The Quaternary fauna of Algeria and its representation in rock art : Paleogeography, extinctions, survivals
Iddir Amara  1@  , Djillali Hadjouis  2@  
1 : Institut d'archéologie  (Université Alger II)
2 : Service Archéologie du Val-de-Marne, Paris
FRANCE

More than 130 ancient species of mammals are distributed, by the presence of bio-documents, in around a hundred Quaternary archaeological sites in Algeria. If during the Pleistocene and the Holocene, huntihg, fishing and gathering strategies are generally more documented, even if the action of carnivores is not systemastically sought in many sites, the fact remains thas the representation of wild species and domestic in rock art is insufficiently illustrated (less than 50 species). Do the animal figurations represent a selection of certain emblematic species present in the environnement (terrestrial animal, lake, amphibian, flying), or a symbolic representation such as the imposing snimal by size (aurochs, buffalo, rhinoceros, elephant, giraffe), elegance (prestigious horned antelopes), or fear (large predators) ? Obviousely, a large number of herbivore taxa, carnivores, insectivores, aquatic and flying species are absent from the bestiary of rock art representations. If some Pleistocene species will die out thanks to the optimal changes of the last glacial in Europe and its environmental repercussions in the Mediterranean and in North Africa in particular during the Neolithic subpuvial, those which are essential by their endemism in the central Sahara see their distribution geographic change bye the rise of the same time by a milderclimate with forest-gallery type vegetation around 6 000 BC. Other questions remain. What about the phulogenetic sytatus of taxa representated in the Holocene, like elephantids, girafids, camelids, equines ?


Online user: 61 Privacy
Loading...