#Africa #history #archeology
"We know humans arose in Africa, but archaeology is only just uncovering secrets of the continent's early civilizations.
Small settlements and the scourge of slavery left gaps in Africa's archaeological record. Yet sites and artifacts are revealing clues to the continent’s more recent history. An archaeologist explains the findings and threats to this heritage.
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Of course, the story of humans in Africa doesn't end with their migration away from the mother continent. After all, many stayed put. But there's a big information gap. Although researchers have plumbed much of humankind's deep past, far less is known about what was happening across much of Africa at the time when permanent settlements were emerging elsewhere starting some 6,000 years ago: in places like Mesopotamia, for example, and later in China and India, as well as Egypt in Africa's northeastern tip.
In part, that's because African individuals did not cram together as closely as they did in more well-known cradles of civilization. So it's less likely that modern archaeologists will discover major towns or cities. Another factor is the slave trade that slashed a 400-year wound through African history and led many communities to be abandoned. Longstanding biases about the continent, too, have left the full story of Africa's cultures, trade and urbanism out of many history lessons."
https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/we-know-humans-arose-in-africa-but-archaeology-is-only-just-uncovering-secrets-of-the-continents-early-civilizations