The oldest skeletal remains of anatomically modern humans Homo sapiens, have been found at several archaeological sites in East Africa, the oldest of which were excavated in Omo, a region of Ethiopia, dating back 195.000 years.

As the various bones found from this location are increasingly recent, a theoretical model was formulated to explain the phenomenon, entitled “Noah's Ark Model”, which argues that there was a small group of modern humans who colonized the planet from a single place, just as the survivors of Noah's Ark supposedly did.³2. Infopédia. Origin of Modern Man. Infopédia [online]. [Online] 2003-2021. [Citation: February 10, 2021.] https://www.infopedia.pt/$origem-do-homem-moderno..

The world's first monumental sculpture was carved 7.000 or more years ago. It was the Great Sphinx of Giza which is composed of the head of a man with the body of a lion. The key question about this monument is how old it actually is.

In October 1991, Professor Robert Schoch, a geologist at Boston University, demonstrated that the Sphinx was carved between 5.000 BC and 7.000 BC, but stated that he was being conservative and that the true date of its construction may be even older.⁷6. Study Suggests Sphinx Is Thousands of Years Older Than Believed. Raymond, Chris. sl: The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 13, 1991..

The ancient Egyptian city of direction It was the world's first planned city. In 1889, the English archaeologist W.M.F. Petrie (1888–90), the founder of scientific archaeology in Egypt, excavated a city he named Kahun. The city was located in Al-Lāhūn, just over a kilometer from the pyramid of Senusret II (reigned 1844–1837 BC).

Rectangular and walled, the city was divided into two parts. One part housed the wealthier inhabitants—the scribes, officials, and foremen. The other part housed the common people. The houses were built of mud brick with beams, flat mud roofs, open courtyards, and porticoes. The earliest examples of a fluted wooden support column on a raised base have been found.

The streets of the western section in particular were laid out in a regular pattern, intersecting at right angles, and having a stone gutter, located in the center of the street, more than two feet wide, which followed the entire length of the street.

The texts found reveal that the city's name was originally Hotep-Senusrete (Senusrete is pleased). The city's urban planning fully reveals the social stratification of this period, but also the failure to meet the needs of all inhabitants.⁸7. A History of Egyptian Architecture: The First Intermediate Period, the Middle Kingdom, and the Second Intermediate Period. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966.⁹8. Kemp, Barry. Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization. London and New York: Routledge, 1989. p. 414..

As Walls of Benin¹⁰9. The Benin Walls were razed by the British in 1897 during what came to be known as the Punitive Expedition. Scattered fragments of the structure remain in the Edo region, the vast majority of which were used for construction by local inhabitants. are a series of earthworks composed of banks and ditches, called Iya in the Edo language. According to the Guinness Book of Records, they are the largest earthworks in the world built before the mechanical era.¹¹10. Koutonin, Mawuna. Story of cities #5: Benin City, the mighty medieval capital now lost without trace. The Guardian. [Online] March 18, 2016. [Citation: February 12, 2021.] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/18/story-of-cities-5-benin-city-edo-nigeria-mighty-medieval-capital-lost-without-trace..

In total, they make up a fabulous 160 km, divided into a mosaic of more than 500 residential areas, delimited and interconnected¹²11.Pearce, Fred. african queen. New Scientist. [Online] September 11, 1999. [Citation: February 12, 2021.] https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16322035-100-the-african-queen/?ignored=irrelevant.¹³12. Korka, Elena. The Protection of Archaeological Heritage in Times of Economic Crisis. sl: Cambridge Scholars Publishing; Unabridged edition, 2014. p. 400.. Some estimates suggest that the walls of Benin were built between the 13th century and the mid-15th century.¹⁴13. Ogundiran, Akinwumi. Four Millennia of Cultural History in Nigeria (ca. 2000 BC–AD 1900): Archaeological Perspectives. Journal of World Prehistory. [Online] 2005. [Citation: February 12, 2021.] https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-006-9003-y. and others suggest that they may have been built during the first millennium ¹⁵14. MacEachern, Scott. Two thousand years of West African history. [author of the book] Ann Brower Stahl. African Archaeology: A Critical Introduction. sl: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005, p. 508..

