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Algeria : History
In Antiquity Algeria was known as the Numidia kingdom and its people were called Numidians. The kingdom of Numidia had early relations with Carthaginians, Romans and Ancient Greeks, the region was considered a fertile area, and Numidians were known for their fine cavalry..
Author Terrence McKenna has hypothesised Algeria as the source of the myth of the Garden of Eden and the birth of humanity. Before the warming brought on by the Holocene Climatic Optimum around 7,000 years ago, the region contained vast grasslands which, along with the representations of cattle in the Tassili Plateau art, suggests the existence of early forms of pastoral agriculture. This would seem to be a logical precursor to the crop-based agriculture that developed in the Middle East in the agricultural revolution thousands of years later.
The ancient paintings are also a clear indication of a form of Shamanism or religion based on the use of psychedelic mushrooms. This is another reason why the region was proposed by McKenna as the cradle of culture and civilization, as the visions induced by these mushrooms give a powerful impulse towards art, painting and the sense of contact with the supernatural that is the basis of religious belief.
In 200 BCE, they were once again taken over, this time by the Roman Republic. When the Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476 AD, Berbers became independent again in many regions, while the Vandals took control over other areas, where they remained until expelled by the Byzantine general Belisarius under the direction of Emperor Justinian I. The Byzantine Empire then retained a precarious grip on the east of the country until the coming of the Arabs in the eighth century.
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