Geography of the Sahara and early development of societies. Early agriculture and metallurgy in West Africa. Rock art of the Sahara and vicinity and transition from hunter to pastoralist and from horse transport to camel transport. The Garamantes and their relationship with Romans.
2. Themes
• Development of African civilizations
• Cities
– Trade
– Environment
• Empires and their stories
3.
4. Standard Model – Food production
• Exploitation of plants and animals
• Cultivation of plants
• Domestication of plants
• Domestication of animals
• Functional pottery
5. Characteristics
Urbanism (Location! Location! Location!)
Central government
Specialization
Social hierarchy
Complex religion
Writing
Technology; public works; art and architecture
7. Middle Niger pattern of urbanism
• Non- nucleated congeries of specialized areas
• Separate areas
– Artisans
– Fishermen
– Religious and funerary activities
15. Rock Art Periods - Sahara
Roundhead (~7000 – 4600 BCE)
Bubalus (end of 6th – mid-4th millennium BCE)
– Extinct Algerian buffalo
Cattle or Pastoral Period (mid-4th to mid-2nd
millennium BCE)
Horse Period (from ~1200 BCE)
Camel Period (CE)
22. Cattle
• Introduced to North Africa from Middle East
• Later interbred with wild African aurochs
• Domestication shown in rock art
• ‘Cattle cult’
• Dairying
27. Dairying
Find animal fat residues
“unequivocal evidence for
extensive processing of dairy
products in pottery vessels in the
Libyan Sahara during the Middle
Pastoral period (approximately
5200–3800 BC)”
Processing explains use in the
presence of lactose intolerance
Dunne, Julie, et al. "First dairying in green
Saharan Africa in the fifth millennium
BC." Nature 486.7403 (2012): 390-394
29. Conjectured Sequence
• Hunt larger animals
• Hunt smaller animals
• Penning (possible attempt to domesticate
Barbary sheep)
• Introduction of domesticated cattle from
Middle East
• Interbreeding with native aurochs
30. Cattle Cult(s)
• First observed in Egyptian desert
• Rapid movement west with increasing aridity
• Suggest “a social response to cope with droughts and
famine, using this precious resource as an offering to
superhuman entities.”
• Later megalithic burials of people under conditions
of social differentiation
32. Figure 2. The sacrifice of a bull at In Erahar.
di Lernia S, Tafuri MA, Gallinaro M, Alhaique F, et al. (2013) Inside the “African Cattle Complex”: Animal Burials in the Holocene Central Sahara.
PLoS ONE 8(2): e56879. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0056879
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0056879
33. Figure 5. Examples of excavated archaeological features.
di Lernia S, Tafuri MA, Gallinaro M, Alhaique F, et al. (2013) Inside the “African Cattle Complex”: Animal Burials in the Holocene Central Sahara.
PLoS ONE 8(2): e56879. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0056879
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0056879
37. Plant use (Libyan Sahara)
• Early – herbs; no cereals
• Before cattle
– Cattails used for weaving & roofing
– Food accumulation
• Little change in pastoral period
38. Pearl millet
Pennisetum glaucum
– Cultivar: longer seed head; varied
colors
4500 BP Oldest archaeological
remains of cultivated pearl millet
found in Mali
~4000 BP Found in India
40. Fezzan and agricultural imports
• Free threshing wheat arrives in late 1st
millennium
• Pearl millet and sorghum arrive end of first
millennium
Inland Niger Delta
• African rice
43. Controversy
• Africans lack lack prior pyrotechnological skills for
iron metallurgy
• Dates older than 500 BCE are either unreliable or the
samples are contaminated
– Use of old charcoal
– 14C calibration curve
• Contrary view
– É. Zangato & A.F.C. Holl ‘On the Iron Front: New Evidence from North-Central Africa”
Journal of African Archaeology, Volume 8 (1), 2010, pages 7-23
– Holl, Augustin FC. "Early West African metallurgies: new data and old orthodoxy."
Journal of World Prehistory 22.4 (2009): 415-438.
– Bocoum, Hamady. The origins of iron metallurgy in Africa: new light on its antiquity,
West and Central Africa. Unesco, 2004.
44. Diffusion Hypotheses
Meroe hypothesis: iron metallurgy spread from
around Meroe, Nubia in the Nile Valley to the rest
of the continent
Carthaginian Origins: “The Phoenicians traded
extensively with the Berbers, who in turn
bartered with the Neolithic peoples south of the
desert. To the existing trade of salt for West
African gold and slaves the Berbers probably
added Phoenician goods, including iron”
45. Origins of Iron-working
• The smelting of iron
– More complex than other metals
– Needed large quantities of charcoal and special furnaces
– Main archaeological evidence: slag from smelting furnaces
• The origins of iron-working in Africa
– Earliest known origin in western Asia, 1500 BCE
– 670 BCE, earliest in Egypt
– Recent evidence: 1000 - 600 BCE, Chad/east African lakes
region
Probably independent African development
47. Early Iron Age in West Africa
• Spread through woodland savannah of west
Africa, 500-400 BCE
• More efficient clearing of land for agriculture,
and weapons for hunting
• Development of larger farming settlements
• Niger ‘inland delta’: variety of urban farming
settlements, e.g. Jenne-Jeno (250 BCE-400 CE)
• Specialised production and trade, 400-1000 CE
• From 500 BCE Nigerian ‘Nok Culture’
49. Uses of Iron
250 BCE –
400 CE
400 - 900 900-1000 100-1400
Decorative 5 9 3 8
Utilitarian 0 10 9 36
Iron Bracelet
Kissi, Burkina Faso
700 CE
50. Nok Culture,
Nigeria
Iron-working developed
by pre-existing stone-
working cultures
Terracotta figurines
prefiguring later bronzes
of Ife and Benin
51. Other Early Metallurgy
• c. 2200 to 700 BC Copper metallurgy in the
Eghazzer basin in Niger and the Bir Moghrein
in north- central Mauritania
• Early 2nd millennium BCE Iron metallurgy at
Air-Termit in Niger, and the Bouar region in
northwest Central African Republic
• Iron metallurgy in Niger ~600 BCE
56. Metal working and trade
• Copper and iron worked at different sites
• Different pottery styles
• Evidence for similar life styles
57. Carthaginians and Early trans-Saharan trade
• Carthaginian power (800-500 BCE) partly based on trans-Saharan
trade?
• Berber pastoralists controlled the trade; Indirect contact through
Sahara via oases
• Saharan salt traded north in exchange for food, cloth, beads, metal;
Salt traded south for gold, ivory and captives for sale into slavery
• Slavery minor part of trade: used at Saharan salt pans and for north
African labour
• Transport: donkeys, mules and horses
• Problems: water shortages, and raids by Garamantes
• Camel, from Arabia, not widely used in north Africa until 1st century
CE
59. Site Hierarchy
Site Type Characteristics Example(s)
Town Large agglomerations with
several satellite villages,
qsur and/or buildings
Qasr ash-Sharraba;
Jarma
Fortified village
up to 4 ha
Independent substantial
villages or satellite villages
in prime agricultural
locations
HHG001
Village with qsur
up to 6 ha
Independent substantial
villages or satellite villages
with focal fortified
building (qasr)
HHG006–008
82. Changes in Funerary Practice with Time
• Space between settlement and cemeteries
increases
• More grave goods
• Increased density follows increase in
population and population density
• Stratified society
• Roman influence, Egyptian influence
