Editing History of Somalia (section)

==Prehistory==
[[File:LaasGeel.jpg|thumb|Neolithic [[rock art]] at the [[Laas Geel]] complex depicting a [[camel]].]]
Somalia has been inhabited since at least the [[Paleolithic]], when the Doian and Hargeisan cultures flourished.<!-- 'a country formed by Maxamed Mahamoud Abdulkadir Mahamud Gurey' - Unless this guy founded Somalia in the stone age, he is irrelevance to this paragraph (let alone this sentence). --><ref>{{cite book|author=Peter Robertshaw|title=A History of African Archaeology|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofafrican0000unse_j3c5/page/105|year=1990|publisher=J. Currey|isbn=978-0-435-08041-9|page=[https://archive.org/details/historyofafrican0000unse_j3c5/page/105 105]}}</ref> The oldest evidence of burial customs in the Horn of Africa comes from cemeteries in Somalia dating back to the 4th millennium BC.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Early Holocene Mortuary Practices and Hunter-Gatherer Adaptations in Southern Somalia|jstor=124524|pmid=16470993|pages=40–56|author=S. A. Brandt|volume=20|issue=1|journal=World Archaeology|year=1988|doi=10.1080/00438243.1988.9980055}}</ref> The stone implements from the Jalelo site in the north (about halfway between [[Berbera]] and [[Hargeisa]]) were also characterized in 1909 as important artefacts demonstrating the archaeological universality during the Paleolithic between the East and the West.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://archive.org/stream/mananth9a10royauoft/mananth9a10royauoft_djvu.txt|title=Prehistoric Implements From Somaliland|author=H.W. Seton-Karr|journal=[[Man (journal)|Man]]|access-date=30 January 2011|volume=9|issue=106|pages=182–183|year=1909|author-link=Henry Seton-Karr|doi=10.2307/2840281|jstor=2840281}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Florek |first1=Stan |title=Prehistoric Stone Hand Axes from Somalia |url=https://australian.museum/learn/cultures/international-collection/african/prehistoric-stone-hand-axes-from-somalia/ |website=The Australian Museum |access-date=4 May 2021 |language=en}}</ref>

According to an [[autosomal DNA]] research in 2014 on ancient and modern populations, the [[Afroasiatic languages]] likely spread across [[Africa]] and the [[Near East]] by an ancestral population(s) carrying a newly identified "non-African" (Western Eurasian) genetic component, which the researchers dub the "Ethio-Somali" component. This genetic component is most closely related to the [[Maghrebis|"Maghrebi"]] component and is believed to have diverged from other "non-African" (Western Eurasian) ancestries at least 23,000 years ago. The "Ethio-Somali" genetic component is prevalent among modern Afroasiatic-speaking populations, and found at its highest levels among [[Cushitic peoples]] in the [[Horn of Africa]]. On this basis, the researchers suggest that the original Ethio-Somali carrying population(s) probably arrived in the pre-agricultural period (12–23 ka) from the [[Near East]], having crossed over into northeast Africa via the Sinai Peninsula and then split into two, with one branch continuing west across [[North Africa]] and the other heading south into the Horn of Africa.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Hodgson JA, Mulligan CJ, Al-Meeri A, Raaum RL |date=June 2014 |title=Early back-to-Africa migration into the Horn of Africa |journal=PLOS Genetics |volume=10 |issue=6 |pages=e1004393 |doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.1004393 |pmc=4055572 |pmid=24921250 |doi-access=free}}</ref> A similar view has already been proposed earlier, suggesting that the ancestors of Afroasiatic speakers could have been a population originating in the Near East that migrated to [[Northeast Africa]] during the [[Upper Paleolithic|Late Palaeolithic]] with a subset later moving back to the Near East.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=McCall |first=Daniel |date=February 1998 |title=The Afroasiatic Language Phylum: African in Origin, or Asian? |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/204702 |url-status=live |journal=Current Anthropology |language=en |volume=39 |issue=1 |pages=139–144 |doi=10.1086/204702 |issn=0011-3204 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230601082717/https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/204702 |archive-date=2023-06-01 |access-date=2022-06-14 |quote=My prediction is that Africa will turn out to be the cradle of Afroasiatic, though the speakers of Proto-Afroasiatic were a reflux population from Southwest Asia.}}</ref> According to [[Anthropologist]]s, the ancestors of the Somali people arrived in the region during the ensuing [[Neolithic]] period.<ref>Zarins, Juris (1990), "Early Pastoral Nomadism and the Settlement of Lower Mesopotamia", (Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research)</ref><ref>Diamond J, Bellwood P (2003) Farmers and Their Languages: The First Expansions SCIENCE 300, {{doi|10.1126/science.1078208}}</ref>

The [[Laas Geel]] cave complex on the outskirts of [[Hargeisa]] in northwestern Somalia has [[rock art]] which dates back around 5,000 years and has depicting both wild animals and decorated cows.<ref name="Bakano">{{cite news|last=Bakano|first=Otto|url=https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jMNd90UAafsRNEDPyelL7Hee1ydw?docId=CNG.82196a5b15ef45a2d4e744675740cd6a.6e1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110430102432/http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jMNd90UAafsRNEDPyelL7Hee1ydw?docId=CNG.82196a5b15ef45a2d4e744675740cd6a.6e1 |url-status=dead |archive-date=30 April 2011 |title=Grotto galleries show early Somali life |agency=Agence France-Presse |date=24 April 2011|access-date=11 May 2013}}</ref> Other [[cave painting]]s are found in the northern [[Dhambalin]] region, which feature one of the earliest known depictions of a hunter on horseback. The rock art is in the distinctive Ethiopian-Arabian style, dated to 1000 to 3000 BCE.<ref name="Tdodras">{{cite journal|last=Mire|first=Sada|title=The Discovery of Dhambalin Rock Art Site, Somaliland|journal=African Archaeological Review|year=2008|volume=25|issue=3–4|pages=153–168|url=http://www.mbali.info/doc494.htm|access-date=22 June 2013|doi=10.1007/s10437-008-9032-2|s2cid=162960112|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130627100400/http://www.mbali.info/doc494.htm|archive-date=27 June 2013}}</ref><ref name="Guafcpaonas">{{cite news|last=Alberge|first=Dalya|title=UK archaeologist finds cave paintings at 100 new African sites|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/17/cave-paintings-found-in-somaliland|access-date=25 June 2013|newspaper=The Guardian|date=17 September 2010}}</ref> Additionally, between the towns of [[Las Khorey]] and [[El Ayo]] in northern Somalia lies [[Karinhegane]], the site of numerous cave paintings of real and mythical animals. Each painting has an inscription below it, which collectively have been estimated to be around 2,500 years old.<ref name="Mheah">{{cite book|last=Hodd|first=Michael|title=East African Handbook|year=1994|publisher=Trade & Travel Publications|isbn=0844289833|page=640|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bL8tAQAAIAAJ}}</ref><ref name="Astgi">{{cite book|last=Ali|first=Ismail Mohamed|title=Somalia Today: General Information|year=1970|publisher=Ministry of Information and National Guidance, Somali Democratic Republic|page=295|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tMVAAAAAYAAJ}}</ref>