Mysterious Humans of the ancient Sahara

[seeder]

The full title wouldn't fit, but it is actually titled:

What Happened to the Mysterious Humans of the Sahara 7,000 Years Ago?

Today, the desert is vast and forbidding. But a few brave archaeologists who traveled deep into the western reaches of the area over the past hundred years have discovered something incredible. There are enormous murals of paleolithic rock art stretching back at least 10,000 years, depicting everything from animals to the clothing people wore during village ceremonies.

Often the people in these paintings are drawn with very round heads, a characteristic Saharan style. Paintings that share this style probably come from peoples with similar cultural origins. As the centuries passed, the paintings become more sophisticated and we see images that show bronze age tools, people riding horses, and using clay pots. The question is, what happened to these people? How did they live in such arid conditions? Where did they go?

http://io9.com/what-...ara-7-563577739

Edited June 25, 2013 by seeder

[lightly]

Very interesting seeder.

This site has some good info on the timeline. More rock art too!

http://www.calacademy.org/exhibits/africa/exhibit/sahara/artwork.htm

[kannin]

great topic seeder, isnt the ancient human race amazing! they pathed the way for us! we only owe it to them to learn of their ways, beutiful artists they were indeed, makes you wonder how fresh and extravagant life was back then when the world was such a curiousity

[seeder]

great topic seeder, isnt the ancient human race amazing! they pathed the way for us! we only owe it to them to learn of their ways, beutiful artists they were indeed, makes you wonder how fresh and extravagant life was back then when the world was such a curiousity

Cheers!! I will reply more later, just off to bed now, 2 am in UK!!

[kannin]

Cheers!! I will reply more later, just off to bed now, 2 am in UK!!

cheers

[Harte]

great topic seeder, isnt the ancient human race amazing! they pathed the way for us!

Because, obviously, paving wasn't invented yet.

Harte

[cormac mac airt]

The full title wouldn't fit, but it is actually titled:

What Happened to the Mysterious Humans of the Sahara 7,000 Years Ago?

Today, the desert is vast and forbidding. But a few brave archaeologists who traveled deep into the western reaches of the area over the past hundred years have discovered something incredible. There are enormous murals of paleolithic rock art stretching back at least 10,000 years, depicting everything from animals to the clothing people wore during village ceremonies.

Often the people in these paintings are drawn with very round heads, a characteristic Saharan style. Paintings that share this style probably come from peoples with similar cultural origins. As the centuries passed, the paintings become more sophisticated and we see images that show bronze age tools, people riding horses, and using clay pots. The question is, what happened to these people? How did they live in such arid conditions? Where did they go?

http://io9.com/what-...ara-7-563577739

The Sahara wasn't always a desert. In fact, between c.8500 BC and 3500 BC much of North Africa was either steppe or savannah, with some areas being wetter than they are now up to c.2500 BC. After that the desert completed its encroachment on the the once greener Sahara.

http://www.uni-koeln.de/sfb389/sonstiges/kroepelin/242%202006%20Kuper%20Kroepelin%20Science%20313%20%20%2811%20August%202006%29.pdf

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/11/11/0905771106.full.pdf

cormac

[Harte]

What happened to them?

Some of them are still there, but most of them got thirsty and moved to a more thirst-quenching locale, don't you suppose?

Harte

[Rolci]

You learn something new every day. Now the Sahara is in Central Africa.

[WelshRed]

it's the 26,000 year cycle or "Earth Wobble" which means the tropics drift up and down over this period of time. The Sahara will one day be a lush savannah again (at the expense of another region).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

This is all to do with the natural cycle of the Earth's orbit around the sun but something that those that tax us like to call "climate change" which itself was an updated "buzzword" for "global warming" which was dropped once the powers that be realised that particular buzzword bulls**t would not stick much longer.

[DeWitz]

WelshRed's comment makes sense. With what we know of global climate change it is logical that environments have undergone significant, if not drastic, changes over the millennia. An alternative explanation is that these people were 'taken away' by von Daniken''s legendary ancient astronauts in their "Chariots of the Gods." Note the bulbous head on the larger figure in the left foreground, obvious representing some type of space helmet. . . . .

[seeder]

WelshRed's comment makes sense. With what we know of global climate change it is logical that environments have undergone significant, if not drastic, changes over the millennia. An alternative explanation is that these people were 'taken away' by von Daniken''s legendary ancient astronauts in their "Chariots of the Gods.

" Note the bulbous head on the larger figure in the left foreground, obvious representing some type of space helmet. . . . .

I dont think anythings obvious at all, the article did say and I quote: "Often the people in these paintings are drawn with very round heads, a characteristic Saharan style"

But another clue is the "Tagelmust", or head dress used to keep the heat down on the head while protecting the eyes from sand etc, something still going on today

[seeder]

What happened to them?

Some of them are still there, but most of them got thirsty and moved to a more thirst-quenching locale, don't you suppose?

Harte

I think this is probably the most logical answer, along with Cormacs. Some of the Saharan rock art shows cattle or deer type animals, something perhaps not found in desert landscapes

http://en.wikipedia....aharan_rock_art

quote:

What they suggest (Kröpelin and his team), is that after a long arid period during the last ice age, the Sahara began to experience heavy monsoons starting about 8500 years BCE. The whole region became a grassy savannah, full of edible plants and animals, and people moved from the Nile valley deep into the eastern Sahara. As the monsoons grew milder, about 7000 BCE, people moved south too. But then, about 5300 BCE, the monsoons began to dry up. That's when people began to cluster back around the Nile again.

