text: # The Hamitic Invasions of Equatorial Africa  
  Although a great deal of evidence regarding the Arab and Moslem penetration exists, there is almost none concerning a similar expansion by the North African Hamites. These people, who appear to have inhabited large parts of North Africa, are believed to be responsible for several migrations to the south. It is impossible to state with any appreciable degree of certainty when these movements began in the various regions or what their chronology was. Some of these Hamitic migrations no doubt antedated the arrival of the Arabs; others may have been caused by them. It is fairly certain that long before our era some of the Hamites forced their way into northeast Africa, into the areas of southern Abyssinia and the Somalilands, where their descendants survive in the present-day Galla and Somali.