Global InformationPrehistoric West Africa information
The prehistory of West Africa spans from the earliest human presence in the region until the emergence of the Iron Age in West Africa. West African populations were considerably mobile and interacted with one another throughout the population history of West Africa.[2] Acheulean tool-using archaic humans may have dwelled throughout West Africa since at least between 780,000 BP and 126,000 BP (Middle Pleistocene).[3] During the Pleistocene, Middle Stone Age peoples (e.g., Iwo Eleru people,[4] possibly Aterians), who dwelled throughout West Africa between MIS 4 (71,000 BP) and MIS 2 (29,000 BP, Last Glacial Maximum),[5] were gradually replaced by incoming Late Stone Age peoples, who migrated into West Africa[6] as an increase in humid conditions resulted in the subsequent expansion of the West African forest.[7] West African hunter-gatherers occupied western Central Africa (e.g., Shum Laka) earlier than 32,000 BP,[4] dwelled throughout coastal West Africa by 12,000 BP,[8] and migrated northward between 12,000 BP and 8000 BP as far as Mali, Burkina Faso,[8] and Mauritania.[9]
During the Holocene, Niger-Congo speakers independently created pottery in Ounjougou, Mali[10][11][12] – the earliest pottery in Africa[13] – by at least 9400 BCE,[10] and along with their pottery,[13] as well as wielding independently invented bows and arrows,[14][15] migrated into the Central Sahara,[13] which became their primary region of residence by 10,000 BP.[14] 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, Tadrart).[16] Hunters in the Central Sahara farmed, stored, and cooked undomesticated central Saharan flora,[17] underwent domestication of antelope,[18] and domesticated and shepherded Barbary sheep.[17] After the Kel Essuf Period and Round Head Period of the Central Sahara, the Pastoral Period followed.[19] Some of the hunter-gatherers who created the Round Head rock art may have adopted pastoral culture, and others may have not.[20] As a result of increasing 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.[21] In 2000 BCE, "Thiaroye Woman",[22] also known as the "Venus of Thiaroye,"[22][23] may have been the earliest statuette created in Sub-Saharan West Africa; it may have particularly been a fertility statuette, created in the region of Senegambia,[23] and may be associated with the emergence of complexly organized pastoral societies in West Africa between 4000 BCE and 1000 BCE.[24] Though possibly developed as early as 5000 BCE,[25] Nsibidi may have also developed in 2000 BCE,[25][26] as evidenced by depictions of the West African script on Ikom monoliths at Ikom, in Nigeria.[25] 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 West Africa.[8] In West Africa, which may have been a major regional cradle in Africa for the domestication of crops and animals,[27][28] Niger-Congo speakers domesticated the helmeted guineafowl[29] between 5500 BP and 1300 BP;[27] domestication of field crops occurred throughout various locations in West Africa, such as yams (Dioscorea praehensilis) in the Niger River basin between eastern Ghana and western Nigeria (northern Benin), rice (oryza glaberrima) in the Inner Niger Delta region of Mali, pearl millet (Cenchrus americanus) in northern Mali and Mauritania, and cowpeas in northern Ghana.[28] After having persisted as late as 1000 BP,[8] or some period of time after 1500 CE,[30] 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 encounters with Central African hunter-gatherers.[8] Iron metallurgy may have been developed independently in West Africa [31][32] sometime between around 3,000-1,000 BC, with archaeological sites containing iron smelting furnaces found at sites at Lejja, Nigeria (Eze-Uzomaka 2009),[32][33] Opi (Holl 2009),[32][34] the Nok culture,[35] Oboui, and others.[36]
- ^ Soukopova, Jitka (16 January 2013). "Round Head Paintings and Landscape". Round Heads: The Earliest Rock Paintings in the Sahara. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 45–55. ISBN 9781443845793. OCLC 826685273.
- ^ Haour, Anne (Jul 25, 2013). "Wealth-in-people". Outsiders and Strangers: An Archaeology of Liminality in West Africa. Oxford University Press. p. 38. doi:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199697748.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-969774-8. OCLC 855890703. S2CID 127485241.
- ^ Scerri, Eleanor (26 October 2017). "The Stone Age Archaeology of West Africa". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. Oxford University Press. p. 1. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.137. ISBN 9780190277734. OCLC 1013546425. S2CID 133758803.
- ^ a b MacDonald, Kevin (1997). "Korounkorokalé revisited: The Pays Mande and the West African microlithic technocomplex". African Archaeological Review. 14 (3): 192–196. doi:10.1007/BF02968406. ISSN 0263-0338. JSTOR 25130625. OCLC 5547019636. S2CID 161691927.
- ^ Niang, Khady; et al. (2020). "The Middle Stone Age occupations of Tiémassas, coastal West Africa, between 62 and 25 thousand years ago". Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. 34: 102658. Bibcode:2020JArSR..34j2658N. doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102658. ISSN 2352-409X. OCLC 8709222767. S2CID 228826414.
- ^ Schlebusch, Carina M.; Jakobsson, Mattias (May 4, 2018). "Tales of Human Migration, Admixture, and Selection in Africa" (PDF). Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics. 19: 405–428. doi:10.1146/annurev-genom-083117-021759. ISSN 1527-8204. OCLC 7824108813. PMID 29727585. S2CID 19155657.
- ^ Scerri, Eleanor M. L. (2021). "Continuity of the Middle Stone Age into the Holocene". Scientific Reports. 11 (1): 70. doi:10.1038/s41598-020-79418-4. OCLC 8878081728. PMC 7801626. PMID 33431997. S2CID 231583475.
