about the nature and origin
of races, are being proven inaccurate. Anthropological literature used to
suggest that skin color in some groups was a possible indication of
Mongoloid influences or that the thin, straight lips common in another
group could be envisioned as a Caucasoid feature. However, it has become
increasingly obvious that an analysis based on specific single traits
such as these is always a poor indication of either racial origin or of
racial contact. In fact, they could just as likely be the result of
spontaneous and local variations within a given population grouping. In
contrast, recent anthropological research is putting less emphasis on
bone measurement and shape and, instead, is turning increasingly to
technical analysis particularly through the examination of blood types.

Making and using tools are what differentiate man from animals. The
earliest tools which have survived the wear of time were made of stone.
As man's techniques of handling stone improved, so did his tools. The
hand axe, a large oval of chipped flint varying in size and weight, came
into common usage about half a million years ago, and it has been found
in much of Europe, Asia, and Africa. This too seems to have had an
African origin. While scholars are not certain about its use, it was
probably used for killing animals and for chopping meat.

The first achievement which radically altered man's condition was the
invention of tools. The second achievement was his learning of primitive
agriculture which transformed the hunter into the farmer. The
domestication of animals and the planting and cultivating of crops had
begun in the Near East, but the practice shortly spread to the Nile
Valley in Northeast Africa. At the same time, farming communities sprang
up throughout the Sahara which, at that time, was going through one of
its wet phases. This made it well-suited to early agriculture. Farming
permitted men to live together in communities and to pursue a more
sedentary way of life. Actually, some Africans had already adopted a
sedentary community life before the arrival of farming. Making hooks from
bones led to the development of a few fishing communities near
present-day Kenya.

As the communities along the Nile grew in size and number, society began
to develop a complex urban civilization. By 3,200 B.C. the communities
along the Nile had become politically united under the first of a line of
great pharaohs. These early Egy