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Berbers are primarily not African ?
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Trollkillah # Ish Gebor: [QB] [QUOTE] Cattle pastoralism is an important trait of African cultures. Ethnographic studies describe the central role played by domestic cattle within many societies, highlighting its social and ideological value well beyond its mere function as ‘walking larder’. Historical depth of this African legacy has been repeatedly assessed in an archaeological perspective, mostly emphasizing a continental vision. Nevertheless, in-depth site-specific studies, with a few exceptions, are lacking. Despite the long tradition of a multi-disciplinary approach to the analysis of pastoral systems in Africa, rarely do early and middle Holocene archaeological contexts feature in the same area the combination of settlement, ceremonial and rock art features so as to be multi-dimensionally explored: the Messak plateau in the Libyan central Sahara represents an outstanding exception. Known for its rich Pleistocene occupation and abundant Holocene rock art, the region, through our research, has also shown to preserve the material evidence of a complex ritual dated to the Middle Pastoral (6080–5120 BP or 5200– 3800 BC). This was centred on the frequent deposition in stone monuments of disarticulated animal remains, mostly cattle. Animal burials are known also from other African contexts, but regional extent of the phenomenon, state of preservation of monuments, and associated rock art make the Messak case unique. GIS analysis, excavation data, radiocarbon dating, zooarchaeological and isotopic (Sr, C, O) analyses of animal remains, and botanical information are used to explore this highly formalized ritual and the lifeways of a pastoral community in the Holocene Sahara. [...] [b]Middle Pastoral herders of the central Sahara[/b] [i]Cattle and small livestock were introduced in the Central Sahara at the end of the 8th millennium BP, and slowly adopted by local groups of hunter-gatherers [2]. In the Acacus and Messak mountains (SW Libya) a full exploitation of domesticates, which included dairying [7], is dated to the Middle Pastoral (6100– 5000 BP), a cultural phase generally characterized by wet and warm environmental conditions [34–36]. [/i] [/QUOTE]--Mary Anne Tafuri et al., Inside the ‘‘African Cattle Complex’’: Animal Burials in the Holocene Central Sahara [IMG]http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/037/513/i02/libyan-stone-age-skeleton.jpg?1362612916[/IMG] [QUOTE] Archaeologists have uncovered 20 Stone-Age skeletons in and around a rock shelter in Libya's Sahara desert, according to a new study. The skeletons date between 8,000 and 4,200 years ago, meaning the burial place was used for millennia. "It must have been a place of memory," said study co-author Mary Anne Tafuri, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge. "People throughout time have kept it, and they have buried their people, over and over, generation after generation." About 15 women and children were buried in the rock shelter, while five men and juveniles were buried under giant stone heaps called tumuli outside the shelter during a later period, when the region turned to desert. The findings, which are detailed in the March issue of the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, suggest the culture changed with the climate. Millennia of burials From about 8,000 to 6,000 years ago, the Sahara desert region, called Wadi Takarkori, was filled with scrubby vegetation and seasonal green patches. Stunning rock art depicts ancient herding animals, such as cows, which require much more water to graze than the current environment could support, Tafuri said. Tafuri and her colleague Savino di Lernia began excavating the archaeological site between 2003 and 2006. At the same site, archaeologists also uncovered huts, animal bones and pots with traces of the earliest fermented dairy products in Africa. [See Images of the Stone-Age Skeletons] To date the skeletons, Tafuri measured the remains for concentrations of isotopes, or molecules of the same element with different weights. The team concluded that the skeletons were buried over four millennia, with most of the remains in the rock shelter buried between 7,300 and 5,600 years ago. The males and juveniles under the stone heaps were buried starting 4,500 years ago, when the region became more arid. Rock art confirms the dry up, as the cave paintings began to depict goats, which need much less water to graze than cows, Tafuri said. The ancient people also grew up not far from the area where they were buried, based on a comparison of isotopes in tooth enamel, which forms early in childhood, with elements in the nearby environment. Shift in culture? The findings suggest the burial place was used for millennia by the same group of people. It also revealed a divided society. "The exclusive use of the rock shelter for female and sub-adult burials points to a persistent division based on gender," wrote Marina Gallinaro, a researcher in African studies at Sapienza University of Rome, who was not involved in the study, in an email to LiveScience. One possibility is that during the earlier period, women had a more critical role in the society, and families may have even traced their descent through the female line. But once the Sahara began its inexorable expansion into the region about 5,000 years ago, the culture shifted and men's prominence may have risen as a result, Gallinaro wrote. The region as a whole is full of hundreds of sites yet to be excavated, said Luigi Boitani, a biologist at Sapienza University of Rome, who has worked on archaeological sites in the region but was not involved in the study. "The area is an untapped treasure," Boitani said. The new discovery also highlights the need to protect the fragile region, which has been closed to archaeologists since the revolution that ousted dictator Moammar el Gadhafi. Takarkori is very close to the main road that leads from Libya into neighboring Niger, so rebels and other notorious political figures, such as Gadhafi's sons, have frequently passed through the area to escape the country, he said. [/QUOTE] http://www.livescience.com/27697-stone-age-libyan-burials-unearthed.html [/QB][/QUOTE]
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