Long ago, the ancestors of Oromos, Afars and Somalis lived in a large kingdom known as Boonta. Boonta was a rich kingdom that was a major exporter of African Blackwood, Myrrh and Frankincense. Their chief cities were Aftal and several others today known only by their greek transliterations of Malao, Mosyllon, Aromata and Opone. Egypt referred to this land as Pwenet (as close as you can get to Boontu in ancient Egyptian pronounciation), and it is from the Egyptian name that we know this land today, as Punt. Romans knew Boontu after the market town of Aftal, and called the people the Avalitae. Greeks referred to them as the Other Berbers.
The Boontu kingdom in the 4th century united with the kingdom of Kasu (which has gone down in history as Meroe or Kush) dynastically, and the Kasu-Boontu kingdom conquered the Agaw (descendants of Agaw, who had been Viceroy of Kush under the Egyptians) and the Gaze kingdom of Dam't (the descendants of the Qahtani Arab immigrants who had begun to immigrate in 2,500 BCE). The conquerer, Gadaaraa (GDRT, Gadaaraa means "From the Law" in Oromo) erected an enormous victory stelae in Adulis boasting of his conquests.
Greek and Roman writers referred to Kasu as Aethiopia, after the Greek name for the founder of the Kasu nation. After Gadaaraa, Aethiopia included Axum as well as Meroe, and no mention of Punt, the Avalitae or the Other Berbers can be found.
Historians have often been confused as to how Dam't could conquer itself and establish Axum, and this has led to many silly theories.
His descendant Caadhaana (Ezana in Ge'ez) converted to Christianity and conquered most of Yemen, and defended Kasu against the invading Nuba (nowadays confused with him invading Kasu). Kasu would be abandoned and the Kasu would move south. The great Kasu cities would dissapear beneath the sands of Sudan until they were discovered centuries later.
Adulis was close to Egypt and Yemen, and merchants could just move their goods overland to there, so the red sea ports of Boontu all died out. As Islam spread in Africa however, the old site of Aftal found a new life as way station and port for Hajjis on their way to Makkah, as the town of Zeila.
In the 9th century, the Axum empire fell apart due to religious and ethnic differences, as the royal family converted to Islam. The Christian Agaw, Amhara and Tigray split away from the empire, and Emperor (Dil) Nacood moved to Shoa. The Coptic Church decided to crown the strongest Christian secessionists, the Zagwe, as Emperor. The Zagwe declined however and the Tigray grew to be the strongest state and conquered the Zagwe. The Coptic Church made up some rubbish about the Tigray conquerers being secret descendants of Dil Nacood and that they are Solomonids. This also involved doing away with the legitimate Solomonids.
The newly-minted Habesh empire allied with the Sultan of Zeila (a descendant of Yusuf aw-Barkadle) and destroyed Shoa, with most of the conquests going to Zeila, who moved his capital into the highlands and renamed his sultanate to Ifat.
The Shewans were forced out of the highlands and moved south and east into the lowlands. Today their descendants are the Somali and Oromo.
