The inclusion of women and women's roles in the study of the long precolonial eras of African history is overdue. Even after a half-century of professional study of African history in universities in Africa and elsewhere, the precolonial eras remain historical spans on which little research into gender and gender relations has been undertaken. Numerous studies exist on colonial and postcolonial African gender relations and even a few on those of the late precolonial period; but the present work is the first to seek to uncover gender dynamics going back more than two thousand years in Africa. In recapturing these aspects of the precolonial past, this study shows that it is possible, desirable, and even necessary to historicize gender dynamics in early Africa. In pursuing these goals, it raises basic issues for theory and practice in the understanding of social roles in early history, both in Africa and elsewhere.