In parts of West Africa, there are people whose job it is to preserve oral traditions and...
Africa
Explore the histories of Africa through the continent’s diverse civilizations and communities, from ancient kingdoms to modern nations. These studies center African experiences while examining the impact of global connections and colonial power.
Four zones in West Africa are especially important because of their influence on developing civilizations. Introduction For...
Long thought to have originated in Ancient Greece, the golden ratio that forms the basis of the...
The early West African societies of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai all created empires that gained much of...
When exactly salt became a trade commodity is unknown, but the exchange of salt for cereals dates...
People have used drum telegraphy to communicate with each other from far away for centuries. Developed and...
COVID-19 is not the first – nor likely the last – to emerge from the two continents....
If the U.S. wants to catch up with China, it should focus on new realities in Africa....
The most powerful of the tribes of the Sahara, they had been converted to Islam in the...
Most of these expeditions began as military campaigns, while the last one may have been initiated in...
Our own species — Homo sapiens — lived alongside other groups that split off from the same...
The young people of Africa’s urbanized populations are ushering in a modernization process founded on services and...
A brief introduction to famous African rulers and their impact on medieval and Renaissance European culture. By Dr....
The entire region came under the rule of the different groups of traders who established not states...
The Mali Empire was the largest and richest empire yet seen in West Africa to that time....
How examining migration in the distant past provides new insights into human history. By Dr. Daniel Shriner,...
Most traditional religions in Africa have developed at the local level and are unique to a particular...
History in South Africa from the Stone Age to the Mid-19th century This essay provides a summary...
The trade of gold in West Africa goes back to antiquity. By Mark CartwrightHistorian Introduction West Africa...
The United States should stop treating the region as secondary to the rest of the Middle East....
African cultures never existed in isolation—there was always movement, trade, and the exchange of ideas. Introduction Early...
Arguments made by eighteenth-century writers about the slave trade and contributions to those debates by freed slave...
Glass beads, more than any other type of artifact, help us make sense of the last 600...
Pastoralism is a central part of many Africans’ identity. But how and when did this way of...
Germany, which had only unified in 1870, was a latecomer to the colonial game. By David Carlin...
The Mediterranean Sea was the economic focal point of the Roman Empire. By Michael GoodyearJ.D. CandidateUniversity of Michigan...
West Africa is a place of great diversity – in language, in writing, in the hugely varied...
The archaeological evidence is clear, but the mechanisms of diffusion are still not entirely understood. By Dr....
Henry Morton Stanley as pictured in the frontispiece to Volume 1 of his In Darkest Africa (1890) – Internet Archive...
A choir sings traditional gospel music. Staff Sgt. Bernardo Fuller For the enslaved Africans, music – rhythm in particular – became a tool of communication about their...