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Recent research is showing that the Wadi Howar was an ancient tributary of the Nile that allowed for substantial contact between the people of the Nile valley and those in more central Africa:
quote: Located at the southern fringes of the Libyan Desert, Wadi Howar is the largest dry river system in the presently hyper-arid and uninhabitable Eastern Sahara, stretching over 1,100 km from its source area in eastern Chad to the Nile. Geoscientific investigations have shown that during the early Holocene this wadi was the Nile's most important tributary from the Sahara. Later, it became a chain of freshwater lakes and marshes supported by local rainfall, until it ultimately became extinct about 2,000 years ago. A once ecologically favoured area of settlement and communication route between the inner regions of Africa and the Nile valley, Wadi Howar bears abundant prehistoric sites providing evidence of important population movements and interregional cultural contacts.
Large posters on the spread of cattle and pottery in this region can be seen here along with the discovery last year of an ancient Meroite fortress in this region:
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Thanks for the info. We need more of these types of threads on ES.
-------------------- "Oh the sons of Ethiopia; observe with care; the country called Ethiopia is, first, your mother; second, your throne; third, your wife; fourth, your child; fifth, your grave." - Ras Alula Aba Nega. Posts: 1024 | Registered: Jun 2006
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^ We get these types of threads every now and then. But yes, very interesting.
I wonder if these early settlements had to do with early Chadic speakers or Nilo-Saharans.
Posts: 26388 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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I read once that the nile was also connected to the niger river system in the past thereby providing an aquatic east-west migration route across the continent. Here's a link Nile Delta flooded savannaPosts: 167 | From: usa | Registered: Jul 2004
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Sorry to bump an old thread, but has any more information about the Yellow Nile surfaced? From what I read its thought to have dried out around 3000 years ago. Would it have been possible for there to have been dynastic era contacts between the Nile and the African interior through this tributary?
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Meet on the Level, act upon the Plumb, part on the Square. Posts: 574 | From: Guinee | Registered: Jul 2014
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quote:Originally posted by Punos_Rey: Sorry to bump an old thread, but has any more information about the Yellow Nile surfaced? From what I read its thought to have dried out around 3000 years ago. Would it have been possible for there to have been dynastic era contacts between the Nile and the African interior through this tributary?
I would say so as part of ancient trade networks across Africa. To this day you still have Peuhls who travel back and forth to Sudan from Western Africa and also many muslim West Africans also have strong ties to the Muslim Africans in Sudan, which likely predates Islam.
Long ago I had posted that I believe a lot of Nile Valley cultural artifacts in terms of weapons and warfare spread from Sudan to West Africa in this way.
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