1.
Sallust
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Gaius Sallustius Crispus, usually anglicised as Sallust, was a Roman historian, politician, and novus homo from an Italian plebeian family. Sallust was born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines and was a popularis, an opponent of the old Roman aristocracy, throughout his career, and later a partisan of Julius Caesar. Sallust is the earliest known Roman historian with surviving works to his name, of which Catilines War, The Jugurthine War, Sallust was primarily influenced by the Greek historian Thucydides and amassed great wealth from his governorship of Africa. Sallust was probably born in Amiternum in Central Italy, though Eduard Schwartz takes the view that Sallusts birthplace was Rome and his birth date is calculated from the report of Jeromes Chronicon. But the New Zealander Ronald Syme suggests that Jeromes date has to be adjusted because of his carelessness, however, Sallusts birth is widely dated at 86 BC, and the Kleine Pauly Encyclopedia takes 1 October 86 BC as the birthdate. Michael Grant cautiously offers 80s BC, there is no information about Sallusts parents or family, except for Tacitus mention of his sister. The Sallustii were a noble family of Sabine origin. They belonged to the order and had full Roman citizenship. During the Social War Gaius parents hid in Rome, because Amiternum was under threat of siege by rebelling Italic tribes, because of this Sallust could have been raised in Rome He received a very good education. After an ill-spent youth, Sallust entered public life and may have won election as quaestor in 55 BC and he became a Tribune of the Plebs in 52 BC, the year in which the followers of Milo killed Clodius in a street brawl. Sallust then supported the prosecution of Milo, Sallust, Titus Munatius Plancus and Quintus Pompeius Rufus also tried to blame Cicero, one of the leaders of the Senators opposition to the triumvirate, for his support of Milo. Syme suggests that Sallust, because of his position in Milos trial, T. Mommsen states that Sallust acted in Pompeys interests. According to one inscription, some Sallustius was a proquaestor in Syria in 50 BC under Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus. Mommsen identified this Sallustius with Sallust the historian, though T. R. S. Broughton argued that Sallust the historian could not have been an assistant to Julius Caesars adversary. From the beginning of his career, Sallust operated as a decided partisan of Julius Caesar. In 50 BC, the censor Appius Claudius Pulcher removed him from the Senate on the grounds of gross immorality, in the following year, perhaps through Caesars influence, he was reinstated. During the Civil War of 49–45 BC Sallust acted as Caesars partisan and it was reported that Sallust dined with Caesar, Hirtius, Oppius, Balbus and Sulpicius Rufus on the night after Caesars famous crossing of the Rubicon river into Italy on 10 January. In 49 BC Sallust was moved to Illyricum and probably commanded at least one legion there after the failure of Publius Cornelius Dolabella, in 48 BC he was probably made quaestor by Caesar to re-enter the Senate
2.
Cirta
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Cirta was the capital city of the Berber Kingdom of Numidia in northern Africa. Its strategically important port city was Russicada, although Numidia was a key ally of the ancient Roman Republic during the Punic Wars, Cirta was subject to Roman invasions during the 1st and 2nd centuries BC. Eventually went under Roman dominion during the rule of Julius Caesar, vandals damaged Cirta, but emperor Justinianus I reconquered and improved the Roman city. Arabs finally captured it in 698 AD, pliny calls the city as the first century Roman colonia Cirta Sittianorum, together with Rusicade, Milevum and Chullu in what was an autonomous territory of the new province Africa Nova. Indeed, Rome allowed Publius Sittius and his Italian legionaries from Campania to rule the territory of Cirta, however, under Publius Sittius, Cirta was a special colony with some autonomy from Rome. Under the emperor Augustus, the city obtained full Roman status as colonia with the name Iulia Iuvenalis Honoris et Virtutis Cirta in 27 BC, since then Cirta started to grow enormously as an economic center of Roman Africa. The city by the end of the second century -when Christianity started to be important- had nearly 50,000 inhabitants, according to historian Robin Daniel. Cirtas populace was as diverse as the Roman Republic itself — alongside native Numidians were Carthaginians displaced by the Second and Third Punic Wars, as well as Greeks, Romans, and Italians. It served as a hub for Rome’s African empire, as it was inhabited by Roman and Italian merchants, bankers. Not