Kerma culture flourishes in modern-day Sudan
The Kerma culture was an early civilization centered in Kerma, Sudan. It flourished from around 2500 B.C.E. to 1500 B.C.E. in ancient Nubia, located in Upper Egypt and northern Sudan.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Hunter-gatherers of the Wilton stone age culture inhabit Twyfelfontein in modern-day Namibia
Displaying one of the largest concentrations of rock petroglyphs in Africa, UNESCO approved Twyfelfontein as Namibia’s first World Heritage Site in 2007.
The peoples of sub-Saharan Africa begin metal smelting
Copper artifacts recovered from Nubia provide the earliest known evidence of metal smelting in sub-Saharan Africa, dating back sometime after 4000 B.C.E. – they were most likely imports from Egypt.
Humans begin cultivating yams in West Africa
People started to cultivate yams, rather than digging up wild ones, as long as 10,000 years ago in both Africa and Asia, and some time later in the New World.
Early humans of Ounjougou in modern-day Mali independently develop pottery
Ounjougou has yielded the earliest pottery found in Africa, and is believed to be one of the earliest regions (along with East Asia) in which the independent development of pottery occurred.
Humans migrate to West Africa
Archaeological studies have found that early human settlers arrived in West Africa around 12,000 B.C.E.
The San people settle in Southern Africa
The San peoples, also known as the Bushmen, are members of various indigenous hunter-gatherer groups that are the first nations of Southern Africa, and whose territories span Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, and South Africa.
Human invent tally marks, their first numeral systems
The oldest tally sticks date to between 35,000 and 25,000 years ago, in the form of notched bones found in the context of the European Aurignacian to Gravettian and in Africa’s Late Stone Age.
Humans invent the harpoon, perhaps in modern day Democratic Republic of Congo
The Semliki harpoon, also known as the Katanda harpoon, refers to a group of complex barbed harpoon heads carved from bone, which were found at an archaeologic site on the Semliki River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“Mitochondrial Eve” is born, probably somewhere in Africa
All mitochondrial genomes today should be traceable to a single woman, a ‘Mitochondrial Eve’. This woman, the researchers concluded, probably lived in Africa around 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.