Rock art of the Iberian Mediterranean Basin
The group of over 700 sites of prehistoric Rock art of the Iberian Mediterranean Basin known as Levantine art, were collectively declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1998. The sites are in the eastern part of Spain and contain rock art dating to the Upper Paleolithic or Mesolithic periods of the Stone Age; the art consists of small painted figures of humans and animals, which are the most advanced and widespread surviving from this period in Europe, arguably in the world, at least in the earlier works. It is notable, its name refers to the Mediterranean Basin. There has been much debate over the dating of Levantine paintings, whether they belong to the Mesolithic, the end of the Paleolithic, or the Neolithic. According to UNESCO, the oldest art in the World Heritage Site is from 8,000 BC, the most recent examples from around 3500 BC; the art therefore spans a period of cultural change. It reflects the life of people using hunter-gatherer economic systems, "who incorporated Neolithic elements into their cultural baggage".
Scenes show men leading horses, some cattle shown may be domesticated. The chronology of Levantine Art overlaps with that of Iberian schematic art, examples of both types of art can be found at some sites; some sites continued to attract visitors in periods, as shown by inscriptions in the Iberian language and Latin, for example at the Caves of El Cogul. The paintings seem to have been produced after an influx of population from North Africa had mixed with the populations remaining from earlier periods in Iberia. Levantine Art was first discovered in Teruel in 1903; the Spanish prehistorian Juan Cabre was the first to study this art, defining it as a regional Palaeolithic art. Assessment as Palaeolithic was challenged for various reasons including the fact that no glacial fauna was depicted. Antonio Beltrán Martínez and others place the beginning of this art in the Epipaleolithic or Mesolithic, placing its heyday in the Neolithic period. Accepting a post-Paleolithic age for the art, Ripio devised a new chronological scheme in the 1960s, dividing the art into four stages:naturalistic, stylized static, stylized dynamic, final phase of transition to the schematic.
The art appears over a wide area, was created over a period of several thousand years. The artists appear to have used feathers, in a complex painting technique, compared to the art of the Upper Paleolithic, that produced simple figures. Figures are outlined after the main body was painted; some figures are shallowly engraved rather than painted. The figures are small, between about 8 and 1 inch high, in one or two colours; the paint was very thin, using mineral earths or charcoal, the paintings are preserved by a thin transparent layer of limescale forming over them from water dripping down the wall. Some figures have more than one coat of paint, which has led to claims that they were repainted after long periods, though this seems not universally accepted; the human figure, rare in Paleolithic art, acquires great importance in Levantine Art. The human figure is the main theme, when it appears in the same scene as animals, the human figure runs towards them; the painting known as The Dancers of Cogul is a good example of movement being depicted.
The most common scenes by far are of hunting, there are scenes of battle and dancing, agricultural tasks and managing domesticated animals. In some scenes gathering honey is shown, most famously at Cuevas de la Araña. Humans are naked from the waist up, but women have skirts and men sometimes skirts or gaiters or trousers of some sort, headdresses and masks are sometimes seen, which may indicate rank or status in a way compared by one researcher to North American Plains Indians; some war scenes distinguish between the sides in terms of physical appearance, or dress and weapons, though the interpretation of this is uncertain. Within one side, figures of greater importance may be indicated by more painted figures with "exaggerated calf muscles and elongated thighs", or by pantaloons that are "tufted" at the ankle. There is a much better developed sense of composition in group subjects than in Paleolithic art, animals running are shown in the "flying gallop" convention that would last in art until after the invention of photography.
Human figures are shown with wide strides, or in a "flying running" posture with legs up to 180 degrees apart. The scenes depicted are moments of drama. Scenes of human execution by archers and in one case by hanging seen.
Landsat program
The Landsat program is the longest-running enterprise for acquisition of satellite imagery of Earth. On July 23, 1972 the Earth Resources Technology Satellite was launched; this was renamed to Landsat. The most recent, Landsat 8, was launched on February 11, 2013; the instruments on the Landsat satellites have acquired millions of images. The images, archived in the United States and at Landsat receiving stations around the world, are a unique resource for global change research and applications in agriculture, geology, regional planning and education, can be viewed through the U. S. Geological Survey'EarthExplorer' website. Landsat 7 data has eight spectral bands with spatial resolutions ranging from 15 to 60 meters. Landsat images are divided into scenes for easy downloading; each Landsat scene is 115 miles wide. The Hughes Aircraft company's Santa Barbara Research Center initiated and fabricated the first three Multispectral Scanners in 1969; the first prototype MSS was completed within nine months, in the fall of 1970.
