Archaic humans emerged out of Africa between 0.5 and 1.8 million years ago. This was followed by the emergence of modern humans (Homo sapiens) in East Africa around 300,000–250,000 years ago. In the 4th millennium BC written history arose in ancient Egypt,^[1] and later in Nubia's Kush, the Horn of Africa's Dʿmt, and Ifrikiya's Carthage.^[2] Between around 3000 BCE and 500 CE, the Bantu expansion swept from north-western Central Africa (modern day Cameroon) across much of Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa, displacing or absorbing groups such as the Khoisan and Pygmies. The oral word is revered in most African cultures, and history has generally been passed down through oral tradition. This has led anthropologists to term them "oral civilisations".^{[a][5]: 142–143}

There were many kingdoms and empires all over the continent that rose and fell. Most states were created through conquest or the borrowing and assimilation of ideas and institutions, while others developed largely in isolation.^[6] Some African empires and kingdoms include:

• Ancient Egypt, Kush, Carthage, Numidia, Masuna, Makuria, the Fatimids, Almoravids, Almohads, Ayyubids, Mamluks, Marinids, Zianids and Hafsids in North Africa;
• Wagadu, Mali, Songhai, Jolof, Ife, Oyo, Benin, Bonoman, Nri, Ségou, Asante, Fante, Massina, Sokoto, Tukulor, and Wassoulou in West Africa;
• Dʿmt, Aksum, Ethiopia, Damot, Ifat, Adal, Ajuran, Funj, Kitara, Kilwa, Sakalava, Imerina, Rombo,^[7] Bunyoro, Buganda, and Rwanda in East Africa;
• Kanem-Bornu, Kongo, Anziku, Loango, Ndongo, Mwene Muji, Kotoko, Wadai, Mbunda, Luba, Lunda, Kuba, and Utetera in Central Africa; and
• Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe, Mutapa, Butua, Rozvi, Maravi, Oukwanyama, Lozi,^[8] Lobedu,^[9] Mthwakazi, and amaZulu in Southern Africa.

Some societies were heterarchical and egalitarian, while others were organised into chiefdoms.^[b][12] The continent has between 1250 and 2100 languages,^[13] and at its peak it is estimated that Africa had around 10,000 polities, with most following traditional religions.^[14]

From the 7th century CE, Islam spread west amid the Arab conquest of North Africa, and by proselytization to the Horn of Africa, bringing with it a new social system. It later spread southwards to the Swahili coast assisted by Muslim dominance of the Indian Ocean trade, and across the Sahara into the western Sahel and Sudan, catalysed by the Fula jihads of the 18th and 19th centuries. Systems of servitude and slavery were historically widespread and commonplace in parts of Africa, as they were in much of the ancient and medieval world.^[15] When the trans-Saharan, Red Sea, Indian Ocean and Atlantic slave trades began, local slave systems started supplying captives for slave markets outside Africa. This reorientated many African economies, and created various diasporas, especially in the Americas.^[16][17]

From 1870 to 1914, driven by the Second Industrial Revolution European colonisation of Africa grew rapidly in the "Scramble for Africa", and saw the major European powers partition the continent at the 1884 Berlin Conference, resulting in territory under European imperial control increasing from one-tenth of the continent to over nine-tenths.^[18][19] European colonialism had significant impacts on Africa's societies, and colonies were maintained for the purpose of economic exploitation of human and natural resources. Colonial historians dismissed oral traditions, claiming that Africa had no history other than that of Europeans in Africa. Pre-colonial Christian states include Ethiopia, Makuria, and Kongo. Widespread conversions to Christianity occurred under European rule in southern West Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa due to successful missions, and the syncretization of Christianity with local beliefs.^[20]

The rise of nationalism gave birth to independence movements in many parts of the continent, and with a weakened Europe after the Second World War, a wave of decolonisation took place, culminating in the 1960 Year of Africa and the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963 (the predecessor to the African Union), with countries deciding to keep their colonial borders.^[21] Traditional power structures, which had been incorporated into the colonial administration, remained partly in place in many parts of Africa, and their roles, powers, and influence vary greatly. Political decolonisation was mirrored by a movement to decolonise African historiography by incorporating oral sources into a multidisciplinary approach, culminating in UNESCO publishing the General History of Africa from 1981. Many countries have experienced the rise and fall of nationalism, and continue to face challenges such as internal conflict, neocolonialism, and climate change.

