Current research and recent radiocarbon dates from Northern Africa

Abstract

The effect of recent radiocarbon dates from North Africa has largely been to extend the principal phases of prehistory back in time. The Middle Palaeolithic now seems to be essentially beyond the range of the radiocarbon technique, at least in the Eastern part of North Africa, although it may persist later in the West, and, throughout North Africa (with the sole exception of Cyrenaican Libya), there remains a disturbing hiatus between the Middle Palaeolithic and the subsequent Late Palaeolithic bladelet industries. The latter now seem to appear at about 20,000 B.c. over most of non-Saharan, North Africa, and may eventually be found to be earlier. Some of the earliest such occurrences may well be associated with domestication of plants (in Egypt) and of animals (in Algeria). If so, this will necessitate serious reconsideration of our concepts of the ‘Neolithic’. In any case, a true Neolithic appears in parts of the Southern Sahara as early as the eighth millennium B.C., and is widespread in the area by the seventh millennium. Curiously, the beginnings of the Neolithic are much later in the neighbouring and more luxuriant areas (the Nile Valley, the Mediterranean littoral and the Maghreb) than they are in the desert. Less research has been done on the final prehistoric and early historic periods, but, in the North, the invention of the Libyan alphabet and, in the South, the later Iron Age of Chad both seem earlier than had been thought.

Ages of Quaternary pluvial episodes determined by uranium-series and radiocarbon dating of lacustrine deposits of Eastern Sahara

“…The new U-series results suggest significantly older ages for these samples, which are all from the northern part of the Selima Sand Sheet (Tables 1 and 2, samples 9, 17, and 24). Earlier archaeological research from Bir Sahara East and Bir Tarfawi did not preclude the about 45-ka interpretation, because artifacts attributed to the Aterian technocomplex associated with the upper lacustrine deposits in both basins had been dated elsewhere as of similar age (Close, 1980). However, Wendorf and Schild (1980) considered the Aterian at Bir Sahara East to be older than 44 ka, on the basis that the oldest snail shell date was a minimum value.…”

Early and Middle Holocene Environments and Capsian Cultural Change: Evidence from the Télidjène Basin, Eastern Algeria

“…Grébénart's reexcavation and re-analysis of Relilaï and several other sites led him to conclude (1976: 296) that a unilineal sequence of Typical Capsian-Upper Capsian was no longer tenable. However, as additional radiocarbon dates became available (Close 1980(Close , 1984(Close , 1988 and new syntheses were attempted (Lubell et al , 1991Sheppard and Lubell 1990), it seemed that Camps and Grébénart might not be correct. Careful excavation in the 1970s of two Capsian escargotières in the Télidjène Valley (Fig.…”

Accuracy vs. Precision: Understanding Potential Errors from Radiocarbon Dating on African Landscapes

“…The journals Archaeometry and Radiocarbon published the results of radiocarbon tests, until this practice was phased out in the 1990s and 2000s due to the sheer volume of measurements being processed by labs. The Journal of African History also published comprehensive lists of all radiocarbon dates from the entirety of the African continent until 1969 and increasingly selective portions of the continent until 2005 (e.g., Close 1988;Mitchell and Whitelaw 2005;Sinclair 1991), but this practice has been abandoned. Regional public databases have been assembled such as the Canadian Archaeological Radiocarbon Database (CARD), which also hosts many dates from eastern Africa (Courtney Mustaphi and Marchant 2016).…”