The eastern part of the High Atlas

The eastern part of the High Atlas forms vast plateaux at high altitude which provide the headwaters for the Moulouya River. It extends from the town of Khenifra and includes oases at Jbel Ayachi (at 3747 m), Jbel Saghro and Jbel Sirwa (3305 m). This portion of the range includes the solid mass of the Tamlelt whose northern edge is occupied by its higher peaks, Sony VAIO VPCY118GX/BI Battery

such Jbel Ayachi at 3,747 m. The altitude falls towards the east where the mountains join the pre-Saharan zone.

This massif became an internationally famous paleontological site after the discovery of the bones of the completely unknown ancestor of the dinosaurs, Atlasaurus, which populated Morocco 180 million years ago. Sony VAIO VPCY119FJ/S Battery

This dinosaur is also namedTazoudasaurus, after the name of the village of Tazouda where it was discovered. The creature, about nine metres long, is postulated to be an ancestor of the Sauropoda found in America. Until 140 million years ago the African and American continents were connected. Sony VAIO VPCY11AFJ Battery

The Anti-Atlas (Arabic: الأطلس الصغير‎) or Lesser Atlas or Little Atlas, is a mountain range inMorocco, a part of the Atlas mountains in the northwest of Africa.^[1] The Anti-Atlas extends from theAtlantic Ocean in the southwest toward the northeast, to the heights of Ouarzazate and further east to the city of Tafilalt, altogether a distance of approximately 500 km. Sony VAIO VPCY11AGJ Battery

The range borders on the Sahara to the south.^[1]

The easternmost point of the Anti-Atlas is the Djebel Sarhro mountains, and its eastern boundary is set by sections of the High Atlas range. On the heights of Ouarzazate, the massif is cut through by the Draa valley, opening towards the south. Sony VAIO VPCY11AHJ Battery

In this world of rocks, the contrasts are extreme. Most of the land is dry and barren, but water gathers and runs in some remote places, forming clear basins. Most villages are limited to a few small houses surrounded by palm trees. Sony VAIO VPCY11AVJ Battery

The base rock of Africa (the African plate) was formed in the Precambrian (approximately 4,500 to 550 million years ago), and is much older than the Atlas mountains. The Anti-Atlas range developed even later.

The Anti-Atlas range formed in the Paleozoic (~300 million years ago), as a result of continental collisions. Sony VAIO VPCY11M1E/S Battery

North America, Europe and Africa were connected as part of two former continents, Euramerica and Gondwana, which ground against one another to create the former Central Pangean Mountains. Evidence shows that the Anti-Atlas mountains were originally formed as part of the Alleghenian orogeny that also formed the Appalachians, Sony VAIO VPCY11S1E Battery

formed when Gondwana (including Africa) and Euramerica (America) collided. There are indications they were once a chain of mountains far higher than the Himalayas are today.

More recently, in the Tertiary period (65 millions to ~1.8 million years ago), the remaining mountain chains that today comprise the Atlas were uplifted as the land masses of Europe and Africa collided at the southern end of the Iberian peninsula. Sony VAIO VPCY11V9E/S Battery

Erosion continued to reduce the Anti-Atlas range so that it is today less massive than the High Atlas range to the north.

The summits of the Anti-Atlas reach average heights of 2,500-2,700 m (8200–8850 ft), with a few peaks reaching higher. To the north lies a plateau at 1700–1800 m in height. To the south lie the Sahara highlands at approximately 700 m. Sony VAIO VPCY218EC/BI Battery

One peak, Djebel Siroua, of volcanic origin, reaches 3304 m. The range is strongly fissured, particularly in a southerly direction.

In the Anti-Atlas, the precipitation annually is typically below 200 mm, while the climatic conditions on the north and west slopes are locally more wet and agriculturally favorable. Sony VAIO VPCY218EC/G Battery

Climatically, the mountains are separated from the Mediterranean's influence by the High Atlas to its north, and therefore they belong to the Saharan climate zone.