In accordance with African cosmology, African historical consciousness viewed historical change and continuity, order and purpose within the framework of man and his environment, the gods, and his ancestors, and he believed himself part of a holistic spiritual entity.^[22] In African societies, the historical process is largely a communal one, with eyewitness accounts, hearsay, reminiscences, and occasionally visions, dreams, and hallucinations crafted into narrative oral traditions which are performed and transmitted through generations.^{[23]: 12 : 48} In oral traditions time is sometimes mythical and social, and ancestors were considered historical actors.^{[c][24]: 43–53} Mind and memory shapes traditions, as events are condensed over time and crystallise into clichés.^[25]: 11 Jan Vansina said that interpretation requires a proficient (or better yet native) understanding of the language and culture.^{[26]: 83–93} Oral tradition can be exoteric or esoteric.^[27]: 168 Anselm Jimoh wrote that in African epistemology, the epistemic subject "experiences the epistemic object in a sensuous, emotive, intuitive, abstractive understanding, rather than through abstraction alone, as is the case in Western epistemology" to arrive at a "complete knowledge", and as such oral traditions, music, proverbs, and the like were used in the preservation and transmission of knowledge.^[28]

Africa is considered by most paleoanthropologists to be the oldest inhabited territory on Earth, with the Human species originating from the continent.^[29] During the mid-20th century, anthropologists discovered many fossils and evidence of human occupation perhaps as early as seven million years ago ("Before Present"; BP). Fossil remains of several species of early apelike humans thought to have evolved into modern humans, such as Australopithecus afarensis radiometrically dated to approximately 3.9–3.0 million years BP,^[30] Paranthropus boisei (c. 2.3–1.4 million years BP)^[31] and Homo ergaster (c. 1.9 million–600,000 years BP) have been discovered.^[32]

After the evolution of Homo sapiens approximately 350,000 to 260,000 years BP in Africa, the continent was mainly populated by groups of hunter-gatherers.^[33][34] These first modern humans left Africa and populated the rest of the globe during the Out of Africa II migration dated to approximately 50,000 years BP, exiting the continent either across Bab-el-Mandeb over the Red Sea,^[35][36] the Strait of Gibraltar in Morocco,^[37][38] or the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt.^[39]

Other migrations of modern humans within the African continent have been dated to that time, with evidence of early human settlement found in Southern Africa, Southeast Africa, North Africa, and the Sahara.^[40] At the end of the Ice ages, estimated to have been around 10,500 BCE, the Sahara had again become a green fertile valley, and its African populations returned from the interior and coastal highlands in Africa, with rock art paintings depicting a fertile Sahara and large populations discovered in Tassili n'Ajjer dating back perhaps 10 millennia.^[41] However, the warming and drying climate meant that by 5,000 BCE, the Sahara region was becoming increasingly dry and hostile. Around 3500 BCE, due to a tilt in the Earth's orbit, the Sahara experienced a period of rapid desertification.^[42] The domestication of cattle in Africa preceded agriculture and seems to have existed alongside hunter-gatherer cultures. It is speculated that by 6,000 BCE, cattle were domesticated in North Africa.^[43]

In West Africa, a wet phase ushered in an expanding rainforest and wooded savanna from Senegal to Cameroon. Between 9,000 and 5,000 BCE, Niger–Congo speakers domesticated the oil palm and raffia palm. Black-eyed peas and voandzeia (African groundnuts), were domesticated, followed by okra and kola nuts. Since most of the plants grew in the forest, the Niger–Congo speakers invented polished stone axes for clearing forest.^{[44]: 82–4} Pygmies are thought to have inhabited Central Africa for many millennia, splitting into eastern and western groups around 5,000 BP.^[45] Over 150,000 BP, there was an early dispersal of anatomically modern humans to Eastern and Southern Africa, equated with the modern-day Khoisan who have preserved their traditional hunter-gatherer way of life.^[d][47]

During the 4th millennium BCE, settled agro-pastoralist populations along the Nile transitioned to ranked societies, legitimised by local belief systems. From around 3500 BCE, nomes (ruled by nomarchs) competed and expanded, with one centred in Abydos coming to rule Upper Egypt.^{[48][49]: 271} Around 3100 BCE Upper Egypt conquered Lower Egypt to unify the region under the 1st dynasty, with the process of consolidation and assimilation completed by the time of the 3rd dynasty who formed the Old Kingdom of Egypt in 2686 BCE.^{[50]: 62–63} The Kingdom of Kerma emerged around this time to become the dominant force in Nubia, controlling territory as large as Egypt between the 1st and 4th cataracts of the Nile.^[51][52] The height of the Old Kingdom saw the construction of many great pyramids, though under the 6th dynasty power gradually decentralised to the nomarchs, culminating in the disintegration of the kingdom, exacerbated by drought and famine. Around 2055 BCE, the 11th dynasty, based in Thebes, conquered the others to form the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, and the 12th dynasty expanded into Lower Nubia at the expense of Kerma.^{[50]: 68–71} Around 1700 BCE, the Middle Kingdom fractured in two, and the Hyksos (a militaristic people from Palestine) invaded and conquered Lower Egypt, while Kerma coordinated invasions deep into Egypt to reach its greatest extent.^[53] In 1550 BCE, the 18th dynasty expelled the Hyksos, and established the New Kingdom of Egypt. The New Kingdom conquered the Levant from the Canaanites, Mittani, Amorites, and Hittites, and extinguished Kerma, incorporating Nubia into the empire, and sending the Egyptian empire into its golden age.^[50]: 73 Internal struggles, drought, famine, and invasions by a confederation of seafaring peoples contributed to the New Kingdom's collapse in 1069 BCE.^{[50]: 76–77}

