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Early African Cultures

African Prehistory and Human Evolution
Kathy D. Schick
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Indiana University

Nicholas Toth
Professor of Anthropology
Indiana University


Pliny once observed : "Ex Africa semper aliquid novi" (Out of Africa there is always something new). Indeed, Africa, often referred to as the "cradle of humankind," provides the longest record of human evolution and prehistory. Human evolution has entailed dramatic changes in anatomy and behavior throughout several million years. Especially prominent are changes in human locomotion, brain size and complexity, and the dependence upon culture and technology. A wealth of prehistoric evidence, including fossils and archaeological remains, indicates that crucial early stages of this evolution occurred in Africa. Furthermore, evolutionary changes and cultural developments in Africa continued to play an important role in our evolution during the spread of our ancestors out of Africa into other areas and the ultimate emergence of modern forms of humans.

Early Primate Evolution
After the emergence of early primates -- the order of mammals that includes monkey, apes, and humans -- about 65 million years ago, diverse primate lineages evolved and radiated into new and changing environments in a world being torn apart by continental drift. Thirty million years ago, primate forms that appear to be ancestral to both apes and Old World monkeys lived in Africa, as evidence by the rich fossil deposits of the Fayum Depression in Egypt.

A variety of early apes subsequently emerged in Africa, Europe, and Asia between 20 million and 5 million years ago. A few million years ago, however, some of the apes in Africa began to undergo evolutionary changes that mark a distinctive, proto-human lineage. These include anatomical changes that facilitated upright or bipedal walking (by four million years ago), the advent of stone tool-making traditions (by at least two and a half million years ago). All of the evidence for these early evolutionary changes, so pivotal for the emergence of the human species, comes from Africa.

Emergence in Africa of Bipedal Walking, Brain Expansions, and Stone Tools
One of the earliest of the bipedal ancestors, all of which have been found in Easter Africa, is Australopithecus afarensis (for examples, the famous partial skeleton of "Lucy" found in Ethiopia). Different but related australopithecine have been found in South African cave deposits dating from approximately three million years ago. During the latter phases of their evolution, australopithecine evolved into forms referred to as "robust australopithecine," with very large chewing muscles and teeth. The first appeared in East Africa about to and a half million years ago and others were present in both Eastern and Southern Africa from about two millions years ago until they became extinct approximately one million years ago.

Starting at least two million years ago, however, other bipedal proto-humans were also present in Africa. These new forms tended to have smaller teeth than their contemporaries, the robust australopithecine, and an enlarged brain, another change distinctive of the human lineage. Thus, they are put in our genus, Homo, which evolved by 1.8 million years ago into a species often called Homo erectus and which shows dramatic increase in brain and body size over time.

Another crucial evolutionary change, the emergence of stone-tool traditions, also occurred in Africa. The earliest evidence for this comes from the deposits dates to 2.6 million years ago in the of Gona in the Hadar region of Ethiopia. A great many sites with stone tools dating from at least two million years ago have been found in Eastern and Southern Africa. These tools, often called "Oldowan" technology (named after the famous site of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania), consist of simple but deliberately fractured pieces of rock.

Starting about 1.5 million years ago in Africa, new technologies appeared that, in addition to simple Oldowan artifacts, also included large, carefully made cutting tools called hand axes and cleavers, referred to as "Acheulean." Ancestral human populations Home erectus or closely related forms using such tools spread out of Africa starting more than one million years ago and gradually expanded into much of Europe and Asia.

The Emergence of Homo Sapiens

The fossil records in Africa, Europe, and Asia from several hundred thousand years ago show the emergence of early forms of humans (sometimes called "archaic" Homo Sapiens). These have brains nearly the size of the brain of modern humans, but also retain many primitive features, particular in the face and other parts of the skull. Starting a couple of hundred thousand years ago, Acheulean technologies in Africa began to disappear and were replaced by tool traditions consisting of flakes deliberately shaped into various tools, such as points or scrapers ( a period known as "Middle Stone Age" or, Northern Africa, the "Middle Paleolithic").

The origin of modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) is currently a topic of much debate and research interest. Many researchers have recognized early modern forms in Africa and Western Asia dating back 100,000 years or more. Some genetic evidence also points to a common origin for all human populations, possibly within the past 50,000 to 200,000 years, that may be the result of a major population dispersal, perhaps from Africa.

Between 20,000 to 50,000 years ago, populations of anatomical modern humans became widespread in Africa as well as in European and Asia. Many cultural patterns became more modern as well. Tool kits of the African Later Stone Age show a great deal of geographic variability (perhaps partially reflecting ethnicity) and stylistic change over time, artwork and self-adornment emerged, and more systematic hunting and gathering patterns are evident (e.g. use of the bow and arrow). Thus, the Stone Age in Africa laid critical foundations both biologically and behaviorally for major cultural developments that ensued there and elsewhere in the next 10,000 years. The critical transition to the production of food ( a period sometimes called the "Neolithic" or "New Stone Age," as stone tools such as sickles and arrow points continued to be used) then laid the groundwork for the ultimate emergence of complex societies, metallurgy, and sophisticated art forms in many parts of Africa.

Suggested Reading
Clark, J. Desmond, 1970. The Prehistory of Africa. London : Thames and Hudson.

Clark, J. Desmond, ed 1982. The Cambridge History of Africa, vol 1:From the earliest times to c.500 B.C. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Klein, RIchard G. 1989. The Human Career: Human biolical and cultural origins. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Philipson, David W. 1993. African Archaeology. Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schick, Kathy D., and Nicholas Toth, 1993. Making Silent Stones Speak: Human Evolution and the Dawn of Technology. New York: Simon and Schuster.