Ancient North Africa

Early humans and Stone Age society

Although there is uncertainty about some factors, Aïn el-Hanech (in Algeria) is the site of one of the earliest traces of hominin occupation in the Maghrib. Somewhat later but better-attested are sites at Ternifine (near Tighenif, Algeria) and at Sidi Abd el-Rahmane, Morocco. Hand axes associated with the hominin Homo erectus have been found at Ternifine, and Sidi Abd el-Rahmane has produced evidence of the same hominin dating to at least 200,000 years ago.

Succeeding these early hand ax remains are the Levalloisian and Mousterian industries similar to those found in the Levant. It is claimed that nowhere did the Middle Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) evolution of flake tool techniques reach a higher state of development than in North Africa. Its high point in variety, specialization, and standard of workmanship is named Aterian for the type site Biʾr al-ʿAtir in Tunisia; assemblages of Aterian material occur throughout the Maghrib and the Sahara. Radiocarbon testing from Morocco indicates a date of about 30,000 years ago for early Aterian industry. Its diffusion over the region appears to have taken place during one of the periods of desiccation, and the carriers of the tradition were clearly adept desert hunters. The few associated human remains are Neanderthal, with substantial differences between those found in the west and those in Cyrenaica. In the latter area a date of about 45,000 years ago for the Levalloisian and Mousterian industries has been obtained (at Haua Fteah, Libya). The tools and a fragmentary human fossil of Neanderthal type are almost identical to those of Palestine.

The earliest blade industry of the Maghrib, associated as in Europe with the final supersession of Neanderthals by modern Homo sapiens, is named Ibero-Maurusian or Oranian (type site La Mouilla, near Oran in western Algeria). Of obscure origin, this industry seems to have spread along all the coastal areas of the Maghrib and Cyrenaica between about 15,000 and 10,000 bc. Following the Ibero-Maurusian was the Capsian, the origin of which is also obscure. Its most characteristic sites are in the area of the great salt lakes of southern Tunisia, the type site being Jabal al-Maqtaʿ (El-Mekta), near Gafsa (Capsa, or Qafṣah). The climate during both Ibero-Maurusian and Capsian times appears to have been relatively dry and the fauna one of open country, ideal for hunting. Between about 9000 and 5000 bc upper Capsian industry spread northward to influence the Ibero-Maurusian and also eastward to the Gulf of Sidra. Since there is much evidence that the Neolithic culture of the Maghrib was introduced not by invasion but through the acceptance of new ideas and technologies by the Capsian peoples, it is probable that they were the ancestors of the Libyans known in historic times.

The spread of early Neolithic culture in Libya and the Maghrib occurred during the 6th and 5th millennia bc and is characterized by the domestication of animals and the shift from hunting and gathering to self-supporting food production (often still including hunting). The pastoral economy, with cattle the chief animal, remained dominant in North Africa until the classical period. Although the new type of economy may have originated in Egypt or the Sudan, the character of the flint-working tradition of the Maghribian Neolithic argues in favour of the survival of much of the earlier culture, which has been called Neolithic-of-Capsian tradition. Accordingly, the technology of the transition, if not of independent local origin, is best explained by the gradual diffusion of new techniques rather than by the immigration of new peoples.

The Neolithic-of-Capsian tradition in the Maghrib persisted at least into the 1st millennium bc with relatively little change and development; there was no great flourishing of late Neolithic culture and little that can be described as a Bronze Age. North Africa was wholly lacking in metallic ores other than iron, hence most tools and weapons continued to be made of stone until the introduction of ironworking techniques.

Prehistoric rock carvings have been found in the southern foothills of the Atlas Mountains south of Oran and in the Ahaggar and Tibesti ranges. While some are relatively recent, the great majority appear to be of the Neolithic-of-Capsian tradition. Some show animals now locally or even totally extinct, such as the giant buffalo, elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus, in areas now covered by desert. While Egyptian-like patterns may be discerned, the character of the rock art is so different from that of Egypt that it can hardly be said to derive from it. On the other hand, it is very much later than the rock paintings of Paleolithic times in southwestern Europe, and an independent development is probable. The art is primarily that of a culture that continued to depend largely—though not exclusively—on hunting and that survived on the Saharan fringes until historical times.