Rainfall zones are delimited by best estimate isohyets on the basis of geological, archaeozoological, and archaeobotanical data. (A) During the Last Glacial Maximum and the terminal Pleistocene (20,000 to 8500 BC), the Saharan desert was void of any settlement outside of the Nile valley and extended about 400 km farther south than it does today.

With the abrupt arrival of monsoon rains at 8500 BC, the hyper-arid desert was replaced by savannah-like environments and swiftly inhabited by prehistoric settlers. During the early Holocene humid optimum, the southern Sahara and the Nile valley apparently were too moist and hazardous for appreciable human occupation. © After 7000 BC, human settlement became well established all over the Eastern Sahara, fostering the development of cattle pastoralism. (D) Retreating monsoon rains caused the onset of desiccation of the Egyptian Sahara at 5300 BC Prehistoric populations were forced to the Nile valley or ecological refuges and forced to exodus into the Sudanese Sahara where rainfall and surface water were still sufficient. The return of full desert conditions all over Egypt at about 3500 BC coincided with the initial stages of pharaonic civilization in the Nile valley.

.

Edited June 26, 2013 by seeder

[Harte]

After 7000 BC, human settlement became well established all over the Eastern Sahara, fostering the development of cattle pastoralism. (D) Retreating monsoon rains caused the onset of desiccation of the Egyptian Sahara at 5300 BC Prehistoric populations were forced to the Nile valley or ecological refuges and forced to exodus into the Sudanese Sahara where rainfall and surface water were still sufficient.

While your reference is primarily about the Eastern Sahara, there was a culture that stretched across the entire Sahara, even up into modern times (as we know - Bedouin, Tuareg, etc.)

The portion of your post I quoted above might have left readers with the implication that everyone moved out of the desert. Plus, I got some more rock art to show.

The following are from the Tassili Plateau in what is now Algeria:

Elephant (Archaic Period) 8,000 - 7,000 BP:

Pastoral Period 6000 - 2200 BP:

Horse Period 3200 - 1200 BP

Divided into subperiods Chariot and Camel:

Here's a camel one:

The chariot art is interesting in that it likely documents the introduction of the chariot to the region (Algeria, at least.)

I think it's a safe bet if not a lock that there are thousands more sites that remain undiscovered with similar rock art, all over the Sahara.

Harte

[seeder]

I think it's a safe bet if not a lock that there are thousands more sites that remain undiscovered with similar rock art, all over the Sahara.

Harte

We need a massive hurricane or 2 in the desert to blow lots of sand away! Just think whats buried, ruins, tombs maybe, entire villages, maybe treasure too. But we may never know sadly...like so many other things lost in the sands of time

[paperdyer]

I've always wondered how all the dirt and plants, etc. changed to silica over the eons.

[seeder]

I've always wondered how all the dirt and plants, etc. changed to silica over the eons.

But they dont do that, do they? Sand is from weathered rocks, like sandstone, or any other rock to be fair

[moonshadow60]

And somewhere under all of that dirt is water. I've read articles about the "ocean" of water beneath the Sahara. It does look a bit like beach sand, doesn't it?

[HollyDolly]

My late father during World War 2 was in North Africa. I recall him talking about the rock paintings. Daddy also mentioned about how from the air,when they were flying over the desert,you could see what appeared to be the remains of cities or towns .He was a flight crew chief and mechanic with the 376 Liberators and bombed the Ploesti Romanian Oil fields amongst other places. I once asked him did they ever attempt to do archeological digs at these sites, and he said as far as he knew,no. Some were rather remote, not easy to get to apparently.

[keithisco]

it's the 26,000 year cycle or "Earth Wobble" which means the tropics drift up and down over this period of time. The Sahara will one day be a lush savannah again (at the expense of another region).

http://en.wikipedia....nkovitch_cycles

This is all to do with the natural cycle of the Earth's orbit around the sun but something that those that tax us like to call "climate change" which itself was an updated "buzzword" for "global warming" which was dropped once the powers that be realised that particular buzzword bulls**t would not stick much longer.

There is always a denier who fails to read his own links:

Currently the Earth is tilted at 23.44 degrees from its orbital plane, roughly halfway between its extreme values. The tilt is in the decreasing phase of its cycle, and will reach its minimum value around the year 11,800 CE ; the last maximum was reached in 8,700 BCE. This trend in forcing, by itself, tends to make winters warmer and summers colder (i.e. milder seasons), as well as cause an overall cooling trend, but the instrumental temperature record shows a comparatively sudden rise in global temperatures in the 20th and 21st centuries attributed to man-made greenhouse gas emissions.^[7]

[jaylemurph]

For best available information on the Saharan Peoples and what eventually happened to them, read the Urantia Book, Paper 80:2.1. You can find this on page 890 of the Urantia Book. You can also read and search the Urantia Book online. Try www.urantiabook or www.urantiabookonlinestudyedition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urantia_Book#Criticism_of_its_science

The only informationThe Urantia Book reliably provides is "Who is the biggest sucker in the room?"

--Jaylemurph

[seeder]

For best available information on the Saharan Peoples and what eventually happened to them, read the Urantia Book, Paper 80:2.1. You can find this on page 890 of the Urantia Book. You can also read and search the Urantia Book online. Try www.urantiabook or www.urantiabookonlinestudyedition

dbl post

Edited June 29, 2013 by seeder