Le peuplement modeme d'Afrique septentrionale est souvent oublié dans les travaux sur l'hypothèse de l'origine africaine de l'Homme moderne, les discussions portant surtout sur les documents d'Afrique orientale et australe. L'analyse des documents existants au Maghreb, dans la vallée du Nil et au Sahara permet pourtant de mettre en évidence un peuplement moderne dont les affinités avec celui du Proche-Orient ont été évoquées à plusieurs reprises et dont l'origine, dans certains foyers géographiques, pourrait être assez ancienne. Par ailleurs, une diversité de peuplement apparait dès le Paléolithique supérieur, entre l'Afrique septentrionale et le Proche-Orient. (l'auteur)

The anatomically modern populations of North Africa are rarely mentioned in papers devoted to the issue of modern humans origin. When it comes to understanding human evolution, the African hypothesis was always a South or East-Side Story. Yet, comparative analysis of the skeletal material, based on past and present discoveries, showed morphological affinities between the Maghreb, Sahara and Nile valley prehistoric populations. These may imply: I) an additional place for the constitution of modern anatomy, in a geographic zone that stretches from the Atlantic ocean to the Nile river, bordered by the Mediterranean sea and the Sahara desert; 2) by the time of the Upper Paleolithic, modern human morphological diversity developed to a stage where at least two populations in North Africa and Levant can be recognized, as it has been described during the Holocene in the Maghreb, and the Sahara. As the Levant occupies a key position between Europe and Africa, relationships of its prehistoric settlement and those of Northern Africa has to be carefully examined in the perspective of the understanding of the constitution and the diversity of the modern populations.