It was tested by scanning Half Dome at Yosemite National Park. Working at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Valerie L. Thomas managed the development of early Landsat image processing software systems and became the resident expert on the Computer Compatible Tapes, or CCTs, that were used to store early Landsat imagery. Thomas was one of the image processing specialists who facilitated the ambitious Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment, known as LACIE—a project that showed for the first time that global crop monitoring could be done with Landsat satellite imagery; the program was called the Earth Resources Technology Satellites Program, used from 1966 to 1975. In 1975, the name was changed to Landsat. In 1979, President of the United States Jimmy Carter's Presidential Directive 54 transferred Landsat operations from NASA to NOAA, recommended development of a long term operational system with four additional satellites beyond Landsat 3, recommended transition to private sector operation of Landsat.
This occurred in 1985 when the Earth Observation Satellite Company, a partnership of Hughes Aircraft and RCA, was selected by NOAA to operate the Landsat system with a ten-year contract. EOSAT operated Landsat 4 and Landsat 5, had exclusive rights to market Landsat data, was to build Landsats 6 and 7. In 1989, this transition had not been completed when NOAA's funding for the Landsat program was due to run out and NOAA directed that Landsats 4 and 5 be shut down; the head of the newly formed National Space Council, Vice President Dan Quayle, noted the situation and arranged emergency funding that allowed the program to continue with the data archives intact. Again in 1990 and 1991, Congress provided only half of the year's funding to NOAA, requesting that agencies that used Landsat data provide the funding for the other six months of the upcoming year. In 1992, various efforts were made to procure funding for follow on Landsats and continued operations, but by the end of the year EOSAT ceased processing Landsat data.
Landsat 6 was launched on October 5, 1993, but was lost in a launch failure. Processing of Landsat 4 and 5 data was resumed by EOSAT in 1994. NASA launched Landsat 7 on April 15, 1999; the value of the Landsat program was recognized by Congress in October 1992 when it passed the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act authorizing the procurement of Landsat 7 and assuring the continued availability of Landsat digital data and images, at the lowest possible cost, to traditional and new users of the data. Timeline Landsat 1 through 5 carried the Landsat Multispectral Scanner. Landsat 4 and 5 carried both the Thematic Mapper instruments. Landsat 7 uses the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus scanner. Landsat 8 uses two instruments, the Operational Land Imager for optical bands and the Thermal Infrared Sensor for thermal bands; the band designations and pixel sizes for the Landsat instruments are: * Original MSS pixel size was 79 x 57 meters. * TM Band 6 was acquired at 120-meter resolution. * ETM + Band 6 is acquired at 60-meter resolution.
* TIRS bands are acquired at 100 meter resolution, but are resampled to 30 meter in delivered data product. The spectral band placement for each sensor is visually displayed here; the Multispectral Scanner onboard Landsat missions 1 through 5 had a 230 mm fused silica dinner-plate mirror epoxy bonded to three invar tangent bars mounted to base of a Ni/Au brazed Invar frame in a Serrurier truss, arranged with four "Hobbs-Links", crossing at mid-truss. This construct ensured the secondary mirror would oscillate about the primary optic axis to maintain focus despite vibration inherent from the 360 mm beryllium scan mirror; this engineering solution allowed the United States to develop LANDSAT at least five years ahead of the French SPOT, which first used CCD arrays to stare without need for a scanner. However, LANDSAT data prices climbed from $250 per computer compatible data tape and $10 for black-and-white print to $4,400 for data tape and $2,700 for black-and-white print by 1984, making SPOT data a much more affordable option for satellite imaging data.
