UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Ancient Civilizations of Africa
dating from much earlier than the epoch of native kingdoms. Users of these
installations had equipment still partly made of stone.
At the time when the Phoenicians were about to introduce a triangular
metal-shared plough, the Berbers were already using their own type of
plough, which was admittedly less effective, for it consisted of a simple
wooden share drawn through the soil. 61 This plough must have brought
to an end the exclusive use of the hoe, for the Guanches who used the
latter never knew the plough. It appears that at firstthe Libyans often
drew the plough themselves by means of ropes slung over their shoulders.
But they had already been familiar for a very long time with the harnessing
of oxen, which is depicted both in Egyptian frescoes and in High Atlas
engravings. On the other hand they do not appear to have known any
mechanical method of threshing their crops before Punic times 62 and were
content to let the grain be trodden out by heavy cattle.
Botanists have shown that hard wheat (perhaps brought from Abyssinia)
and barley 63 were grown in North Africa long before the arrival of the
Phoenicians, together with beans and chick-peas, 64 although the latter
derived their Berber name, ikiker, from the Latin cicer.
In sylviculture, on the contrary, the Phoenician-Punic influence was
decisive. However, the Berbers may have known how to graft the oleaster
well before the Carthaginians spread the cultivation of the olive. On the
other hand, there is no evidence that the vine, which had existed in the
Algiers region ever since the beginning of the Quaternary period, was
cultivated before the arrival of the Phoenicians. The pre-Saharan Berbers
such as the Nasamonians of Herodotus (IV, 172, 182) and the 'Ethiopians',
cultivated the date-palm, which was less common on the borders of Africa
Minor than it is today. But the fig was the Berbers' favourite fruit 65 even
though Cato the Elder displayed a fresh fig in Rome to symbolize the
destruction of a rival city which was all too close.
Archaeological research into funerary monuments confirms the existence
in remote antiquity of large sedentary groups practising agriculture in
Africa Minor. It is true that the dating of protohistorical monuments is
peculiarly difficult in this region owing to the fact that Berber ceramics
are highly conservative. In any event, as long as we lack other evidence
to which an acceptably accurate date can be attached, we shall consider
as representative of the 'pre-Carthaginian' life of the Berbers the material
collected in the burial grounds of the remote pre-Roman period, which
are free from Carthaginian influences.
61. G. Camps, 1960b, pp. 82-3, with a bibliography at p. 82, note 287.
62. Concerning the plostellum poenicum originating in Palestine and Phoenicia, see most
recently J. Kolendo, pp. 15-16.
63. J. Erroux, pp. 238-53.
64. G. Camps, 1960b, p. 80.
65. G. Camps, 1960b, p. 90.
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