In the southeast of Algeria, in the middle of the Sahara desert and near the border with Libya and Mali, there is a large mountainous plateau called Tassili n’Ajjer (literally plateau of the rivers ), located at more than 1,000 meters of altitude.
The place, which covers an area of 72,000 square kilometers, is a national park and Biosphere Reserve considered a World Heritage Site since 1982.
Because thanks to the predominant sandstone, and its ability to retain water, the area has a vegetation that contrasts with the desert that surrounds it.
Among the species that can be found there are some of the oldest trees in the world, the Saharan cypresses and myrtles, which are in danger of extinction.
Its entire surface is covered by rock formations created by erosion, which emerge from the sand dunes and look like, from a distance, the ruins of ancient cities.
These immense rocky plains, which sometimes give way to forests of monoliths, they are hollowed out by akbas (holes in the escarpments that can only be accessed on foot or by camel) and multiple faults and canyons sometimes with gueltas (courses or water holes).
The plateau and massif are inhabited by the Tuareg, and the closest town is Djanet, an oasis in the far west of the region.
In 1910 it was discovered that the site contained one of the largest and most important collections of prehistoric rock art in the world.
The first samples of this art date from about 12,000 years ago, between the 10th and 9th millennia BC, at the beginning of the Neolithic and towards the end of the last glacial period, when the Sahara was a habitable savannah instead of a desert.
Some 15,000 carvings have been identified so far, depicting large wild animals such as antelopes and crocodiles, herds of cattle, and humans hunting and dancing.
The oldest correspond to animals that lived in the Sahara during the early Holocene, made more than 10,000 years ago by hunter-gatherer groups.
The first paintings were made about 7,550 years ago by the same groups, in which schematic human figures are represented.
These paintings are among the oldest and largest in all of Africa, with some of the figures reaching up to 5 meters in height.
Some of the paintings are characterized by the representation of figures that seem to float on the surface of the rock, with round heads and without distinctive features. It is believed that the places where they appear were sites dedicated to rituals and ceremonies.
With the domestication of cattle in the area some 4,500 years ago, sheep, cows, goats and dogs began to be represented. Next to them appear hunters with bows, women and children.
Little by little, horses and chariots with riders are included, including inscriptions in ancient Libyan-Berber script, whose meaning has not yet been deciphered.
From the year 1000 B.C. Approximately, with the complete desertification of the Sahara, figures of camels appear (which had replaced donkeys and cattle as the main means of transport). It coincides with the development of long-distance trade routes used by caravans to transport salt and other goods.
Among the most outstanding paintings is the so-called Goddess with horns , made in the Neolithic and depicting a walking woman wearing what appear to be horns on her head, and wearing fringed bracelets, a skirt, and leg bands and anklets. The figure, which could be a representation of fertility, is superimposed on other smaller and older ones.
A group of Tassili paintings has given rise to a hypothesis that relates them to the consumption of hallucinogenic substances, such as mushrooms. It is a series of masked figures in a row that could be dancers, surrounded by long and lively festoons of geometric designs of various kinds.
Each one of them holds an object similar to a mushroom in the right hand and from it two parallel lines come out that reach the central part of the dancer's head.
According to some researchers such as Giorgio Samorini and Terence McKenna, this could represent the effect that the fungus has on the human mind. Representations of mushrooms associated with fish appear elsewhere in Tassili.
One of the main figures that supports this hypothesis is that of a shaman who is represented with his body covered with mushrooms. According to Earl Lee this could be related to a ritual in which the shaman was buried fully clothed and, when unearthed some time later, small mushrooms grew from his clothing.
However, other researchers believe that these representations are not realistic.