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The name Africa was originally used by the ancient Romans to refer to the northern part of the continent that corresponds to modern-day Tunisia. There are many theories regarding its origin. Africa terra means "land of the Afri" (plural, or "Afer" singular), referring to the Afri tribe, who dwelt in Northern Africa around the area of Carthage.
Africa, particularly Eastern Africa, is widely accepted to be the place of origin of humans and the Hominidae clade, also known as the great apes. The earliest hominids and their ancestors have been dated to around 7 million years ago, and Homo sapiens (modern human) are believed to have originated in Africa 350,000 to 260,000 years ago.
Āfrī (singular Āfer) [1] was a Latin name for the inhabitants of Africa, referring in its widest sense to all the lands south of the Mediterranean (Ancient Libya). [2] [3] Latin speakers at first used āfer as an adjective, meaning "of Africa". As a substantive, it denoted a native of Āfrica; i.e., an African.
The first known hominids evolved in Africa. According to paleontology, the early hominids' skull anatomy was similar to that of the gorilla and the chimpanzee, great apes that also evolved in Africa, but the hominids had adopted a bipedal locomotion which freed their hands.
The first railway line in West and Central Africa - between Lagos and Abeokuta - was opened in Nigeria in 1898 [112] (However, it was followed shortly afterwards by the British colony of Gold Coast/Ghana (1901), the German colonies of Cameroon (1901) and Togo (1905) and the French colonies of Dahomey (1906) and Ivory Coast (1907)).
The General History of Africa (GHA) is a two-phase project launched by UNESCO in 1964, producing a volume history of Africa first published in 1981 up to the present. [ 1 ] General History of Africa (in Portuguese)
The first human habitation is associated with a DNA group originating in a northwestern area of southern Africa and still prevalent in the indigenous Khoisan (Khoi and San). Southern Africa was later populated by Bantu-speaking people who migrated from the western region of central Africa during the early centuries AD.
The Nile Valley on the eastern edge of North Africa is one of the richest agricultural areas in the world. The desiccation of the Sahara is believed to have increased the population density in the Nile Valley and large cities developed. Eventually, ancient Egypt unified in one of the world's first civilizations. [citation needed]