Egypt's collapse liberated the Kingdom of Kush in Nubia, which manoeuvred into power in Upper Egypt and conquered Lower Egypt in 754 BCE to form the Kushite Empire. The Kushites ruled for a century and oversaw a revival in pyramid building, until they were driven out of Egypt by the Assyrians in 663 BCE.^[54] The Assyrians installed a puppet dynasty that later gained independence and once more unified Egypt, until they were conquered by the Achaemenid Empire in 525 BCE.^[50]: 77 Egypt briefly regained independence from the Achaemenids under the 28th dynasty from 404 to 343 BCE. The conquest of Achaemenid Egypt by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE marked the beginning of Hellenistic rule and the installation of the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt.^[55]: 119 The Ptolemaics lost their holdings outside of Africa to the Seleucids in the Syrian Wars, expanded into Cyrenaica, and briefly occupied part of Kush in the 3rd century BCE.^{[56]: 384–93} In the 1st century BCE, Ptolemaic Egypt became entangled in a Roman civil war, leading to its conquest by the Romans in 30 BCE.^[57] Kush persisted as a major regional power until, having been weakened from internal rebellion amid worsening climatic conditions, it disintegrated amid invasions by Aksum and the Noba into Makuria, Alodia, and Nobatia around the 5th century CE.^[58]

In the Horn of Africa, there was the Land of Punt, a kingdom thought to have been on the Red Sea which was a close trading partner of Ancient Egypt in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE. Rodolfo Fattovich equated it to the Gash Group in the Sudanese-Eritrean lowlands, and some scholars have hypothesised modern-day Somaliland, though Kenneth Kitchen and Felix Chami locate it on Zanzibar Island.^{[59][60]: 680} In the Eritrean-Ethiopian Highlands, the kingdom of dʿmt rose c. 980 BCE as the region was incorporated into global trading networks,^[61] and it exhibited Sabaean influences which most scholars attribute to a small migration of Sabaeans and their assimilation.^[62] Several scholars consider there to have been other contemporaneous states,^{[63][64]: 39–40} and dʿmt's collapse in the mid-1st century BCE saw the region inhabited by small polities.^[65] Modern-day Somalia was inhabited by nomadic pastoralists, and along the Horn's coast there were many ancient Somali city-states that thrived off of the wider Red Sea trade, and enjoyed a lucrative monopoly on cinnamon from Ancient India due to their freedom from Roman interference.^{[66]: 24–5, 33} In the 1st century CE, the Kingdom of Aksum rose from a city-state to rule much of the northern Ethiopian-Eritrean Highlands and the Red Sea port of Adulis. Aksum was described as one of the four great powers by Persian prophet Mani in the 3rd century.^{[67][68]: 174} Aksum's king converted from traditional religion to Christianity in the 4th century, gradually followed by the population. In the 6th century, Aksum conquered South Arabia, though struggled to maintain control over it, and began to gradually lose its dominance over Red Sea trade to Persians and Arabians.^[67]

Northwest Africa (the Maghreb) was inhabited by Berber semi-nomadic pastoralists. In the 1st millennium BCE, Phoenician migration and settlement came in search for precious metals in the Gulf of Tunis.^[69]: 442 This grew into Ancient Carthage after gaining independence from Phoenicia in the 6th century BCE, and they built an extensive trading empire with a strict mercantile network.^[70] Carthage's collapse and conquest by Rome in the Punic Wars (3rd and 2nd centuries BCE) saw Numidia and Mauretania become major powers in the Maghreb. Towards the end of the 2nd century BCE Mauretania fought alongside Numidia's Jugurtha against the Romans in the Jugurthine War after he had usurped the Numidian throne from a Roman ally. Together they inflicted heavy casualties, with the war only ending inconclusively when Mauretania's Bocchus I sold out Jugurtha to the Romans. Around the turn of the millennium, both came under direct Roman rule.^{[69]: 460–2} While traditional religion predominated among Berbers, some people converted to Christianity. In the 5th century CE the Vandals conquered Roman Africa before the fall of Rome, though the province was reconquered by the Byzantines a century later. Large swathes of indigenous peoples regained self-governance in Masuna and its numerous successor polities in the Maghreb, including the kingdoms of Ouarsenis, Aurès, and Altava.^{[71]: 495–7, 500–8}

In the western Sahel the rise of settled communities occurred largely as a result of the domestication of millet and of sorghum, and cattle pastoralism began c. 2500 BCE. Extensive east-west belts of deserts, grasslands, and forests from north to south were crucial for the moulding of their respective societies and meant that symbiotic trade relations developed in response to the differing environments.^{[72][73]: 79–80} Beginning around 4000 BCE, the Tichitt culture in modern-day Mauritania and Mali was the oldest known complexly organised society in West Africa,^[74] while others included the Kintampo culture in modern-day Ghana, the Nok culture in modern-day Nigeria, and the Daima culture around Lake Chad.^{[75]: 603–12} Towards the end of the 3rd century CE, a wet period in the Sahel created areas for human habitation and exploitation that had not been habitable for the best part of a millennium. The Ghana Empire (also called Wagadu) rose out of the Tichitt culture. They grew wealthy following the introduction of the camel to the western Sahel, which revolutionised the trans-Saharan trade that linked their capital and Aoudaghost with Tahert and Sijilmasa in North Africa.^[76] Soninke tradition holds that the final founding of Wagadu occurred after Dinga did a deal with Bida [fr] (a serpent deity who was guarding a well) to sacrifice one maiden a year in exchange for assurance regarding plenty of rainfall and gold supply.^[e][77] Based on large tumuli scattered across West Africa dating to this period, several scholars have speculated that there were further simultaneous and preceding states relative to Wagadu.^[78][74]

