African Pride.

Africa has a rich and complex history but there is widespread ignorance of this heritage. A celebrated British historian once said there was only the history of Europeans in Africa. Zeinab Badawi has been asking what is behind this lack of knowledge and looking at the historical record for an African history series on BBC World News

Africa has a rich and fascinating history, with several remarkable sites that showcase its cultural heritage and evolution. Here are a few notable places:

Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania: This paleoanthropological site, located in the eastern Serengeti Plain within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, has provided a continuous record of human evolution spanning over two million years. Fossil remains of more than 60 hominins (early human ancestors) have been discovered here, making it a crucial location for understanding our evolutionary past.

Thebes, Egypt: Thebes, situated on both sides of the Nile River in modern-day Egypt, was a famed city of antiquity. Its remains date back to the 11th dynasty (around 2081–1939 BCE) and include impressive temples, palaces, and royal tombs. Sites like Luxor, the Valley of the Kings, and Karnak offer insights into ancient Egyptian architecture, religious customs, and daily life.

Leptis Magna, Libya: Located on the Mediterranean coast of northwestern Libya, Leptis Magna boasts some of the world’s finest remains of Roman architecture. Founded by Phoenicians and later settled by Carthaginians, it became an important trade center. Flourishing under Emperor Septimius Severus, it eventually fell into ruin after Arab conquests in the 7th century CE. The city’s Roman amphitheater and other structures are testament to its historical significance.

African History.

Africa is home to the first humans and this gives a new meaning to its nickname the motherland. The continent has the longest history. Africans have been around for a very very long time. A huge part of Africa’s earliest history has been lost, which is typical for early humans due to the relatively short time for which writing has existed.

Some parts of African history have been distorted and misrepresented. However, there are parts of African history that remain intact, as modern-day discoveries and new emerging facts and methods help to rediscover the lost pasts of the Africa’s past through DNA sequencing, dendrochronology, Accelerator Mass Spectrometer (AMS) dating and various other methods.

Additionally, Africa is widely believed to be the “cradle of humankind.” It’s the only continent with fossil evidence of human beings (Homo sapiens) and their ancestors throughout key stages of evolution, making it uniquely significant in human history.

The Great Pyramid of Giza in Cairo is rightly considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. But travel further south along the River Nile and you will find a thousand pyramids that belonged to the Kingdom of Kush, in what is now Sudan.

Kush was an African superpower and its influence extended to what is now called the Middle East.

The kingdom lasted for many hundreds of years and in the eighth Century BC, it conquered Egypt and governed for the best part of a century.

What remains of the kingdom is equally impressive. More than 300 of these pyramids are still intact, almost untouched since they were built nearly 3,000 years ago.

"There has been a way of seeing Africa in terms of poverty and conflict which has become a kind of shorthand for the continent that still persists today."

Some of the best examples can be found in Jebel Barkal in northern Sudan, declared a world heritage site by the UN's cultural agency, Unesco.

Here you can find pyramids, tombs, temples and burial chambers complete with painted scenes and writings that describes as masterpieces "of creative genius demonstrating the artistic, social, political and religious values of a human group for more than 2,000 years".

Africans are the most diverse people in the world. Perhaps this has a connection with the fact that they are the earliest humans , and it has been proven that humans adapt to the different environments they find themselves in overtime as they migrate.

This accounts for the many different skin tones of Africans ranging from very dark to very light, and the thousands of different cultures and languages spread all across the continent.

Before the arrival of the Europeans, Africans had already travelled to other parts of the world in various “human migration” waves, as archiac humans spreading Achuelean technology, as behaviorally modern humans (BMH) spreading the stone age and tool use, and around 1,000 BCE to 1500 AD not as slaves as many wrongly believe but as respected members of society.

Discoveries such as Memnon in the Trojan war, the Ivory Bangle Lady, the beachy head lady, and many other findings prove this fact while giving us an insight into the way of life of much earlier societies.