only was Cirta an important economic site, it was also a key political, during the Second Punic War, the Battle of Cirta marked a decisive Roman victory for Scipio Africanus against Romes most formidable rival in the Mediterranean — Carthage. Moreover, Rome illustrated its willingness to defend its interests in Cirta into the late 2nd century BC following the death of Micipsa, King of Numidia, a power struggle ensued between his adopted son Jugurtha and his natural son Adherbal. Adherbal appealed to Rome to help broker a truce and to help evenly split the kingdom between the two heirs, despite a senatorial commission’s seemingly successful mediation, Jugurtha besieged Cirta, killing Adherbal and Italian elites who defended him. Subsequently, Rome declared war on the kingdom to assert its hegemony in the region, jugurtha’s defeat at Cirta at the hands of the Roman army is commonly referred to as the Jugurthine War. Caesars conquest of Northern Africa officially brought Cirta under direct Roman rule in 46 BC and it was during the rule of Augustus, however, when Cirtas territory expanded and assimilated into the empire. Augustus split Cirta into communities, or pagis, dividing Numidians and this helped facilitate Cirtas assumption into the Roman realm, culturally and economically. These settlers, of course, were augmenting those Romans who had inhabited the city since the earlier periods of the Punic Wars, in the first two centuries AD Christianity began to take root in Cirta. While little remains of African Christianity before 200 AD, records of martyred Christians at Cirta existed by mid-century, civil war in 311 marked the destruction of the city, however, the first Christian emperor Constantine rebuilt it in his own name in 313 AD, calling it Constantine. The town of Cirta had become a Roman colony, probably as early as the time of Sittius, at the beginning of the 2d c. it was the capital of a curious administrative district, one of those anomalies common to the administrative history of Africa
3.
Rome
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Rome is a special comune and the capital of Italy. Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region, with 2,873,598 residents in 1,285 km2, it is also the countrys largest and most populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the center of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4.3 million residents, the city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio, along the shores of the Tiber. Romes history spans more than 2,500 years, while Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at only around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe. The citys early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans and it was first called The Eternal City by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy. Rome is also called the Caput Mundi, due to that, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, and then the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, in 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic. Rome has the status of a global city, Rome ranked in 2014 as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, and the most popular tourist attraction in Italy. Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, monuments and museums such as the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum are among the worlds most visited tourist destinations with both locations receiving millions of tourists a year. Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics and is the seat of United Nations Food, however, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was actually derived from Rome itself. As early as the 4th century, there have been alternate theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. There is archaeological evidence of occupation of the Rome area from approximately 14,000 years ago. Evidence of stone tools, pottery and stone weapons attest to about 10,000 years of human presence, several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the age and the beginning of the Iron age. However, none of them had yet an urban quality, nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city was gradually born through the aggregation of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine. All these happenings, which according to the excavations took place more or less around the mid of the 8th century BC. Despite recent excavations at the Palatine hill, the view that Rome has been indeed founded with an act of will as the legend suggests in the middle of the 8th century BC remains a fringe hypothesis. Traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves explain the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth
4.
