journal of Modern Anthropology |date=2020 |volume=2 |issue=15 |pages=404–405 |doi=10.4314/IJMA.V2I15.1 |issn=1737-8176 |oclc=794897415 |s2cid=236340668|doi-access=free }}</ref>

With exception to some parts of West Africa (e.g., Ntereso, Kintampo), prior to the late first millennium BCE, West African hunter-gatherers, who were the most widely spread cultural group of socially organized populations, were likely the only group to populate the forest and savanna regions of West Africa.<ref name="MacDonald" /> The expansion of West African hunter-gatherers north, toward the Sahelian region of the Middle Niger, led to interaction with populations from further north.<ref name="MacDonald" /> Prior to initial encounter with migrating populations from further north, West African hunter-gatherers may have already engaged in basic agricultural production of [[Biology:Tuber|tuber]]s as well as utilizing [[Biology:Elaeis guineensis|Elaeis guineensis]] and Canarium schweinfurthii.<ref name="MacDonald" /> After interaction began, some West African hunter-gatherers may have acquired knowledge of pottery and polished stone production, which then spread further southward onto other West African hunter-gatherers, while others may have acquired knowledge of pastoralism.<ref name="MacDonald" /> Continued interaction may have resulted in further acculturation (e.g., loss of [[History:West African hunter-gatherers#Languages|West African hunter-gatherer languages]]).<ref name="MacDonald" /> Isolated groups of West African hunter-gatherers may have continually dwelled throughout the region of the Pays Mande mountains after the development of [[Chemistry:Metallurgy|metallurgy]].<ref name="MacDonald" /> West African hunter-gatherers may have even adopted, culturally adapted metallurgical practices, while still maintaining their ancient stone industrial traditions.<ref name="MacDonald" /> Cultural continuity, via stone industries of isolated West African hunter-gatherers from the forest-savanna region, has been found throughout West Africa as late as the end of first millennium CE.<ref name="MacDonald II" /> In Sopie FkBvl, Liberia, quartz microliths have been dated to 2360 ± 125 BP.<ref name="MacDonald II" /> Kamabai Shelter, in Sierra Leone, had quartz microliths dated to 1190 ± 95 BP.<ref name="MacDonald II" /> In Mali, quartz microliths were dated to 1430 ± 80 BP in Nyamanko and dated to 1020 ± 105 BP in Korounkorokale.<ref name="MacDonald II" /> Kariya Wuro, in Nigeria, had quartz microliths dated to 950 ± 30 BP.<ref name="MacDonald II" /> After having persisted as late as the end of first millennium CE,<ref name="MacDonald" /> or 1000 BP,<ref name="MacDonald II" /> many of the remaining [[History:West African hunter-gatherers|West African hunter-gatherers]] were likely ultimately acculturated and admixed into the larger groups of West African agriculturalists, akin to the migratory Bantu-speaking agriculturalists and their [[History:Bantu expansion#Central Africa|encounters]] with Central African hunter-gatherers.<ref name="MacDonald II" />

According to Lam's, the Western Sudanic oral tradition compiled by 
Yoro Dyâo (1847-1919) in the late 19th century detail 6 migrations from the Nile Valley from the 7th century BCE to the 6th century AD. These oral traditions confirm a Nile Valley origin of the people and cultures of the Western Sudan. The Soninké, Songhay, Lebu, Tucoleur, Akan and Fulani are some of the West African populations that are derived from these migrations. Each migration was started by either an invasion of the region by foreigners or the oppression of the invader regime on the indigenous population.
<ref>{{Cite book | last = Ankomah | first = Baffour | editor-last = Ankomah | editor-first = Baffour | title = Africa Factbook: Busting the Myths | publisher = Africa Factbook Project | year = 2020 | isbn = 978-0-7974-9999-9 | location = Harare | page = 23 }}</ref> <ref name="Chronicles I">{{cite web |last1=Delafosse |first1=Maurice |title=Chroniques du Foùta sénégalais. Traduites de deux manuscrits arabes inédits de Siré-Abbàs-Soh et accompagnées de notes, documents annexes et commentaires, d'un glossaire et de cartes par Maurice Delafosse avec la collaboration de Henri Gaden |url=https://archive.org/stream/chroniquesdufo00sir/chroniquesdufo00sir_djvu.txt |website=Internet Archive |publisher=Paris E. Leroux}}</ref><ref name="Chronicles II">{{cite web |last1=Delafosse |first1=Maurice |title=Chronicles of Senegalese Foùta" Translated from two unpublished Arabic manuscripts of Siré-Abbàs-Soh and accompanied by notes, additional documents and comments, a glossary and maps by Maurice Delafosse with the collaboration of Henri Gaden |url=https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fstream%2Fchroniquesdufo00sir%2Fchroniquesdufo00sir_djvu.txt |website=Internet Archive |publisher=Paris E. Leroux}}</ref>

