Video Plus - Watch "The Perplexing Prehistory of the Sahara" on YouTube -
Watch "The Perplexing Prehistory of the Sahara" on YouTube
-https://youtu.be/oIfIkPszBn0?si=GA3ZRajYXO2ZBWxg
deserts cover more than a fifth of the world's land area a desert is simply a place that receives less than 25 cm or 10 in of precipitation a year by this definition Antarctica is the world's largest polar desert followed closely by the Arctic polar desert at almost half the size the Sahara is the largest hot desert in the world it is over four times larger than the second biggest desert the Arabian Desert the would wasn't always this way as many of you may know the Sahara was once a very different place climate is anything but stable and this region has fluctuated drastically throughout prehistoric and even historic times hominans have lived in what is now the aara desert for about as long as they have existed theanthropos jadensis was found on the surface in Northern Chad though it is unknown if this species in particular were the ancestors of later hominins it is clear that this region was important to the evolution of hominids in general the region is not extremely well understood in regards to early human evolution though later fossils of our own species have been found in fact some of the oldest fossils attributed to our species have been found in the northern bounds of the Sahara at Jebel ear Hood 300,000 year old remains of early Homo sapiens have been found Jebel ear hood is located close enough to the coast that this area is even habitable today the coastal lands surrounding the Sahara Desert were habitable for hundreds of thousands of years the aan stone industry found in North Africa made some of the first tank points ever made these points were very Advanced for their time and may have been attached to lighter Weaponry such as javelins or darts other aspects of their technology was among the most complex of the time this culture may have influenced others though it would eventually Fade Away North Africa would have been habitable even during quite dry period periods though of course Inland this was not always the case during glacial periods the Sahara was much drier than in interglacial periods though many are familiar with the concept of the Ice Age many do not know that we are currently still in the Ice Age the ice age is just any period when the Earth has significant glaciers covering it our planet has been in an ice age for the past 2.5 million years within an ice age are warmer and cooler periods respectively called interglacial and glacial periods as you may have guessed we are currently in a warmer interglacial period the last glacial period ended around 11,700 years ago to add a layer of confusion there are also glacial maximums a glacial maximum is simply the time in which ice sheets were at their greatest extent these ice sheets lock up moisture which lower sea levels and can dry up land the last glacial maximum occurred between 26,000 and 20,000 years ago during this time the Sahara was even drier than it is today the desert extended 500 M or 800 km farther south than farther north than today most of Northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula were practically uninhabitable archaological remains from the Sahara during this time are nearly non-existent even long before the last glacial maximum the Sahara may have already been abandoned the last human presence recorded deep within the Sahara are 61,000 old remains from the tdar tacus mountains in Southwestern Libya Africa in general was much drier than today the monsoon belt in Africa was essentially restricted to the equator where relatively small forests existed the rest of Africa was Savannah grassland or desert Africa was already a very dry Place 20,000 years ago and it didn't help that a hinr event occurred between 16 to 177,000 years ago these events consist of a large number of icebergs breaking off into the North Atlantic which interrupts the thermaling circulation patterns of the ocean this causes extreme periods of seasonality which includes harsh Winters and extremely dry summers in Africa due to the Hinrich event and the glacial maximum many larger Lakes such as Lake Victoria or turana dried out the White Nile the part of the Nile that flows into central Africa had become merely a seasonal River even the mighty n itself was much weaker and may have been damned by Dunes seasonally Africa remained a very dry place until the Heinrich event began to subside and the glacial period became less intense beginning around 15,000 years ago humidity returned to the Sahara relatively quickly it would take about a millennium for water to saturate the region and for plant and animal life to move in lakes that had dried up thousands of years ago such as Lake Victoria or Albert overflowed creating new bodies of water and streams the Nile swelled to an all-time high which likely impacted the inhabitants of the region and perhaps led to some flood myths Lake Chad in the modern day is500 Square km in size but during the African humid period it's well to over 330,000 Square km this is larger than nearly all the Great Lakes combined and nearly the size of the current Caspian Sea such a massive amount of water came to the region from a much larger West African Monsoon as well as from Mediterranean Cyclones this Monsoon had already existed in dry periods and still exist today but it grew much stronger due to changes in solar idance and albo changes for an African humid period to occur many complex climate processes must come together though it is not as rare as it may sound over the past 8 million years over 200 of these African humid periods have occurred the last period was just like any other the that what occurred at a quite significant time in regards to our species existence by 15,000 years ago human cultures around the Mediterranean and the near East were making significant advancements the first truly sedentary cultures were forming such as the nofian culture the nuian culture in particular appeared to have been ancestral to later agricultural societies they hunted and gathered though they also harvested Wild Grain which would later be cultivated the return of moisture to not only North Africa but also areas around the Mediterranean certainly helped the inhabitants of these regions the Sahara is significant in the larger picture because