The
Capsian culture (named after the town of
GafsaGafsa is one of the 24 governorates of Tunisia. Its name is related to the Mesolithic Capsian culture.The city has 90,000 inhabitants . It is the capital of Gafsa governorate with 340,000 inhabitants and an area of 8,990 km². Contemporary Gafsa is a modern town, and the centre of the Djerid...
in
TunisiaTunisia , officially the Tunisian Republic , is a country located in North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and Libya to the southeast. Tunisia is located southwest of the island of Sicily and south of Sardinia. Its size is almost 165,000 km² with an estimated population of just...
) was a
MesolithicThe Mesolithic or "Middle Stone Age" was a period in the development of human technology in between the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age and the Neolithic or New Stone Age. The term was introduced by John Lubbock in his work Pre-historic Times, published in 1865. The term was, however, not much used...
culture of the
MaghrebThe Maghreb , also rendered Maghrib , meaning "place of sunset" or "western" in Arabic, is a region in North Africa. The term is generally applied to all of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, but in older Arabic usage pertained only to the area of the three countries between the high ranges of the...
, which lasted from about 10,000 to 6,000 BCE. It was concentrated mainly in modern
TunisiaTunisia , officially the Tunisian Republic , is a country located in North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and Libya to the southeast. Tunisia is located southwest of the island of Sicily and south of Sardinia. Its size is almost 165,000 km² with an estimated population of just...
, and
AlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean sea, the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area.It is bordered by Tunisia in...
with some sites attested in
CyrenaicaCyrenaica is the eastern coastal region of Libya and also an ex-province or state of the country in the pre-1963 administrative system. What used to be Cyrenaica in the old system is now divided up into several "shabiyat"...
(Ancient Libya). It is traditionally divided into two variants, the Capsien typique (Typical Capsian) and the Capsien supérieur (Upper Capsian) which are sometimes found in chronostratigraphic sequence.
The
Capsian culture (named after the town of
GafsaGafsa is one of the 24 governorates of Tunisia. Its name is related to the Mesolithic Capsian culture.The city has 90,000 inhabitants . It is the capital of Gafsa governorate with 340,000 inhabitants and an area of 8,990 km². Contemporary Gafsa is a modern town, and the centre of the Djerid...
in
TunisiaTunisia , officially the Tunisian Republic , is a country located in North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and Libya to the southeast. Tunisia is located southwest of the island of Sicily and south of Sardinia. Its size is almost 165,000 km² with an estimated population of just...
) was a
MesolithicThe Mesolithic or "Middle Stone Age" was a period in the development of human technology in between the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age and the Neolithic or New Stone Age. The term was introduced by John Lubbock in his work Pre-historic Times, published in 1865. The term was, however, not much used...
culture of the
MaghrebThe Maghreb , also rendered Maghrib , meaning "place of sunset" or "western" in Arabic, is a region in North Africa. The term is generally applied to all of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, but in older Arabic usage pertained only to the area of the three countries between the high ranges of the...
, which lasted from about 10,000 to 6,000 BCE. It was concentrated mainly in modern
TunisiaTunisia , officially the Tunisian Republic , is a country located in North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and Libya to the southeast. Tunisia is located southwest of the island of Sicily and south of Sardinia. Its size is almost 165,000 km² with an estimated population of just...
, and
AlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean sea, the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area.It is bordered by Tunisia in...
with some sites attested in
CyrenaicaCyrenaica is the eastern coastal region of Libya and also an ex-province or state of the country in the pre-1963 administrative system. What used to be Cyrenaica in the old system is now divided up into several "shabiyat"...
(Ancient Libya). It is traditionally divided into two variants, the Capsien typique (Typical Capsian) and the Capsien supérieur (Upper Capsian) which are sometimes found in chronostratigraphic sequence. They represent variants of one tradition, the differences between them being both typological and technological.
During this period, the environment of the
MaghrebThe Maghreb , also rendered Maghrib , meaning "place of sunset" or "western" in Arabic, is a region in North Africa. The term is generally applied to all of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, but in older Arabic usage pertained only to the area of the three countries between the high ranges of the...
was open savanna, much like modern
East AfricaEast Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...
