Khoi and San hunter-gatherers are the earliest…
1396 CE to 1539 CE
Khoi and San hunter-gatherers are the earliest known modern human inhabitants of the area of present Angola and northern Namibia.
They are largely absorbed or replaced by Bantu peoples during the Bantu migrations, though small numbers remain in parts of southern Angola to the present day.
The Bantu come from the north, probably from somewhere near the present-day Republic of Cameroon.
During this time, the Bantu establish a number of political units ("kingdoms", "empires") in most parts of what today is Angola.
The best known of these is the Kingdom of the Kongo that has its center in the northwest of contemporary Angola, but includes important regions in the west of present-day Democratic Republic and Republic of Congo and in southern Gabon.
It establishes trade routes with other trading cities and civilizations up and down the coast of southwestern and West Africa and even with the Great Zimbabwe Mutapa Empire, but engages in little or no transoceanic trade.
To its south lies the Kingdom of Ndongo, from which the area of the later Portuguese colony will sometimes be known as Dongo.
