posted
The drying up of the Sahara led to the movements and creations of civilizations and societies all over not just Africa but also Southern Europe and Western Asia after it happened; the desertification of the Sahara was one of the biggest events in human history and the led to the creations and formations of societies and civilizations that shape the civilized world to come.
quote: The Sahara was ‘green’ for over 6,000 years and had 10 times more rain than now
Based on erosion marks, several researchers and geologists have suggested that the Great Sphinx was built thousands of years earlier than the official story suggests.
According to a new study recently published in the journal Science Advances, evidence shows that humans occupied much of the Sahara during the ‘wet period’ around 8,000 years ago.
Through an analysis of marine sediments, researchers at the University of Arizona have determined rainfall patterns in the Sahara over a period of 6,000 years obtaining fascinating results. The UA-led team has identified the climate pattern that generated a “Green Sahara” from 5,000 to 11,000 years ago. The region had 10 times the rainfall it does today.
As it turns out, what is now the Sahara Desert was the home of hunter-gatherers who lived off the animals and plants present in the savannas of the region and off the wooded prairies sometime between 5,000 and 11,000 years ago.
“It was 10 times as wet as today,” said lead author Jessica Tierney of the University of Arizona. Annual rainfall in the Sahara now ranges from about 4 inches to less than 1 inch (100 to 35 mm).
Although other research has already identified the existence of a “Green Sahara” period, Tierney and colleagues managed to compile a continuous record of rainfall in the region that existed 25,000 years ago.
Interestingly, archaeological evidence shows that humans occupied much of the Sahara during the wet period, but gradually withdrew some 8,000 years ago.
Other researchers have suggested that the Sahara became drier by the time people left, but the evidence was inconclusive, says Tierney, an assistant professor of geosciences at the UA, whose work was published in Science Advances.
[I]The Sahara Desert is the warmest in the world and the third largest after Antarctica and the Arctic.[I]
According to the new study, rainfall records gathered by the team indicate a period that lasted for one thousand years, some 8,000 years ago, in which the Sahara became drier, which coincides with the time when people left.
“It looks like this thousand-year dry period caused people to leave,” Tierney said.
“What’s interesting is the people who came back after the dry period were different — most raised cattle. That dry period separates two different cultures. Our record provides a climate context for this change in occupation and lifestyle in the western Sahara.”
According to UA News, Instead of lake sediments, Tierney and her colleagues used cores of marine sediments taken off the coast of West Africa at four different sites. Because the cores were taken over a north-south distance of about 800 miles (1,300 km) — from offshore Cape Ghir, Morocco, to the northwestern corner of Mauritania — the cores revealed both the ancient rainfall patterns and the areal extent of the Green Sahara.
I think I posted sources here saying that the Sahara desert started appearing roughly 8,000 years ago before.....
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-------------------- Without data you are just another person with an opinion - Deming Posts: 12143 | From: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable | Registered: Jun 2007
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posted
Maa Civilization Ancient Middle African civilization inhabited by the founders of the Sumerian, Egyptian, Elamite and Garamantian civilizations. The ancestors of these people belonged to the Ounanian culture. This population hunted animals with the bow-and –arrow; they are associated with the Ounanian culture. The Ounanian culture existed 12kya [2].
The Ounanians were members of the Capsian population.There was continuity between the populations in the Maghreb and southern Sahara referred to as Capsians, Iberomaurusians, and Mechtoids [3]. The Niger-Congo speakers are decendants of the Capsian population.
Capsian people did not only live in Afrca, they were also present in South Asia. Using craniometric data researchers have made it clear that the Dravidian speakers of South India and the Indus valley were primarily related to the ancient Capsian or Mediterranean population [4-9]. Lahovary [7] and Sastri [8] maintains that the Capsian population was unified over an extensive zone from Africa, across Eurasia into South India. Some researchers maintain that the Capsian civilization originated in East Africa [7].
The Ounanian culture is associated with sites in central Egypt, Algeria, Mali, Mauretania and Niger [10]. The Ounanian tradition is probably associated with the Niger-Congo phyla. This would explain the close relationship between the Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan languages.
The original homeland of the Niger-Congo speakers was probably situated in the Saharan Highlands during the Ounanian period. From here NC populations migrated into the Fezzan, Nile Valley and Sudan as their original homeland became more and more arid.
