Berbers from North Africa

 

Hey everyone im readiing a book on Morocco and it says the Majority of the population are Berbers not Arabs or Africans.  From as much as ive read they have bin in North Africa since the dawn of History so im thinking at least 4 to 5 thousand years.  Anyway what i havent read in the book is Where the Berbers original came from (all it said that they are mostlikly from Europe or western Asia).  So if you guys can answer my question Where did the Berbers originate from?  And what race are they?  Are they possibly Ayrans from Europe or one of the old Spanish Tribes or possibly Bask in origin?

Hi,

The fact that Berbers are the majority not only in Marocco but in the all
Maghrib is no surprise as the area as often been conquered but only by
very small groups of soldiers and never by huge ethnical invasion waves.
The main invaders are: the Phenicians, the Romans, the Vandals, the
Arabs, the "Senegalese" (Almohads but most of them were in fact berbers
all right), Spanish, Turks, and finally French. This constantly invaded
situation leads to a stronger proportion of "original" roots in the
mytocondries than is their male counter parts (just like in Europe).

To get a good idea of what the berbers might have been a long time ago
(if you follow as I do the Ibn Khaldun civilisation scheme) you should
focuse not on those who are known nowadays as the Kabils but on the
nomadic Touaregh tribes in the Sahara desert.

Where do they come from is of course uncertain but one interesting
theory for their strong genetical originality is that during the last ice age
they were locked in some "hot pocket" more or less separated from the
rest of the world by whatever geographic obstacle for a fairly long period
of time.

Bye Hafifi.