History of Cameroon

About History of Cameroon

At the crossroads of West Africa and Central Africa, the territory of what is now Cameroon has seen human habitation since some time in the Middle Paleolithic, likely no later than 130,000 years ago. The earliest discovered archaeological evidence of humans dates from around 30,000 years ago at Shum Laka. The Bamenda highlands in western Cameroon near the border with Nigeria are the most likely origin for the Bantu peoples, whose language and culture came to dominate most of central and southern Africa between 1000 BCE and 1000 CE.

European traders arrived in the fifteenth century and Cameroon was the exonym given by the Portuguese to the Wouri river, which they called Rio dos Camarões—"river of shrimps" or "shrimp river", referring to the then-abundant Cameroon ghost shrimp. Cameroon was a source of slaves for the slave trade. While the northern part of Cameroon was subject to influence from the Islamic kingdoms in the Chad basin and the Sahel, the south was largely ruled by small kings, chieftains, and fons.