65th century BCE – 43rd century BCE
Maghrib, especially southern Tunisia, eastern Algeria, and the eastern Atlas
The Capsian Industrial Complex was a late Palaeolithic and epi-Palaeolithic archaeological tradition of the Maghrib, emerging around 6500 BC and lasting until about 4300 BC. Its communities used blade-based tools, geometric microliths, bone implements, grinding equipment, and engraved ostrich eggshell. Shell-mounds, hunting remains, burials, ritual practices, and artistic objects indicate seasonally reoccupied settlements supported by broad hunting, gathering, and plant-collecting economies.
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The Story
Around 6500 BC, a new technology and tool-kit appeared in southern Tunisia and eastern Algeria before spreading westward along the eastern Atlas and northward toward the Tunisian coast. The tradition is represented by two partly contemporary facies, the Capsian typique and the Capsien supérieur. Its makers worked large blades into scrapers, backed blades, and burins, or reduced them through the micro-burin technique to produce geometric microliths.
The Capsian lasted for approximately 3,000 years, until about 4300 BC, and developed several regional and chronological facies. Its associated skeletal remains are described as more slender than the robust Mechta-Afalou populations and as proto-Mediterranean, although the latter population continued in parts of the north and east. The question of Capsian origins remained unresolved, with North-East or East Africa presented as possible sources.
Capsian sites are especially associated with shell-mounds, often formed through seasonal reoccupation by small groups. Helix was the commonest mollusc, while hunting supplied wildebeeste, wild cattle, giant buffalo, small horses, and Barbary sheep. Grinding equipment indicates the collection of wild plants and grasses, including Panicum and barley; some sickles used microlithic teeth set obliquely in slotted bone handles.
The complex also possessed a developed bone industry and artistic tradition. Burials, so-called trophy skulls, modified human bones, red ochre, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic sculptures, and engraved ostrich eggshells point to ritual and symbolic practices. Ostrich eggshell was used for containers and beads, while the wider settlement pattern suggests repeated use of places situated near water, on hills, or within Mediterranean woodland, grassland, and steppe environments.
65th century BCE – 43rd century BCE
Maghrib, especially southern Tunisia, eastern Algeria, and the eastern Atlas
The Capsian Industrial Complex was a late Palaeolithic and epi-Palaeolithic archaeological tradition of the Maghrib, emerging around 6500 BC and lasting until about 4300 BC. Its communities used blade-based tools, geometric microliths, bone implements, grinding equipment, and engraved ostrich eggshell. Shell-mounds, hunting remains, burials, ritual practices, and artistic objects indicate seasonally reoccupied settlements supported by broad hunting, gathering, and plant-collecting economies.
Continue exploring
The Story
Around 6500 BC, a new technology and tool-kit appeared in southern Tunisia and eastern Algeria before spreading westward along the eastern Atlas and northward toward the Tunisian coast. The tradition is represented by two partly contemporary facies, the Capsian typique and the Capsien supérieur. Its makers worked large blades into scrapers, backed blades, and burins, or reduced them through the micro-burin technique to produce geometric microliths.
The Capsian lasted for approximately 3,000 years, until about 4300 BC, and developed several regional and chronological facies. Its associated skeletal remains are described as more slender than the robust Mechta-Afalou populations and as proto-Mediterranean, although the latter population continued in parts of the north and east. The question of Capsian origins remained unresolved, with North-East or East Africa presented as possible sources.
Capsian sites are especially associated with shell-mounds, often formed through seasonal reoccupation by small groups. Helix was the commonest mollusc, while hunting supplied wildebeeste, wild cattle, giant buffalo, small horses, and Barbary sheep. Grinding equipment indicates the collection of wild plants and grasses, including Panicum and barley; some sickles used microlithic teeth set obliquely in slotted bone handles.
The complex also possessed a developed bone industry and artistic tradition. Burials, so-called trophy skulls, modified human bones, red ochre, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic sculptures, and engraved ostrich eggshells point to ritual and symbolic practices. Ostrich eggshell was used for containers and beads, while the wider settlement pattern suggests repeated use of places situated near water, on hills, or within Mediterranean woodland, grassland, and steppe environments.