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Biogeography and behavioral adaptations of late Quaternary hunter gatherers in the Sahara
BREATHE aims to contribute a new understanding of cultural and behavioral traits of North African early modern humans through the archaeological record of the central and northern Sahara
BREATHE aims to contribute a new understanding of cultural and behavioral traits of North African early modern humans through the archaeological record of the central and northern Sahara
The project's goal is to challenge the conceptual barrier that the Sahara could have presented a physical barrier for early H. sapiens by enhancing understanding of human dispersal patterns in North Africa and technological adaptations to regional environments. For this, the project investigates areas in the north and south of Libya, crucial regions for understanding the trans-Saharan connections that contributed to the global dispersal of our species. They represent an ideal North-South transect with different environments and archaeological records, an important axis between sub-Saharan Africa and the Mediterranean.
North Africa plays a crucial role in understanding the origins and evolution of Homo sapiens. The region is home to some of the earliest known fossils of our species, dated to around 300,000 years ago. These discoveries have broadened the focus beyond East Africa, highlighting North Africa as a key area in human history.
This period also marks major behavioural changes across the continent, such as the shift from large hand-held Acheulean tools to the flake and composite tool technologies of the Middle Stone Age (MSA). While these new technologies emerged broadly at the same time, the continued use of other methods in some regions suggests complex and overlapping processes.
The transition from the Early Stone Age (ESA) to the Middle Stone Age has strong links with North Africa. Indeed, some of the earliest MSA technologies on the continent appear here and persisted for hundreds of thousands of years. However, occupation was not continuous across the region, and archaeological evidence is concentrated in a few well-studied zones, mostly along the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts and in the Nile Valley.
Although early Homo sapiens fossils in North Africa are rare, the strong association between MSA technologies and modern humans places this region firmly within the early biogeographic range of our species.
The evolution of MSA behaviours in North Africa is closely linked to the dynamic role of the Sahara in shaping patterns of population movement, isolation and diversification. Adaptation to extreme or changing environments appears to have been a defining characteristic of our species, enabling survival across diverse landscapes
These environmental challenges may have driven dispersals, triggered new behaviours and facilitated the spread of technological innovations. The variability seen in North African MSA traditions likely reflects human responses to different ecological and geographical conditions with roots deep in the late Middle Pleistocene.
The Sahara is a barrier (?)
The Sahara is a barrier (?)
The role of the Sahara in early human evolution remains uncertain, largely due to the limited, fragmented, and often poorly dated archaeological record.
This gap stems from both preservation challenges and practical constrains, such as difficult access or regional instability over time.
As a result, the Sahara is often viewed primarily as a barrier to human movement during arid periods.
However, several key research areas have yielded valuable archaeological evidence suggesting a more nuanced situation.
While many of these locations are now inaccessible for new fieldwork, collections housed at accessible institutions continue to offer crucial opportunities for study and new insight into the region’s past.
These arid regions have deeply eroded landscapes where Pleistocene geoarchaeological archives are rare, so that the scant archaeological and chronometric data for Saharan and peri-Saharan regions limits our knowledge of biogeographic dynamics at key moments of human evolution as around the emergence of H. sapiens.
Apart from a few buried stratified contexts, the evidence consists mainly of lithic artefacts found on open surfaces that mostly span the final phases of the Early Stone Age and the Middle Stone Age.
Such contexts anyway provide a wealth of information when a range of modern analytical techniques are combined, such as geospatial statistics, geometric morphometrics and advanced taphonomic analysis.
The amplitude of the research areas also allows large-scale landscape analyses to be carried out, revealing patterns of land use and occupation that are not detectable at a site-based research scale.
The project provides a window into past human behaviour and biogeographic dynamics in a central arid region, which played a key role in the adaptive strategies that enabled our species to colonise new and challenging environments across Africa and beyond.
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