In the Grasslands of northwestern Cameroon, Bantu-speaking agriculturalists started to gradually migrate south sometime between 5000 and 3000 BCE. Despite intensive research, the cause of the migrations, and that of the directions taken, is still unclear,^[f] however there is consensus that there were multiple dispersal events. Around 1500 BCE, Bantu speakers reached central Cameroon. The 'Western Stream' likely followed the coast and the major rivers of the Congo system southwards to reach the southern fringe of the Congolian Rainforest around 500 BCE (some may have used the sea to circumvent the rainforest). Their arrival coincided with the spread of iron metallurgy through Central Africa. Meanwhile, the 'Eastern Stream' travelled either the northern fringe of the rainforest or the Ubangi River eastwards, and reached just west of Lake Victoria around 500 BCE. While there, Bantu speakers adopted iron metallurgy from Cushitic speakers (who had settled East Africa in the 3rd millennium BCE),^{[80]: 616–20} and coexisted with them.^{[81][79]: 23–5} Dispersal from the Great Lakes region occurred in two more streams. One went west to meet the Western Stream in the DR Congo and Angola, while the other went south and spread across Eastern and Southern Africa.^[79]: 26 Around the turn of the millennium, Bantu speakers reached central modern-day Tanzania and near Dar es Salaam, before rapidly moving southwards along the coast to reach modern-day Kwazulu Natal in South Africa around the 3rd century CE.^[81] Throughout this, Bantu speakers displaced, replaced, or intermarried with and absorbed hunter-gatherer and agriculturalist groups.^{[82][79]: 32 [83]: 636}

In the 7th century, as part of the Arab conquests which sought to spread Islamic rule,^{[84]: 56–7} the Rashidun Caliphate scored crucial military victories against the Byzantine Empire and expanded rapidly, conquering Egypt and the Exarchate from them in the 640s. After a brief civil war, the Rashiduns were supplanted by the Umayyads, who, after stiff resistance from Berber leaders such as Kusaila and Kahina, had conquered the Maghreb by the early-8th century.^{[85]: 47–9 [86]: 233–9} Large numbers of Berber and Coptic people willingly converted to Islam, and followers of Abrahamic religions ('People of the Book') were protected,^{[84]: 56–63} though followers of traditional Berber religion were violently oppressed and often given the ultimatum to convert to Islam or face captivity or enslavement.^[85]: 46 In the 8th century the Berber Revolt rocked the Caliphate and Berber dynasties took control over the Maghreb,^{[87]: 246–51} while the Tulunids briefly controlled Egypt.^{[88]: 172–7} In the 10th century, the Fatimids rose to power in modern-day Tunisia, established a rival caliphate, and conquered Egypt, before expanding into the Middle East. In the 11th century, the Fatimids started to collapse amidst Turkish and Crusader expansion,^[89] while the zealous Almoravids conquered the Maghreb and intervened in the Christian reconquest of Iberia.^[90]: 351 Saladin, a Fatimid vizier, usurped power in the 12th century and established the Ayyubid dynasty which restored Egyptian prestige,^{[89][91]: 372–3} while the Almohad revolution deposed the Almoravids to the east. After Christian gains in Iberia in the 13th century, the Almohads disintegrated into the Marinids, Zayyanids, and Hafsids in modern-day Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia respectively.^[92] In the face of Mongol expansion, Mamluk generals seized power in Egypt and expanded into the Middle East.^{[91]: 377–81} In the early-16th century, the Ottoman Empire rapidly conquered North Africa (save for Morocco, now under Saadi rule) to counter Spanish expansionism.^[g][95] In the following centuries, over a million Europeans are estimated to have been captured and enslaved by Barbary corsairs.^[96] The Ottoman regencies became more independent during the 18th century.^[95]

Wagadu was the most powerful of a constellation of states stretching from Takrur on the Senegal River Valley to Mema in the Niger Valley, all of whom were subservient to Wagadu at least some of the time.^[97] The Gao Empire was situated to the east of Wagadu, and controlled the salt trade.^[98] Islam had reached Gao and Takrur by the 11th century, during which the Almoravids (before their conquests north) captured Wagadu's royal seat of Aoudaghost, gaining the king's conversion, and several vassals broke free.^{[h][100][101]: 73, 98} Despite Wagadu regaining full independence and power throughout the 12th century, this could not counteract the worsening climate and shifts in trade south and east, leading to its conquest by its former vassal Sosso c. 1200, propelling Soninke migration.^[i][103] In the face of Sosso aggression, Sundiata Keita united the Mandinka clans and conquered Sosso and Gao, expanding across the western Sahel and Sudan to found the Mali Empire. Mali grew fabulously rich through controlling the trans-Saharan trade.^[104] During the 14th and 15th centuries Mali experienced political instability and lost control over the Jolof Empire in Senegambia, and Sahelian trading centres to the nomadic Tuareg.^{[j][106]: 174 [107]: 416} Under Sonni Ali, Gao swept through the crumbling empire, fending off the Mossi kingdom of Yatenga and forming the Songhai Empire.^{[108]: 191–3} Weakened by internal conflict, in 1591 Gao was conquered by Morocco, and the political vacuum came to be filled by the Segou Empire and several other states.^{[109]: 301–7} The once lucrative trans-Saharan trade gradually lost its prominence to the coastal Atlantic trade with Europeans, and the following centuries saw many droughts, famines, and epidemics.^{[109]: 316–9}