According to Anne Mayor, [[Biology:Human migration|migrations]] occurred from the Sahel and Sahara into the West African Savanna, from the first millennium BCE to the first millennium CE, likely due to [[Earth:Aridification|aridification]], resulting in significant contributions being made to the overall protohistoric peopling of the Niger Bend.<ref name="Mayor">{{cite journal |last1=Mayor |first1=Anne |title=Ceramic Traditions and Ethnicity in the Niger Bend, West Africa |journal=Ethnoarchaeology |date=2010 |volume=2 |issue=1 |page=20 |doi=10.1179/eth.2010.2.1.5 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261296160 |issn=1944-2890 |oclc=664696189 |s2cid=128409342}}</ref> One migration originated from the northwest with the complex societies (e.g., Dhar Tichitt) of Mauritania and is associated with corded roulette ceramics. The other migration from the northeast consisted of iron metallurgists from Niger who spread concave matting techniques for ceramics into West Africa that originated along the Sudano-Tchadian border.<ref name="Mayor"/> Peoples of the Niger Bend practiced “fishing, hunting, herding, [[Earth:Agriculture|agriculture]], iron metallurgy, interregional (or even long-distance) commerce, and sometimes – [[Hierarchical organization|hierarchical]] [[Social:Social organization|social organization]].”<ref name="Mayor"/>

A comparative archeological analysis of artifacts at the Cairo Museum and the Theodore Monod Museum of African art in Dakar, Senegal reveals a deep material culture kinship between contemporary West Africans and the Pharaonic civilization that has traversed space and time.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lam |first=Aboubacry Moussa |title=The importance of material fact in the cultural kinship between Egypt and Africa |trans-title=L’importance du fait matériel dans la parenté culturelle égypto-africaine |journal=ANKH |volume=17 |year=2008 |pages=58–67 |language=French}}</ref>

Contrary to the popular academic myth of North Africans (e.g., Garamantes) engaging in the [[Social:Chariot|chariot]]-driven capture, enslavement, and trade of Sub-Saharan [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]]ns during [[History:Classical antiquity|classical antiquity]], there were equitable transactions of materials (e.g., [[Chemistry:Gold|gold]]) made between Sub-Saharan West Africans and North Africans (e.g., Carthaginians).<ref name="Magnavita">{{cite book |last1=Magnavita |first1=Sonja |last2=Magnavita |first2=Carlos |title=Landscapes, Sources and Intellectual Projects of the West African Past |chapter=All that Glitters is Not Gold: Facing the Myths of Ancient Trade between North and Sub-Saharan Africa |year=2018 |pages=25–45 |chapter-url=https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004380189/BP000003.xml |publisher=Brill |doi=10.1163/9789004380189_003 |isbn=9789004380189 |oclc=1041204346 |s2cid=201331821}}</ref>

