Tassili Tadrart
Coordinates: 24 ° 28 ' N , 10 ° 14' E
The Tassili Tadrart (also Red Tadrart ) is the southern extension of the Tadrart Acacus . It is located in the southeast of Algeria , bordering Libya to the east and Niger to the south. The mountains are traversed by west-east oriented, ravine-like wadis , of which In Djaren , which flows into the Erg of Tin Merzuga , is the largest.
Paleoclimate
The Tassili Tadrart is extremely dry today. However, in the Neolithic subpluvial the area had rainfalls and was covered by savannah vegetation and thus suitable for humans and animals to live.
geography
The area is characterized by the fact that all the colors of the Sahara sand are represented in a relatively small area. The dunes vary in different heights and sizes. The approximately 15-30 km wide, 150 km long and up to 1,340 km high mountain formation consists largely of sandstone . Erosion has formed numerous stone arches in the area in addition to rock castles and canyons . At Tin Merzouga the sand dunes spread out powerfully and wash around black, obelisk-like rock towers.
From Djanet you can get to the Tassili Tadrart via an asphalt road in a south-easterly direction along the Erg d'Admer . Tuareg of the Kel Ajjer live here .
- Landscape of Tassili Tadrart
Eastern slopes of Tassili Tadrart tapering into dunes
Moul n'Aga rock tower washed by sand dunes
La Cathedrale stone arches
Rock paintings
The Tassili Tadrart has magnificent rock paintings that span a long chronological span from the early Neolithic to modern times. Walls and overhangs at the bottom of the wadis are littered with rock paintings and rock engravings documenting the area's climate change from a savannah 10,000 years ago to a desert 5,000 years ago. Rock art changed over time from wild fauna such as elephants, rhinos, giraffes, antelopes, wild cattle to domesticated animals such as snakes , horses and finally camels.
- Rock paintings in Tassili Tadrart
Red-spotted giraffe
Herd of elephants
Hunters with giraffes; Inscriptions in tifinagh and arabic
Men with sticks
Cattle with wife in a hut
Wild
Domestic cattle
Animal footprints
Domestic cattle
literature
- Anna Maria Mercuri: Plant exploitation and ethnopalynological evidence from the Wadi Teshuinat area (Tadrart Acacus, Libyan Sahara) , in: Journal of Archaeological Science 35 (2008) 1619–1642.
- C. Carrara, M. Cremaschi, Y. Quinif: The travertine deposits in the Tadrart Acacus (Libyan Sahara) nature and age, in: M. Cremaschi, S. di Lernia (ed.): Wadi Teshuinat - Palaeoenvironment and Prehistory in Southwestern Fezzan (Libyan Sahara) , Rome, Milan 1998, pp. 59-66.
- Birgit Agada, Adolf Schuster, Algeria, Trescher Verlag 2010, ISBN 978-3-89794-155-7
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Stefan Kröpelin et al., Climate driven ecosystem succession in the Sahara: The past 6000 years. Science 2008, 320, pp. 765-768.
- ↑ Malika Hachid, Le Tassili des Ajjers. Aux sources de l'Afrique, 50 siècles avant les pyramides, 1998, ISBN 2-84272-052-0 , p.35.
- ↑ Rock arches in Tassili National Park .
- ^ Léone Allard-Huard, Nile-Sahara. Dialogues rupestres. Dialogs of the Rocks, pp. 225-239.