Located around Lake Chad, the founding of the Kanem Empire is typically dated to c. 700,^{[110]: 39–40} and it greatly benefited from serving as a crossroad for east-west and north-south Saharan trade, growing to encompass several peoples. Facilitated by contact with Muslim traders or nomadic Tubu, in the 11th century the Duguwa dynasty converted to Ibadi Islam,^[k] before they were usurped by the Sunni and Kanembu Sayfawa dynasty. Under the Sayfawa, Kanem became a centre of Islamic scholarship, and extended its rule to the Kaouar and Fezzan oases, gaining even greater control over trans-Saharan trade.^[111] In Nubia, having converted to Christianity, Makuria annexed Nobatia, and halted Muslim expansion during the 7th century, with whom it signed a peace treaty. Over the following centuries Makuria defended the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria in Muslim-controlled Egypt, and entered into a dynastic or political union with Alodia during the 10th century.^{[112][113][114]: 194–6} A warm period in the 14th century caused Lake Chad to dry up, and Kanem became engrossed in conflict with the Tubu and Bilala; Kanem's capital was captured by the Bilala, forcing the leadership and other Kanembu to move to Bornu.^[111] Meanwhile Islam spread through Hausaland;^{[84]: 78–9} in the 15th century a deposed Bornu ruler fled to Kano, leading Bornu to vassalise several Hausa kingdoms.^{[l][115]: 279} Bornu also conquered Kotoko (which had grown out of the Sao civilisation), reaching the height of its power.^[116][111] In Hausaland the 16th century saw the rise of Kebbi which countered Bornu influence, while Amina's Zazzau expanded south.^{[117][115]: 277} In Nubia, following Mamluk aggression, the plague, and the migration of Bedouin tribes to the region, Makuria and Alodia gradually collapsed and disintegrated; the Funj Sultanate came to rule the Sudan, and blocked Turco-Egyptian expansion south.^[112] To the east in modern-day Darfur and eastern Chad, after the successive Daju and Tunjur kingdoms, the 17th century saw the rise of the Bagirmi, Wadai, and Darfur sultanates,^[m] and frequent slave-raiding of populations to their south.^[119][120] Bornu entered into decline as it experienced droughts and lost control of trans-Saharan trade to the Tuareg and Ottomans.^[111]

Following the birth of Islam in the early-7th century, nomadic Somalis began to convert to Islam, and it spread through the eastern Horn via daʿwah.^[84]: 84 Though Muslim-Aksumite relations were initially friendly, they soon soured.^[121]: 560 Aksum lost control of the Red Sea, and its isolation from Christendom caused Ethiopian society to introspect and take inspiration from the Old Testament.^[122]: 108 Islamised Beja invaded the Ethiopian Highlands, forcing Aksum to migrate south, where, according to tradition, Aksum's expansion was met by a Jewish or traditionalist queen who destroyed the state c. 960.^{[121]: 563–6} From the 11th century, the growing Somalian population expanded across the eastern Horn, with Islam key to the assimilation of other groups.^{[123]: 722–3} During the 13th century, hegemony in the Horn was contested by the Christian Zagwe, the Muslims of Shewa, and the traditionalist Damot,^{[124]: 431–2} while the Ajuran Sultanate ruled the southern Somali clans on the coast.^[125] In the late-13th century, the Solomonic dynasty overthrew the Zagwe to found the Ethiopian Empire, while Shewa was replaced by Ifat.^{[122]: 131, 143} Soon after, Ethiopia conquered Damot and the Muslim states, entering into a 'golden age'.^{[126]: 19–20} In the 16th century Muslims united behind Adal in jihad to reconquer the Muslim lands and occupy Ethiopia, until, with Portuguese assistance, Ethiopia counter-attacked and its sovereignty was restored in a reduced state.^{[123]: 712–5} The 16th and 17th centuries also saw Oromo invasions into the Horn, weakening Ethiopia further and causing the collapse of Adal, while Ajuran also disintegrated.^{[125][127]: 539–44} Ethiopia briefly consolidated its authority in the late-17th century, though the turn of the century saw fragmentation and gradually-increasing anarchy, which continued throughout the 18th century.^[123]: 703

