Theprehistory of North Africa spans the period of earliest human presence in the region to gradual onset of historicity in theMaghreb duringclassical antiquity. Earlyanatomically modern humans are known to have been present atJebel Irhoud, in what is nowMorocco, approximately 300,000 years ago.[1] TheNile Valley region, viaancient Egypt, contributed to theNeolithic,Bronze Age andIron Age periods of theOld World, along with theancient Near East.
Human habitation in North Africa has been greatly influenced by the climate of theSahara (currently the world's largest warm desert), which has undergone enormous variations between wet and dry over the last few hundred thousand years.[2] This is due to a 41,000-yearAxial tilt cycle in which the tilt of the earth changes between 22° and 24.5°.[3] At present (2000 AD), we are in a dry period, but it is expected that the Sahara will become green again in 15,000 years (17,000 AD).
During the lastglacial period, the Sahara was much larger than it is today, extending south beyond its current boundaries.[4] The end of the glacial period brought more rain to the Sahara, from about 8000 BC to 6000 BC, perhaps because oflow pressure areas over the collapsingice sheets to the north.[5] Once the ice sheets were gone, the northern Sahara dried out. In the southern Sahara, the drying trend was initially counteracted by themonsoon, which brought rain further north than it does today. By around 4200 BC, however, the monsoon retreated south to approximately where it is today,[6] leading to the gradualdesertification of the Sahara.[7] The Sahara is presently as dry as it was about 13,000 years ago.[2]
These conditions are responsible for what has been called theSahara pump theory. During periods of a wet or "Green Sahara", the Sahara becomes asavanna grassland and various flora and fauna become more common. Following inter-pluvial arid periods, the Sahara area then reverts to desert conditions and the flora and fauna are forced to retreat northwards to theAtlas Mountains, southwards intoWest Africa, or eastwards into theNile Valley. This separatespopulations of some of the species in areas with differentclimates, forcing them toadapt, possibly giving rise toallopatric speciation.[citation needed]
The earliest inhabitants of centralNorth Africa have left behind significant remains: early remnants of hominid occupation inNorth Africa, for example, were found in Ain el Hanech, inSetif (c. 200,000 BC); in fact, more recent investigations have found signs ofOldowan technology, which has been dated between 2,000,000 BC and 1,470,000 BC.[8]
Earlyanatomically modern humans are known to have been present atJebel Irhoud, in what is nowMorocco, approximately 300,000 years ago.[1]
Human groups ofNazlet Sabaha,Egypt engaged inchert mining, as early as ~100,000 years ago, likely for use as tools.[9]
In theSahara,Aterians camped near lakes, rivers, and springs, and engaged in the activity of hunting (e.g., antelope, buffalo, elephant, rhinoceros) and some gathering.[10] As a result of a hyper-aridification event of SaharanAfrica, which occurred around the time ofEurope'sWürm glaciation event, Aterian hunter-gatherers may have migrated into areas oftropical Africa andcoastal Africa.[10] More specifically, amid aridification inMIS 5 and regional change of climate in MIS 4, in the Sahara and theSahel, Aterians may have migrated southward intoWest Africa (e.g., Baie du Levrier,Mauritania; Tiemassas,Senegal; LowerSenegal River Valley).[11]
Affad 23 is anarchaeological site located in theAffad region of southern Dongola Reach in northernSudan,[12] which hosts "the well-preserved remains of prehistoric camps (relics of the oldestopen-airhut in the world) and diversehunting andgathering loci some 50,000 years old".[13][14][15]
TheIberomaurusian culture seems to have appeared around the time of theLast Glacial Maximum, sometime between c. 25,000 cal BP and 23,000cal BP. It will have lasted until the earlyHolocene, c. 11,000 cal BP.[16]
Archaeological evidence has attested that population settlements occurred in Nubia as early as theLate Pleistocene and from the 5th millennium BC onwards, whereas there is "no or scanty evidence" of human presence in the Egyptian Nile Valley during these periods, which may be due to problems in site preservation.[17]
TheCapsian culture was aMesolithic andNeolithic culture of theMaghreb that persisted between 8000 BC and 2700 BC.[18][19]
