The difficulties associated with the
Documentation of African history.​

Writing African history has been challenging and mostly difficult, due to a lack of both comprehensive written records and holistic archaeological evidence that covers all the zones of Africa from past times.

The major challenges to historical research revolve around the problems of sources, knowledge, explanation, objectivity, choice of subject, and the peculiar problems of contemporary history. Sources The problem of sources is a serious challenge to the historian in the task of reconstructing the past.

According to this imperial historiography, Africa had no history and therefore the Africans were a people without history. They propagated the image of Africa as a 'dark continent'. ... It was argued at the time that Africa had no history because history begins with writing and thus with the arrival of the Europeans.