The Capsian culture (named after the town of Gafsa ) was a Mesolithic culture of the Maghreb, which lasted from about 10000 BC to 6000 BC. It was concentrated mainly in modern Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, with some sites attested in Cyrenaica (Libya). It is traditionally divided into two variants (often contemporaneous): traditional Capsian, characterized by flake and blade tools, and upper Capsian, with a much greater variety of geometric microliths. Bone tools were also used, and shell beads and decorated objects were made. Capsian sites are typically accompanied by shell mounds and dark-colored ash deposits; some involve caves, while others are open-air. They are often near springs or passes.

During this period, the area's climate was open savannah, much like modern East Africa, with Mediterranean forests at higher altitudes. The Capsians' diet included a wide variety of animals - many no longer present in the area - ranging from aurochs and hartebeests to hares and snails; there is little evidence on what plants they ate.

Anatomically, the Capsians (to use a loose expression) were modern Homo sapiens, classed in two "racial" types: Mechta-Afalou and Protomediterranean . Some (eg Ferenbach 1985) have argued that they were immigrants from the east, whereas others (eg Lubell et al. 1984) argue for population continuity based on physical skeletal characteristics.

It was in the early Capsian period that the first domesticated sheep and goats appear in the area.

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. The Iberomaurusian practice of evulsion of the central incisors continued sporadically, but became rarer.

The Capsian culture is often identified by historical linguists as having brought the ancestor of the modern Berber languages to North Africa.

The Eburran culture of the 13th-8th millennia BC in Kenya is also termed the "Kenya Capsian", due to similarities in the stone blade shapes; it is unclear whether this culture is to be linked with the North African Capsian culture.

See also

• Prehistory of Central North Africa

Bibliography

• 2001D. Lubell. Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene Maghreb. In, P.N. Peregrine & M. Ember (eds.) Encyclopedia of Prehistory, Volume 1: Africa. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, pp. 129-149.

External links

• Capsian North Africa
• Lubell. Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene Maghreb (pdf)
• L'Université de Genève - drawing of mircoliths from upper Capsian