Theengraved CentralSaharan rock art of theBubaline Period was created between 10,000 BP and 7500 BP.[20]
The engraved Central Saharan rock art of theKel Essuf Period was created prior to 9800 BP.[20]
Thepainted Central Saharan rock art of theRound Head Period was created between 9800 BP and 7500 BP.[20]
Laboratory examination of theUan Muhuggiagchild mummy and Tin Hanakaten child, concludes that the Central Saharan peoples from theEpipaleolithic,Mesolithic, andPastoral periods possessed dark skin complexions.[21]
Neolithicagriculturalists, who may have resided inNortheast Africa and theNear East, may have been the source population forlactase persistence variants, including –13910*T, and may have been subsequently supplanted by later migrations of peoples.[22] TheSub-SaharanWest African Fulani, theNorth AfricanTuareg, andEuropean agriculturalists, who are descendants of these Neolithic agriculturalists, share the lactase persistence variant –13910*T.[22] While shared by Fulani and Tuareg herders, compared to the Tuareg variant, the Fulani variant of –13910*T has undergone a longer period of haplotype differentiation.[22] TheFulani lactase persistence variant –13910*T may have spread, along with cattlepastoralism, between 9686 BP and 7534 BP, possibly around 8500 BP; corroborating this timeframe for the Fulani, by at least 7500 BP, there is evidence of herders engaging in the act ofmilking in the CentralSahara.[22] Theengraved andpainted CentralSaharan rock art of thePastoral Period was created between 7500 BP and 2800 BP.[20] One of the earliestLibyco-Berber inscriptions inAfrica are found inWadiMertoutek, near or within apetroglyph, which may be the depiction of abovid, and may be associated with a pastoral community during aperiod of pastoralism.[23]
Human remains were found by archaeologists in 2000 at a site known asGobero in theTénéré Desert of northeasternNiger.[24][25] The Gobero finds represent a uniquely preserved record of human habitation and burials from what is now called theKiffian (7700 BC – 6200 BC) and theTenerian (5200 BC – 2500 BC) cultures.[24]
The classic account of the riparian lifestyle of this period comes from investigations in Sudan during World War II by British archeologistAnthony Arkell.[26] Arkell's report described a Late Stone Age settlement on a sandbank of theBlue Nile which was then about 12 feet (3.7 m) higher than its present flood stage.[26] The countryside was clearly savanna, not the present-day desert, as evidenced by the bones of the most common species found in the middens — antelope, which require large expanses of seed-bearing grasses.[26] These people probably lived mainly on fish, however, and Arkell concluded, based on the totality of the evidence, that rainfall at the time was at least three times that of today.[26] The physical characteristics derived from skeletal remains suggested that these people were related to modernNilotic peoples, such as theNuer andDinka.[26] Subsequent radiocarbon dating firmly established Arkell's site to between 7000 BC and 5000 BC.[26] Based on common patterns at his site and at French-excavated sites already reported fromChad,Mali andNiger (e.g., bone harpoons and a characteristic"wavy line" pottery), Arkell inferred "a common fishing and hunting culture spread by negroid people right across Africa at about the latitude ofKhartoum at a time when the climate was so different that it was not desert."[26] Hunter-fishers, who created thewavy line pottery in 6700 BC, were black African rather than Mediterranean in origin and showed signs of intentional cultivation of grain crops instead of simply gathering wild grains.[27]
Several scholars have argued that theNortheast African origins of the Egyptian civilisation derived from pastoral communities which emerged in both the Egyptian and Sudanese regions of the Nile Valley in the 5th millennium BC.[28]
According to American historian and linguist,Christopher Ehret, the physical anthropological findings from the "major burial sites of those founding locales of ancient Egypt in the fourth millennium BC, notablyEl-Badari as well as Naqada, show no demographic indebtedness to theLevant". Ehret specified that these studies revealed cranial and dental affinities with "closest parallels" to other longtime populations in the surrounding areas ofNortheastern Africa "such as Nubia and the northernHorn of Africa". He further commented that the Naqada and Badarian populations did not migrate "from somewhere else but were descendants of the long-term inhabitants of these portions of Africa going back many millennia". Ehret also cited existing,archaeological,linguistic andgenetic data which he argued supported the demographic history.[29]