In the western Congo Basin, a period of state and class formation began circa 700 with three centres: one in the west around Pool Malebo, one south around the highlands of Angola, and a third north-central around Lake Mai-Ndombe.^{[128]: 17–8} By the 13th century there were three main federations of states in the western Congo Basin around Pool Malebo: the Seven Kingdoms, Mpemba, and one led by Vungu. Kongo traditions detail the founding and rapid expansion of the Kingdom of Kongo in the late-14th and early-15th centuries by Lukeni lua Nimi,^[n] though it was checked by the Tio Kingdom to its north (which saw Mwene Muji around Lake Mai-Ndombe to its northeast).^{[128]: 24–30} In the late-15th century the Portuguese established relations with Kongo, whose ruler converted to Catholicism (eventually syncretising traditional beliefs).^{[128]: 37–8} Atlantic trade began, with slaves being the most lucrative export.^[o] In the 16th century, Afonso I's conquests produced many captives for Kongo's monopoly, and the slave trade rapidly grew to meet demand in the Americas.^{[129][128]: 52–3} By the mid-16th century, the Kingdom of Loango had formed north of the Congo River, and to the south Ndongo had broken free from Kongo and entered commercial relations with the Portuguese.^{[p][131][130]: 64–7} In the late-16th century, as a concession for helping to expel Yaka invasions (from Mwene Muji), Kongo allowed the Portuguese to establish a colony at Luanda, which expanded and became Portuguese Angola.^{[130]: 74–8} Over the course of the late-16th and 17th centuries, the Portuguese sought to conquer Ndongo (allied to Matamba) in the Angolan Wars;^[q] despite fierce resistance from Queen Nzinga, and brief occupation of Luanda by the Dutch (allied to Kongo), Portugal controlled most of Ndongo by the 1670s.^{[r][132]: 91–122 [134]: 150–9 [135]: 162–88} Kongo had endured numerous civil wars throughout its history, though the rise of its vassal Soyo prevented consolidation, and the late-17th century saw Kongo fragment between royal houses as several vassals broke away; by the time of Kongo's restoration in 1709, it had ceased being the dominant regional power.^{[135]: 199–213 [136]: 241–3} Also during the 17th century, in the textile-producing northeast, the Boma, Yaka, and possibly the Kuba and Pende kingdoms broke away from Mwene Muji.^[137]

In the central Congo Basin, farmers, fishermen, and hunters (often Pygmies) built symbiotic relations,^[138]: 554 and the Balega organised into bwami (socio-political collective 'grades' within a hierarchy). Mongo peoples migrated throughout the northeastern Congolian Rainforest, eventually organising into polities called nkumu.^{[138]: 563–4} Some groups highly valued socio-political equality and disapproved of leaving it.^[138]: 559 In the Upemba Depression, people traded with the Copperbelt, and graves dated to the 8th century contained objects associated with authority, such as anvils and ceremonial axes.^{[s][139]: 878–80} Jan Vansina wrote that in the southern savanna 'lords of the land' held priestly roles due to their special relationship with the spirits of the land, and held sway over multiple villages, effectively ruling embryonic kingdoms. Accordingly, as lineages grew, authority was opportunistically absorbed or incorporated by force.^{[138]: 557–8} The centre of the Luba Empire is yet to undergo archaeological research, meaning knowledge about its rise is limited;^[140] its foundation is typically dated to the 14th/15th centuries,^[141]: 181 though scholarly estimates range from the 8th to 17th centuries.^{[142][143]: 59} Luba-Katanga traditions (likely telescoped^[t]) detail the arrival of sacred kingship (bulopwecode: lub promoted to code: lu ) in the narrative about tyrannical-conqueror Nkongolo and the prodigy Kalala Ilunga, where it is brought by the noble hunter Mbidi.^{[141]: 182 [143]: 23–40} Meanwhile, a Lunda state formed in the Nkalany Valley (estimates range from c. 1450 to c. 1700),^[144] and Lunda traditions say that queen Lueji married Mbidi's grandson and hunter Chibinda, whose son was the first Mwata Yamvo.^[u][147] In the 18th century, Lunda rapidly expanded into an extensive commonwealth across the southern savanna, using the institutions of perpetual kinship and positional succession to incorporate peoples.^[v][146] Lunda lost several rulers in a long conflict (eventually won) against Kanyok to the north, and conquered the Pende and Yaka kingdoms in the west.^{[148]: 225–8} The most important constituents in the east and south were Kazembe, Luvale, and Kanongesha.^{[w][150]: 33} Meanwhile, Luba expanded its number of tributaries, in some cases using its widely-acknowledged prestige to intervene in succession disputes and distribute ritually-powerful royal regalia related to bulopwecode: lub promoted to code: lu , in other cases using conquest.^{[146][151]: 108}

