<P> Africa's history has been challenging for research in the field of African studies because of the scarcity of written sources in large parts of the continent, particularly with the destruction of many of the most important manuscripts from Timbuktu . Disciplines such as the recording of oral history, historical linguistics, archaeology and genetics have been crucial . </P> <P> The first known hominids evolved in Africa . According to paleontology, the early hominids' skull anatomy was similar to that of the gorilla and the chimpanzee, great apes that also evolved in Africa, but the hominids had adopted a bipedal locomotion which freed their hands . This gave them a crucial advantage, enabling them to live in both forested areas and on the open savanna at a time when Africa was drying up and the savanna was encroaching on forested areas . This occurred 10 to 5 million years ago . </P> <P> By 4 million years ago, several australopithecine hominid species had developed throughout Southern, Eastern and Central Africa . They were tool users, and makers of tools . They scavenged for meat and were omnivores . </P> <P> By approximately 3.3 million years ago, primitive stone tools were first used to scavenge kills made by other predators and to harvest carrion and marrow from their bones . In hunting, Homo habilis was probably not capable of competing with large predators and was still more prey than hunter . H. habilis probably did steal eggs from nests and may have been able to catch small game and weakened larger prey (cubs and older animals). The tools were classed as Oldowan . </P>

In the late 1800s western nations generally believed the peoples of africa and asia