Ancient Africans were pioneers of early civilization, many people do not know this, but the facts are there for all to see. Africa is credited with having the oldest history in the world. The origins of several human advancements were from Africa. There is evidence that early African societies excelled in fields such as engineering, mathematics, writing even navigation.

Some notable great African civilizations such as The Great Benin Empire, Ancient Egypt, Empire of Mali, Empire of Songhai, The Nri Kingdom, The Garamantes, Kanem-Bornu Empire, Kingdom of Luba, Kingdom of Makuria, The Land of Punt and so many other great African civilizations had a highly organised society that was developed, excelled in commerce and flourished.

Precolonial African civilizations had highly evolved political and leadership systems that supported their various complex and developed societies. Such as the Ibinda system of the Kalenji people of Kenya, the confederacy system of the Kwararafa people, the bureaucratic federal republic system of the Ashanti Empire, the hegemony system of the Songhai Empire, the Gada system of the Oromo, the hereditary theocracy of the Fatimid Caliphate, Monarchical system of the Mossi kingdoms, the theocratic system of the Nri kingdom, and many more developed system of leaderships .The monarchical system, however, seems to be the more prominent leadership style for most African societies.

These ancient African civilizations invented and originated their ways of doing things, many of which parallel independent developments around the world. Sadly, Africa is denied credit for most of her contributions. There is clear evidence of sophisticated African cultures from as far back as many thousands of years ago.

For instance, there are about 15 ancient African writing styles that predate even Latin , As far back as 82,000 years ago, Africans had already invented abstract arts and painting. Algorithms which have become an inevitable part of computing today had its roots in Africa. Africans domesticated over 2000 different types of food, some of which today is consumed globally.

Africans built the earliest seafaring vessels and you are able to learn on this , about so many other achievements. There were powerful kingdoms and many centers of learning in Africa, such as the University of Sankore.

The only part of African history known to most people has to do with the arrival of the Europeans in Africa. To many, it is almost as if Africa had no history up until that time.

The European age of discovery in the 15th century heralded their exploration of Africa.

This marked a turning point in African history. The transatlantic slave trade is notoriously the highlight of this encounter.

Before the slave trade became full-blown, Europeans traded goods with Africans, commodities like textiles, gold, farm produce, ivory, salt, palm oil, were exchanged.

The Portuguese were the first to officially ship African slaves overseas when they exported about 235 Africans from present-day Senegal around 1444. The Portuguese were also the first to venture deep into Sub-saharan Africa and later joined by Britain, France, and of lesser influence other European countries like Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and Italy.

Previously, trade with sub-Saharan Africa with Europe was only possible through the north Africans who served as middlemen.

The direct trade and interaction with the Europeans had a massive effect across all African sphere of life. There are records of wealthy African merchants sending their children to European universities, as covered in the “Black Tudors: the Untold Story” by Miranda Kaufmann.

The abundance of the rich natural resources of Africa soon led to avarice on the part of the Europeans, and this resulted in a mad scramble for Africa’s resources, including her people. The late 15th century all through to the 19th century saw the exploitation of Africa by European powers. During this period, between 11 and 15 million Africans were shipped overseas and sold into slavery.

Africans and their way of life suffered significant damage. The Europeans imposed their lifestyle and religious beliefs on the African people, traditional African institutions were dismantled or severely weakened, and European proxies set up in its place.

Between 1500 and 1900 an estimated 5.6 million people, mostly Africans, died in wars relating purely to conflicts between European states and African states. For instance, 480,000 on both sides died in the Franco-Algeria wars while 36,000 died in the Italo-Ethiopian Wars. The violent attempts to either feed the lucrative triangular Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Sahara slave trades with captives or to seize Africa’s trade markets for Europe led to instability for refugees and displaced persons.

Unexpectedly, in some minor cases slaves taken to the Americas became explorers in the New World and through their exploits gained them rewards as they played off Spain, against France and against Britain such as Esteban, Juan Valiente, and Juan Garrido. This is covered in “Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions” by Jane Landers.