Sahara: Trade and Empire

Summer 2014

Themes

• Development of African civilizations• Cities– Trade– Environment

• Empires and their stories

Standard Model – Food production

• Exploitation of plants and animals• Cultivation of plants• Domestication of plants• Domestication of animals• Functional pottery

Characteristics

Urbanism (Location! Location! Location!)Central governmentSpecializationSocial hierarchyComplex religionWritingTechnology; public works; art and architecture

Classical City

• Nucleated• Hierarchal - Elites• Low surrounding population

Middle Niger pattern of urbanism

• Non- nucleated congeries of specialized areas• Separate areas– Artisans– Fishermen– Religious and funerary activities

Technologies

• Pottery• Specialized tools such as plows• Wheeled vehicles• Metallurgy• Woven textiles

Ecozones

Becoming the Sahara Desert

Ancient Lakes (estimated 10% of Sahara)

Climate Change in the Sahara and the Sahel(rock art)

Response to climate change

Wild fauna

Tadrart Acacus, Libya

Niger

Rock Art Periods - Sahara

Roundhead (~7000 – 4600 BCE)Bubalus (end of 6th – mid-4th millennium BCE)– Extinct Algerian buffalo

Cattle or Pastoral Period (mid-4th to mid-2nd millennium BCE)Horse Period (from ~1200 BCE)Camel Period (CE)

Roundhead

Bubalus period

Bubulus antiquus,Fezzan, Libya

Other animals

Pottery

Tassili, Algeria 9080 BP

Ounjougou, Mali9400 BCE

Wavy line and dotted wavy line pottery

Cattle

• Introduced to North Africa from Middle East• Later interbred with wild African aurochs• Domestication shown in rock art• ‘Cattle cult’• Dairying

Hunting cattle

Herding

Domesticated animals, Fezzan

Camp life, Tassili, Libya

Dairying

Find animal fat residues“unequivocal evidence for extensive processing of dairy products in pottery vessels in the Libyan Sahara during the Middle Pastoral period (approximately 5200–3800 BC)”Processing explains use in the presence of lactose intolerance

Dunne, Julie, et al. "First dairying in green Saharan Africa in the fifth millennium

BC." Nature 486.7403 (2012): 390-394

Milking sceneMessak, SW Libya

Conjectured Sequence

• Hunt larger animals • Hunt smaller animals• Penning (possible attempt to domesticate

Barbary sheep)• Introduction of domesticated cattle from

Middle East• Interbreeding with native aurochs

Cattle Cult(s)

• First observed in Egyptian desert• Rapid movement west with increasing aridity• Suggest “a social response to cope with droughts and

famine, using this precious resource as an offering to superhuman entities.”

• Later megalithic burials of people under conditions of social differentiation

Messak

• Pastoral rock art• Sacrifices• Monumental with cattle

bones

Figure 2. The sacrifice of a bull at In Erahar.

di Lernia S, Tafuri MA, Gallinaro M, Alhaique F, et al. (2013) Inside the “African Cattle Complex”: Animal Burials in the Holocene Central Sahara. PLoS ONE 8(2): e56879. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0056879http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0056879

Figure 5. Examples of excavated archaeological features.

di Lernia S, Tafuri MA, Gallinaro M, Alhaique F, et al. (2013) Inside the “African Cattle Complex”: Animal Burials in the Holocene Central Sahara. PLoS ONE 8(2): e56879. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0056879http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0056879

Messak, Libya rock art site ~5200 bp

Cattle cult bone heap, Mankhor, Algeria

Cattle cult in Niger

Plant use (Libyan Sahara)

• Early – herbs; no cereals• Before cattle– Cattails used for weaving & roofing– Food accumulation

• Little change in pastoral period

Pearl millet

Pennisetum glaucum– Cultivar: longer seed head; varied

colors

4500 BP Oldest archaeological remains of cultivated pearl millet found in Mali~4000 BP Found in India

Pearl MilletWild and Cultivated

Fezzan and agricultural imports

• Free threshing wheat arrives in late 1st millennium

• Pearl millet and sorghum arrive end of first millennium

Inland Niger Delta• African rice

Metallurgy: Standard Chronology

• Copper – native• Copper – smelted• Copper – arsenic and copper-tin• Iron

Melting PointsMetal Melting PointCopper 1064Cast Iron 1204Silver 961Gold 1063Bronze 913

Controversy

• Africans lack lack prior pyrotechnological skills for iron metallurgy

• Dates older than 500 BCE are either unreliable or the samples are contaminated– Use of old charcoal– 14C calibration curve

• Contrary view– É. Zangato & A.F.C. Holl ‘On the Iron Front: New Evidence from North-Central Africa”

Journal of African Archaeology, Volume 8 (1), 2010, pages 7-23– Holl, Augustin FC. "Early West African metallurgies: new data and old orthodoxy." Journal of

World Prehistory 22.4 (2009): 415-438.– Bocoum, Hamady. The origins of iron metallurgy in Africa: new light on its antiquity, West

and Central Africa. Unesco, 2004.

