Tenerife

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Tenerife is an archaeological culture in the south of the Sahara that began in the late 6th millennium BC. Chr. To the middle of the third millennium BC. Chr. Had existed.

Etymology and history

The term Tenerife or Ténéré culture , engl. Tenerian, or Tenerian culture , was first used by Reygasse. It is derived from the Ténéré , a desert area in northern Niger . More precise definitions were given by the Berliet-Ténéré missions to the Aïr Mountains and by the J. Desmond Clarke expedition in the early 1970s.

discovery

Aerial view of the Gobero site

Human remains from the Tenerife era were first discovered in the Aïr Mountains. In 2000, the spectacular skeleton finds from Gobero , located in the Ténéré desert, followed with a total of around 200 skeletons. The finds were made by an expedition led by Paul Sereno , whose original objective was the search for dinosaur fossils . Two different cultures could be distinguished:

The culture of the Kiffium preceded the Tenerife. It went around 6000 BC. BC ended when the Sahara was again exposed to great drought. This dry period lasted until 4600 BC. With the onset of rains during the Neolithic subpluvial , the first indications of the people of Tenerife appear. Around 2500 BC Finally, the desert climate that continues today finally reached the Sahara. The Ténéré culture disappeared as did the animal world that made it possible.

Culture

During the Tenerife the desert was green and the people of that time practiced cattle breeding and fishing , at the same time they also went hunting . Grave goods such as jewelry and ceramics made from hippopotamus are evidence of spiritual ideas. The most interesting find was the burial of an adult woman in a hug pose with two children, whose ages can be estimated at 5 and 8 years based on their teeth. Remnants of pollen suggest that the burial took place on a bed of flowers. Their death, which must have overtaken the three within 24 hours - the skeletons show neither injuries nor disease - remains a mystery.

literature

  • Gwin, Peter: Lost Tribes of the Green Sahara . In: National Geographic, September 2008 . 2008, p. 126-143 .
  • Sereno, Paul et al .: Lakeside Cemeteries in the Sahara: 5,000 Years of Holocene Population and Environmental Change . In: PLoS ONE . August 14, 2008, doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0002995 .