Engraved Giraffes and Cow, around 8000 years old (Neolithic Period), at Wadi Mathendous prehistoric archaeological site – Messak, Settafet, Libya.

Rock Art of the Tadrus Acacus, Fezzan

The history of Libya does not begin with the arrival of the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans or Arabs: it long predates the arrival of these ethnic groups who came to Libya as traders, settlers and colonizers. Before coming into contact with these immigrant groups, the Berber tribes had lived there for thousands of years. It is nearly impossible to trace the exact history of the region as the tribes indigenous to Libya have left no written records behind them, however indigenous art found carved on the mountains of Tadrart Acacus in Fezzan and the Messak Plateau date back thousands of years, indicating that the region was inhabited by ancestors of these tribes since at least 8,000 BCE and provide some interesting insight about the region and the people who inhabited it1.

Cave Artwork in Tadrart Acacus, Fezzan

These rock carvings, especially those of diverse animal species give us a sense that the land that is now a vast desert was once a fertile land, home to flora and fauna that are more usually found in greener environments and that the people who inhabited the region lived as hunters, cattle herders and fishermen owing to its friendly environmental conditions. For example, the striking petroglyphs of the Wadi Methandous escarpement in the Messak Settafet, a large plateau running southwest through the Sahara to northeast through the Libyan province of Fezzan, depicts, crocodiles, ostriches, buffaloes, and hippopotami, which indicates that the dry riverbeds which remain were once part of a wetter landscape, perhaps a green savannah with rich waterways, grassy plateaus and an environment which was ripe for the cultivation of crops2. However, climate changes over the centuries and the resulting desertification of the green region later transformed into the great Sahara desert.

The earlier people or tribes who inhabited the region, such as the Berbers, had their own ways of living, quite distinct and rich for that matter from the outsiders coming in the later period. Premising on the evidence the prehistoric artwork and painting carved on the rocks provide, the historians argue that the inhabitants then practiced Neolithic agriculture3. They cultivated crops as the land was suitable for this practice, many of the groups relied on livestock as a subsistence and while others had a nomadic lifestyle and they were not concentrated on a single area4. Where arable land existed, they cultivated plants. In other places, they sought pasture and water for their animals. Cave paintings and rock artwork from Tadrart Acacus in the Libyan Desert and from the Tassili n’Ajjer region in Algeria, both of which have been dated to 12 millennia ago, show that the Berbers domesticated animals and practiced subsistence agriculture from between 6,000 and 2,000 BCE5.

Fighting Cats Petroglyph of Wadi Methandous, Messak Settafet Escarpement, Southwestern Fezzan

Elephant Petroglyph of Wadi Methandous, Messak Settafet

Giraffes Petroglyph of Wadi Methandous, Messak Settafet

Petroglyphs of the Wadi Methandous, Messak Settafet

Photos by Patrick Poendly, Dreamstime images

Mauri, Numidians, and Gaetulians comprised the three primary subgroups of historical Berber society. It is presupposed that Mauri and Numidians developed sedentary cultivation of crops while the Gaetulians reared cattles and had a nomadic lifestyle6. Another significant tribe were the Tebou or the mountain people. The people of the Tebou tribe also had a diverse lifestyle but it is assumed that most of the people of this group lived a pastoralist life and very few were settled in permanent dwellings. Most of the Tebou people reared cattle and relied on livestock. The number of animals determined one’s class and power in Tebou society7.

Tadrart Acacus Rock Art

1. Oyeniyi, Bukola Adeyemi. The History of Libya. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2019.

2. Oliver, Roland (1999), The African Experience: From Olduvai Gorge to the 21st Century (Series: History of Civilization), London: Phoenix Press, revised edition, pg 39.

3. Oyeniyi, Bukola Adeyemi. The History of Libya. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2019.

4. ibid.

5. ibid.

6. ibid.

7. ibid.