A history of African women from origins to 800 CE: Bold grandmas, powerful queens, audacious entrepreneurs

Abstract

Based on the latest research and perception of how most African societies conceptualized gender and gender dynamics, this chapter will examine a very different understanding of women's and men's changing positions over a very long time span of African history. Since all humans originated in Africa and did not leave the African continent for at least 70,000 years, much of what is considered "human behavior" started in Africa. This chapter will begin with a brief discussion of African gender concepts and institutions. Since humanity started in Africa, the latest research on social relations among early human beings and the grandmother hypothesis are crucial to understanding gender in Africa over the longue durée of African history. The agricultural revolution, starting about 12,000 years ago in Africa, had ushered in a more sedentary way of life and transformations in gender relations. This is when most African societies began to organize into unilineal clans, and the latest genetic and linguistic evidence indicates that these clans were matrilineal. As the Sahara Desert became drier, centralized societies developed along the Nile River. Both ancient Nubia and Egypt developed more hierarchal societies, yet there were woman leaders, and most women enjoyed a great deal of independence and equality. In the Horn of Africa around 2500 years ago, Axum became an important state, but a local queen and her army led to its demise. Among the seminomadic peoples of Somalia and the Sahara Desert, women play significant positions based on oral traditions. Since a large portion of Africa south of the Sahara is populated by Bantu language-speaking peoples whose social institutions center on gender equity, matrilineal worldviews, and motherhood, a major discussion of the Bantu expansion and Bantu social history closes this chapter.