History of East Africa: Difference between revisions

The history of East Africa has been divided into its prehistory, the major polities flourishing, the colonial period, and the post-colonial period, in which the current nations were formed. East Africa is the eastern region of Africa, bordered by North Africa, Central Africa, Southern Africa, the Indian Ocean, and the Sahara Desert. Colonial boundaries are reflected in the modern boundaries between contemporary East African states, cutting across ethnic and cultural lines, often dividing single ethnic groups between two or more states.

Geography[edit]

The area located at the south of the desert is a steppe, a semi-arid region, called the Sahel. It is the ecoclimatic and biogeographic zone of transition in Africa between the Sahara desert to the north and the Sudanian Savanna to the south. The Sudanian Savanna is a broad belt of tropical savanna that spans the African continent, from the Atlantic Ocean coast in the West Sudanian savanna to the Ethiopian Highlands in the East Sudanian savanna.

Climate[edit]

In 15,000 BP, the West African Monsoon transformed the landscape of 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., grassland, shrubland) in North Africa.^[1] Between 5500 BP and 4000 BP, the Green Sahara period ended.^[1]

Prehistory[edit]

In 78,300 BP, amid the Middle Stone Age, a two and half to three year old human child was buried at Panga ya Saidi, in Kenya.^[2]

In 13,000 BP, Nubians, who were found to be morphologically different from newer Nubian populations and morphologically similar to Sub-Saharan Africans (e.g., Kerma, modern Eastern Africans, modern Western Africans), resided in tropical Jebel Sahaba.^[3]

Between 8000 BP and 2000 BP, Saharan herders migrated into Eastern Africa, and brought along with them their monumental Saharan burial traditions.^[4]

Amid the Holocene, around 7100 BP, six individuals were buried.^[5]

In the uplands of Nakfa, there is painted rock art (e.g., petroglyphs) in Karora depicting symbolic representations, men, and animals (e.g., horses, camels, antelopes, goats, sheep, cattle), which has been dated to the 2nd millennium BCE.^[6][7]

Ancient history[edit]

Kerma & The Kingdom of Kush[edit]

Beginning with kerma culture, Kerma was an early civilization and earliest in Sub-Saharan Afica centered in Kerma Sudan, The Kerma culture was based in the southern part of Nubia, or “Upper Nubia” (in parts of present-day northern and central Sudan), and later extended its reach northward into Lower Nubia and the border of Egypt.[1] The polity seems to have been one of a number of Nile Valley states during the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. In the Kingdom of Kerma’s latest phase, lasting from about 1700 to 1500 BC, it absorbed the Sudanese kingdom of Sai and became a sizable, Large empire rivaling Egypt.

The Kerma culture built a wide trading network from east to central Africa and prospered during the Classical Kerma phase, even threatening the Egyptians for dominance of the Nile Valley although the Egyptians were much more numerous In population in comparison to the demographically smaller Kerman population, with the assistance of surrounding Cushitic tribes (such as the C-Group culture and the Medjay pharaoh Thutmose I would bring an end to Kerman rule.
Kerma would rise again as Kush with their new capital at Napata and the Egyptianized 25th dynasty would conquer Egypt itself.^[8]

Bantu expansion[edit]

From West Africa, Bantu-speaking peoples migrated, along with their ceramics, into the other areas of Sub-Saharan Africa.^[9] The Kalundu ceramic type may have spread into Southeastern Africa.^[9] Additionally, the Eastern African Urewe ceramic type of Lake Victoria may have spread, via African shores near the Indian Ocean, as the Kwale ceramic type, and spread, via Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi, as the Nkope ceramic type.^[9]

Though some may have been created later, the earlier red finger-painted rock art may have been created between 6000 BP and 1800 BP, to the south of Kei River and Orange River by Khoisan hunter-gatherer-herders, in Malawi and Zambia by considerably dark-skinned, occasionally bearded, bow-and-arrow-wielding Akafula hunter-gatherers who resided in Malawi until the 19th century CE, and in Transvaal by the Vhangona people.^[10]

Bantu-speaking farmers, or their Proto-Bantu progenitors, created the later white finger-painted rock art in some areas of Tanzania, Malawi, Angola, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, as well as in the northern regions of Mozambique, Botswana, and Transvaal.^[10] The Transvaal (e.g., Soutpansberg, Waterberg) rock art was specifically created by Sotho-speakers (e.g., Birwa, Koni, Tlokwa) and Venda people.^[10] Concentric circles, stylized humans, stylized animals, ox-wagons, saurian figures, Depictions of crocodiles and snakes were included in the white finger-painted rock art tradition, both of which were…