Garamantes
Their growth and expansion was based on a complex and extensive qanat irrigation system (Berber: foggaras), which supported a strong agricultural economy and a large population.
[1] At its pinnacle, the Garamantian kingdom established and maintained a "standard of living far superior to that of any other ancient Saharan society"[1] and was composed of "brilliant farmers, resourceful engineers, and enterprising merchants who produced a remarkable civilization.
[4] At Takarkori rockshelter, Final Pastoral peoples restructured their society and created burial sites for several hundred individuals that contained non-local, luxury goods and drum-type architecture in 3000 BP, which made way for the development of the Garamantian kingdom.
[1] Herodotus includes the Garamantes in his description of the ancient Libyan tribes, describing them as "a very great nation" who herded cattle and farmed dates.
Gentes, Ptolemy, and Solinus, David Mattingly et al. (2003) concluded: Clearly, the perception of some of the Roman writers was that some Garamantians were negroid or very dark-skinned, whilst others saw them as essentially aligned with the Berber peoples.
This mixed picture most likely reflects the ancient reality ... On the evidence of the sources alone, the likelihood is that the Garamantes encompassed a mixture of racial types: Berber, negro and various levels of miscegenation.
[16] According to Pliny the Elder, in response to continuous Garamantian raiding, Lucius Cornelius Balbus and other Romans captured fifteen of their settlements in 19 BC.
Nikita et al. (2011) states: "The Garamantes exhibited low sexual dimorphism in the upper limbs, which is consistent to the pattern found in agricultural populations and implies that the engagement of males in warfare and construction works was not particularly intense.
[...] the Garamantes did not appear systematically more robust than other North African populations occupying less harsh environments, indicating that life in the Sahara did not require particularly strenuous daily activities.
[24] Nonetheless, five centuries after Herodotus, Roman merchants established themselves in Leptis Magna (Lybia) and Lixus (Morocco) to purchase the slaves the Berbers brought from Subsaharan Africa.
The maintenance of strong non-negroid traits into late and post-Garamantian contexts would seem to indicate that intermixing of the races was not completely open and may have been structured within Garamantian society.
[29]Francesca Ricci et al. (2013) analysed skeletal samples from the Garamantian site of Fewet in the Fezzan and found that they were similar to the Mediterranean 'Euroafrican' type identified by Sergi, but with some evidence for gene flow from (probably) sub-Saharan populations, "similarly to what Sergi (1951) suggested discussing the possible hybridization between the “Mediterranean” Group I and the “Negroid” Group IV."
[31] Efthymia Nikita et al. (2011) examined the biological affinities of the Garamantes using cranial nonmetric traits and the Mean Measure of Divergence and Mahalanobis D(2).
The combination of morphometric and isotopic work further reinforces the view that Garamantian society included individuals of diverse geographical origin, some of whom may have been first generation Trans-Saharan migrants."