, with Mediterranean forests at higher altitudes.
The Capsian diet included a wide variety of animals, ranging from
aurochsThe aurochs or urus was a type of wild cattle, the ancestor of domestic cattle. It inhabited Europe, Asia and North Africa, but is now extinct; it survived in Europe until 1627....
and
hartebeestThe hartebeest is a grassland antelope found in West Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa. It is one of the three species classified in the genus Alcelaphus....
to
hareHares and jackrabbits are leporidaes belonging to the genus Lepus. Hares less than one year old are called leverets.Hares are very fast-moving...
s and
snailThe word snail is a common name for almost all members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word snail is used in a general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. Snails lacking a shell or having only a very small one are...
s; there is little evidence concerning plants eaten.
. During the succeeding Neolithic of Capsian Tradition, there is evidence from one site, for domesticated, probably imported,
ovicapridsA goat-antelope or caprid is any of the species of mostly medium-sized bovids that make up the subfamily Caprinae , part of the Bovidae family of ruminants...
.
Anatomically, Capsian populations were modern Homo sapiens, traditionally classed into two "racial" types:
Mechta-AfalouMechta-Afalou or Mechtoid race was an extinct subrace of the Europoid race. Mechtoids inhabited Northern Africa during late Paleolithic and Mesolithic...
and
Proto-MediterraneanThe Mediterranean race was one of the three sub-categories into which the Caucasian race and the people of Europe were divided by anthropologists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, following the publication of William Z. Ripley's book "The Races of Europe"...
on the basis of cranial morphology. Some have argued that they were immigrants from the east,
whereas others
argue for population continuity based on physical skeletal characteristics and other criteria,
et cetera.
Given its widespread occurrence in the Sahara, the Capsian culture is identified by some historical linguists as a possible ancestor of the speakers of modern
Afroasiatic languagesThe Afroasiatic languages constitute a language family with about 375 living languages and more than 350 million speakers spread throughout North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and Southwest Asia, as well as parts of the Sahel, West Africa and East Africa. Arabic is the most widespread Afroasiatic...
of Africa and the Middle East and of the
Berber languagesThe Berber languages are a group of very closely related languages and dialects spoken in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and the Egyptian area of Siwa, as well as by large Berber communities in parts of Niger and Mali. A relatively sparse but very old population extends into the whole Sahara and...
in North Africa.
Nothing is known about Capsian religion, but their burial methods suggest a belief in an afterlife. Decorative art is widely found at their sites, including figurative and abstract
rock artRock art is a term in archaeology for any man-made markings made on natural stone. They can be divided into:*Petroglyphs - carvings into stone surfaces*Pictographs - rock and cave paintings...
, and
ocherOcher may refer to:* A shade of brown—see Ochre*Ochyor, a Russian place name; alternatively romanized as "Ocher"...
is found coloring both tools and corpses.
OstrichThe ostrich, Struthio camelus, is a large flightless bird native to Africa. It is the only living species of its family, Struthionidae and its genus, Struthio. Ostriches share the order Struthioniformes with the kiwis, and other ratites...
eggshells were used to make beads and containers; seashells were used for necklaces. The
Ibero-MaurusianIbero-Maurusian, or Oranian, or Ouchtatian archaeological industry was spread in the Northern Africa in Epipaleolithic. The culture is supposed to have emerged either as a result of migration of Cro-Magnon people from the Iberian peninsula, hence the name, or from the local Aterian culture. The...
practice of
evulsionA dental extraction is the removal of a tooth from the mouth. Extractions are performed for a wide variety of reasons, including tooth decay that has destroyed enough tooth structure to prevent restoration...
of the central
incisorIncisors are the first kind of tooth in heterodont mammals. They are located in the premaxilla above and mandible below.-Function:...
s continued sporadically, but became rarer.
The Eburran industry which dates between 13,000 and 9,000 BCE in East Africa, was formerly known as the "Kenya Capsian" due to similarities in the stone blade shapes. There is no proven relationship with the Capsian.
See also
- Prehistory of Central North Africa
- Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures
The synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures gives a rough picture of the relationships between the various principal cultures of Prehistory outside the Americas, Antarctica, Australia and Oceania...
External links