it had long been a barrier from subsaharan Africa and North Africa in the Middle East but during this period vegetation spread over nearly the entirety of the Sahara most of the land consisted of grass covered Savannah with shrubs and trees in such a large region the vegetation did vary the Eastern Sahara was generally drier than the west and of course the land was much more Lush around lakes and rivers along with vegetation a diverse array of plants and animals moved into the region many familiar African animals such as elephants giraffes antelopes baboons wilderbeast and zebras were widespread throughout the region large herds of these animals expanded across the entire desert though some were still limited to Regions with more water the appearance of aqua IC animals such as crocodiles hippos Turtles and fish are a testament to how Lush much of the Sahara was other carnivores such as hyenas cheetah and of course human Hunters also followed the herds into the region humans lived all around the Sahara and left a lot of evidence of their activities archaeology suggests that humans began to move into The Greener Sahara as early as 15,000 years ago though it would take some time for the environment to become welcoming the people moved into this region appear to have come from all around Africa though many from subsaharan Africa prior to the African humid period many African populations were still utilizing middle Paleolithic Stone technology The Greening of the Sahara allowed the spread of more advanced upper Paleolithic Stone technology to the rest of Africa the populations that would come to settle the Sahara utilized a diverse array of Technology many different styles of projectiles were made some UNIF facial and many bifacial large Stone axes ads and knives were made thin circular discs of an unknown function are found at some Saharan sites some of them are quite refined and are Testament to the skill of these Nappers other remains include many fish hooks and Barbed points for spearing fish fishing appears to have been a very important part of their lives some sites have piles of thousands of fish bones many remains of portable art and Jewelry were made from Stone bone and ivory cave art and rock art were also a very important aspect of their culture one of the original clues that the Sahara may have been green actually came from cave in rock art one cave named the cave of swimmers has paintings of people which appear to be swimming along with other animals such as giraffe and hippopotamus the paintings were discovered in 1933 by Hungarian Explorer Lazio alasi he postulated in his 19 34 book that the depictions in this cave may stem from real observations from the region though he was careful to state that it was not actually his opinion considering it was quite controversial at the time nearly a 100 years later it is quite reasonable to conclude that these people were actually swimming these paintings date to around 10,000 years ago a time when the region would have been Lush cave and rockart have actually proven to be a very important form of evidence of what these people were doing all those years ago the first rock art in the Sahara was made roughly 12,000 years ago some rock Arts May date older though human presence does not seem to have been too significant until this time called the large wild fauna period Hunter gather societies depicted mainly the large animals from their environment familiar faces like elephants rhinos giraffes and hippos but also bids like babulas and orox large and small antelopes can also be found in these for Works humans during this period are depicted sometimes naturalistically and other times as half human half animal figures hunting scenes with Spears and axes are common bows are absent from the art from this period indicating that the technology either had not spread to the region or it was simply not used symbolic depictions are certainly known in this period and many animals have symbols covering them what is interesting about this period is that it is relatively similar to the first art created elsewhere both in Europe and Asia impressive animals were the focus of art long before humans were it is hard to extrapolate why exactly this is many of these animals were hunted and therefore were directly tied to the existence of these people other animals may have simply been depicted because they were just inherently impressive whatever the case the fact that large animals were some of the first things to be depicted in rockart May tell us something ubiquitous about the evolution of human culture the large wild fauna period lasted from 12,000 to 6,000 years ago various subdivisions have been made based on different forms of art though they are not as important for our purposes this period of rock art roughly coincides with the onset of the younger dras the younger dras was a temporary return to glacial conditions which began around 12,500 years ago this period lasted roughly a thousand years and made Northern latitudes much colder and drier Saharan Africa appears to have been affected much less though the younger dras is correlated with drier conditions regardless the Sahara still remained quite humid and human and animal populations continued to thrive throughout the younger Trias and afterward due to the popularity of pseudo science in recent years I find it necessary to mention that there was not an advanced civilization present in the Sahara during this time all of our remains display that Societies in the late Pine and early holine Sahar were hunter gatherers with many specializing in fishing activities no Monumental architecture or advanced technology has ever been found dating to this period and no a collapsed geological Dome is not evidence that Atlantis was present in morania I can make a whole series about these lies told about the late place the scene but for now just check out these videos from World of antiquity anyways Neolithic advancements such as Agriculture and animal husbandry would not enter Sahar in Africa until post 7,000 years ago these advancements correlate to a change in rock Arch known as the Pastoral period as the name may suggest this period features the appearance of domesticated cattle humans are shown hurting domesticated animals living in camps as well as hunting along with these changes the bow finally makes its appearance in hunting