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From about 1000 BC, Libyans had contacts with Africans south of the Sahara. Ancestors of the present day Tuareg were probably a people called the Garamantes. They captured important oases along routes leading south to the Niger River. This enabled them to control the gold, ivory and slave trade between sub-Saharan Africa and the Mediterranean. Heradotus, an ancient Greek historian wrote about Libya in the 5th century BC, describing the Garamantes tribes of the Fezzan in southern Libya. He mentioned that they were sedentary farmers that used horse-drawn chariots in warfare.