Dotted wavy line pottery and fishing cultures have also been located in theLake Turkana region in poorly dated contexts.[30] By 3000 BC, it does not appear that theTurkana Basin was populated with harpoon and dotted wavy line pottery users, but fishing remained an important part of peoples' diets into the late Holocene.[30]
Theengraved CentralSaharan rock art of the Caballine Period was created between 2800 BP and 1000 BP.[20][31]
The engraved andpainted Central Saharan rock art of the Cameline Period was created from 2000 BP onward.[20][31]
As of about 5000 BC, the populations of North Africa were descended primarily from theIberomaurusian andCapsian cultures, with a more recent intrusion being associated with theNeolithic Revolution.[32] The proto-Berber tribes evolved from these prehistoric communities during the late Bronze- and early Iron ages.[33]
The late-NeolithicKehf el Baroud inhabitants were modelled as being of about 50% local North African ancestry and 50%Early European Farmer (EEF) ancestry. It was suggested that EEF ancestry had entered North Africa throughCardial Ware colonists from Iberia sometime between 5000 and 3000 BC. They were found to be closely related to theGuanches of theCanary Islands.[34]
InAncient Egypt, the Bronze Age begins in theProtodynastic period,c. 3150 BC. The archaicEarly Bronze Age of Egypt, known as theEarly Dynastic Period of Egypt,[35][36] immediately follows the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt, c. 3100 BC. It is generally taken to include the First and Second Dynasties, lasting from the Protodynastic Period of Egypt until about 2686 BC, or the beginning of the Old Kingdom. With the First Dynasty, the capital moved fromAbydos to Memphis with a unified Egypt ruled by an Egyptian god-king. Abydos remained the major holy land in the south. The hallmarks of ancient Egyptian civilization, such as art, architecture and many aspects of religion, took shape during the Early Dynastic Period.Memphis in the Early Bronze Age was the largest city of the time. TheOld Kingdom of the regional Bronze Age[35] is the name given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – the first of three "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in thelower Nile Valley (the others beingMiddle Kingdom and theNew Kingdom).
TheMaghreb transferred from theMesolithic stage to the Neolithic stage between the 6th millennium BCE and 5th millennium BC, then entered an intermediary period between Neolithic,Chalcolithic and theBronze Age probably in the 2nd millennium BC,[37] although they never truly transferred into either the Chalcolithic Age or the Bronze Age, remaining in between them and the Neolithic Age.[38]
TheIron Age in Egypt corresponds to theThird Intermediate Period of Egypt. Iron metal is singularly scarce in collections of Egyptian antiquities. Bronze remained the primary material there until the conquest byNeo-Assyrian Empire in 671 BC. The explanation of this would seem to be that the relics are in most cases the paraphernalia of tombs, the funeral vessels and vases, and iron being considered an impure metal by the ancient Egyptians it was never used in their manufacture of these or for any religious purposes. It was attributed to Seth, the spirit of evil who according to Egyptian tradition governed the central deserts of Africa.[39] In theBlack Pyramid of Abusir, dating before 2000 BC,Gaston Maspero found some pieces of iron. In the funeral text ofPepi I, the metal is mentioned.[39] A sword bearing the name of pharaohMerneptah as well as a battle axe with an iron blade and gold-decorated bronze shaft were both found in the excavation of Ugarit.[40] Adagger with an iron blade found in Tutankhamun's tomb, 13th century BC, was recently examined and found to be of meteoric origin.[41][42][43]
Iron-workingPhoenician colonization along the coast and trade with the inland caused the Maghreb to rapidly transfer from this intermediary stage to theIron Age.
...the blade's composition of iron, nickel and cobalt was an approximate match for a meteorite that landed in northern Egypt. The result "strongly suggests an extraterrestrial origin"...