Somali nationalism
[7] The stone implements from the Jalelo site in the north were also characterized in 1909 as important artefacts demonstrating the archaeological universality during the Paleolithic between the East and the West.
[8] According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations arrived in the region during the ensuing Neolithic period from the family's proposed urheimat ("original homeland") in the Nile Valley,[9] or the Near East.
[10] The Laas Geel complex on the outskirts of Hargeisa in Somaliland dates back around 5,000 years, and has rock art depicting both wild animals and decorated cows.
[12][13] Additionally, between the towns of Las Khorey and El Ayo in Somaliland lies Karinhegane, the site of numerous cave paintings of real and mythical animals.
[16][18] The Puntites traded myrrh, spices, gold, ebony, short-horned cattle, ivory and frankincense with the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Babylonians, Indians, Chinese and Romans through their commercial ports.
[19] In the classical period, the city-states of Mosylon, Opone, Mundus, Isis, Malao, Avalites, Essina, Nikon and Tabae developed a lucrative trade network connecting with merchants from Phoenicia, Ptolemaic Egypt, Greece, Parthian Persia, Saba, Nabataea, and the Roman Empire.
In 1332, the Zeila-based King of Adal was slain in a military campaign aimed at halting Abyssinian emperor Amda Seyon I's march toward the city.
[27] When the last Sultan of Ifat, Sa'ad ad-Din II, was also killed by Emperor Dawit I in Zeila in 1410, his children escaped to Yemen, before returning in 1415.
During the war, Imam Ahmad pioneered the use of cannons supplied by the Ottoman Empire, which he imported through Zeila and deployed against Abyssinian forces and their Portuguese allies led by Cristóvão da Gama.
[32] During the Ajuran period, the sultanates and republics of Merca, Mogadishu, Barawa, Hobyo and their respective ports flourished and had a lucrative foreign commerce, with ships sailing to and coming from Arabia, India, Venetia,[34] Persia, Egypt, Portugal, and as far away as China.
[35] In the 16th century, Duarte Barbosa noted that many ships from the Kingdom of Cambaya in modern-day India sailed to Mogadishu with cloth and spices, for which they in return received gold, wax and ivory.
Barbosa also highlighted the abundance of meat, wheat, barley, horses, and fruit on the coastal markets, which generated enormous wealth for the merchants.
[36] Mogadishu, the center of a thriving textile industry known as toob benadir (specialized for the markets in Egypt, among other places[37]), together with Merca and Barawa, also served as a transit stop for Swahili merchants from Mombasa and Malindi and for the gold trade from Kilwa.
In the late 19th century, after the Berlin conference of 1884, European powers began the Scramble for Africa, whereupon the Darawiish built Dhulbahante garesas to counter colonialism.
The other administrative divisions, Taargooye, Dharbash, Indhabadan, Burcadde-Godwein, Garbo (Darawiish), Ragxun, Gaarhaye, Bah-udgoon and Shacni-cali were collectively also overwhelmingly Dhulbahante.
[45] The Darawiish defeated the colonial powers on numerous occasions, most notably, the 1903 victory at Cagaarweyne commanded by Suleiman Aden Galaydh[46] or the killing of general Richard Corfield by Ibraahin Xoorane in 1913,[47] and theses repulsions forcing the British Empire to retreat to the coastal region in the late 1900s.
It eventually settled on the Soviet Union's Cold War arch-rival, the United States, which had been courting the Somali government for some time.
All in all, Somalia's initial friendship with the Soviet Union and later partnership with the United States enabled it to build the largest army in Africa.
