History of Somalia 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 the north were also characterized in 1909 as important artefacts demonstrating the archaeological universality during the Paleolithic between the East and the West. According to linguists, the first Afro-Asiatic-speaking populations arrived in the region during the ensuing Neolithic period from the family's proposed urheimat ("original homeland") in the Nile Valley, or the Near East. Other scholars propose that the Afro-Asiatic family developed in situ in the Horn, with its
2009 timeline of the War in Somalia In south-western Somalia gunmen shot and killed a World Food Program officer. In Guriel, fighting between insurgents and government backed moderate militiamen resulted in the deaths of six people, four believed to be militiamen and two thought to be Al Shabaab insurgents. A roadside bomb exploded in the community of Towflig in the Yagshid district which is north of Mogadishu killing four TFG soldiers and injuring two others. On the road between Baydao and Diinsoor in the Bay region of South-western Somalia an Al-Shabaab ambush hit a militia driven out of Kismayo in September and Ethiopian troops in support of