Agriculture: Early West Africans lived along the rivers and grasslands. Different villages grew different crops. The crops you grew depended upon where you lived in West Africa. If you lived along the river, you grew rice and fished. If you lived in the grasslands, you grew millet. People in the south, near the rainforests, grew peanuts and sweet potatoes.

Trade: People in different villages traded each other for the foods they wanted and needed.

Kinship and Common Good: People who lived in ancient African villages were members of a clan, a family group. Everyone worked together for the common good. Their first thought was not, “I want to do this my way.”  Rather, their first thought was supposed to be, “I want to do what is best for the people in my village.” Villages were close-knit communities. 

Villagers work together as a team. They collectively worked the land, took care of the children, tended livestock, administered justice, and worshiped their ancestors. The community as a whole raised the children.

Villages were broken up into 50 or 100 or 500 duplicate homes. Each individual family had their own home, but each home looked alike. The chief was the leader, but his home looked like other homes. There were no palaces in the villages. 

Although each villager had a job to do, all jobs were designed to help each other. The unwritten rule was - if something could be used for the betterment of the whole tribe, it was not right to keep it for yourself.

Village Government: Each village ruled itself. Clan government was based on kinship. In some cases, the head of government was a group of village elders. In others, the head of the village was the chief.  Either way, the head of the village made decisions for the village. But all villagers were able to express their opinion prior to a ruling.