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2.2 Prehistoric cultures
Linguistic evidence suggests the Bantu people have emigrated into former Khoisan ranges and displaced them. Bantu populations used a distinct suite of crops suited to tropical Africa, including cassava and yams. This farming culture is able to support more persons per unit area than hunter-gatherers. The traditional Bantu range goes from the northern deserts right down to the temperate regions of the south, in which the Bantu crop suite fails from frost. Their primary weapons historically were bows and stabbing spears with shields.
Ethiopia had a distinct, ancient culture with an intermittent history of contact with Eurasia after the diaspora of hominids out of Africa. It preserved a unique language, culture and crop system. The crop system is adapted to the dry northern highlands and does not partake of any other area's crops. The most famous member of this crop system is coffee, but one of the more useful plants is sorghum, a dry-land grain.
Ancient cultures also existed all along the Nile, and in modern-day Ghana .
3 Neolithic North Africa
Neolithic rock engravings, or ' petroglyphs' and the megaliths in the Libyan desert attest to early hunter-gatherer culture in the dry grasslands of North Africa during the glacial age. The region of the present Sahara was an early site for the practice of agriculture (Wavy-line ceramics). However, after the desertification of the Sahara, settlement in North Africa became concentrated in the valley of the Nile, where the pre-literate Nomes of Egypt laid a base for the culture of ancient Egypt, . Archeological findings show that primitive tribes lived along the Nile long before the dynastic history of the pharaohs began. By 6000 B.C., organized agriculture had appeared.
4 History of North Africa pre-Colonialism
4.1 Ancient Egypt
main article: History of Ancient Egypt; Kush
Written history originated in Egypt, and the Egyptian calendar is still used as the standard for dating bronze age and iron age cultures throughout the region
In about 3100 B.C., Egypt was united under a ruler known as Mena, or Menes, who inaugurated the first of the 30 dynasties into which Egypt's ancient history is divided: the Old and the Middle Kingdoms and the New Empire. The pyramids at Giza (near Cairo), which were built in the Fourth dynasty, testify to the power of the pharaonic religion and state. The Great Pyramid, the tomb of Pharaoh Khufu (also known as Cheops), is the only surviving monument of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Ancient Egypt reached the peak of its power, wealth, and territorial extent in the period called the New Empire (1567-1085 B.C.).
The Egyptians reached Crete around 2000 BC and were invaded by Indo-Europeans and Hyksos Semites. They defeated the invaders around 1570 BC and expanded into the Aegean, Sudan, Libya, and much of southwest Asia, as far as the Euphrates.
Egyptian culture had considerable contact with Ethiopia and the upper Nile valley, south of the cataracts of the Nile :
