Farther east, often in the mountainous interior areas of South Africa, Middle Stone Age populations also maintained their ways of subsistence and their technology as late as the inception of the last Glacial Maximum, around 22,000 BCE. To the northeast, in the Caledon Valley of the Free State Province, the Middle Stone Age industry at Rose Cottage Cave prevailed until at least 26,000 BCE. West Africa from Nigeria to Mali and Senegal remained a place solely of Middle Stone Age industries not just as late as 22,000 BCE, but down through the Last Glacial Maximum. Immediately north of East Africa lay another region of key significance for African history in the Last Glacial Maximum. The earliest speech territories of three major language families of Africa clustered in those areas: Nilo-Saharan between the Nile and the western edges of the Ethiopian highlands; Afrasian in the highlands; and Niger-Kordofanian in modern-day South Sudan, probably in areas immediately west of the Nile.