sian or Oranian (after a site near Oran). The industry appears to have spread throughout the coastal regions of the Maghrib between 15,000 and 10,000 B.C. Between about 9,000 and 5,000 B.C., the Capsian culture began influencing the Ibero-Maurusian, and after about 3,000 B.C. the remains of just one human type can be found throughout the region. Neolithic civilization (marked by animal domestication and subsistence agriculture) developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean Maghrib between 6,000 and 2,000 B.C. This type of economy, so richly depicted in the Tassil-n-Ajjer cave paintings, predominated in the Maghrib until the classical period.The amalgam of peoples of North Africa coalesced eventually into a distinct native population that came to be called Berbers. Distinguished primarily by cultural and linguistic attributes, the Berbers lacked a written language and hence tended to be overlooked or marginalized in the historical accounts. Roman, Greeks, Byzantine, and Arab Muslim chroniclers typically depicted the Berbers as "barbaric" enemies, troublesome nomands, or ignorant peasants. They were, however, to play a major role in the area's history. Phoenician traders arrived on the North African coast around 900 B.C. and established Carthage ( in present-day Tunisia) around 800 B.C. By the sixth century B.C., a Phoenician presence existed at Tipasa (east of Cherchell in Algeria). From their principal center of power at Carthage, the Carthaginians expanded and established small settlements (called emporia in Greek) along the North African coast; these settlements eventually served as market towns as well as anchorages. Hippo Regius (modern Annaba) and Rusicade (modern Skikda) are among the towns of Carthaginian origin on the coast of present-day Algeria.As Carthaginian power grew, its impact on the indigenous population increased dramatically. Berber civilization was already at a stage in which agriculture, manufacturing, trad...