- ^ a b c d e MacDonald, Kevin C. (Sep 2, 2003). "Archaeology, language and the peopling of West Africa: a consideration of the evidence". Archaeology and Language II: Archaeological Data and Linguistic Hypotheses. Routledge. pp. 39–40, 43–44, 49–50. doi:10.4324/9780203202913-11. ISBN 9780203202913. OCLC 815644445. S2CID 163304839.
- ^ Abd-El-Moniem, Hamdi Abbas Ahmed (May 2005). A New Recording Of Mauritanian Rock Art (PDF). University of London. p. 221. OCLC 500051500. S2CID 130112115.
- ^ a b Ness, Immanuel (Nov 10, 2014). "Sub-Saharan Africa: Linguistics". The Global Prehistory of Human Migration. Wiley Blackwell. p. 100. ISBN 9781118970591. OCLC 890071926. S2CID 160957067.
- ^ Ehret, Christopher (2023). "African Firsts in the History of Technology". Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE. Princeton University Press. pp. 14–17. doi:10.2307/j.ctv34kc6ng.5. ISBN 9780691244105. JSTOR j.ctv34kc6ng.5. OCLC 1330712064.
- ^ Jesse, Friederike (25 Oct 2010). "Early Pottery in Northern Africa – An Overview". Journal of African Archaeology. 8 (2): 223. doi:10.3213/1612-1651-10171. ISSN 2191-5784. JSTOR 43135518. S2CID 162209490.
- ^ a b c Huysecom, Eric (30 July 2020). "The First Emergence of Ceramic Production in Africa". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.013.66. ISBN 9780190854584. OCLC 1312757953. S2CID 225392406.
- ^ a b Blench, Roger (21 October 2017). "Africa over the last 12000 years: how we can interpret the interface of archaeology and linguistics?". University of Cambridge. pp. 13, 25 – via www.academia.edu.
- ^ Roy, Kaushik (Sep 15, 2021). "Military Convergence And The Bronze Age Civilisations of Eurasia". A Global History of Pre-Modern Warfare: Before the Rise of the West, 10,000 BCE–1500 CE. Routledge. p. Unnumbered. ISBN 9781000432121. OCLC 1261367188.
- ^ Ahmed, Achrati (May 2020). "RAR Review". Rock Art Research. 37 (1): 109. ISSN 0813-0426. OCLC 809603634.
- ^ a b Mercuri, Anna Maria (January 29, 2018). "Plant behaviour from human imprints and the cultivation of wild cereals in Holocene Sahara". Nature Plants. 4 (2): 73. doi:10.1038/s41477-017-0098-1. hdl:11567/979083. OCLC 1187338100. PMID 29379157. S2CID 3302383.
- ^ Aïn-Séba, Nagète (June 3, 2022). "Saharan Rock Art, A Reflection Of Climate Change In The Sahara" (PDF). Tabona: Revista de Prehistoria y Arqueología. 22 (22): 309–310. doi:10.25145/j.tabona.2022.22.15. ISSN 2530-8327. OCLC 1201160646. S2CID 249349324.
- ^ Soukopova, Jitka (August 2017). "Central Saharan rock art: Considering the kettles and cupules". Journal of Arid Environments. 143: 10–14. Bibcode:2017JArEn.143...10S. doi:10.1016/J.JARIDENV.2016.12.011. ISSN 0140-1963. OCLC 7044514678. S2CID 132225521.
- ^ Soukopova, Jitka (September 2015). "Tassili Paintings: Ancient roots of current African beliefs?". Expression: 116–120. ISSN 2499-1341.
- ^ Soukopova, Jitka (2020). "Rain and rock art in the Sahara: a possible interpretation". Expression: 79-90. ISSN 2499-1341.
- ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
Hollwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
Thiamwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cite error: The named reference
LaGammawas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference
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Haleswas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
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Murungawas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Van Beek, Walter E.A.; Banga, Pieteke M. (Mar 11, 2002). "The Dogon and their trees". Bush Base, Forest Farm: Culture, Environment, and Development. Routledge. p. 66. doi:10.4324/9780203036129-10. ISBN 9781134919567. OCLC 252799202. S2CID 126989016.
- ^ Eggert, Manfred (2014). "Early iron in West and Central Africa". In Breunig, P. (ed.). Nok: African Sculpture in Archaeological Context. Frankfurt, Germany: Africa Magna Verlag Press. pp. 51–59.
- ^ a b c Holl, Augustin F. C. (6 November 2009). "Early West African Metallurgies: New Data and Old Orthodoxy". Journal of World Prehistory. 22 (4): 415–438. doi:10.1007/s10963-009-9030-6. S2CID 161611760.
- ^ Eze–Uzomaka, Pamela. "Iron and its influence on the prehistoric site of Lejja". Academia.edu. Nsukka, Nigeria: University of Nigeria. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
- ^ Eggert, Manfred (2014). "Early iron in West and Central Africa". In Breunig, P. (ed.). Nok: African Sculpture in Archaeological Context. Frankfurt, Germany: Africa Magna Verlag Press. pp. 53–54. ISBN 9783937248462.
- ^ Ehret, Christopher (2023). "African Firsts in the History of Technology". Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE. Princeton University Press. p. 19. doi:10.2307/j.ctv34kc6ng.5. ISBN 9780691244105. JSTOR j.ctv34kc6ng.5. OCLC 1330712064.
- ^ Bandama, Foreman; Babalola, Abidemi Babatunde (13 September 2023). "Science, Not Black Magic: Metal and Glass Production in Africa". African Archaeological Review. 40 (3): 531–543. doi:10.1007/s10437-023-09545-6. ISSN 0263-0338. OCLC 10004759980. S2CID 261858183.