Stone Age humans crossed Sahara in the rain

Wet spells in the Sahara may have opened the door for early human migration. According to new evidence, water-dependent trees and shrubs grew there between 120,000 and 45,000 years ago. This suggests that changes in the weather helped early humans cross the desert on their way out of Africa...

While about 40 per cent of hydrocarbons in today's dust come from water-dependent plants, this rose to 60 per cent, first between 120,000 and 110,000 ago and again from 50,000 to 45,000 years ago. So the region seemed to be in the grip of unusually wet spells at the time.

That may have been enough to allow sub-Saharan Stone Age Homo sapiens to migrate north: the first fossils of modern humans outside Africa date from 93,000 year ago in Israel. And both genetic analysis and archaeology show that humans didn't spread extensively beyond Africa until 50,000 years ago, suggesting a second migration at the time of the second wet spell.

For whatever reason this got me thinking about Sahara movies. Beau Geste was the best of the Foreign Legion genre and really good in any genre. I liked March or Die too. Ishtar is one of the all time movie stinkers. Sahara tried, though. The English Patient was one of the most mediocre movies ever to win best picture.

Others?


GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe

Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution. Evolution in Your Face by Patrick Huyghe Omni Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake, is home to more than 300 species of cichlids. These fish, which are popular in aquariums, are deep-bodied and have one nostril, rather than the usual two, on each side of the head. Seismic profiles and cores of the lake taken by a team headed by Thomas C. Johnson of the University of Minnesota, reveal that the lake dried up completely about 12,400 years ago. This means that the rate of speciation of cichlid fishes has been extremely rapid: something on average of one new species every 40 years! 12,400 years ago? Hydrologic cycle came to a screeching whoa for some reason, hmm, what could it have been? To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

Sahara keyword:

The point is, the lake dried out (no explanation btw) around the beginning of the Neolithic, and after some (short) period of time, the lake refilled and there was an explosion of new varieties, unlike anything seen today. Anywhere. Hence, it is a mystery.

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