The East African coast and coastal archipelagos were dotted with proto-Swahili settlements, each with productive locally-developed industries.^[152] They participated in Indian Ocean trade, and converted to Islam from c. 800, enabling them to participate in Muslim trading networks.^[153] Trade boomed from the 10th century, and major city-states included Manda, Shanga, Mombasa, and Kilwa, the latter of which seized control of the Sofala gold trade from Mogadishu (according to the Kilwa Chronicle) and expanded its control along the coast.^{[152][154]: 371–2} The interior was inhabited by pastoralist Cushitic and Nilotic speakers, along with Bantu speakers who continued to expand and adapt to their lands while absorbing the former two;^{[155]: 481–94} the 17th century saw the establishment of tributary systems that stabilised the region.^[156]: 829 Madagascar had been settled between the 4th and 6th centuries by Austronesians who had traversed the Indian Ocean.^{[x][citation needed]} The Antalaotra controlled trade on the northwest coast, while Malagasy societies organised and competed with one another over the island's estuaries and bridgeheads.^{[y][157]: 48, 52–53} In the 15th century, trade routes for Zimbabwean gold shifted north, weakening Kilwa.^[154]: 375 The Portuguese arrived at the coast soon after, and exploited divisions between coastal city-states to gain control over them while utilising their powerful navy.^{[159]: 756–60} Meanwhile, southern Madagascar was integrated into global trade; the Sakalava Empire rose to dominate west-coastal trade, accompanied by numerous other states, and the island saw several failed European colonial ventures.^[160][161] In the 17th and 18th centuries, Lamu-Swahili cities rebelled against the Portuguese and allied the Omani Empire which supplanted Portuguese rule.^{[159]: 767–70}

Between 1878 and 1898, European states partitioned and conquered most of Africa. For 400 years, European nations had mainly limited their involvement to trading stations on the African coast, with few daring to venture inland. The Industrial Revolution in Europe produced several technological innovations which assisted them in overcoming this 400-year pattern. One was the development of repeating rifles, which were easier and quicker to load than muskets. Artillery was being used increasingly. In 1885, Hiram S. Maxim developed the maxim gun, the model of the modern-day machine gun. European states kept these weapons largely among themselves by refusing to sell these weapons to African leaders.^{[162]: 268–269}

African germs took numerous European lives and deterred permanent settlements. Diseases such as yellow fever, sleeping sickness, yaws, and leprosy made Africa a very inhospitable place for Europeans. The deadliest disease was malaria, endemic throughout Tropical Africa. In 1854, the discovery of quinine and other medical innovations helped to make conquest and colonization in Africa possible.^[162]: 269

There were strong motives for conquest of Africa. Raw materials were needed for European factories. Prestige and imperial rivalries were at play. Acquiring African colonies would show rivals that a nation was powerful and significant. These contextual factors forged the Scramble for Africa.^[162]: 265

In the 1880s the European powers had carved up almost all of Africa (only Ethiopia and Liberia were independent). The Europeans were captivated by the philosophies of eugenics and Social Darwinism, and some attempted to justify all this by branding it civilising missions. Traditional leaders were incorporated into the colonial regimes as a form of indirect rule to extract human and natural resources and curb organized resistance.^[163] Colonial borders were drawn unilaterally by the Europeans, often cutting across bonds of kinship, language, culture, and established routes, and sometimes incorporating groups who previously had little in common. The threat to trade routes was mitigated by poor policing and African entrepreneurs (viewed as smugglers) who exploited the differing tax and legal schemes.^[164]

Imperialism ruled until after World War II when forces of African nationalism grew stronger. In the 1950s and 1960s the colonial holdings became independent states. The process was usually peaceful but there were several long bitter bloody civil wars, as in Algeria,^[165] Kenya,^[166] and elsewhere. Across Africa the powerful new force of nationalism drew upon the advanced militaristic skills that natives learned during the world wars serving in the British, French, and other armies. It led to organizations that were not controlled by or endorsed by either the colonial powers nor the traditional local power structures who were viewed as collaborators. Nationalistic organizations began to challenge both the traditional and the new colonial structures, and finally displaced them. Leaders of nationalist movements took control when the European authorities evacuated; many ruled for decades or until they died. In recent decades, many African countries have undergone the triumph and defeat of nationalistic fervour, changing in the process the loci of the centralizing state power and patrimonial state.^{[167][168][169]}

The wave of decolonization of Africa started with Libya in 1951, although Liberia, South Africa, Egypt and Ethiopia were already independent. Many countries followed in the 1950s and 1960s, with a peak in 1960 with the Year of Africa, which saw 17 African nations declare independence, including a large part of French West Africa. Most of the remaining countries gained independence throughout the 1960s, although some colonizers (Portugal in particular) were reluctant to relinquish sovereignty, resulting in bitter wars of independence which lasted for a decade or more.