History of Algeria
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Much of the history of Algeria has taken place on the fertile coastal plain of North Africa, which is often called the Maghreb. The region was conquered by the Muslims in the early 8th century AD, during the Ottoman period, Algiers was the center of the Barbary slave trade which led to many naval conflicts. The last significant events in the recent history have been the Algerian War. Evidence of the human occupation of Algeria is demonstrated by the discovery of 1.8 million year old Oldowan stone tools found at Ain Hanech in 1992. In 1954 fossilised Homo erectus bones were discovered by C, arambourg at Ternefine that are 700,000 years old. Neolithic civilization developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean Maghrib between 6000 and 2000 BC and this type of economy, richly depicted in the Tassili nAjjer cave paintings in southeastern Algeria, predominated in the Maghrib until the classical period. Since the 4000 BC, the peoples of northern Africa successfully resisted Phoenician, Roman, Vandal, Byzantine, Arab, Turkish. Phoenician traders arrived on the North African coast around 900 BC, during the classical period, Berber civilization was already at a stage in which agriculture, manufacturing, trade, and political organization supported several states. The Carthaginian state declined because of successive defeats by the Romans in the Punic Wars, and in 146 BC, as Carthaginian power waned, the influence of Berber leaders in the hinterland grew. By the 2nd century BC, several large but loosely administered Berber kingdoms had emerged, after that, king Masinissa managed to unify Numidia under his rule. Madghacen was a king of independent kingdoms of the Numidians, between 12 and 3 BC, Berber territory was annexed by the Roman Empire in AD24. Increases in urbanization and in the area under cultivation during Roman rule caused wholesale dislocations of Berber society, the prosperity of most towns depended on agriculture, and the region was known as the breadbasket of the empire. Christianity arrived in the 2nd century, by the end of the 4th century, the settled areas had become Christianized, and some Berber tribes had converted en masse. According to historians of the Middle Ages, the Berbers are divided into two branches, two are from their ancestor Mazigh, in sum, the two branches Botr and Barnès are also divided into tribes. Each Maghreb region is made up of several tribes, the large Berber tribes or peoples are Sanhaja, Houaras, Zenata, Masmuda, Kutama, Awarba, Barghawata. Each tribe is divided into sub tribes, all these tribes have independence and territorial decisions. Several Berber dynasties have emerged during the Middle Ages to the Maghreb, Sudan, in Andalusia, Italy, in Mali, Niger, Senegal and Egypt. Ibn Khaldoun made a table of Berber dynasties, Zirid, Banu Ifran, Maghrawa, Almoravid, Hammadid, Almohad Caliphate, Marinid, Zayyanid, Wattasid, Meknes, Hafsid dynasty
5.
Prehistoric North Africa
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The Prehistory of North Africa spans the period of earliest human presence in the region to the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt in c.3100 BC. Geographically, it can also be held to include the Saharan portions of Mauritania, Mali, Niger, as modern humans are generally believed to originate in Africa, prehistoric North Africa may hold important clues in understanding the evolution and spread of Homo sapiens. Human habitation in North Africa has been influenced by the climate of the Sahara. This is due to a 41000-year cycle in which the tilt of the changes between 22° and 24. 5°. At present, we are in a dry period, but it is expected that the Sahara will become again in 15000 years. During the last glacial period, the Sahara was much larger than it is today, the end of the glacial period brought more rain to the Sahara, from about 8000 BC to 6000 BC, perhaps because of low pressure areas over the collapsing ice sheets to the north. Once the ice sheets were gone, the northern Sahara dried out, in the southern Sahara, the drying trend was initially counteracted by the monsoon, which brought rain further north than it does today. By around 4200 BC, however, the monsoon retreated south to approximately where it is today, the Sahara is now as dry as it was about 13,000 years ago. These conditions are responsible for what has called the Sahara pump theory. During periods of a wet or Green Sahara, the Sahara becomes a savanna grassland and various flora and this separates populations of some of the species in areas with different climates, forcing them to adapt, possibly giving rise to allopatric speciation.8 million BC. Tools of this era, starting about 130,000 BCE, are called Aterian and are marked by a standard of workmanship, great variety. The earliest blade industries in North Africa belong to the Iberomaurusian or Oranian and this lithic industry appears to have spread throughout the coastal regions of North Africa between 15,000 and 10,000 BC. Neolithic society spread in the Saharan and Mediterranean North Africa after the Levante between 6000 and 2000 BC and this type of economy, so richly depicted in the Tassili nAjjer cave paintings, predominated in North Africa until the classical period. The pictures provide the most complete record of a prehistoric African culture, in 2013, Iberomaurusian skeletons from the prehistoric sites of Taforalt and Afalou in the Maghreb were analyzed for ancient DNA. The ancient Taforalt individuals carried the mtDNA haplogroups U6, H, JT and V, cultures producing rock art flourished during this period. In Prehistoric Egypt, Neolithic settlements appear from about 6000 BC, oher regions in Africa independently developed agriculture at about the same time, the Ethiopian highlands, the Sahel, and West Africa. The beginning of the Bronze Age in Egypt is conventionally identified as the Protodynastic Period, by the Iron Age, the historic record demonstrated the existence of the Berbers in North Africa from at least 10,000 B. C. While Egypt and Sudan had entered historicity since the Bronze Age, some Phoenician and Greek colonies were established along the Mediterranean coast during the 7th century BC
6.
