ABSTRACT
Before the Arab invasions of the seventh and eleventh centuries the interior of northern Africa was peopled by two distinct types of man, Negroid and non-negroid. Included among the Libyans or Berbers were the Saharan races that the Romans called Gaetuli in the north-west, Garamantes in Fezzan, and Nobatae in the Nile valley. The history of the Tuareg has been traced back fairly clearly to the time of the Arab invasions when they were already occupying the whole of the central and Western Sahara. Ibn Khaldun divided the Berbers into Zenata, the nomadic people with whose arrival the introduction of the camel into Africa seems to be closely associated, and two older groups descended from two eponymous heroes, Beranes and Madghis. The Zaghawa, whom Ibn Khaldun classed as Muleththemin, now survive under that name only in Wadai, to the east of Lake Chad.
