The history of warfare and military systems in pre-colonial Africa is incredibly complex and quite unlike the spontaneous and short-lived affairs often found in anthropological literature or Hollywood depictions (which are inaccurate even for most European military history).

The widespread presence of fortifications and other forms of defensive architecture across the continent provides compelling evidence of this complexity, which has until recently been overlooked in African historiography.

This essay examines why this long-established form of military architecture survived through centuries of evolution in siege technology, well into the early 20th century, when the Dervish fortresses of Somalia held out against repeated British assaults for over two decades.