Prehistory
Somalia has been inhabited since the Palaeolithic period. Cave paintings said to date back to 9000 BC have been found in the northern part of the country. The most famous of these is the Laas Gaal cultural complex, which contains some of the earliest known rock art on the African continent. Undeciphered inscriptions have also been discovered beneath each of the cave paintings. During the Stone Age, the Doian and the Hargeisan cultures flourished here with their respective industries and factories.
The oldest evidence of burial customs in the Horn of Africa comes from cemeteries in Somalia dating back to the 4th millennium BC. The stone implements from the Jalelo site in northern Somalia were characterized in 1909 as "the most important link in evidence of the universality in palaeolithic times between the East and the West".
Antiquity and classical era
Ancient pyramidal structures, tombs, ruined cities and stone walls found in Somalia, such as the Wargaade Wall, are evidence of an ancient sophisticated civilization that once thrived in the Somali peninsula. The findings of archaeological excavations and research in the area show that this civilization had an ancient writing system that remains undeciphered, and enjoyed a lucrative trading relationship with Ancient Egypt and Mycenaean Greece since at least the second millennium BC, which supports evidence of Somalia being the ancient Land of Punt. The Puntites "traded not only in their own produce of incense, ebony and short-horned cattle, but also in goods from other neighboring regions, including gold, ivory and animal skins." According to the temple reliefs at Deir el-Bahari, the Land of Punt was ruled at that time by King Parahu and Queen Ati.
Ancient Somalis domesticated the camel somewhere between the third millennium and second millennium BC from where it spread to Ancient Egypt and North Africa. In the classical period, the city
