Algeria has been populated since 10,000 BC, as depicted in the Tassili National Park. The indigenous peoples of northern Africa are a distinct native population, called the Berbers by Greeks and Romans, and then by Arabs.
Prehistoric period
The cave painting found around the Tassili n'Ajjer in northern Tamanrasset, and in other places, depicts scenes from everyday life in the prehistoric Algeria, between 8000 and 4000 BC. They were executed by hunters during the Capsian period of the Neolithic age who lived in a savanna region, known then as the Green Sahara. Those paintings show giant buffalos, elephants, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus, animals that no longer exist in the now-desert area. The pictures provide the most complete record of a prehistoric Algerian history.
Earlier inhabitants of Algeria also left a significant amount of remains. At Ain Hanech region (Saïda Province), early remnants (200,000 BC) of hominid occupation in North Africa were found. Neanderthal tool makers produced hand axes in the Levalloisian and Mousterian styles (43,000 BC) similar to those in the Levant.
According to some sources, 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 (after the archeological site of 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 Iberomaurusian (located mainly in Oran region). This industry appears to have spread throughout the coastal regions of the Maghreb between 15,000 and 10,000 BC. Neolithic civilization (animal domestication and agriculture) developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean Maghrib between 6000 and 2000 BC. This life richly depicted in the Tassili n'Ajjer paintings, predominated Algeria until the classical period.
The amalgam of
