Prehistoric North Africa

Early and middle Paleolithic

Earlier inhabitants of central North Africa have left behind equally significant remains. Early remnants of hominid occupation in North Africa, for example, were found in Ain el Hanech, near Saïda (c. 200,000 BCE); in fact, more recent investigations have found signs of Oldowan technology there, and indicate a date of up to 1.8 million BC. Later, Neandertal tool makers produced hand axes in the Levalloisian and Mousterian styles (c. 43,000 BCE) similar to those in the Levant. According to some sources, North Africa was the site of the highest state of development of Middle Paleolithic flake-tool techniques. Tools of this era, starting about 30,000 BCE, are called Aterian^{[citation needed]}(after the site Bir el Ater, south of Annaba) and are marked by a high standard of workmanship, great variety, and specialization.

Late Paleolithic and Mesolithic

Further information: Capsian culture

The earliest blade industries in North Africa are called Ibero-Maurusian or Oranian (after a site near Oran). The industry appears to have spread throughout the coastal regions of North Africa between 15,000 and 10,000 BCE. Between about 9000 and 5000 BCE, the Capsian culture made its appearance showing signs to belong to the Neolithic and began influencing the IberoMaurusian, and after about 3000 BCE the remains of just one human culture can be found throughout the former region. Neolithic civilization (marked by animal domestication and subsistence agriculture) developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean North Africa after the Levante between 6000 and 2000 BCE. This type of economy, so richly depicted in the Tassili n'Ajjer cave paintings, predominated in North Africa until the classical period.

Neolithic cave paintings found in Tassil-n-Ajjer (Plateau of the Chasms) region of the Sahara

The cave paintings found at Tassili n'Ajjer, north of Tamanrasset, Algeria, and at other locations depict vibrant and vivid scenes of everyday life in central North Africa during the Neolithic Subpluvial period (about 8000 to 4000 BCE). They were executed by a hunting people in the Capsian period of the Neolithic age who lived in a savanna region teeming with giant buffalo, elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus, animals that no longer exist in the now-desert area. The pictures provide the most complete record of a prehistoric African culture. Various populations of pastoralists have left paintings of abundant wildlife, domesticated animals, chariots, and a complex culture that dates back to at least 10,000 BCE in Northern Niger and neighboring parts of Algeria and Libya. Several former northern Nigerian villages and archeological sites date from the Green Sahara period of 7500-7000 to 3500-3000 BCE^{[citation needed]}

Neolithic and Bronze Age

Further information: Neolithic Subpluvial

Some parts of North Africa began to participate in the Neolithic revolution in the 6th millennium BC, just before Saharan desertification.

Clement and fertile conditions during the Neolithic Subpluvial supported increased human settlement of the Nile Valley in Egypt, as well as neolithic societies in Sudan and throughout the present-day Sahara. Cultures producing rock art (notably that at Tassili n'Ajjer in southeastern Algeria) flourished during this period. In Prehistoric Egypt, Neolithic settlements appear from about 6000 BC. Oher regions in Africa independently developed agriculture at about the same time: the Ethiopian highlands, the Sahel, and West Africa.

The beginning of the Bronze Age in Egypt is conventionally identified as the Protodynastic Period, following the Neolithic Naqada culture about 3200 BC.

Iron Age

Further information: North Africa during Antiquity

The amalgam of peoples of North Africa by the Iron Age coalesced into a distinct native population that came to be called Berbers. While Egypt as a part of the wider Ancient Near East had entered historicity since the Bronze Age, the Maghreb remained in the prehistoric period longer. Some Phoenician and Greek colonies were established along the Mediterranean coast during the 7th century BC.

See also

• Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures
• Prehistoric Egypt
• African archaeology
• Ancient Libya
• Garamantes
• Roknia

References

• Original text: Library of Congress Country Study of Algeria
• AFRICA DURING THE LAST 150,000 YEARS (climate) from ORNL