Cheikh Anta Diop

Cheikh Anta Diop was born in 1923 in Diourbel, in what was then French West Africa, and went to Paris in 1946 to study physics and chemistry. He trained in nuclear physics and worked briefly at a laboratory associated with the Curie Institute, at a time when almost no African students were admitted into elite French science.

Alongside his physics, he pursued a history doctorate at the Sorbonne, arguing that ancient Egyptian civilisation was fundamentally African in origin and population, a position that challenged the assumptions of much European scholarship of the period. His committee initially refused to award the degree; he eventually earned it years later after building a body of supporting research.

Returning to Senegal, he put his scientific training to direct use, establishing the country's first radiocarbon dating laboratory in Dakar, which let African researchers analyse their own archaeological finds rather than send every sample abroad for testing. He used the lab to examine artefacts and human remains bearing on questions of migration and ancient settlement across the continent.

His historical conclusions remain debated among scholars, but his insistence that Africa needed its own scientific infrastructure, run by African researchers rather than dependent on institutions overseas, shaped generations of scientists after him. He died in Dakar in 1986.