This was a direct result of the commercialization efforts begun under the Carter administration, th
Mouflon
The mouflon is a subspecies group of the wild sheep. Populations of O. orientalis can be partitioned into the mouflons and the urials. The mouflon is thought to be the ancestor for all modern domestic sheep breeds; the wild sheep of Corsica were locally called mufra. The French naturalist Buffon rendered this in French as moufflon. Mouflon sheep have reddish to dark brown, short-haired coats with dark back stripes and black ventral areas and light-colored saddle patches; the males are horned. The horns of mature rams are curved in one full revolution. Mouflon have shoulder heights around 0.9 body weights of 50 kg and 35 kg. Today, mouflon inhabit the Caucasus, Anatolia and eastern Iraq, most parts of Iran and Armenia; the range stretched further to the Crimean peninsula and the Balkans, where they had disappeared 3,000 years ago and came back to Bulgaria. Mouflon were introduced to the islands of Corsica, Sardinia and Cyprus during the neolithic period as feral domesticated animals, where they have naturalized in the mountainous interiors of these islands over the past few thousand years, giving rise to the subspecies known as European mouflon.
On the island of Cyprus, the mouflon or agrino became a different and endemic subspecies known as the Cyprus mouflon. The Cyprus mouflon population contains only about 3,000 animals, they are now rare on the islands, but are classified as feral animals by the IUCN. They were successfully introduced into continental Europe, including Portugal, France, central Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, the Canary Islands, some northern European countries such as Denmark and Finland. A small colony exists in the remote Kerguelen Islands in the southern Indian Ocean, on the Veliki Brijun Island in the Brijuni Archipelago of the Istrian Peninsula in Croatia. In South America, mouflon have been introduced into central Argentina. Since the 1980s, they have been introduced to game ranches in North America for the purpose of hunting. Mouflon have been introduced as game animals into Spieden Island in Washington state, into the Hawaiian islands of Lanai and Hawaii where they have become a problematic invasive species.
A small population escaped from an animal enclosure owned by Thomas Watson, Jr. on the island of North Haven, Maine in the 1990s and still survives there. Their normal habitats are steep mountainous woods near tree lines. In winter, they migrate to lower altitudes; the scientific classification of the mouflon is disputed. Five subspecies of mouflon are distinguished by MSW3: Armenian mouflon, Ovis orientalis gmelini, northwestern Iran and Azerbaijan, it has been introduced in Texas, US. European mouflon, O. o. musimon was introduced about 7,000 years ago in Corsica and Sardinia for the first time. It has since been introduced in many parts of Europe. Cyprus mouflon, Ovis gmelini ophion called agrino, was nearly extirpated during the 20th century. In 1997, about 1,200 of this subspecies were counted; the television show Born to Explore with Richard Wiese reported. Esfahan mouflon, O. o. isphahanica, is from Iran. Laristan mouflon, O. o. laristanica, is a small subspecies. The eastern and the European mouflon appear in scientific literature as separate species, Ovis musimon and Ovis orientalis.
The mouflons are sometimes treated as a subspecies of the domestic sheep, Ovis aries, named with the same subspecific epithet as above: O. a. musimon, O. a. ophion, etc. Based on comparison of mitochondrial cytochrome b gene sequences, three groups of sheep have been identified: Pachyceriforms of Siberia and North America, Argaliforms of Central Asia, Moufloniforms of Eurasia. However, a comparison of the mitochondrial DNA control region found that two subspecies of urial, Ovis vignei arkal and O. v./o. bochariensis, grouped with two different clades of argali. The ancestral sheep is presumed to have had 60 chromosomes, as in goats. Mouflon and domestic sheep have 54 chromosomes, with three pairs of ancestral acrocentric chromosomes joined to form bi-armed chromosomes; this is in contrast to the urial, which have 56 and 58 chromosomes respectively. If the urial is as related to the mouflons as mitochondrial DNA indicates two chromosomes would need to have split during its evolution away from the mouflon species.
In the Systema Naturæ, Linnaeus and Gmelin treated the argali as one species. Von Schreiber used the combination Ovis aries musimon as early as 1782. In 1792, Robert Kerr listed the "Corsican argali" as a separate variety of argali, writing I have introduced this variety on the authority of Mr Pennant, who distinguishes between the Argali of Corsica and the Siberian, though the difference seems chiefly in colour.
Tamanrasset Province
Tamanrasset or Tamanghasset is the largest province in Algeria. It was named after Tamanrasset; the province has two national parks, more than any other in Algeria. They are Ahaggar National Park; the province makes up a quarter of the country's area with 556,200 km². It is located in the deep southern region of Algeria and it is 2000 km south of Algiers. On north it is bordered by Ghardaïa Province, at north-east it is bordered by Ouargla Province, at the east it is bordered by Illizi Province and at the west it is bordered by Adrar Province the second largest province by area. Tamanrasset had international border with Mali and Niger; the province is the largest Algerian province with area of 556,200 sq km although it located in the heart of desert. The Province of Tamanrasset had the moderate climate because of its mountanios terrain; the province had elevation of 1,400 meters. The highest point of Tamanrasset Province is Mount Tahat, the highest point of Algeria with 3,303 meters; the most well known tourist destination is the Tomb of Tinhan.
