In pre-modern Sub-Saharan Africa, the basic unit of society was the clan or lineage-group. African societies were also largely structured into villages until the first chiefdoms and kingdoms began to appear.
Explanation:
Throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, the basic unit of society was the clan group, which would typically live together as a cluster of households and thus small hamlets or villages would form on the bases of lineages and allied lineages. Large towns would be an amalgamation of these clans, and they would often be distributed as smaller villages of clans grouped together. Each village would be principled around the power of what anthropologists call a “big man.” They were the person whom the clan believed was the most directly descended from their founding ancestors. He would be joined by his extended family as well as more distant relatives, and often unrelated families who had been separated from their own clans and who looked to the big man for guidance and protection. In North Africa and the Saharan Desert, the organization of society was different and largely resembled cultures in the Middle East that were nomadic in large part.