There are many thousands of large, stone-built surface tombs in North Africa that appear to have no connection with earlier megalithic structures found in northern Europe, and it is unlikely that any of them is earlier than the 1st millennium bc. Large structures in Algeria such as the tumulus at Mzora (177 feet [54 metres] in diameter) and the mausoleum known as the Medracen (131 feet [40 metres] in diameter) are probably from the 4th and 3rd centuries bc and show Phoenician influence, though there is much that appears to be purely Libyan.

The Carthaginian period

The Phoenician settlements

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North Africa (with the exception of Cyrenaica) entered the mainstream of Mediterranean history with the arrival in the 1st millennium bc of Phoenician traders, mainly from Tyre and Sidon in modern Lebanon. The Phoenicians were looking not for land to settle but for anchorages and staging points on the trade route from Phoenicia to Spain, a source of silver and tin. Points on an alternative route by way of Sicily, Sardinia, and the Balearic Islands also were occupied. The Phoenicians lacked the manpower and the need to found large colonies as the Greeks did, and few of their settlements grew to any size. The sites chosen were generally offshore islands or easily defensible promontories with sheltered beaches on which ships could be drawn up. Carthage (its name derived from the Phoenician Kart-Hadasht, “New City”), destined to be the largest Phoenician colony and in the end an imperial power, conformed to the pattern.

Tradition dates the foundation of Gades (modern Cádiz; the earliest known Phoenician trading post in Spain) to 1110 bc, Utica (Utique) to 1101 bc, and Carthage to 814 bc. The dates appear legendary, and no Phoenician object earlier than the 8th century bc has yet been found in the west. At Carthage some Greek objects have been found, datable to about 750 or slightly later, which comes within two generations of the traditional date. Little can be learned from the romantic legends about the arrival of the Phoenicians at Carthage transmitted by Greco-Roman sources. Though individual voyages doubtless took place earlier, the establishment of permanent posts is unlikely to have taken place before 800 bc, antedating the parallel movement of Greeks to Sicily and southern Italy.

Material evidence of Phoenician occupation in the 8th century bc comes from Utica and in the 7th or 6th century bc from Hadrumetum (Sousse, Sūsah in Tunisia), Tipasa (east of Cherchell, Algeria), Siga (Rachgoun, Algeria), Lixus, and Mogador (Essaouira, Morocco), the last being the most distant Phoenician settlement so far known. Finds of similar age have been made at Motya (Mozia) in Sicily, Nora (Nurri), Sulcis, and Tharros (San Giovanni di Sinis) in Sardinia, and Cádiz and Almuñécar in Spain. Unlike the Greek settlements, however, those of the Phoenicians long depended politically on their homeland, and only a few were situated where the hinterland had the potential for development. The emergence of Carthage as an independent power, leading to the creation of an empire based on the secure possession of the North African coast, resulted less from the weakening of Tyre (the chief city of Phoenicia) by the Babylonians than from growing pressure from the Greeks in the western Mediterranean; in 580 bc some Greek cities in Sicily attempted to drive the Phoenicians from Motya and Panormus (Palermo) in the west of the island. The Carthaginians feared that, if the Greeks won the whole of Sicily, they would move on to Sardinia and beyond, isolating the Phoenicians in North Africa. Their successful defense of Sicily was followed by attempts to strengthen limited footholds in Sardinia; a fortress at Monte Sirai is the oldest Phoenician military building in the west. The threat from the Greeks receded when Carthage, in alliance with Etruscan cities, checked the Phocaeans off Corsica about 540 bc and succeeded in excluding the Greeks from contact with southern Spain.