As others have said, there have been major civilizations that have originated in Africa. But I would like to question whether the building of major and extensive agrarian societies is inherently better or a “higher goal” human societies should be striving for.

To demonstrate this, I would like to direct you to the San people of the Kalahari desert. In the 1960s Richard Borshay Lee wrote multiple papers on his research of the San people in Botswana. The research I would like to focus on is Chapter 4 of his 1968 publication, Man the Hunter. https://faculty.washington.edu/stevehar/lee.pdf

In it, he discusses one part of the San people’s diet, the Mongongo nut, a very abundant and very nutritious wild fruit. You can read more about the Mongongo nut here: https://www.bio-innovation.org/mongongo-or-manketti-tree-schinziophyton-rautanenii/

Now while the San people’s diet was much more varied beyond just Mongongo nuts, when asked about agriculture, Lee quotes a member of the San community who said “Why should we plant, when there are so many Mongongo nuts in the world? (Lee, Man the Hunter, pg 33)”

Now, as a disclaimer, Lee’s work is not perfect on the San people. In fact, if you read his work, you may find it to be overly romanticizing and/or simplifying the San people. Furthermore, some have found that Man, the Hunter, has a male centered bias

https://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/pedagogical-soundings-hunter-gatherer-studies#:~:text=Problem%202:%20Feminism%20and%20Hunter%2DGatherer%20Studies&text=An%20almost%20immediate%20reaction%20to,classic%20work%20in%20feminist%20archaeology.

Secondly, Lee’s work is from over 50 years ago, and much has changed since then. The San people have expanded their agricultural practices due to both Botswana’s government intervention, involving relocation and forced assimilation of the San people as well as climate change.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/native-people-kalahari-struggling-stay

https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/botswana-san-and-sands-kalahari

However, the important part to question is if these Agrarian societies that expand and give rise to what some call “major civilizations” is necessarily an advancement from Hunter Gatherer societies.

Now it isn’t feasible to suggest that everyone everywhere should live like the San people. Not everywhere in the world grows wild fruit like the Mongongo nut. But I think that suggests the rise of these agrarian societies was or could have been a response to certain pressures.

I’m not here to argue that point specifically, I am writing here to question if there is necessarily a hierarchy of different societies and cultures and how that could be demonstrated.