Mechta-Afalou or Mechtoid are an extinct people of North Africa. Mechtoids inhabited Northern Africa during late Paleolithic and Mesolithic (Ibero-Maurusian archaeological culture).

Mechtoids were assimilated during Neolithic

Neolithic

The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

 and early Bronze Age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

 by bearers of Afrasian languages. The Capsian culture

Capsian culture

The Capsian culture was a Mesolithic culture of the Maghreb, which lasted from about 10,000 to 6,000 BCE.It was concentrated mainly in modern Tunisia, and Algeria, with some sites attested in southern Spain to Sicily....

, from the anthropological standpoint, is considered an indigenous development.

In summary the various lines of evidence, used to argue for derivation of the Capsian from the east, in fact suggest the opposite, and simpler conclusion of continuity between the Iberomaurusian and Capsian. In the early Holocene as the Iberomaurusian populations moved inland to take advantage of the improved climatic conditions at the end of the Pleistocene adaptive divergence occurred resulting in inter-regional variability..

External links

• http://sahara-news.webcindario.com/antropologiafisica.htm
• http://exploring-africa.blogspot.com/2008/02/mechta-afalou-and-so-called-mechtoids.html
• http://elguanche.net/Ficheros2/etniaguanchelfp4.htm
• Migration of Mechta-Afalou people (a.k.a. Ouchtatiens), marked light green on the map