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Information about Prehistoric Central North Africa

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 the central North Africa between about 8000 B.C. and 4000 B.C. 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.

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 (ca. 200,000 B.C.); in fact, more recent investigations have found signs of Oldowan technology there, and indicate a date of up to 1.8 million BC (Sahnouni 1998.) Later, Neandertal tool makers produced hand axes in the Levalloisian and Mousterian styles (ca. 43,000 B.C.) 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 B.C., are called Aterian (after the site Bir el Ater, south of Annaba) and are marked by a high standard of workmanship, great variety, and specialization.

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


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 B.C. Between about 9000 and 5000 B.C., the Capsian culture began influencing the IberoMaurusian, and after about 3000 B.C. the remains of just one human type can be found throughout the region. Neolithic civilization (marked by animal domestication and subsistence agriculture) developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean North Africa between 6000 and 2000 B.C. This type of economy, so richly depicted in the Tassili-n-Ajjer cave paintings, predominated in North Africa until the classical period.

The amalgam of peoples of North Africa coalesced eventually into a distinct native population that came to be called Berbers. Distinguished primarily by cultural and linguistic attributes, the Berbers, overshadowed by larger empires, tended to be overlooked or marginalized in historical accounts. Roman, Greek, Byzantine, and Arab Muslim chroniclers typically depicted the Berbers as "barbaric" enemies, troublesome nomads, or ignorant peasants. They were, however, to play a major role in the area's history.Also it is part of northern arfica! b.j.m waz here!

See also

References

Painting, meant literally, is the practice of applying color to a surface (support) such as paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer or concrete. However, when used in an artistic sense, the term "painting" means the use of this activity in combination with drawing, composition and
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Tamanrasset (Arabic: ولاية تمنراست ) is an oasis city and capital of Tamanrasset wilaya in southern Algeria, in the Ahaggar Mountains. It is the chief city of the Algerian Tuareg.
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North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, separated by the Sahara from Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Northern Africa includes the following seven territories:

  • Algeria
  • Egypt
  • Libya

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The Capsian culture (named after the town of Gafsa in Tunisia) was a Mesolithic culture of the Maghreb, which lasted from about 10000 BP to 6000 BP. It was concentrated mainly in modern Algeria, and Tunisia, with some sites attested in Cyrenaica (Libya).
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Neolithic[1] or "New" Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology that is traditionally the last part of the Stone Age. The Neolithic era follows the terminal Holocene Epipalaeolithic
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Syncerus
Hodgson, 1847

Binomial name
Syncerus caffer
(Sparrman, 1779)

Subspecies

S. c. caffer
S. c. nanus
S. c. brachyceros
''S. c.
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Elephantidae
Gray, 1821

Subfamilia
  • See Classification
The elephants (Elephantidae) are a family in the order Proboscidea in the class Mammalia.
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Rhinocerotidae
Gray, 1821

Extant Genera

Ceratotherium
Dicerorhinus
Diceros
Rhinoceros
Extinct genera, see text
The rhinoceros (IPA:
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Hippopotamus

Species: H. amphibius

Binomial name
Hippopotamus amphibius
Linnaeus, 1758[1]


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North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, separated by the Sahara from Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Northern Africa includes the following seven territories:

  • Algeria
  • Egypt
  • Libya

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North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, separated by the Sahara from Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Northern Africa includes the following seven territories:

  • Algeria
  • Egypt
  • Libya

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Oldowan (earlier spelled Olduwan or sometimes Oldawan) is an anthropological designation for an industry of stone tools used by prehistoric homininans of the Lower Paleolithic. The Oldowan is the very first stone tool assemblage in prehistory.
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H. neanderthalensis

Binomial name
†Homo neanderthalensis
King, 1864

Synonyms
Palaeoanthropus neanderthalensis
H. s.
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The Levallois technique is a name given by archaeologists to a distinctive type of flint knapping developed by humans during the Palaeolithic period.

It is named after nineteenth century finds of flint tools in the Levallois-Perret
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Mousterian is a name given by archaeologists to a style of predominantly flint tools (or industry) associated primarily with Homo neanderthalensis and dating to the Middle Paleolithic, the middle part of the Old Stone Age.
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The Aterian industry is a name given by archaeologists to a type of stone tool manufacturing dating to the Middle Stone Age (or Middle Palaeolithic) in the region around the Atlas Mountains and the northern Sahara.
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Annaba (Arabic: عنّابة, ‘Annābä; formerly
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Oran (Arabic:وهران, pronounced Wahran) is a city in northwestern Algeria, situated on the Mediterranean coast. During French rule in Algeria Oran was a prefecture in the Oran département.
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Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew from a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula circa the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea.
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The term ancient Greece refers to the periods of Greek history in Classical Antiquity, lasting ca. 750 BC[1] (the archaic period) to 146 BC (the Roman conquest). It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of Western Civilization.
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Purpose

The table gives a rough picture of the relationships between the various principal cultures of Prehistory outside the Americas, Antarctica, Australia and Oceania. It also serves as an index of the broad features of that prehistory to be followed through links to articles.
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