Key Terms

Bantu migrations

the millennia-long expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples southward from West and Central Africa, spreading a common cultural foundation that included language, farming, and ironworking

Berbers

the name used by Carthaginians, Greeks, and Romans to describe the native peoples of the Maghreb; today, this population generally self-identifies as Amazigh, or Imazighen

biome

a community of vegetation and wildlife adapted to a particular climate

cataract

a place in a river where the otherwise placid flow is upset by a waterfall, a shallow portion, or the presence of boulders

deffufa

a type of monumental mud-brick structure unique to Nubian civilization and believed to have served a religious function

kentake

a Kushite title that roughly translates to “queen mother” and was a powerful position in Meroitic Kush

Maghreb

the western half of North Africa, including most of present-day Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya

Nubia

the name Egyptians gave to the expansive area south of the first cataract and extending into sub-Saharan Africa; it included the Kingdom of Kush

Sahel

an east–west belt of semiarid grassland that forms a transitional zone between the Sahara to the north and the equatorial rainforest to the south

savanna

a grassy plain with scattered trees found to the north and south of the tropical African rainforest