Prehistoric East Africa

Nilo-Saharan speakers expanded in East Africa, resulting in transformation of food systems of East Africa.^[3] Prehistoric West Africans may have diverged into distinct ancestral groups of modern West Africans and Bantu-speaking peoples in Cameroon, and, subsequently, around 5000 BP, the Bantu-speaking peoples migrated into other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa (e.g., Central African Republic, African Great Lakes, South Africa).^[4]

Nariokotome Boy resided near Nariokotome River, Kenya.^[1]

Omo Kibish in 233,000 BP.^[2]

haplogroup L1 diverged.^[5]

haplogroup L5 diverged in East Africa.^[5]

Eastern Africa became established.^[5]

Out of Africa migration, migration from Sub-Saharan Africa toward the North Africa occurred, by West Africans, Central Africans, and East Africans, resulting in migrations into Europe and Asia; consequently, Sub-Saharan African mitochondrial DNA was introduced into Europe and Asia.^[5]

Southwest Asia.^[5] In the modern period, 68% of Sub-Saharan African mitochondrial DNA was introduced by East Africans and 22% was introduced by West Africans, which constitutes 50% of Sub-Saharan African mitochondrial DNA in modern Southwest Asia.^[5]

tropical Jebel Sahaba.^[8]

Sub-Saharan African mitochondrial DNA was introduced into North Africa by West Africans and the other 50% was introduced by East Africans.^[5] During the modern period, a greater number of West Africans introduced Sub-Saharan African mitochondrial DNA into North Africa than East Africans.^[5]

Holocene Climate Optimum in 8000 BP, Africans bearing haplogroup L2 spread within West Africa and Africans bearing haplogroup L3 spread within East Africa.^[5]

hunting-gathering to herding developed gradually, over thousands of years, during the Pastoral Neolithic.^[15] The Pastoral Neolithic of East Africa is one of a few in world history where herding significantly preceded agricultural food production.^[15] The major transition from predominantly hunter-gatherer economies to predominantly herding economies may have occurred around 3000 BP.^[11] There are limited remains of domesticated animals at sites that predate 3000 BP.^[11] For example, at the Enkapune Ya Muto rock shelter site of central Kenya, among evidence of mostly wild fauna, there are few caprine (goat/sheep) teeth dated to around 4400 BP.^[15] The length of time between the initial introduction of domesticates and their full adoption is thought to have occurred between the cultural separation of immigrant populations and indigenous populations in the region.^[15] Additionally, paleoclimatic evidence from Lake Naivasha, Kenya suggests that rain patterns may not have been favorable for dairy pastoralism until around 3000 BP.^[11] After 3000 BP, the majority of fauna found at Pastoral Neolithic sites are from domesticated animals rather than undomesticated animals.^[11] By this time, many communities were exclusively stock-keeping and herding.^[15]

tubers.^[16]

Predynastic Egypt, tumuli were present at various locations (e.g., Naqada, Helwan).^[18]

tumuli and the tumuli may have “served as immense shrines of spiritual power for the populace to ritualize and remember their connection to the ancestral lineage as consecrated in the royal tomb.”^[19]

kingdom of Kerma serve as a regional intermediary between the regions of the Nile River and the Niger River.^[19]

Nile Valley; these monarchic tumuli-building practices span the Sudanian savanna as manifestations of a trans-Sahelian common culture and heritage.^[19]

Mande peoples).^[19] Sudanese tumuli (e.g., Kerma, C-Group), which date to the mid-3rd millennium BCE, share cultural similarities with Senegambian tumuli.^[19] Between the 6th century CE and 14th century CE, stone tumuli circles, which at a single site usually encircle a burial site of half-meter that is covered by a burial mound, were constructed in Komaland; the precursors for this 3rd millennium BCE tumuli style of Komaland, Ghana and Senegambia are regarded by Faraji (2022) to be Kerma Kush and the A-Group culture of ancient Nubia.^[19] While the stele-circled burial mounds of C-Group culture of Nubia are regarded as precursors for the megalithic burial mounds of Senegambia, Kerma tumuli are regarded as precursors for the stone tumuli circles of Komaland.^[19] Based on a founding narrative of the Hausa people, Faraji (2022) concludes the possibility of the “pre-Islamic rulers of Hausaland” being a “dynasty of female monarchs reminiscent of the kandake of Meroitic Kush.”^[19] The tumuli of Durbi Takusheyi, which have been dated between the 13th century CE and the 16th century CE, may have connection to tumuli from Ballana and Makuria.^[19] Tumuli have also been found at Kissi, in Burkina Faso, and at Daima, in Nigeria.^[19]

L5b2.^[7]

Tlokwa) and Venda people.^[22] 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 associated with rainmaking and, crocodiles in particular, were also associated with fertility.^[22] The white finger-painted rock art may have been created for reasons relating to initiation rites and puberty rituals.^[22] Depictions from the rock art tradition of Bantu-speaking farmers have been found on divination-related items (e.g., drums, initiation figurines, initiation masks); fertility terracotta masks from Transvaal have been dated to the 1st millennium CE.^[22] Along with Iron Age archaeological sites from the 1st millennium CE, this indicates that white finger-painted rock art tradition may have been spanned from the Early Iron Age to the Later Iron Age.^[22]

L3x2a.^[23][24] The individual of Mota is genetically related to groups residing near the region of Mota, and in particular, are considerably genetically related to the Ari people.^[25][26]

goats, sheep, cattle), which has been dated to the 2nd millennium BCE.^[28][29]

Namoratunga megaliths were constructed as burials the eastern Turkana region of northwestern Kenya.^[30]

L3b1a1.^[31][32]

L4b2a2c.^[33][34]

L4b2a2b, and another carried haplogroup L0f1.^[31][32]

haplogroup L2a1.^[35]

tumuli with burial chambers organized in cemeteries), the subsequent traditions in other areas of Ethiopia likely developed.^[30] In the late 1st millennium BCE, the urban civilization of Axum developed a megalithic stelae-building tradition, which commemorated Axumite royalty and elites, that persisted until the Christian period of Axum.^[30] In the Sidamo Province, the megalithic monoliths of the stelae-building cultural tradition were utilized as tombstones in cemeteries (e.g., Arussi, Konso, Sedene, Tiya, Tuto Felo), and have engraved anthropomorphic features (e.g., swords, masks), phallic form, and some of that served as markers of territory.^[30] Sidamo Province has the most megaliths in Ethiopia.^[30]

L3i2.^[33][34]

L4b2a2c.^[33][34]

L3x1a, and another carried haplogroups A1b (xA1b1b2a)/A-P108 and L0a2d.^[33][34]

L4b2a1, and another pastoralist of the Pastoral Neolithic/Elmenteitan carried haplogroup K1a.^[33][34]

L3x1a.^[33][34]

L3h1a2a1.^[33][34]

Nakuru County, Kenya, a pastoralist of the Pastoral Neolithic/Elmenteitan carried haplogroup L0a1d.^[33][34]

L3d1d.^[33][34]

L5a1b.^[31][32]

L3h1a2a1.^[31][32]

L4b2a2c.^[35]

L3f1b.^[33][34]

L3h1a2a1, another carried haplogroups E1b1b1b2b2/E-V1486, likely E-M293 and L0f2a1, and another carried haplogroups E1b1b1b2b2/E-V1486, likely E-M293, and T2+150; while most of the haplogroups among three pastoralists went undetermined, one was determined to carry haplogroup BT, likely B.^[33][34]

L5b1.^[33][34]

haplogroup L2a1a2.^[35]

L4b2a2.^[35]