Prehistoric North Africa

The prehistory of North Africa spans the period of earliest human presence in the region to gradual onset of historicity in the Maghreb (Berber:Tamazgha) during classical antiquity. Early anatomically modern humans are known to have been present at Jebel Irhoud, in what is now Morocco, approximately 300,000 years ago. The Nile Valley region, via ancient Egypt, contributed to the Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age periods of the Old World, along with the ancient Near East.

Climate

Human habitation in North Africa has been greatly influenced by the climate of the Sahara (currently the world's largest warm desert), which has undergone enormous variations between wet and dry over the last few hundred thousand years. This is due to a 41,000-year Axial tilt cycle in which the tilt of the earth changes between 22° and 24.5°. At present (2000 CE), we are in a dry period, but it is expected that the Sahara will become green again in 15,000 years (17,000 CE).

During the last glacial period, the Sahara was much larger than it is today, extending south beyond its current boundaries. The end of the glacial period brought more rain to the Sahara, from about 8000 BCE to 6000 BCE, perhaps because of low pressure areas over the collapsing ice sheets to the north. Once the ice sheets were gone, the northern Sahara dried out. In the southern Sahara, the drying trend was initially counteracted by the monsoon, which brought rain further north than it does today. By around 4200 BCE, however, the monsoon retreated south to approximately where it is today, leading to the gradual desertification of the Sahara. The Sahara is presently as dry as it was about 13,000 years ago.

These conditions are responsible for what has been called the Sahara pump theory. During periods of a wet or "Green Sahara", the Sahara becomes a savanna 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 the Atlas Mountains, southwards into West Africa, or eastwards into the Nile Valley. This separates populations of some of the species in areas with different climates, forcing them to adapt, possibly giving rise to allopatric speciation.

Lower Paleolithic

The earliest inhabitants of central North Africa have left behind significant remains: early remnants of hominid occupation in North Africa, for example, were found in Ain el Hanech, in Setif (c. 200,000 BCE); in fact, more recent investigations have found signs of Oldowan technology, which has been dated between 2,000,000 BCE and 1,470,000 BCE.

Middle Paleolithic

Early anatomically modern humans are known to have been present at Jebel Irhoud, in what is now Morocco, approximately 300,000 years ago.

Human groups of Nazlet Sabaha, Egypt engaged in chert mining, as early as ~100,000 years ago, likely for use as tools.

In the Sahara, Aterians camped near lakes, rivers, and springs, and engaged in the activity of hunting (e.g., antelope, buffalo, elephant, rhinoceros) and some gathering. As a result of a hyper-aridification event of Saharan Africa, which occurred around the time of Europe's Würm glaciation event, Aterian hunter-gatherers may have migrated into areas of tropical Africa and coastal Africa. More specifically, amid aridification in MIS 5 and regional change of climate in MIS 4, in the Sahara and the Sahel, Aterians may have migrated southward into West Africa (e.g., Baie du Levrier, Mauritania; Tiemassas, Senegal; Lower Senegal River Valley).

Upper Paleolithic

The Iberomaurusian culture seems to have appeared around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum, somewhere between c. 25,000 cal BP and 23,000 cal BP. It would have lasted until the early Holocene, c. 11,000 cal BP.

Archaeological evidence has attested that population settlements occurred in Nubia as early as the Late Pleistocene and from the 5th millennium BCE 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.

Mesolithic

The Capsian culture was a Mesolithic and Neolithic culture of the Maghreb that persisted between 8000 BCE and 2700 BCE.

The engraved Central Saharan rock art of the Bubaline Period was created between 10,000 BP and 7500 BP.

The engraved Central Saharan rock art of the Kel Essuf Period was created prior to 9800 BP.

The painted Central Saharan rock art of the Round Head Period was created between 9800 BP and 7500 BP.

Neolithic

Neolithic agriculturalists, who may have resided in Northeast Africa and the Near East, may have been the source population for lactase persistence variants, including –13910*T, and may have been subsequently supplanted by later migrations of peoples. The Sub-Saharan West African Fulani, the North African Tuareg, and European agriculturalists, who are descendants of these Neolithic agriculturalists, share the lactase persistence variant –13910*T. 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. The Fulani lactase persistence variant –13910*T may have spread, along with cattle pastoralism, 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 of milking in the Central Sahara. The engraved and painted Central Saharan rock art of the Pastoral Period was created between 7500 BP and 2800 BP. One of the earliest Libyco-Berber inscriptions in Africa are found in Wadi Mertoutek, near or within a petroglyph, which may be the depiction of a bovid, and may be associated with a pastoral community during a period of pastoralism.

Human remains were found by archaeologists in 2000 at a site known as Gobero in the Ténéré Desert of northeastern Niger (7700 BCE – 6200 BCE) and the Tenerian (5200 BCE – 2500 BCE) cultures.

The classic account of the riparian lifestyle of this period comes from investigations in Sudan during World War II by British archeologist Anthony Arkell. Arkell's report described a Late Stone Age settlement on a sandbank of the Blue Nile which was then about higher than its present flood stage. 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. 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. The physical characteristics derived from skeletal remains suggested that these people were related to modern Nilotic peoples, such as the Nuer and Dinka. Subsequent radiocarbon dating firmly established Arkell's site to between 7000 BCE and 5000 BCE. Based on common patterns at his site and at French-excavated sites already reported from Chad, Mali and Niger

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