World People and Culture
The Berbers (Moors)
The Berbers are the ethnic group indigenous to North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are distributed from the Atlantic Ocean to the Siwa Oasis in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Niger River.
Northern African cave paintings, dating back 12,000 years, have been found in the Tassili n'Ajjer region, southern Algeria. Others were found in Tadrart Acacus in the Libyan desert. A Neolithic culture, marked by animal domestication and subsistence agriculture, developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean region (the Maghreb) of northern Africa between 6000 B.C and 2000 B.C.
The Phoenicians (Sea Traders)
The Phoenicians were the most resourcfull sea-traders of the ancient Mediterranean from 1000 B.C.E. and 600 B.C.E. They navigated via the North Star as far as Britain and Africa. To expand in trading, the Phoenicians also built outposts that later became great cities. Carthage (located in modern-day Tunisia).
They transported linen and papyrus from Egypt, copper from Cyprus, embroidered cloth from Mesopotamia, spices from Arabia, and ivory, gold, and slaves from Africa. King Solomon of Israel even used Phoenician artisans and resources to build the great Hebrew Temple to Yahweh.
The Hittites (Indo-Europeans)
It is generally assumed that the Hittites came into Anatolia some time before 2000 BC. While their earlier location is disputed, there has been strong evidence for more than a century that the home of the Indo-Europeans in the fourth and third millennia was in the Pontic Steppe, present day Ukraine around the Sea of Azov.
Hattusa (Hittite, Hattusas) was the capital of the Hittite Empire in the late Bronze Age (18th Century BC). This empire reached its height during the mid-14th century BC under Suppiluliuma I, when it encompassed an area that included most of Asia Minor as well as parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia. After c. 1180 BC, the empire came to an end during the Bronze Age collapse, splintering into several independent "Neo-Hittite" city-states, some of which survived until the 8th century BC.
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