" Agrarian Background of Old Maghreb Countries Before the Establishment of Carthage "

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Abstract

There had been a great difference between historians regarding the practicing of agrarian activities by the people of old Maghreb countries prior to the arrival of the Phoenicians there, where some of them see that the origins of agriculture and commencement and development of agrarian technologies is closely connected to the middle east. On the opposite side, there are some other historians that said that the people of old Maghreb countries practiced agricultural activities prior to the arrival of the Phoenicians, supported by ancient resources and archeological discoveries.
The suggested vision in this research is based on the discussion of agrarian background of the inhabitants of ancient Maghreb, prior to the establishment of Carthage, by establishment of main outlines of ancient Maghreb, its natural and human elements and resources, along with their effects on practicing agricultural activities, specifying the origins of agriculture, its technologies, main crops to define more precisely the extent reached by the inhabitants of ancient Maghreb in this field prior to the arrival of the Phoenicians there and the establishment of Carthage.
Through research Maghreb countries appeared to occupy a very important location qualified her to interact with both European and eastern effects; thus we've got here a deep-rooted eastern civilization interacted with other new medium that resulted in the birth of a new spectacular civilization, which was supported by transfer of expertise and ideology from the middle east through successive waves of peoples that came to live and reside in the whole region, without any Phoenician effect in the agricultural transfer, and the only thing that the Phoenicians and Cartagians had done is the improvisation of agricultural technologies and not bringing in some new types of agriculture, except the cultivation of pomegranate tree specified by older Billini as a new addition by the Phoenicians or Carthaginians into the region. Yet the grafting of rural olive trees to improve its production was merely an African invention. Besides the cultivation of wheat and barely was carried out on wide scale by the Maghreb Aborigines, and all along the plains heading towards the south between Daqaa and Makthre the cultivation of cereals was carried out by the Libyans.
more extensive and serious studies that discuss the role of carthage in the development of agriculture and agrarian technologies, not only in ancient Maghreb countries but in the all over western shores of the Mediterranean.