Diffusion Hypotheses

Meroe hypothesis: iron metallurgy spread from around Meroe, Nubia in the Nile Valley to the rest of the continent

Carthaginian Origins: “The Phoenicians traded extensively with the Berbers, who in turn bartered with the Neolithic peoples south of the desert. To the existing trade of salt for West African gold and slaves the Berbers probably added Phoenician goods, including iron”

Origins of Iron-working

• The smelting of iron– More complex than other metals– Needed large quantities of charcoal and special furnaces– Main archaeological evidence: slag from smelting furnaces

• The origins of iron-working in Africa– Earliest known origin in western Asia, 1500 BCE– 670 BCE, earliest in Egypt– Recent evidence: 1000 - 600 BCE, Chad/east African lakes

region

Probably independent African development

Furnace with tuyéres Tora-Sira-Tomo 1, Mouhoun Bend NW Burkina Faso

Early Iron Age in West Africa

• Spread through woodland savannah of west Africa, 500-400 BCE

• More efficient clearing of land for agriculture, and weapons for hunting

• Development of larger farming settlements• Niger ‘inland delta’: variety of urban farming

settlements, e.g. Jenne-Jeno (250 BCE-400 CE)• Specialised production and trade, 400-1000 CE• From 500 BCE Nigerian ‘Nok Culture’

Spread of Iron Working technology

Uses of Iron250 BCE –

400 CE400 - 900 900-1000 100-1400

Decorative 5 9 3 8Utilitarian 0 10 9 36

Iron BraceletKissi, Burkina Faso700 CE

Nok Culture, Nigeria

Iron-working developed by pre-existing stone-working cultures

Terracotta figurines prefiguring later bronzes of Ife and Benin

Other Early Metallurgy

• c. 2200 to 700 BC Copper metallurgy in the Eghazzer basin in Niger and the Bir Moghrein in north- central Mauritania

• Early 2nd millennium BCE Iron metallurgy at Air-Termit in Niger, and the Bouar region in northwest Central African Republic

• Iron metallurgy in Niger ~600 BCE

Copper spears, Air-Termit, Niger

Hunt scene, Air Termit

Early copper furnaces 2000-1000 BCE

Niger: Copper furnaces, 1000 BCE to 1000 CE

Metal working and trade

• Copper and iron worked at different sites• Different pottery styles• Evidence for similar life styles

Carthaginians and Early trans-Saharan trade

• Carthaginian power (800-500 BCE) partly based on trans-Saharan trade?

• Berber pastoralists controlled the trade; Indirect contact through Sahara via oases

• Saharan salt traded north in exchange for food, cloth, beads, metal;Salt traded south for gold, ivory and captives for sale into slavery

• Slavery minor part of trade: used at Saharan salt pans and for north African labour

• Transport: donkeys, mules and horses• Problems: water shortages, and raids by Garamantes• Camel, from Arabia, not widely used in north Africa until 1st century

CE

Garamantes

Trans-Sahara trade in the Classical World

Site HierarchySite Type Characteristics Example(s)Town Large agglomerations with

several satellite villages, qsur and/or buildings

Qasr ash-Sharraba; Jarma

Fortified villageup to 4 ha

Independent substantial villages or satellite villages in prime agricultural locations

HHG001

Village with qsurup to 6 ha

Independent substantial villages or satellite villages with focal fortified building (qasr)

HHG006–008

Garama (Jarma)

Central Fazzan and Romans

Trade Routes

Horse and Camel styles

Horse rock art ‘flying galllop’

Chariot

Chariots

Jarma, excavated buildings, kite photos

Urban Center HHG001 and vicinity

JarmaHinterland

Foggara

Domestic architecture, 1-400 CE

Elite –stone fittings Commonermudbrick

Workshops, houses or combinations, 1-400 CE

Fewet

Fewet, Excavated Compound

Fewet Compound, plan

Garamantes dwelling unit, Fewet, Libya

Basalt Lamps Charred Mats, Grinding tools

Garamante gathering

Camel period rock art, Tadrart Acacus

Caravan, Acacus Mountains, Algeria

Garamantes - Soldiers

Changes in Funerary Practice with Time

• Space between settlement and cemeteries increases

• More grave goods• Increased density follows increase in

population and population density• Stratified society• Roman influence, Egyptian influence

Al-Hatiya, Tombs

Fewet tumulus

Garamantean Royal Cemetery, Jarma

Tumulus Northern Fazzan

Qsar (castle) Abyad, northern Fazzan

Tin Hinan, Tomb

Tin Hinan Tomb Plan

The ‘Princess’

Writing

• Influenced by Punic• Earliest inscription at Jarma

1st C. BCE• Dougga (Thugga) Monument

139 BCE

In situ inscription, Tadrart Acacus, SW Libya

Stele, Germa

Dougga Mausoleum, 139 BCE

Trade

To Romans• Slaves• Natron• Cotton• Ivory• Carbuncles

From Romans• Oil• Pottery• Glass• Technology