The African Humid Period occurred 11,000 to 5,000 years ago, and it transformed the Sahara Desert into a green landscape filled with vegetation, lakes, and abundant wildlife.
This dramatic shift was driven by changes in Earth’s orbit, specifically its precession or “wobble,” which increased summer solar radiation and strengthened monsoonal rains over North Africa.
Geological evidence, such as lake sediments, Nile River runoff, and reduced Saharan dust deposits, confirms the vast extent of this humid phase, stretching from the Sahara to East Africa. The period supported human populations who thrived in this fertile environment, as reflected in extensive rock art depicting pastoral life and large animals.
However, the end of this time brought gradual death and desiccation, forcing populations to abandon the drying Sahara and migrate toward water sources like the Nile River, where complex societies such as pharaonic Egypt emerged.
But this area won’t always be a dead desert.
Over the last 800,000 years, the Sahara has periodically turned green. Every 21,000 years or so, thanks to Earth’s orbit and other factors, wet periods drench the usually dry desert and fill it with plants, lakes, and rivers.
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