tassili

when much of the Sahara was habitable for humans, The plains and dunes in places must have been covered with grassland, with herds of ostrich, giraffe, elephants and various antelopes. In the highlands and in shallow basins on the plains several lakes formed, which supported fish, crocodile and hippopotamus. These places were ideal campsites for the early hunters, and later the water sources were essential to support the large herds of cattle of the nomadic herders, who have left their finely worked stone and bone tools and decorated pottery, as well as heaps of their 'domestic refuse' at many sites along the lakeshores and highland valleys.

The Sahara desert has formed several millions of years ago, as the northern part of the African continent drifted into the 'desert belt' around the tropic of Capricorn. While desert conditions have existed for millions of years, periodic climatic fluctuations did occur, with wetter periods supporting a flora and fauna very much like the east African savannas of today. The climatic fluctuations were linked to the ice ages in the north, and also to wetter and drier cycles in the tropics. Our ancestors have roamed the plains and highlands in the wet periods, as attested by the millions of flaked stone tools littering the desert floor at almost any place in the Sahara.

On ne peut vraiment connaitre l'Algerie sans avoir tente, ne serait-ce qu'une seule fois, l'extraordinaire rencontre avec son Sahara. Ce n'est pas une simple question de geographie