scenes both bow technology and more importantly animal husbandry are some of the the most important inventions of the Neolithic domesticated cattle provided a food surplus that aggregate wealth and allow individuals to become socially distinguished a significantly developed pastoral economy developed in Southwestern Libya during this period animal husbandry became more common throughout the Sahara and spread to the rest of Africa bow technology was important for a number of reasons it is not only an efficient weapon for hunting purposes but also for war war does not appear to have been very common in the othic Saharan societies but it is important to mention human burial had been practiced across all of the African human period and often consisted of shallow Graves sometimes adorned with grave Goods during the Pastoral period the first stone monuments began to be made in the Sahara between 7,000 and 6,200 years ago a tradition of creating piles of stone to bury individuals became common these tum were often created far from actual sediments though they may not be as impressive as later Neolithic constructions they still display quite a level of cultural complexity this tradition of burial mounds may have even inspired the later Neolithic constructions in Egypt and elsewhere though we will talk about this later towards the end of the Pastoral period horses appear in some Saharan art depictions of armed men on horses as well as Horses drawn by chariots have been found people are also depicted with clothing instead of Simply being naked the last period of Sahar in AR is known as the camel period this is of course because camels became more common in the region wild animals associated with the Savannah appear less frequently while animals associated with drier climates appear at a higher frequency the desert expanded and much of the Sahara Solly became uninhabitable Hunter gather activities drastically decreased and were replaced almost entirely with pastoralism though it became so dry that cattle could not withstand much of the Sahara sheep and goats were still able to thrive though in mountainous or wetter regions along with a change in Fauna more advanced weaponries such as Spears Shields and metal axes appear in artwork many populations of humans and animals appear to have migrated to more hospitable regions importantly many of these people appear to have moved along the Nile and played in important part in the founding of ancient Egypt the burial mounds once made long ago in the Sahara may have directly influenced the creation of other African monuments including pyramids though the end of the African humanid period was disastrous for Saharan populations the lower water levels actually helped humans settle along rivers a similar process seems to occurred elsewhere such as in the saman OR harapin civilizations some populations were able to remain in oases and isolated regions of the Sahara such as the caucus mountains subsaharan Africa was also heavily affected by the end of the African humid period forests contracted and the Savannah expanded the change in environment appears to have assisted banto speaking populations and expanding in Central and Eastern Africa these climatic conditions aided in the spread of pastoralism along with pottery and other Neolithic technology by the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age the Sahara was similar in size as it is today since then it has continued to fluctuate in size the Sahel went through significant droughts between the 1970s and 1980s this drought is very peculiar and unexpected it may have been directly caused by the introduction of anthropogenic aerosols these aerosols entered the atmosphere and created a hole in the ozone which affected sea surface temperature and subsequently precipitation in the Sahara since the Sahara has flipped from Green and aid over 200 times in the past 8 million years it will clearly happen again some climate models even suggest that the increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere may increase precipitation in the Sahara and facilitate plant growth the Sahara may become green again sooner than expected with our influence it is difficult to imagine how the climate will change with our activities because the forces that led to the last green Sahara are not the same as how we are affecting the environment some areas of Africa may become inhospitable while some may become less Aid and even Lush direct geoengineering in the Sahara could play a large role in its future various methods could be used to increase vegetation and precipitation even large solar Farms can decrease the albo of the Sahara and Trigger climate responses but this brings up sort of an ethical question is green necessarily good should we strive to make every inch of the Sahara habitable clearly before human cause climate change started the Sahara was inhospitable should we strive to keep it in this state or to change it if we were given the power or developed the technology should we keep the Earth in its current conditions forever with or without human cause climate change the earth will change and should we prevent this and keep the Earth in some snapshot of the environmental conditions that existed when we were raised it is interesting to think about climate in this way clearly in the future we will have more control over the climate with our technology and these will be very important questions to consider in coming centuries despite how polarizing this topic can be talking about it in this light can be quite refreshing the Sahara has a fascinating history which has taught us how Dynamic our planet really is for thousands of years lost people thrived in a lost land which we can only look at with Nostalgia expansive Lush Landscapes only comparable to other regions in Africa are something I would really like to see some day well thanks for watching the video you may have noticed that the video output has significantly decreased though I promise it is only temporary as some of you know I am studying abroad in Italy which has brought many challenges regarding producing videos it took me 3 weeks to even get a mic stand and get it set up so yeah I'm still working on the neander tal project and I will try to post more often though I will choose quality over quantity well I'll see you on the next episode of nor2 a day Rich she [Music]
