Concept
Sétif (سطيف, Sṭif) is the capital city of the Sétif Province and the 5th most populous city of Algeria, with an estimated population of 410,000 residents in 2015 in an area of more than 127 km2 (49 sq mi). It is one of the most important cities of eastern Algeria and the country as a whole, since it is considered the trade capital of the country and an industrial pole with 3 industrial zones within the borders of the city. It is an inner city, situated in the eastern side of Algeria, 270 kilometers east of Algiers, 131 km west of Constantine, in the Hautes Plaines region south of Béjaia and Jijel. The city is at 1,100 meters of altitude. The city was part of the Phoenician Empire then it became part of the ancient Berber kingdom of Numidia, the capital of Mauretania Sitifensis under the rule of the Roman Empire. It became a city of the Islamic World after becoming Muslim during the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb. The city was the starting point of the 8 May 1945 protests and massacre, which was a crucial factor to the start of the Algerian War. Sétif was numid before undergoing Roman rule. The name of Sétif comes from latin "Sitifis", that is drawn from a Berber word "Zdif" which means "black lands" referring to the fertility of its lands. The prehistory of Setif begins with the first traces of human occupation, about 2.4 million years ago, and ends with the first Carthaginian texts, in the first millennium BC. The site of Aïn El Ahnech, in Guelta Zerka, includes several sites that have yielded very ancient lithic remains of the Oldoway type, but without associated human fossils. The Aïn Boucherit site delivered in 2018 lithic industry remains (carved stone tools), dated between 1.9 and 2.4 million years ago. On November 29, 2018, the journal Science announced the dating of the site by four corroborating methods: negative geomagnetic polarity reported to the Matuyama chron, ESR dating, biochronology (fossil species assemblages) and sedimentation rate. Aïn Boucherit could be the third oldest African site after Lomekwi 3 in Kenya (3.
