Africa can be credited not only with giving rise to the many scientific developments associated with Egypt: engineering, mathematics, architecture, medicine etc. but also with important early political developments such as state formation and monarchy*. Economic and political development, as well as scientific development was, during this early period, perhaps more advanced in Africa than in other continents.
The African continent continued on its own path of development, without significant external intervention until the fifteenth century.
In this early period Africans participated in extensive international trading networks and in trans-oceanic travel. Some African states had established important trading relations with India, China and other parts of Asia long before these were disrupted by European intervention.
*monarchy - a political system based up the undivided rule of a single person.