The landscape is marked by picturesque kasbah (small castles) in many places in the region. In former times, the kasbah was important as a place of shelter and as a supply depot for kinsmen. Sony VAIO VPCY218EC/L Battery

Close to these settlements, terraced fields with dry-stone retaining walls cover the landscape. However, increasingly houses are vacated and fields are left uncultivated. With the continued migration from the land, the irrigation systems necessary for agriculture are also decaying. Sony VAIO VPCY218EC/P Battery

The Aurès, Awras, or Aurea (Berber: Awras, Latin: Aurasium,^[1] Arabic: جبال الأوراس‎) refers to a large Berber language-speaking region in eastern Algeria, as well as to an extension of the Atlas mountain range that lies to the east of the Saharan Atlas in northeastern Algeria and northwestern Tunisia. Sony VAIO VPCY21S1E/L Battery

Not as tall as the High Atlas Mountainsof Morocco, the Awras mountains are far more imposing than the Tell Atlas range that runs closer to the coast. The highest peak, at 2328 m, is the Djebel Chélia in Khenchela Province.

Standing alone in eastern Algeria, the Awras mountains represent one of the less developed areas in the Maghreb. Sony VAIO VPCY21S1E/P Battery

TheShawia (eastern Berber) population practices traditional transhumance, farming fixed stone terraces in the mountains where they grow sorghum, other grains, and vegetables, but seasonally moving livestock to relatively warm areas in the lowland valleys where they pitch tents or live in other temporary structures and tend livestock through the winter. Sony VAIO VPCY21S1E/SI Battery

Historically, the Awras served as a refuge for the Berber tribes, forming a base of resistance against the Romans,Vandals, Byzantine, and Arabs. It was also a district of Algeria that existed during and after the Algerian War of Independence, from 1954 to 1962. It was in this region that Algerian War of Independence was started by Berber freedom fighters. Sony VAIO VGN-NW21EF/S Battery

The Capsian culture (named after the town of Gafsa in Tunisia) was a Mesolithic culture of the Maghreb, which lasted from about 10,000 to 6,000 BCE. It was concentrated mainly in modern Tunisia, and Algeria, with some sites attested in southern Spain to Sicily. It is traditionally divided into two horizons, Sony VAIO VGN-NW21JF Battery

the Capsien typique (Typical Capsian) and the Capsien supérieur (Upper Capsian) which are sometimes found in chronostratigraphic sequence. They represent variants of one tradition, the differences between them being both typological and technological.^[1][2]

During this period, the environment of the Maghreb was open savanna, much like modern East Africa, withMediterranean forests at higher altitudes.^[3] Sony VAIO VGN-NW21MF Battery

The Capsian diet included a wide variety of animals, ranging fromaurochs and hartebeest to hares and snails; there is little evidence concerning plants eaten.^[4][5] During the succeeding Neolithic of Capsian Tradition, there is evidence from one site, for domesticated, probably imported,ovicaprids. ^[6] Sony VAIO VGN-NW21MF/W Battery

Anatomically, Capsian populations were modern Homo sapiens, traditionally classed into two "racial" types: Proto-Mediterranean and Mechta-Afalou on the basis of cranial morphology. Some have argued that they were immigrants from the east, ^[7] whereas others argue for population continuity based on physical skeletal characteristics and other criteria,^[8] et cetera.^[4][8][9] Sony VAIO VGN-NW21ZF Battery

Given its widespread occurrence in the Sahara, the Capsian culture is identified by some historical linguists as a possible ancestor of the speakers of modernAfroasiatic languages of North Africa which includes the Berber languages in North Africa.^[10] Sony VAIO VGN-NW31EF/W Battery

Nothing is known about Capsian religion, but their burial methods suggest a belief in an afterlife. Decorative art is widely found at their sites, including figurative and abstract rock art, and ocher is found coloring both tools and corpses. Ostrich eggshells were used to make beads and containers; seashells were used for necklaces. Sony VAIO VGN-NW31JF Battery

The Ibero-Maurusian practice of evulsion of the central incisors continued sporadically, but became rarer.

