History Of Africa
The African continent has always inspired rest of
the world with its unique culture and roots in human origin. It is
believed that the word Africa is derived from ethnonyms ‘Afer’ and
‘Afri’, while some believe that it came from Afrigii and Afridi,
supposed to be derived from ‘Afira’ meaning ‘to be dusty’ in Arabic. The
present day English version comes from a term in Latin—Africanus. It
was in ancient Africa that the hominid subfamily and the genus Homo were
found with only one surviving-- Homo sapiens. Archaeological research
and genetical evidence also supports the theory that evolution of modern
human species occurred in Africa. The Hominid family of species to
which we belong, the Australopithecines, separated from the ancestors of
modern chimpanzees between four and six million years ago.