The Prehistory of Jebel Gharbi

Recently a new friend of mine asked me to research for him the prehistory of his region, Jebel Gharbi.  I knew nothing about this area, but after reading up on it, I discovered that these mountains played an important role in human history.  While no long-lasting civilizations like the Garamantes inhabited Jebel Gharbi, the region can boast of something arguably more important.  Beginning in the Middle Stone Age (roughly 60,000 years ago), Jebel Gharbi was home to groups of modern human beings (Homo sapiens), who settled around the area’s abundant water supply and utilized its raw materials to make stone tools.  Moreover, the position of these mountains between West Africa and the Middle East, as well as between the Mediterranean and the Sahara, made it an important crossroads for the spread of Stone Age technologies and domesticated plants and animals.  The importance of Jebel Gharbi, and Libya more generally, to early human development is one reason why preserving Libya’s cultural heritage is all of humanity’s responsibility.   

Jebel Gharbi, a photo by Mr. Sadik al-Kiesh

 

Jebel Gharbi is a narrow mountain range that divides the Jafara Plain, where Tripoli is, from the Tripolitanian Plateau.  The city of Nalut lies at the western end of the range and Gharyan at the eastern end.  In between are the towns of Yafran, ar-Rujban, Jadu, Shakshuk, and Kabaw, today home to important Arab and Berber communities.  Significant for the prehistory of the region are the perennial springs and the deep wadis that flow north to the Jafara Plain.  The most important of these are Ain Shakshuk, Wadi Ain Zargha (Ras al-Wadi), and Wadi Ghan.  Jebel Gharbi has been the subject of an ongoing archaeological research project by the Libyan-Italian Join Mission founded by Professor Barbara Barich of Sapienza University of Rome.  This project has provided important insights into the early human occupation and development and I owe them for the findings I present here.

About 60,000 years ago humans were drawn to Jebel Gharbi’s abundant supply of workable stones and water.  These hunter-gatherers practiced a form of stone working that scholars have called Aterian Industry.  Aterian Industry is very important because it is believed that the first modern humans (Homo sapiens) invented it.  We human were not always as we are today, but we had to invent technologies, like stone working, farming, and writing.  Aterian Industry represents a huge step in this process.

Humans in Jebel Gharbi made Aterian tools until about 30,000 years ago, when the technique disappears.  Archaeologists have found little evidence of human activity for the next 10,000 years!  But about 20,000 years ago a new tool making technique appeared, called the Iberomaurusian Industry.  This industry was likely brought to the region by a new group of people, just as Aterian Industry was likely brought by people from what is now Morocco. 

About 10,000 years ago, Iberomaurusian Industry was replaced by a new way of making stone tools, called Capsian.  Again scholars think that a new group of people arrived in Jebel Gharbi bringing their technologies with them.  The people who practiced Capsian Industry were possibly speakers of  the Afro-Asiatic language family, a group of languages that includes Arabic, Hebrew, Ancient Egyptian, and Berber.  It is possible, therefore, that Capsians were the ancestors of the Berbers.

In the following millennia humans made more advances.  For a long time humans had been hunter-gatherers; they had relied on what they could find.  But about 8,000 years ago in North Africa humans started experimenting with ways to grow plants and keep animals.  If humans could master farming and pastoralism, they would have more regular access to food.  Scholars used to think that grains, such as wheat and barley, and animals, such as sheep and goats, were brought to North Africa from the Middle East in a single moment.  But now they are not so sure.  There is some evidence that sheep and goats came to North Africa both from the East, through Egypt, and the West, through Spain and Morocco.  Jebel Gharbi lies in between and would have helped spread new technologies and cultures.

This is the real significance of the region.  Jebel Gharbi is so rich in human history because of its natural gifts and its important role in transmitting new cultures and technologies between faraway peoples and places.  Jebel Gharbi is one shining example of the wealth of Libya.  I am always looking for new topics to write about, so if you are interested in a particular time and place, please feel free to message me and I will do my best to tell you more about it!