The Prehistoric Berbers
From: Raktizer Omheit (cequka_at_iprimus.com.au)
Date: 09/24/04
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Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 20:44:42 +1000
The Sahara , Arabian , and Central Asian deserts during the early and middle
stages of Inter - Glacial periods between major Ice Ages has been a tropical
savanna grassland and light scrub land and light woodland , with lakes ,
swamps , and rivers and large animal herds . This far more fertile then
present Sahara existed from 128,000 - 113,000 B.C. , 26,000 - 20,000 B.C. ,
and 8000 - 4000 B.C. During the dry desert intervals , the Berbers of North
Africa and the Arabs of the Middle East , both of whom are distant cousins
to each other , retreated to the desert oases and the Mediterranean forests
of the Atlas Mountains of what is now part of northern Morocco , Algeria ,
and Tunisia , and the Mediterranean forests of the coastal mountains , hills
, and plains of what is now part of Syria , Lebanon , Israel , and Palestine
. These forests have been mostly removed by centuries of overgrazing ,
overcultivation , and deforestation which has resulted in serious erosion .
At the height of the last Ice Age , in around 17,000 B.C. , when
temperatures were at their coldest , the Atlas Mountains and the Lebanon
Mountains had increased rainfall and higher levels of snowfall then today ,
with the highest peaks even having minor glaciers . Even today , the highest
peaks of the Atlas and Lebanon mountains have light to moderate winter snow
fall .
During the height of the last Ice Age , when sea levels were 130 meters
lower than today , before the gradual melting of the ice sheets and glaciers
gradually raised sea levels again to their current position , a near land
bridge existed in what is now the Strait of Gibraltar that separates Morocco
from Spain , as well as the sea between Sicily and Tunisia , and there were
complete land bridges where the Strait of Dover separates France from
England , where the Irish Sea separates Ireland from Britain , the Strait of
Messina separates Sicily from Italy , the now shallow waters of the northern
Adriatic Sea , formerly an Ice Age plain , and the Straits of Bosphorus [
Byzantium , Constantinople , or Istanbul ] and the Hellespont [ the
Dardanelles or Gallipoli and the Troad ] , separate Thracian or European
Turkey from Anatolian or Asian Turkey . Using these land bridges and ancient
wooden and reed rafts and the wooden frame , animal hide covered boats ,
human populations travelled both to and from Europe , Asia , and Africa.
The various branches of the Indo - European speaking family came originally
as semi - nomadic warrior horsemen and herders from the steppes and prairies
of the lands north of the Black and Caspian seas , from where they conquered
the other lands of Europe , the Middle East , and India from around 2500
B.C. onwards , gradually mixing with the previous inhabitants of those lands
, with the conquered people usually reduced to the status of slaves and
serfs . The remnants of the non - Indo - European speaking peoples include
such ethnic and linguistic groups as the Guanches of the Canary Islands
archipelago , the Basques of the Pyrenees , the Berbers or Hamites of the
Atlas Mountain ranges of North - West Africa and the oases of the Sahara
desert , and the Berbers are distant cousins of the Arabs , the Picts of the
Scottish Higlands , the Iberians of pre - 900 B.C. Spain and Portugal , the
Arabs , the Sumerians , the Georgians of the Caucasus Mountain range that
separates Turkey from Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan , the Lapps , Finns
, Estonians , Hungarians , and Turks , the Burushaski of the Hunza Valley of
Pakistan , the Dravidians of the Punjab and of central and southern India ,
the Elamites of Iran before the coming of the Iranians in around 1500 B.C.
onwards , the Ligurians and Elymians of pre - 1000 B.C. Italy and Sicily ,
the Pelasgoi and Eteo - Cretans of pre - 2000 B.C. Greece and Crete , the
Lydians , of whom the Etruscans traced their ancestry from , Mysians ,
Carians , Pamphylians and Cappadocians of what is now the Turkish or
Anatolian peninsula before the conquests of Alexander the Great , and the
Ainu of Hokkaido , Sakhalin , the Pacific provinces of Russian Siberia , the
Kurile Islands , and the Kamchatka Peninsula .
The members of the Indo - European linguistic family include the Germans ,
Slavs , Celts , Latins , Greeks , Albanians , Armenians , and the Indo -
Iranians or Sanskrit Aryans , the latter branch including the Baltic Old
Prussians , Lithuanians , and Latvians as well as the Iranians or Sankrit
people of Iran , Afghanistan , Pakistan , and northern India . The word
Aryan comes from the Sanskrit word " Arya , " which means " nobles , " or "
owners of land . " When the Indo - European speaking Iranians invaded and
conquered from 1500 B.C onwards from their original homelands of what is now
southern Russia the lands of what today make the nation - states of Iran ,
Pakistan , Afghanistan , and India , they usually intermarried with the
natives or earlier invaders , usually in the form of a master - slave
relationship , where the conquered native women usually became the
concubines of their harem - keeping slave master . The offspring of such
relationships usually themselves became slaves , as the Colored or mixed -
race/miscegenated people of Apartheid South Africa . In India , such so -
called " half castes " formed the " Sudra " or " Labourer " caste , as
opposed to the " Dasa ," or " black " caste , that is , the racially unmixed
but enslaved dark - brown skinned Dravidian peoples of India . The words "
Sudra " and " Dasa " belong to the Sanskrit branch of the Indo - European
speaking people , as opposed to the non - Indo - European speaking Dravidian
people .
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