text: # Negroes  
  How long the Negroes, those "typical" Africans, have inhabited this continent, it is difficult to say. It has been conjectured that it was only about 6000 or 7000 B.C. when the first Negro crossed the straits of Aden, and that from there the Negroes began their gradual expansion into the grasslands and forests, pushing aside Pygmies and Bushmen. Whatever the date of this Negro invasion may have been, the theory cannot be lightly dismissed that these people whom we associate so intimately with this continent may very well have had their original home somewhere in the southern parts of Asia. It is true, however, that this assumption is based on little more than scant circumstantial evidence. Wherever the Negro may have originated, it is certain that he only gradually expanded into those vast  
  ![img-2.jpeg](img_ref_3)  
  SCHEMATIC MAP OF AFRICA'S MAJOR ETHNIC GROUPS  
  territories south of the Sahara which he occupies today. On their movement toward southern Africa, it is believed that the Negroes did not cross the Zambesi River before the beginning of our era, and that this southward migration was still continuing when the first Dutch settlers began their northward treks from the Cape of Good Hope.