The last African countries to gain formal independence were Guinea-Bissau (1974), Mozambique (1975) and Angola (1975) from Portugal; Djibouti from France in 1977; Zimbabwe from the United Kingdom in 1980; and Namibia from South Africa in 1990. Eritrea later split off from Ethiopia in 1993.^[170] The nascent countries, despite some prior talk of redrawing borders, decided to keep their colonial borders in the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) conference of 1964 due to fears of civil wars and regional instability, and placed emphasis on Pan-Africanism, with the OAU later developing into the African Union.^[171] During the 1990s and early 2000s there were the First and Second Congo Wars, often termed the African World Wars.^[172][173]

• Architecture of Africa
• History of science and technology in Africa
• Military history of Africa
• Genetic history of Africa
• Economic history of Africa
• African historiography
• List of history journals § Africa
• List of kingdoms in Africa throughout history
• List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Africa

• Al-Mas'udi, Ali ibn al-Husain (1861–1917). Les Prairies D'Or. Vol. 9 vols. Ed. and Trans. Charles Barbier de Meynard and Abel Pavet de Courteille. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.
• Collins, Robert O.; Burns, James M. (2007). A History of Sub-Saharan Africa. NY: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-68708-9.
• Diamond, Jared M. (1997). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-03891-0.
• Ehret, Christopher (2002). The Civilizations of Africa. Charlottesville, Virginia: University of Virginia. ISBN 0-8139-2085-X.
• Gomez, Michael (2018). African dominion: a new history of empire in early and medieval West Africa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-17742-7.
• Levtzion, Nehemia; Hopkins, John F.P., eds. (2000). Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West Africa. New York, NY: Marcus Weiner Press. ISBN 1-55876-241-8.
• McKinney, Robert C. (2004). The Case of Rhyme versus Reason: Ibn al-Rumi and His Poetics in Context. Leiden and Boston: Brill. ISBN 90-04-13010-1.
• Mamdani, Mahmood (1996). Citizen and subject: contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism. Kampala: Fountain Publishers. ISBN 978-0-85255-399-2. OCLC 35445018.
• Nicholson, Paul T.; Shaw, Ian (2000). Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-45257-1.
• Prunier, Gérard (2009). Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-970583-2.
• Shillington, Kevin (2005). History of Africa (Revised 2nd ed.). New York City: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-59957-8.

• UNESCO Publishing (1981–2024) General History of Africa
• Cambridge University Press (1975–1986) The Cambridge History of Africa
• Shillington, Kevin (1989) History of Africa (4th edition, 2019)
• Clark, J. Desmond (1970). The Prehistory of Africa. Thames and Hudson
• Davidson, Basil (1964). The African Past. Penguin, Harmondsworth
• Falola, Toyin. Africa, Volumes 1–5.
• FitzSimons, William. "Sizing Up the 'Small Wars' of African Empire: An Assessment of the Context and Legacies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Warfare". Journal of African Military History 2#1 (2018): 63–78. doi:10.1163/24680966-0020100
• French, Howard (2021). Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War. New York: Liveright Publishing Company. ISBN 978-1-63149-582-3. OCLC 1268921040.
• Freund, Bill (1998). The Making of Contemporary Africa, Lynne Rienner, Boulder (including a substantial "Annotated Bibliography" pp. 269–316).
• July, Robert (1998). A History of the African People, (Waveland Press, 1998).
• Lamphear, John, ed. African Military History (Routledge, 2007).
• Reader, John (1997). Africa: A Biography of the Continent. Hamish Hamilton. ISBN 0-241-13047-6
• Thornton, John K. Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500–1800 (Routledge, 1999).

• Ajayi, A.J.F. and Michael Crowder. Historical Atlas of Africa (1985); 300 color maps.
• Fage, J.D. Atlas of African History (1978)
• Freeman-Grenville, G.S.P. The New Atlas of African History (1991).
• Kwamena-Poh, Michael, et al. African history in Maps (Longman, 1982).
• McEvedy, Colin. The Penguin Atlas of African History (2nd ed. 1996). excerpt

• Afolayan, Funso (2005). "Historiography of Africa" Encyclopedia of African History
• Falola, Toyin (2011). "African Historical Writing" The Oxford History of Historical Writing: Volume 5: Historical Writing Since 1945
• Fage, John D. "The development of African historiography." General history of Africa 1 (1981): 25–42. online
• Odhiambo, E.S. Atieno (2004). "The Usages of the past: African historiographies since independence" African Research and Documentation 96
• Manning, Patrick (2013). "African and World Historiography" (PDF). The Journal of African History. 54 (3): 319–330. doi:10.1017/S0021853713000753. S2CID 33615987.
• Manning, Patrick (2016). "Locating Africans on the World Stage: A Problem in World History". Journal of World History. 27 (3): 605–637.
• Philips, John Edward, ed. Writing African History (2005)
• Whitehead, Clive. "The historiography of British Imperial education policy, Part II: Africa and the rest of the colonial empire." History of Education 34.4 (2005): 441–454. online
• Zimmerman, Andrew. "Africa in Imperial and Transnational History: multi-sited historiography and the necessity of theory." Journal of African History 54.3 (2013): 331–340. online

• "Race, Evolution and the Science of Human Origins" by Allison Hopper, Scientific American (5 July 2021).
• Worldtimelines.org.uk – Africa The British Museum. 2005
• The Historyscoper.
• About.com:African History Archived 2007-12-13 at the Wayback Machine.
• The Story of Africa BBC World Service.
• Wonders of the African World, PBS.
• Civilization of Africa by Richard Hooker, Washington State University.
• African Art Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• African Kingdoms, by Khaleel Muhammad.
• Mapungubwe Museum at the University of Pretoria
• Project Diaspora Archived 2021-10-18 at the Wayback Machine.
• Kush Communications |Media Production Company London.