The cave
paintingPainting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . In art, the term describes both the act and the result, which is called a painting. Paintings may have for their support such surfaces as walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, clay or concrete...
s 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 AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa.Geopolitically, the UN definition of Northern Africa includes the following seven countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia,Mauritania, and...
during the
Neolithic SubpluvialThe Neolithic Subpluvial — sometimes called the Holocene Wet Phase — was an extended period of wet and rainy conditions in the climate history of northern Africa...
period (about 8000 BC to 4000 BC). They were executed by a hunting people in the Capsian period of the Neolithic age who lived in a savanna region teeming with giant
buffaloThe African Buffalo, Affalo or Cape Buffalo is a large African bovid. It is up to 1.7 meters high, 3.4 meters long. Savannah type buffaloes weigh 500-900 kg, with only males, normally larger than females, reaching the upper weight range...
,
elephantElephants are large land mammals in two genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta. Three species of elephant are living today: the African Bush Elephant, the African Forest Elephant and the Asian Elephant...
,
rhinocerosRhinoceros , often colloquially abbreviated rhino, is a name used to group five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia. Three of the five species—the Javan, Sumatran and Black Rhinoceros—are...
, and
hippopotamusThe hippopotamus or hippo is a large, mostly plant-eating mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae...
, animals that no longer exist in the now-desert area.
The cave
paintingPainting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . In art, the term describes both the act and the result, which is called a painting. Paintings may have for their support such surfaces as walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, clay or concrete...
s 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 AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa.Geopolitically, the UN definition of Northern Africa includes the following seven countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia,Mauritania, and...
during the
Neolithic SubpluvialThe Neolithic Subpluvial — sometimes called the Holocene Wet Phase — was an extended period of wet and rainy conditions in the climate history of northern Africa...
period (about 8000 BC to 4000 BC). They were executed by a hunting people in the Capsian period of the Neolithic age who lived in a savanna region teeming with giant
buffaloThe African Buffalo, Affalo or Cape Buffalo is a large African bovid. It is up to 1.7 meters high, 3.4 meters long. Savannah type buffaloes weigh 500-900 kg, with only males, normally larger than females, reaching the upper weight range...
,
elephantElephants are large land mammals in two genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta. Three species of elephant are living today: the African Bush Elephant, the African Forest Elephant and the Asian Elephant...
,
rhinocerosRhinoceros , often colloquially abbreviated rhino, is a name used to group five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia. Three of the five species—the Javan, Sumatran and Black Rhinoceros—are...
, and
hippopotamusThe hippopotamus or hippo is a large, mostly plant-eating mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae...
, 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 AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa.Geopolitically, the UN definition of Northern Africa includes the following seven countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia,Mauritania, and...
have left behind equally significant remains. Early remnants of hominid occupation in
North AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa.Geopolitically, the UN definition of Northern Africa includes the following seven countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia,Mauritania, and...
, 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
MousterianMousterian is a name given by archaeologists to a style of predominantly flint tools associated primarily with Homo neanderthalensis and dating to the Middle Paleolithic, the middle part of the Old Stone Age....
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
AterianThe Aterian industry is a name given by archaeologists to a type of stone tool manufacturing dating to the Middle Stone Age in the region around the Atlas Mountains and the northern Sahara....
(after the site Bir el Ater, south of Annaba) and are marked by a high standard of workmanship, great variety, and specialization.
The earliest blade industries in North Africa are called
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...
or Oranian (after a site near
OranOran is a major city on the Mediterranean coast in northwestern Algeria. The name comes from the Berber word Uhran meaning The Lions....
). 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.
RomanAncient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
,
GreekAncient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the...
,
ByzantineThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
, and
ArabArab people or Arabs are an ethnic group whose members identify along linguistic, cultural or genealogical grounds...
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.
See also