Aterian
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The Aterian is a Middle Stone Age stone tool industry centered in the Maghreb, but also found in Oman and the Thar Desert. The earliest Aterian dates to c.145,000 years ago, however, most of the early dates cluster around the beginning of the Last Interglacial, around 130,000 years ago, when the environment of North Africa began to ameliorate. The Aterian disappeared around 30,000 years ago and it is not thought to have influenced subsequent archaeological cultures in the region. The Aterian is primarily distinguished through the presence of tanged or pedunculated tools, bifacially-worked, leaf-shaped tools are also a common artefact type, and so are racloirs and Levallois flakes and cores. Items of personal adornment are known from at least one Aterian site, the appropriateness of the term Mousterian is contested in a North African context, however. The technological character of the Aterian has been debated for almost a century, Levallois reduction is widespread across the whole of North Africa throughout the Middle Stone Age, and scrapers and denticulates are ubiquitous. Bifacial foliates moreover represent a huge taxonomic category and the form, there is also a significant variation of tanged tools themselves, with various forms representing both different tool types and the degree tool resharpening. For example, bifacial leaf points are found widely across North Africa in assemblages that lack tanged tools and this notwithstanding, the term still usefully denotes the presence of tanged tools in North African Middle Stone Age assemblages. Tanged tools persisted in North Africa until around 30,000 years ago, by this time, the Aterian lithic industry had long ceased to exist in the rest of North Africa due to the onset of the Ice Age, which in North Africa, resulted in hyperarid conditions. Assemblages with tanged tools, the Aterian, therefore have a significant temporal and spatial range, however, they have not yet been found east of the Nile and no Aterian sites are known from the Nile Valley. The Aterian is associated with early Homo sapiens at a number of sites in Morocco, the Aterian fossils also display similarities to the earliest modern humans found out of Africa at Skhul and Qafzeh in the Levant, and they are broadly contemporary to them. Such examples of shell beads have been found far inland, suggesting the presence of long distance social networks, such a subdivided population structure has also been inferred from the pattern of variation observed in early African fossils of Homo sapiens. Associated faunal studies suggest that the making the Aterian exploited coastal resources as well as engaging in hunting. It has so far been difficult to estimate whether Aterian populations further inland were exploiting freshwater resources as well, studies have suggested that hafting was widespread, perhaps to maintain flexibility in the face of strongly seasonal environment with a pronounced dry season. Scrapers, knives and points all seem to have been hafted and it is probably that plant resources were also exploited. Although there is no evidence from the Aterian yet, plant processing is evidenced in North Africa from as much as 182,000 years ago. Aterian lithic tools have also discovered in Middle Paleolithic deposits in Oman. Ifri nAmmar Contrebandiers Taforalt Rhafas Dar es Soltan I El Mnasra Kharga Oasis Uan Tabu Oued el Akarit Adrar Bous Oman Thar Desert Synoptic table of the old world prehistoric cultures
7.
Iberomaurusian
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The Iberomaurusian culture is a backed bladelet lithic industry found throughout the Tamazgha. The industry was originally described in 1909 by the French scholar Pallary, other names for the industry have included Mechta-Afalou, Mouillian and Oranian. Recent fieldwork indicates that the Iberomaurusian culture existed in the region from around the timing of the Last Glacial Maximum, at 20,000 BP, the industry is succeeded by the Capsian culture, which was originally thought to have spread into the Maghreb from the Near East. However, later studies suggest that the Iberomaurusian may have been the progenitors of the Capsian, despite suggestions that this minor element may be related to the Basques of southwestern Europe, there appear to be no vestiges of a Basque linguistic influence in the region. In 2013, Iberomaurusian skeletons from the sites of Taforalt. The ancient Taforalt individuals carried the mtDNA Haplogroup N subclades like U6, H, JT and V, which points to population continuity in the region dating from the Iberomaurusian period. In 2016 it has been identified mtDNA haplogroups H or U, T2b, JT or H14b1, J, J1c3f, H1, R0a1a, R0a2c, H2a1e1a, H2a2a1, H6a1a8, H14b1, U4a2b, U4c1, U6d3. A2003 sequencing on the mitochondrial DNA of two Cro-Magnons identified the mtDNA as Haplogroup N. Aterian
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