===2500 BP – 1500 BP (500 BCE – 500 CE)===

In 400 BCE or 300 BCE, as the Green Sahara underwent desertification, agropastoralists migrated in different directions from the eastern region of Mauritania.<ref name="McDougall">{{cite book |last1=McDougall |first1=E. Ann |title=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History |chapter=Saharan Peoples and Societies |chapter-url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-285 |date=25 February 2019 |publisher=Oxford Research Encyclopedias |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.285 |isbn=978-0-19-027773-4 |oclc=1013546425 |s2cid=159184437}}</ref> Some may have migrated southward and became the agropastoral Bafour peoples, and some may have migrated northward and became the agricultural Haratine peoples.<ref name="McDougall" />

In Itaakpa rockshelter, Nigeria, human remains (e.g., mandible, maxilla), which are similar to human remains from Shum Laka, Cameroon, and, along with ceramics and African oil palm ([[Biology:Elaeis guineensis|Elaeis guineensis]]), are dated to 2210 ± 80 BP.<ref name="Allsworth-Jones">{{cite journal|last1=Allsworth-Jones |first1=Philip |title=Itaakpa, a Late Stone Age site in southwestern Nigeria |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272253981 |journal=Journal of Field Archaeology |date=August 2012 |volume=37 |issue=3 |pages=163–177 |doi=10.1179/0093469012Z.00000000017 |issn=0093-4690 |oclc=8512530440 |jstor=24408518 |s2cid=129163416}}</ref>

Between 2000 BP and 1500 BP, Nilo-Saharan speakers may have migrated across the [[Place:Sahel|Sahel]], from [[Place:East Africa|East Africa]] into [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]], and admixed with Niger-Congo-speaking Berom people.<ref name="Choudhury II">{{cite journal|last1=Choudhury |first1=Ananyo |display-authors=0 |title=High-depth African genomes inform human migration and health |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345062529 |journal=Nature |date=28 October 2020 |volume=586 |issue=7831 |page=747 |doi=10.1038/s41586-020-2859-7 |issn=0028-0836 |oclc=8691160009 |pmid=33116287 |pmc=7759466 |bibcode=2020Natur.586..741C |s2cid=226039427}}</ref> In 710 CE, [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]]n-related populations (e.g., Niger-Congo-speaking Berom people, [[Social:Bantu languages|Bantu-speakers]]) and [[Place:East Africa|East Africa]]n-related populations (Nilo-Saharan-speaking Ethiopians, Nilo-Saharan-speaking Chadians) admixed with one another in northern Nigeria and northern Cameroon.<ref name="Bird">{{cite journal |last1=Bird |first1=Nancy |display-authors=0 |title=Dense sampling of ethnic groups within African countries reveals fine-scale genetic structure and extensive historical admixture |journal=Science Advances |date=March 29, 2023 |volume=9 |issue=13 |page=eabq2616 |doi=10.1126/sciadv.abq2616 |pmid=36989356 |pmc=10058250 |bibcode=2023SciA....9.2616B |issn=2375-2548 |oclc=9819554112 |s2cid=257834341}}</ref>

In 1990 BP, a "[[Biology:Negroid|Negroid]]" agriculturalist (indicated via dental evidence from the skeletal remains) occupied Rop rock shelter, in the northern region of Nigeria.<ref name="Wai-Ogosu" />

At the Akumbu mound complex, in Mema, Mali, its findings date between 400 CE and 1400 CE; at the cultural deposit of AK3, which contained three human remains, the dates range between 400 CE and 600 CE.<ref name="Togola">{{cite book |last1=Togola |first1=Tereba |title=Archaeological investigations of Iron Age sites in the Mema region, Mali (West Africa) |page=ii., 112-113 |url=https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/16676/9408674.PDF?sequence=1 |date=May 1993 |publisher=University Microfilms International |doi=10.30861/9781407301785 |isbn=9781407301785 |oclc=213478595 |s2cid=129143321}}</ref> While two out of three human remains were in a fully decomposed state, one of the human remains were able to be determined to be a young adult (17-25 years old) female, who was buried with two copper bracelets - one on each wrist, 13 cowrie shells, 11 stone beads, and a fully intact pot.<ref name="Togola" />

==References==

{{reflist}}


[[Category:Prehistoric Africa]]

{{Sourceattribution|Prehistoric West Africa}}