Northern Africa Research Paper

Northern Africa can be an ambiguous term. Northern and North Africa are two different entities. Northern Africa consists of Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, and Western Sahara. North Africa loses certainty because of land and country disputes.

Northern African inhabitants can be traced farther back than one might think. Evidence has been dated back as far as the Pleistocene period. This can be referred to as the Ice Age. It is believed that a large glacier once sat over parts of Africa. It is believed that when this glacier started to melt, that it sent massive amounts of water north towards what we now call the Mediterranean Sea. Because of this, many archeologists believe that the northern parts of Africa once had a much different

climate. Do to this changing climate, people moved and evolved around it. There is significant evidence for hunter-gatherer civilizations that go between 90,000 to 10,000 years ago, the Paleolithic era. This movement is evident throughout the Nile valley as well as the Eastern Sahara. We can see this evidence mainly in the excavations bringing up stone tools. Some of these tools are representative of localized inventions while others are accurate with European tools. Hand axes have also been discovered, that date back to this time, in such numbers that they appear to have been a very useful and widely used tool. The digging of sites shows that because of the climate back then people where in places uninhabited today. We can track the development of the land and the people by the items that we excavate. Stone tools, such as these hand axes indicate the paleolithic era. We also see that they are harvesting crops with sickles but are not replanting them. We also see that very early on they burry their dead, and a little later they start to burry objects such as pottery with them.
Moving forward, we have discovered more developments. The Mesolithic stage advances the hunter-gatherers from relying on larger animals to smaller ones such as fish and more heavily on crops. At archeological sites, harpoons made from bone have been uncovered. Pottery also emerges with decorations done with the spines of fish. This pottery is a large indicator of the Mesolithic age as these peoples evolve with time. Paleobotany also indicates this area had a much wetter climate than it does today. Arrows have also been found with stone tips used for hunting and possibly quarrels with other people groups. With the development in pottery we can see the possibility of cooked food which is a major development in early northern African culture. Here we see a major shift. They also start to shift to living in larger settlements.
Finally, the Neolithic also brings some more early culture developments. Thanks to paleozoology we can trace animal remains with incredible accuracy. This indicates that these people evolved into caring for domesticated animals. This could have been brought on by a drought causing famine. We see them now having livestock such as cattle and goats. The polishing of stone is also prevalent throughout this age. This technique allows for sharper tools that can be used for cutting and shaping. This brought with it the cultivation of wheat, and many other grains. The more successful of a farmer they were, the more they could trade for other goods that they needed. With large amounts of food, they are also able to support a large population to have and workers or even an small army. After these points, northern Africa’s prehistory is pretty much history coming up on 3,000 BCE.
With the excavations of stone tools, pottery, animal remains, and human remains we can see an evolution of the early people groups of Northern Africa. These developments are significant to determine the prehistory and origins of the civilizations we learn about today. With this information we can accurately see and develop thoughts and ideas of the ancient world, but there might forever be questions that escape our definitions.