The Eburran industry which dates between 13,000 and 9,000 BCE in East Africa, was formerly known as the "Kenya Capsian" due to similarities in the stone blade shapes. Sony VAIO VGN-NW320F/B Battery

Earlier inhabitants of central North Africa have left behind equally significant remains. Early remnants of hominid occupation in North Africa, for example, were found in Ain el Hanech, near Saïda (c. 200,000 BCE); in fact, more recent investigations have found signs of Oldowan technology there, and indicate a date of up to 1.8 million BC.^[2] Sony VAIO VGN-NW320F/TC Battery

Later,Neandertal tool makers produced hand axes in the Levalloisian and Mousterian styles (c. 43,000 BCE) similar to those in the Levant. According to some sources,^[who?] North Africa was the site of the highest state of development of Middle Paleolithic flake-tool techniques. Tools of this era, starting about 30,000 BCE, are called Aterian^[Sony VAIO VGN-NW35E Battery

(after the site Bir el Ater, south of Annaba) and are marked by a high standard of workmanship, great variety, and specialization.

The earliest blade industries in North Africa are called Ibero-Maurusian or Oranian (after a site near Oran). The industry appears to have spread throughout the coastal regions of North Africa between 15,000 and 10,000 BCE. Sony VAIO VGN-NW380F/S Battery

Between about 9000 and 5000 BCE, the Capsian culture made its appearance showing signs to belong to the Neolithic and began influencing the IberoMaurusian, and after about 3000 BCE the remains of just one human culture can be found throughout the former region. Neolithic civilization Sony VAIO VGN-NW380F/T Battery

(marked by animal domestication and subsistence agriculture) developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean North Africa after the Levante between 6000 and 2000 BCE. This type of economy, so richly depicted in the Tassili n'Ajjer cave paintings, predominated in North Africa until the classical period. Sony VAIO VGN-NW50JB Battery

The cave paintings found at Tassili n'Ajjer, north of Tamanrasset, Algeria, and at other locations depict vibrant and vivid scenes of everyday life in central North Africa during the Neolithic Subpluvial period (about 8000 to 4000 BCE). They were executed by a hunting people in the Capsian period of the Neolithic age who lived in a savanna region teeming with giantbuffalo, Sony VAIO VGN-NW51FB/N Battery

elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus, animals that no longer exist in the now-desert area. The pictures provide the most complete record of a prehistoric African culture. Various populations of pastoralists have left paintings of abundant wildlife, domesticated animals, chariots, Sony VAIO VGN-NW51FB/W Battery

and a complex culture that dates back to at least 10,000 BCE in NorthernNiger and neighboring parts of Algeria and Libya. Several former northern Nigerian villages and archeological sites date from the Green Sahara period of 7500-7000 to 3500-3000 BCE.

Some parts of North Africa began to participate in the Neolithic revolution in the 6th millennium BC, just before Saharan desertification. Sony VAIO VGN-NW70JB Battery

Clement and fertile conditions during the Neolithic Subpluvial supported increased human settlement of the Nile Valley in Egypt, as well as neolithic societies in Sudan and throughout the present-day Sahara. Cultures producing rock art (notably that at Tassili n'Ajjer in southeastern Algeria) flourished during this period. Sony VAIO VGN-NW71FB/N Battery

In Prehistoric Egypt, Neolithic settlements appear from about 6000 BC.^[3] Oher regions in Africa independently developed agriculture at about the same time: the Ethiopian highlands, the Sahel, and West Africa.^[4]

The beginning of the Bronze Age in Egypt is conventionally identified as the Protodynastic Period, following the Neolithic Naqada culture about 3200 BC. Sony VAIO VGN-NW71FB/W Battery

The amalgam of peoples of North Africa by the Iron Age coalesced into a distinct native population that came to be called Berbers. While Egypt as a part of the wider Ancient Near East had entered historicity since the Bronze Age, the Maghreb remained in the prehistoric period longer. Sony VAIO VGN-NW91FS Battery

Some Phoenician and Greek colonieswere established along the Mediterranean coast during the 7th century BC. Sony VAIO VGN-NW91GS Battery,Sony VAIO VGN-NW91VS Battery