UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

The proto-Berbers
peopling of the Maghrib is certainly the result of a merger, in proportions
not yet determined, of three elements: Ibero-Maurusian, Capsian and
Neolithic.
It is generally agreed that the Neolithic age began with the appearance
of ceramics. Recent Carbon 14 measurements indicate that the use of
ceramics spread outwards from the central and eastern Sahara. Within that
area the oldest Neolithic examples are of Sudanese inspiration. The
beginnings of ceramics may be dated to the seventh millennium before our
era in the region stretching from the Ennedi to the Hoggar. 11 The makers
were probably black or negroid people related to the Sudanese of early
Khartoum. The ox had undoubtedly become domesticated by —4000 at
the latest. It is not impossible that cattle were domesticated earlier in the
Acacus. ' 2 Evidence of a Neolithic culture in the Capsian tradition dates
from a somewhat later period - in about —5350 at Fort Flatters, 13 even
a little earlier in the valley of the Saoura - and does not become established
in the northern part of the Capsian area before —4500. In the region
lying between these two currents which affect 'the Maghreb of the high
lands and the Northern Sahara', Neolithic characteristics do not emerge
until much later. European influence is out of the question except in the
case of a third Neolithic culture which came to the fore on the Moroccan
and Oranian coasts in the sixth millennium before our era 14 although we
hesitate to date the beginnings of navigation across the Straits of Gibraltar
so far back. Balout would agree to place the beginnings of navigation across
the Straits of Gibraltar in the fourth millennium before our era.
The humid period of the Neolithic age came to an end towards the
middle of the third millennium, as attested by the dating of guano from
the Taessa (Atakor in the Hoggar). 15 Arkell's work on the fossil fauna
and flora on Mesolithic and Neolithic sites in the Khartoum region gives
some support to this findingas regards the valley of the upper Nile. From
this time on North Africa, almost totally cut off from the whole continent
by desert, found itself virtually an island, only able to communicate easily
with the rest of Africa through the narrow corridor of Tripolitania. This
drastic reduction of the former unity of Africa was, however, compensated
for by new relationships established precisely at that time on the two wings
of the Maghreb, on the one hand with the south of the Iberian peninsula,
and on the other with Sicily, Sardinia, Malta and southern Italy. ' 6
As early as the close of the third millennium before our era the painted
11. H. J. Hugot, 1963, p. 134; cf. ibid., p. 138 and note 3, p. 185. On recent Carbon
14 datings, see G. Camps, 1974b, p. 269.
12. W. Resch, p. 52; see also P. Beck and P. Huard; F. Mori, 1964, pp. 233-41;
J. P. Maître, 1971, pp. 57-8.
13. G. Camps, G. Delibrias and J. Thommeret, p. 23.
14. L. Balout, 1967, p. 28; G. Camps, 1974b, p. 272.
15. A. Pons and P. Quézel, pp. 34-5; G. Delibrias, H. J. Hugot and P. Quézel,
pp. 267-70.
16. G. Camps, 1960a, pp. 31-55; 1961.
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