The Agricultural capacity is 246,154 hectors of land. The province had 368 wells and 6 water treatment plants; the province had 19 multi-service clinics and 56 treatment rooms. The province had 187 educational centers; the province is divided into 7 districts, which are further divided into 10 communes or municipalities. In Isendjef In Kemelet In Oudad Tadjellet
Natural arch
A natural arch, natural bridge, or rock arch is a natural rock formation where an arch has formed with an opening underneath. Natural arches form where inland cliffs, coastal cliffs, fins or stacks are subject to erosion from the sea, rivers or weathering. Most natural arches are formed from narrow fins and sea stacks composed of sandstone or limestone with steep vertical, cliff faces; the formations become narrower due to erosion over geologic time scales. The softer rock stratum erodes away creating rock shelters, or alcoves, on opposite sides of the formation beneath the harder stratum, or caprock, above it; the alcoves erode further into the formation meeting underneath the harder caprock layer, thus creating an arch. The erosional processes exploit weaknesses in the softer rock layers making cracks larger and removing material more than the caprock; the choice between bridge and arch is somewhat arbitrary. The Natural Arch and Bridge Society identifies a bridge as a subtype of arch, water-formed.
By contrast, the Dictionary of Geological Terms defines a natural bridge as a "natural arch that spans a valley of erosion."The largest natural arch, by a significant margin, is the Xianren Bridge in China, with a span of 122 ± 5 meters. On coasts two different types of arches can form depending on the geology. On discordant coastlines rock types run at 90° to the coast. Wave refraction concentrates the wave energy on the headland, an arch forms when caves break through the headland. Two examples of this type of arch are London Arch—previously known as London Bridge—in Victoria and Neill Island in the Andaman Islands, India; when these arches collapse, they form stacks and stumps. On concordant coastlines rock types run parallel to the coastline, with weak rock such as shale protected by stronger rock such as limestone; the wave action along concordant coastlines breaks through the strong rock and erodes the weak rock quickly. Good examples of this type of arch are the Durdle Door and Stair Hole near Lulworth Cove on Dorset's Jurassic Coast in south England.
When Stair Hole collapses it will form a cove. Weather-eroded arches begin their formation as deep cracks. Erosion occurring within the cracks wears away exposed rock layers and enlarges the surface cracks isolating narrow sandstone walls which are called fins. Alternating frosts and thawing cause crumbling and flaking of the porous sandstone and cut through some of the fins; the resulting holes become weathering. The arches collapse leaving only buttresses that in time will erode. Many weather-eroded arches are found in Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, all located in southern Utah, United States; some natural bridges may look like arches, but they form in the path of streams that wear away and penetrate the rock. Pothole arches form by chemical weathering as water collects in natural depressions and cuts through to the layer below. Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah protects the area surrounding three large natural bridges, all of which were formed by streams running through canyons, the largest of, named Sipapu Bridge with a span of 225 feet.
The Rainbow Bridge National Monument's namesake was formed by flowing water which created the largest known natural bridge in the Western Hemisphere with a span of 234 feet, based on a laser measurement made in 2007. Xianren Bridge known as Fairy Bridge, in Guangxi, China is the world's largest known natural bridge with a span recorded at 400 feet by the Natural Arch and Bridge Society in October 2010, with a precision of ±15 feet. Natural bridges can form from natural limestone caves, where paired sinkholes collapse and a ridge of stone is left standing in between, with the cave passageway connecting from sinkhole to sinkhole. Like all rock formations, natural bridges are subject to continued erosion, will collapse and disappear. One example of this was the double-arched Victorian coastal rock formation, London Bridge, which lost an arch after storms increased erosion. Moon Hill in Yangshuo, Guizhou Province, China, is an example of an arch formed by the remnant of a karst limestone cave. In a few places in the world, natural arches are utilized by humans as transportation bridges with highways or railroads running across them.
