New Light on the Silent Millennia: Mediterranean Africa, ca. 4000–900 BC

Abstract

The so-called neolithization process (ca. 6000/5500–4000 BC) in Mediterranean Africa and the Sahara has been increasingly researched in recent years. In contrast, relatively little is known, especially in Mediterranean Africa, of the period between the beginnings of irreversible climatic deterioration in the Sahara, around 4000–3500 BC, and the onset of Iron Age to broadly Classical times. Why, with the exception of the Nile Delta, is our knowledge of the period between the fourth millennium BC and the threshold of the first Iron Age Phoenician and Greek colonies so limited? To what extent can this information gap be attributed to aridification in the Mediterranean zone, or is it rather a product of the failure to look for the right kinds of materials and sites, and of their relative visibility? In order to answer these questions, this paper focuses specifically on Mediterranean Africa (with the exception of Egypt) from about 4000 BC to ca. 900 BC. It is mainly based on the data made available on MedAfriCarbon, a spatially linked, publicly accessible database and web app comprising the 14C chronometric evidence from Mediterranean Africa from 12,000 to 600 cal. BC, with details of associated cultural and economic information. Analysis of these data shows that most of Mediterranean Africa beyond the Nile was occupied to different extents throughout the 3000-year period covered in this article and that, with a few important exceptions, the robust and resilient nature of local, mainly pastoral, ways of life militated against a shift towards a fully agricultural economy.