Around the 7th century BC, the kingdom of D'mt (D'amt) was established in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, with its capital at Yeha in northern Ethiopia. After the fall of D`mt in the 5th century BC, the plateau came to be dominated by smaller successor kingdoms, until the rise of one of these kingdoms, the Aksumite Kingdom, ancestor of medieval and modern Ethiopia, during the first century BC, was able to reunite the area.[44] They established bases on the northern highlands of the Ethiopian Plateau and from there expanded southward.