Rock art of the Djelfa region

The rock art of the Djelfa region in the Ouled Naïl Range (Algeria) consists of prehistoric cave paintings and petroglyphs dating from the Neolithic age which have been recognized since 1914.

In the mid-1960s the active Djelfa Council of Initiatives undertook to record engravings and paintings, and Father F. de Villaret, who accompanied the visitors, thus made known works from some twenty new stations, notably those of Oued el Hesbaïa and Aïn Naga.

Around the road from Djelfa to Messaad (by Moudjbara) twelve stations follow roughly from north to south: no 29 (Saouiet), 4 (Aïn Mouilha), 5 (Daïet es Stel), 6 (Hadjra Mokhotma north), 7 (Hadjara Mokhotma south), 10 (Safiet Bou Khenan), 9 (Station de l'Autruche "Ostrich"), 8 (Daïet el Hamra), 11 (Bou Sekkin), 12 (Aïn Naga), 13(Atef el Ghorab), 14 (Oued Tamdit).

The engravings are located near dwelling sites, shown by the presence of worked flints and debitage, "stratified in various levels or at the foot of cliffs of reddish sandstone, the patina of which can become nearly black, which run along the djebels or stand at the edges of the oueds."

Recognizing that the engravings of the Djelfa region are "similar to those of south Oran by subject and technique", P. Huard and L. Allard judge however that they have a rich cultural content of their own which, notably, show the ancient buffalo as bearers of attributes of the heads, and the fact that almost all the ovines (sheep) are endowed with classic spheroids or horns enclosed in a ring, which are a later stylization of the motif"(p. 67).

Deducing that these evidences "show that in the two sectors, its origin must certainly be more ancient", Huard and Allard prefer to speak "of a pastoral stage of long duration, with cows and sheep"(p. 71).

In the stage of Hunters the authors gather the depictions of the large wild fauna: ancient buffalo (or Hartebeest), elephants, rhinoceros, lions, ostriches and human figures.

Otherwise there are numerous antelope-type creatures, often much stylized and in small-scale, like those of Sidi Abdallah ben Ahmed and Safiet bou Khenan, related to the style called the Tazina School, found in south-Oran.

Eighteen in number, the lions represented can be classed into three groups: "naturalistic lions in profile, three times shown in hunting scenes" (Oued el Hesbaïa, Zaccar, Daïet el Hamra, Hadjara Mokhotma north, Oued Remeilia), "fairly large lions with the stylized head facing and the body in profile", "weaker in style and carving method", "late by comparison with the south-Oran prototypes" (Djebel Doum, Kheneg Hilal, Hadjra Mokhotma south), and thirdly the "smaller felines, lightly drawn and generally late", "of mediocre style and carving method"(pp. 81–85).

Authors attribute to them the model of the "twenty-five characteristic traits of physical or psychic valour of the hunter culture" which they have identified "in the Nile area and in various Saharan regions" (p. 85).

North Africa enjoyed a fertile climate during the subpluvial era; what is now the Sahara supported a savanna type of ecosystem, with elephant, giraffe, and other grassland and woodland animals now typical of the Sahel region south of the desert.

Historian and Africanist Roland Oliver has described the scene as follows: [In] the highlands of the central Sahara beyond the Libyan desert,... in the great massifs of the Tibesti and the Hoggar, the mountaintops, today bare rock, were covered at this period with forests of oak and walnut, lime, alder and elm.

The lower slopes, together with those of the supporting bastions — the Tassili and the Acacus to the north, Ennedi and Air to the south — carried olive, juniper and Aleppo pine.