In summary, the Niger-Congo speakers formerly lived in the highland regions of the Fezzan and Hoggar until after 4000 BC. Originally hunter-gatherers the Proto-Niger- Congo people developed an agro-pastoral economy which included the cultivation of millet, and domestication of cattle (and sheep).
Among the Proto-Saharans the name Maa, for their great ancestor/god was joined to many ethnonyms. The descendants of the Maa clan, claim descent from Maa, as evident in the name Mande, for the parent group of the Manding of West Africa. Mande means, Ma-nde or "children of Ma". Some Dravidians of South India were also members of the Mande Superclan, as illustrated in the Kannada, Telugu and Tulu, Dravidian tribes that use the terms Mande or Mandi to denote "people or persons". The Sumerians called themselves Mah-Gar-ri "God's exalted children".
The Proto-Saharans in honor of great Maa, use the term "ma", to denote greatness, for example Manding: Maga; Sumerian: Mag; and Dravidian: Ma.The ma, element was also used in the names for their rulers e.g., Menes of Egypt; the Mannan of the Dravidians; and the Mansa of the Manding. Maaites cultivated millets, possessed domesticated cattle, sheep and goats. Civilization founded by Maa. The Maaites built pyramids and other large monuments. AND THEY HAD WRITING WHICH IS CALLED THINITE.
I believe the Proto-Saharans who created the Maa Confederation built many pyramids in addition to the Niger Pyramid.
In the picture above we see yardangs. Geologist believe that these are geographical features created in the desert as a result of winds eroding rock formations. I believe that these yardangs may really represent monuments built by the Proto-Saharans when these regions were fertile. This view is supported by the fact that these yardangs resemble monuments made in later years by the Kushites to represent Amon.
These yardangs may represent a pyramid field.
The principal female gods were Amma/Ammon, Nia
The major gods of the Maaites also include Seth and Anubis. The most ancient depictions of these gods are found in the Sahara. It appears that in ancient times before the rise of Egypt, Seth was worshiped by people in the Sahara. Recently a very interesting inscription has been found that relate to this worship.
The symbols on the engraving are written in the so-called Libyco-Berber writing which is really made up of Mande signs. Using the Vai signs we are able to read the inscriptions in the Malinke-Bambara language.
On the left side we see a figure of a cannine and on the right we have a figure of Seth. Reading the inscriptions from right to left I will decipher the writing.
Under the cannine figure we have: Be tu a ka na or "To exist obedient to the order in joy [with the] Mother".
Reading the inscriptions under the Seth figure we have reading the inscription from right to left: i lu i gyo fa yo gyo, or " Thou hold upright this divinity of the cult, [our] Father, the vital spirit of the society consecrated to (Seth's) cult".
This figure is important in relation to the Western Sahara and the Seth cult. Michael Rice, in Egypt's Making: The Origin of Ancient Egypt 5000-2000 BC, makes it clear that Seth was the god of the Southern people and that Anubis (the canine god) was the protector of the people of the South.
You can find out more in my book:
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Jessica E. Tierney1,*, Francesco S. R. Pausata2 and Peter B. deMenocal3
quote:"During the “Green Sahara” period (11,000 to 5000 years before the present), the Sahara desert received high amounts of rainfall, supporting diverse vegetation, permanent lakes, and human populations. Our knowledge of rainfall rates and the spatiotemporal extent of wet conditions has suffered from a lack of continuous sedimentary records. We present a quantitative reconstruction of western Saharan precipitation derived from leaf wax isotopes in marine sediments. Our data indicate that the Green Sahara extended to 31°N and likely ended abruptly. We find evidence for a prolonged “pause” in Green Sahara conditions 8000 years ago, coincident with a temporary abandonment of occupational sites by Neolithic humans. The rainfall rates inferred from our data are best explained by strong vegetation and dust feedbacks; without these mechanisms, climate models systematically fail to reproduce the Green Sahara. This study suggests that accurate simulations of future climate change in the Sahara and Sahel will require improvements in our ability to simulate vegetation and dust feedbacks."
There was a 1,000 year dry period at 8kya, though it is described as temporary. Overall very interesting, the dates correspond to the development of dynastic AE/K.
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