What is the Afar Region known for?
The region is well known for its early hominid fossil finds including ‘Lucy’, an Australopithecus afarensis, discovered in 1974, who lived about 3.2 million years ago and more recently in the summer of 2007 the discovery of hominid remains 3.5 – 3.8 million years old.
Where is the Afar tribe located?
They live in northeastern Ethiopia, southeastern Eritrea, and Djibouti, where, with the Issas, they are the dominant people.
Are Afar people Arab?
The Afar people are believed to be the descendants of Arabs, potentially from Yemen. They settled on farm land in the Ethiopian highlands some time before 1000AD and have since been nomadic pastoralists, raising goats, sheep and cattle.
What tribe is Afar?
Cushitic
The Afar (Afar: Qafár), also known as the Danakil, Adali and Odali, are a Cushitic-speaking ethnic group inhabiting the Horn of Africa. They primarily live in the Afar Region of Ethiopia and in northern Djibouti, as well as the entire southern coast of Eritrea.
What is in the Afar Triangle?
It contains a paleo-archaeological district that includes the Middle Awash region and numerous prehistoric sites of fossil hominin discoveries, including: the hominids and possible hominins, Ardi, or Ardipithecus ramidus, and Ardipithecus kadabba, see below; the Gawis cranium hominin from Gona; several sites of the …
Are Afar indigenous to Djibouti?
Djibouti contains two indigenous ethno-linguistic groups, the Afar (sometimes also called the Danakil) and the Somali.
What caused the Afar Triangle?
Geology. The Afar Depression results from the presence of a tectonic triple junction (the Afar Triple Junction) where the spreading ridges that are forming the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden emerge on land and meet the East African Rift.
How old is the Afar Triangle?
The Afar Triangle’s history goes back millions of years to the formation of the African Great Rift Valley. The Afar Triangle was formed after two tectonic plates; the Somalian African Plate and the Nubian African Plate started separating from each other during the Miocene epoch about 11 million years ago.