Desert Cultural Heritage

Sahara

The Sahara Desert is the largest hot desert in the world covering some 9 million sq. km (3.5 million sq. mi.) and extending across the whole African continent from east to west. No paved roads cross it from north to south. It separates the Atlas Mountains, Maghreb and Mediterranean coast to the north from the southern semi-arid grasslands of the Sahel and rest of Sub-Saharan Africa. The desert contains more than the massive dune fields, called ergs. It is divisible into discrete ecoregions including coastal, desert, steppe, woodland and montane areas.

Rainwater arrives mainly from the North African Monsoon, annual precipitation that varies in great cyclic patterns driven by orbital variation across millennia, that alternatingly expands and greens the desert as a lake-pocked savanna grassland. The most important of these cycles with regard to human cultural development was the last sustained wet cycle known as the African Humid Period, from about 14,500 to 4,500 years ago.

Ancient Cultures

Starting around 25,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum, a distinctive stone tool industry of backed bladelets, the Iberomaurusian, appears along the northern coast of Africa. Named about a century ago after the Iberian peninsula and the former name for northern Africa, this tool industry is now believed to have emerged only along the northern coast of Africa during the glacial maximum. At that time, the Sahara had expanded northward toward the Mediterranean coast, with Iberomaurusian sites often preserved in limestone caves.

Chronologically, the Iberomaurusians lived at the close of the Pleistocene Epoch, which lasted from about 2.5 million years ago to 11,650 years before present (BP) and was followed by the Holocene Epoch (11,650 years ago to the Recent) and the recently-recognized Anthropocene Epoch (1945 to present), the latter defined by the prevalence of, and stratigraphic marker for, global human perturbation.

Kiffian and Tenerean Cultures

Kiffian. A distinctive hunter-gatherer toolkit emerged characterized by barbed bone harpoons, a more ancient invention that first appeared as early as 80,000 years ago in central Africa. By 10,000 ago, the ubiquity of barbed harpoons across the Sahara, from the Atlantic coast to the upper Nile valley, was recognized as the African “aqualithic” (Sutton, 1977). The harpoons and an associated stone toolkit, believed to include small embedded points (microliths), was called the Kiffian, originally named at the site Adrar Bous in Niger (Clark et al., 1973; Sereno et al., 2008). As harpoons, lithics and ceramics from the central Sahara are only recently being dated more precisely, new research will shed more light on the Kiffians, who typically buried their dead in supine hyperflexed postures without grave goods.

Rock art. Rock art is abundant in many areas of northcentral Niger- in and around the Aïr highlands, in the Ténéré Desert around Fachi, and in the far northeast at Djado Plateau. Discovered in 1987 on the western flank of the Aïr north of Agadez, the 20-foot tall DaBous giraffes comprise Niger’s most famous, well-documented example, a deeply-incised naturalistic rendering of male and female giraffes and their distinctive coloration with leashes extending from their muzzles. There are nearly 1,000 additional rock engravings in the surrounding rocky outcrops, carved or scratched through the dark surface patina typical of many rocks exposed to the harsh sand and wind of the Sahara.

The DaBous giraffes are now widely regarded as having been completed by Kiffian peoples around 8,000 years ago, whereas scratch depictions of people and animals with characteristic hairstyles, spears and handbags are regarded as Tenerean in age, drawn some 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, the most famous of which from the western edge of the Aïr at Anakom and Arakou. Depictions of camels are younger still, as we have a good evidence for the arrival of dromedary camels from the Near East some 2,000 years ago. Saharan rock art, now receiving the attention it long deserved for needed conservation efforts (TARA), provides a rich and unique cultural record starting in abundance as far back as 12,000 years ago.

Today’s Genetic Geography

The most recent surveys of genetic signatures from indigenous human populations across northern and central Africa suggest a shared genealogy (Y-chromosome haplogroups) dating back to the Green Sahara when populations mixed with considerable gene flow (D’Atanasio, et al., 2018). Later major human migrations into northern Africa with recognized genetic traits include the Berbers of Near East origin and the more recent descendants of the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb (~640-740 AD). Berberism, a political-cultural movement taking root in places in northern Africa, recognizes their distinctive origin and opposes a pan-Arabist political and cultural viewpoint.

Today’s Desert Peoples

Today, an array of nomadic, semi-nomadic and settled peoples live in the Sahara. Some trace their roots to a language family, Nilo-Saharan, thought to have a common origin several thousand years ago. Among them are Songhai-, Zarma- and possibly the Tebu-speaking peoples in Niger, Chad and Libya. Fula-speaking peoples are also present, their language tracing to a different family across the middle of the continent, the Niger-Congo. And finally, the Tamasheq-speaking Tuaregs, a Berber language, pertains to the Afroasiatic (Semitic) language group found across northern Africa and the Near East.

Today’s Desert Culture

Desert culture in Niger thrives in many modes and forms, the summary below highlighting select examples prominent in and around Agadez, an oasis town, that as recently as 1975 had fewer than 10,000 residents, and surrounding areas. Today Agadez has grown to a population of at least 125,000, transforming what was once an intimate nomad-dominated crossroads of the Sahara into a sprawling mélange of cultural influences. The “Hausazation” of Agadez, as some refer to the contemporary scene, involves the arrival of considerable numbers of West African traders and migrants as well as Islamic fundamentalists.

What will happen to traditional desert cultural expression with its inevitable integration into an increasingly global cultural commodification (Seligman, 2006; Schmidt, 2018)? NigerHeritage aims to create a museum center in Agadez that celebrates the ancient past, preserves and teaches desert cultural traditions, and provides a space for the creative handwork, sounds and words of future generations.

Jewelry. Earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings and anklets in silver comprise a rich and historic tradition in Tuareg culture. Other metals, several kinds of stone from the Aïr, beads in red and black, and leather are also utilized in jewelry. Simplicity in form and decorative motif characterizes the jewelry of Saharan desert cultures, which is worn by both women and men (Loughran, 2006).

Further Reading