Yoruba civilization begins in the city of Ancient Ifé, the original home of the orishas themselves whilst they lived on Earth at the dawn of Homo Sapien emergence 300,000 years ago.

Ifé's rise as an imperial capital of an empire began in the mid 8th-century bce by a Nok prince named Oduduwa. At this time, Ife merchants became heavily involved with the Sahelian trading network that linked the kingdoms of Wagadu, Djenné, Sokoto, Nok, Sao, Darfur, Kush, and Daamat. Its primary trading goods were iron, gold, horses, textiles, and cattle.

By the 4th-century bce, Ife was as populous as Meroé and Waset (Luxor) in the Nile Valley. Ifé city was full of sublime architecture and monumental statues. It was the heartbeat of West-Central Africa for the next several centuries. It was not until the 14th-century when Islam became the dominant political-economic alliance in West Africa, that Ifé's imperial influence began to decline and their Yoruba empire fractured into numerous city-states.