In Virginia, US Route 11 traverses Natural Bridge. Two additional natural arch roadways are found in Kentucky; the first arch, a cave erosion arch made of limestone, is located in Carter Caves State Resort Park and it has a paved road on top. The second arch, a weather-eroded sandstone arch with a dirt road on top, is located on the edge of Natural Bridge State Park in Kentucky; the latter arch is called White's Branch Arch and the road going over it is referred to as the Narrows Road. In Europe, the Romanian village of Ponoarele has a road 60 m long and 13 m wide, passing over a stone arch 4 m thick, 20 m high, with a 9 m span; the arch is called God's Bridge. In South America, the railroad from Lima, Peru crosses the Rio Yauli on a natural bridge near kilometer 214.2 as it approaches the city of La Oroya, Peru. Aloba Arch, Chad Boatswain Bird Island, Ascension Island Bogenfels, Namibia Goedehoop natural rock bridge, South Africa Hole-in-the-Wall, Eastern Cape, South Africa Tassili n'Ajjer and Tadrart Rouge, two mountain ranges with many arches, Algeria Tukuyu natural bridge, Ta
International Union for Conservation of Nature
The International Union for Conservation of Nature is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. It is involved in data gathering and analysis, field projects and education. IUCN's mission is to "influence and assist societies throughout the world to conserve nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable". Over the past decades, IUCN has widened its focus beyond conservation ecology and now incorporates issues related to sustainable development in its projects. Unlike many other international environmental organisations, IUCN does not itself aim to mobilize the public in support of nature conservation, it tries to influence the actions of governments and other stakeholders by providing information and advice, through building partnerships. The organization is best known to the wider public for compiling and publishing the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, which assesses the conservation status of species worldwide.
IUCN has a membership of over 1400 non-governmental organizations. Some 16,000 scientists and experts participate in the work of IUCN commissions on a voluntary basis, it employs 1000 full-time staff in more than 50 countries. Its headquarters are in Switzerland. IUCN has observer and consultative status at the United Nations, plays a role in the implementation of several international conventions on nature conservation and biodiversity, it was involved in establishing the World Wide Fund for Nature and the World Conservation Monitoring Centre. In the past, IUCN has been criticized for placing the interests of nature over those of indigenous peoples. In recent years, its closer relations with the business sector have caused controversy. IUCN was established in 1948, it was called the International Union for the Protection of Nature and the World Conservation Union. Establishment IUCN was established on 5 October 1948, in Fontainebleau, when representatives of governments and conservation organizations signed a formal act constituting the International Union for the Protection of Nature.
The initiative to set up the new organisation came from UNESCO and from its first Director General, the British biologist Julian Huxley. The objectives of the new Union were to encourage international cooperation in the protection of nature, to promote national and international action and to compile and distribute information. At the time of its founding IUPN was the only international organisation focusing on the entire spectrum of nature conservation Early years: 1948–1956 IUPN started out with 65 members, its secretariat was located in Brussels. Its first work program focused on saving species and habitats and applying knowledge, advancing education, promoting international agreements and promoting conservation. Providing a solid scientific base for conservation action was the heart of all activities. IUPN and UNESCO were associated, they jointly organized the 1949 Conference on Protection of Nature. In preparation for this conference a list of gravely endangered species was drawn up for the first time, a precursor of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
In the early years of its existence IUCN depended entirely on UNESCO funding and was forced to temporarily scale down activities when this ended unexpectedly in 1954. IUPN was successful in engaging prominent scientists and identifying important issues such as the harmful effects of pesticides on wildlife but not many of the ideas it developed were turned into action; this was caused by unwillingness to act on the part of governments, uncertainty about the IUPN mandate and lack of resources. In 1956, IUPN changed its name to International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Increased profile and recognition: 1956–1965 In the 1950s and 1960s Europe entered a period of economic growth and formal colonies became independent. Both developments had impact on the work of IUCN. Through the voluntary involvement of experts in its Commissions IUCN was able to get a lot of work done while still operating on a low budget, it established links with the Council of Europe. In 1961, at the request of United Nations Economic and Social Council, the United Nations Economic and Social Council, IUCN published the first global list of national parks and protected areas which it has updated since.
