#UPPER VOLTA ASANTE EMPIRE SERIES#

#UPPER VOLTA ASANTE EMPIRE SERIES#

These migrations resulted in part from the formation and disintegration of a series of large states in the western Sudan (the region north of modern Ghana drained by the Niger River). Archaeological work also suggests that central Ghana north of the forest zone was inhabited as early as 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. 2000 BC), but these societies, based on fishing, have left few traces. Archaeological remains found in the coastal zone indicate that the area has been inhabited since the Bronze Age (ca. A military regalia of the Kingdom of Dagbon, known locally as Gbagno.īy the end of 16th century, most of the ethnic groups constituting the modern Ghanaian population had settled in their present locations. Early history įurther information: Early history of Ghana A 16th–17th-century Akan Terracotta, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The Ashanti kingdom's government operated first as a loose network and eventually as a centralized empire-kingdom with an advanced, highly specialized bureaucracy centred on the capital Kumasi. Later, Akan ethnic groups such as the Ashanti, Akwamu, Akyem, Fante state and others are thought to possibly have roots in the original Bono state settlement at Bono Manso.

The Mole-Dagbon people, who founded the earliest centralised political kingdoms of Ghana, migrated from Lake Chad to present day Ghana. Before its fall at the beginning of the 10th century, Akans migrated southward and founded several nation-states around their matriclans, including the first empire of Bono state founded in the 11th century and for which the Brong-Ahafo (Bono Ahafo) region is named. Toward the end of the classical era, larger regional kingdoms had formed in West Africa, one of which was the Kingdom of Ghana, north of what is today the nation of Ghana. Dagbon pioneered Ghana's earliest learning institutions, including a university town, and a writing system prior to European arrival.

Many sub-kingdoms would later arise from Dagbon including the Mossi Kingdoms of Burkina Faso and Bouna Kingdom of Ivory Coast. The decentralised states ruled by the tindaamba were unified into a kingdom. Around the same time, south of the Mali empire in present day northern Ghana, the Kingdom of Dagbon emerged. A reduced kingdom continued to exist after Almoravid rule ended, and the kingdom was later incorporated into subsequent Sahelian empires, such as the Mali Empire. The empire appears to have broken up following the 1076 conquest by the Almoravid General Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar.

Geographically, the ancient Ghana Empire was approximately 500 miles (800 km) north and west of the modern state of Ghana, and controlled territories in the area of the Sénégal River and east towards the Niger rivers, in modern Senegal, Mauritania and Mali. The area of the Republic of Ghana (the then Gold Coast) became known in Europe and Arabia as the Ghana Empire after the title of its Emperor, the Ghana.

Upper volta asante empire