5 - The Late Palaeolithic and Epi-Palaeolithic of northern Africa

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Most of the geographical area considered in this chapter falls into what is sometimes called ‘white Africa’, where much of the modern population is more closely related, culturally and biologically, to the south-west Asian and circum-Mediterranean peoples than to those south of the Sahara. There are obvious geographical and historical reasons for these physical, religious and linguistic similarities in recent times. It is probable that an analogous situation existed during the period of prehistory discussed here, but it is difficult to measure the extent of the relationships. Although never sealed off from the regions south of the deserts, and at times even enjoying considerable cultural and genetic exchanges with them, northern Africa nevertheless remained a sub-region of Africa that was marked by its ties with the lands to the east, and perhaps to the north, of the Mediterranean. The cultural features during the Late Palaeolithic and Epi-Palaeolithic were therefore the products, on the one hand, of influences from outside the area and, on the other, of prolonged selection and sorting of various elements by human adaptive strategies suitable to the physical features and the resources peculiar to the local environments within North Africa.

The area involved is very large and extends from the Atlantic to the Red Sea and from the Mediterranean to the southern part of the Sahara (fig. 5.1). This southern boundary is difficult to fix with precision, but it can be considered to correspond approximately to latitude 16°N and thus to run from about Dakar to Khartoum and eastward to the Red Sea, cutting across the republics of Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Tchad and Sudan.