The world's first university was founded in 895 AD in Fez, in present-day Morocco. The university began with classes held inside a large mosque and later expanded to become a place of education, the Madrassa (Islamic School), which still operates today and is part of the University of Al QuaraouiyineIt is also the oldest continuously operating educational institution in the world and was also the first institution to award degrees according to different levels of study: Islamic studies, mathematics, grammar, and medicine.

But the most original thing is that this University was founded by a woman, more precisely Fatimah bint Muhammad Al-Fihriya Al-Qurashiya (فاطمة بنت محمد الفهرية القرشية‎), better known as Fatimah al-Fihri. When Fatimah and her sister inherited their father's fortune, Fatimah used her share to found Al Qarawiynn University, which in 1963 became a state university.

Interestingly, teaching is still delivered in the traditional way, that is, students sit in a semicircle around a sheikh (Islamic scholar) who asks them to read sections of specific texts and asks questions about grammatical, legal or interpretation aspects and then explains the difficult points.¹⁶15. Hassan, Sara. Challenges faced by women- Education, Career and Identity. sl: Blue Rose Publisher, 2020. p. 118..

The earliest known record of basic arithmetic dates back 25.000 years and was found in Africa in the Ishango region, near Lake Edward, in Zaire/Congo. The Ishango bone is a bone tool, with notches on its handle, dating from the Upper Paleolithic, approximately 37.000 years old. It is a long brown bone (the fibula of a baboon) with a sharp piece of quartz embedded in one end.¹⁷16. Schultz, Phill. A very brief history of pure mathematics: The Ishango Bone. University of Western Australia. [Online] September 7, 1999. [Citation: February 10, 2021.] https://web.archive.org/web/20080721075947/http://www.maths.uwa.edu.au/~schultz/3M3/history.html..

The tool contains three columns of asymmetrically grouped strokes, implying that the tool was more functional than decorative. Clearly, the Ishango bone was carved to establish a numerical system.

The central column begins with 3 lines and then doubles its number. The same process is repeated with the number 4, which doubles to 8 lines, and then the process is reversed with the number 10, which is halved to 5 lines. This shows that the numbers cannot be purely arbitrary, but rather constitute evidence of multiplication and division by 2 calculations. The bone could therefore have been used as a tool for solving simple mathematical problems.¹⁸17. Keller, Olivier. Préhistoire de la géométrie : le problem des sources. Institut de recherche sur l'enseignement des mathématiques. [Online] [Citation: February 10, 2021.] https://irem.univ-reunion.fr/IMG/pdf/Keller_prehistoire_geometrie.pdf..

Furthermore, the number of dashes on either side of the center column indicates greater counting ability. Both the left and right columns are odd numbers: 9, 11, 13, 17, 19, and 21.

The numbers in the left column are all the prime numbers between 10 and 20 (which form a quadruple prime), while those in the right column are 10 + 1, 10 – 1, 20 + 1 and 20 – 1. The numbers in each of these columns add up to 60, and the sum of the numbers in the central column is 48. Both results are multiples of 12, which reinforces the thesis of understanding multiplication.¹⁹18. Williams, Scott W. Mathematicians of the African Diaspora. Department of Mathematics – University at Buffalo. [Online] [Citation: February 10, 2021.] http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/Ancient-Africa/ishango.html. .

More recent studies carried out with high-resolution microscopes, revealed more markings, concluding that the bone is a calendar of the phases of the moon. Speculating a bit, who but a woman would need a lunar calendar to track their own cycles? Could this prove that women were our first mathematicians?²⁰18. Williams, Scott W. Mathematicians of the African Diaspora. Department of Mathematics – University at Buffalo. [Online] [Citation: February 10, 2021.] http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/Ancient-Africa/ishango.html. ?

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