IUCN's best known publication, the Red Data Book on the conservation status of species, was first published in 1964. IUCN began to play a part in the development of international treaties and conventions, starting with the African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Environmental law and policy making became a new area of expertise. Africa was the focus of many of the early IUCN conservation field projects. IUCN supported the ‘Yellowstone model’ of protected area management, which restricted human presence and activity in order to protect nature. IUCN and other conservation organisations were criticized for protecting nature against people rather than with people; this model was also applied in Africa and played a role in the decision to remove the Maasai people from Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. To establish a stable financial basis for its work, IUCN participated in setting up the World Wildlife Fund
Algeria
Algeria the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. The capital and most populous city is Algiers, located in the far north of the country on the Mediterranean coast. With an area of 2,381,741 square kilometres, Algeria is the tenth-largest country in the world, the world's largest Arab country, the largest in Africa. Algeria is bordered to the northeast by Tunisia, to the east by Libya, to the west by Morocco, to the southwest by the Western Saharan territory and Mali, to the southeast by Niger, to the north by the Mediterranean Sea; the country is a semi-presidential republic consisting of 1,541 communes. It has the highest human development index of all non-island African countries. Ancient Algeria has known many empires and dynasties, including ancient Numidians, Carthaginians, Vandals, Umayyads, Idrisid, Rustamid, Zirid, Almoravids, Spaniards and the French colonial empire. Berbers are the indigenous inhabitants of Algeria. Algeria is a middle power.
It supplies large amounts of natural gas to Europe, energy exports are the backbone of the economy. According to OPEC Algeria has the 16th largest oil reserves in the world and the second largest in Africa, while it has the 9th largest reserves of natural gas. Sonatrach, the national oil company, is the largest company in Africa. Algeria has one of the largest defence budget on the continent. Algeria is a member of the African Union, the Arab League, OPEC, the United Nations and is a founding member of the Arab Maghreb Union. On 2 April 2019, president Abdelaziz Bouteflika resigned after nearly 20 years in power, following pressure from the country’s army after mass protests against Bouteflika's campaign for a fifth term; the country's name derives from the city of Algiers. The city's name in turn derives from the Arabic al-Jazā'ir, a truncated form of the older Jazā'ir Banī Mazghanna, employed by medieval geographers such as al-Idrisi. In the region of Ain Hanech, early remnants of hominid occupation in North Africa were found.
Neanderthal tool makers produced hand axes in the Levalloisian and Mousterian styles similar to those in the Levant. Algeria was the site of the highest state of development of Middle Paleolithic Flake tool techniques. Tools of this era, starting about 30,000 BC, are called Aterian; the earliest blade industries in North Africa are called Iberomaurusian. This industry appears to have spread throughout the coastal regions of the Maghreb between 15,000 and 10,000 BC. Neolithic civilization developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean Maghreb as early as 11,000 BC or as late as between 6000 and 2000 BC; this life, richly depicted in the Tassili n'Ajjer paintings, predominated in Algeria until the classical period. The mixture of peoples of North Africa coalesced into a distinct native population that came to be called Berbers, who are the indigenous peoples of northern Africa. From their principal center of power at Carthage, the Carthaginians expanded and established small settlements along the North African coast.
These settlements served as market towns as well as anchorages. As Carthaginian power grew, its impact on the indigenous population increased dramatically. Berber civilization was at a stage in which agriculture, manufacturing and political organization supported several states. Trade links between Carthage and the Berbers in the interior grew, but territorial expansion resulted in the enslavement or military recruitment of some Berbers and in the extraction of tribute from others. By the early 4th century BC, Berbers formed the single largest element of the Carthaginian army. In the Revolt of the Mercenaries, Berber soldiers rebelled from 241 to 238 BC after being unpaid following the defeat of Carthage in the First Punic War, they succeeded in obtaining control of much of Carthage's North African territory, they minted coins bearing the name Libyan, used in Greek to describe natives of North Africa. The Carthaginian state declined because of successive defeats by the Romans in the Punic Wars.
In 146 BC the city of Carthage was destroyed. 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. Two of them were established behind the coastal areas controlled by Carthage. West of Numidia lay Mauretania, which extended across the Moulouya River in modern-day Morocco to the Atlantic Ocean; the high point of Berber civilization, unequaled until the coming of the Almohads and Almoravids more than a millennium was reached during the reign of Masinissa in the 2nd century BC. After Masinissa's death in 148 BC, the Berber kingdoms were reunited several times. Masinissa's line survived until 24 AD, when the remaining Berber territory was annexed to the Roman Empire. For several centuries Algeria was ruled by the Romans. Like the rest of No
.jpg)
