Africa has revealed living millennia of the green Sahara. Origin of the Sahara Sands Excavations in the Sahara Desert
About 9,000 years ago, a humid climate prevailed in parts of the Sahara Desert - the New Stone Age (Neolithic), the time of the appearance of metal tools and weapons. For several thousand years, the Green Sahara has been home to many animals and people. Archaeologists and anthropologists during excavations established the presence of two cultures - Kiffian (8-6 thousand years) and Tenerian (5-3 thousand years). About two hundred burials were found, some of which contained bead jewelry, stone tools and ceramic vessels. During an expedition by paleontologist Paul Sereno in Niger in 2000, dinosaur fossils were found and hundreds of skeletons, including children's, were also discovered. Hunting tools, ceramics and bones of large land animals and fish were found.
A skeleton (6000 years old) was found in the Sahara Desert in Niger (a state in West Africa), its middle finger was stuck in its mouth for an unknown reason.
In the town of In Gall, Wodaabe men dance and sing at a fast pace during the Gerewol festival. Their movements perhaps imitate the suddenness of sandstorms. Gerewol is an annual courtship festival where men try to look as handsome as possible in order to be chosen by the opposite sex of the tribe. Women can choose up to four men, and the one who remains without a partner at this festival will be alone for the entire next year.
(see what others exist)
Archaeologists were excavating far away in Gobero. This region of the Sahara is completely deserted. A small group of archaeologists have set up camp here and are conducting research. It is difficult to imagine that just a few thousand years ago the Sahara was buried in greenery, which is why it received the name Green.
The Suchomimus dinosaur froze in its lunge. This valuable find was donated by paleontologist Paul Sereno to the people of Nigeria to mark the end of a five-year civil war. Suchomimus was a carnivorous crocodile-headed dinosaur that lived 110 million years ago. More than 20 species of dinosaurs were found by the expedition during its three months in the desert.
The Niger army ensured the safety of the expedition and valuable finds from possible looters in the Sahara Desert. Archaeologists are unearthing a 6,000-year-old human skeleton. More than 250 skeletons, thousands of tools, weapons, pot shards and various decorations were found at the excavation site.
Six thousand years ago, a mother and her two children were buried at this site, holding hands. Scientists discovered that flowers were carefully placed around the deceased. The cause of their death remained a mystery.
Frequent storms in the Sahara Desert, with wind speeds of up to 30 miles per hour, quickly covered the finds with sand and archaeologists had to clear them all over again.
The well-preserved Tenerian skeleton looks as if it simply fell asleep in the sand six thousand years ago.
Dr. Chris Stojanowski and a student from Arizona State University are studying a woman who died at age 20 in the Gobero region of the Sahara.
This Tenerian male skeleton was found with his head placed in a pot. A crocodile ankle bone and a boar tusk were also found at his burial site.
The image of a giraffe carved into stone dates back eight thousand years. The giraffe had what looked like a leash in its nose. This indicates that in those distant times there was already a certain level of domestication of these animals. A unique find was discovered on the top of a granite hill by local Tuaregs; it is about 7000-9000 years old.
Two perfectly preserved Tenerian skeletons were among the first to be found. The skeleton on the right was found with the middle finger in its mouth, and the one on the left was buried in a grave that contained the remains of several other burials.
Interestingly, the ancient sand remembers the last time it saw the light. A scientific expedition took samples of this very sand, digging a hole several meters deep. Later, a US laboratory found out that there was a lake in this place in the desert 15 thousand years ago, during the Ice Age.
The boy Wodaabe leads a herd of cows to water at a well five miles from his house every night. It is possible that this is exactly what his ancestor looked like, whose remains were discovered by archaeologists.
Renowned paleontologist Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago battles a massive 80 mph sandstorm. Unfortunately, he lost and the expedition’s tents were torn from their place and carried across a lifeless part of the desert. Expedition members are accustomed to this set of circumstances; they often wake up with a centimeter layer of sand on their faces.
Two archaeologists cut burlap into strips, which will later be soaked in plaster and wrapped around a hippopotamus skull. This will strengthen and protect the remains of the animal during transportation. This find dates back 1.9 million years. Over the past fifty years, hundreds of different fossils dating back 1-4 million years have been found in these areas.
The photo shows the skeleton of a woman who lay in the sands of the Sahara for several thousand years. This excavation site contained a cemetery the size of two football fields where 250 skeletons were discovered.
Deserts cover about a third of the Earth's surface. These natural areas continue to reveal the secrets of our past and the unexplained phenomena of our present. At the same time, the deserts do not cease to expand, covering the history of the world with the sands of time. Well, archaeologists will never be left without finds that can change our understanding of the planet’s past.
15. Tarim mummies
In 1899, Swedish explorer Sven Hedin came across the ruins of the 4,000-year-old city of Loulan in the Taklimakan Desert. In 1980, in the vicinity of the ancient settlement, a mummy was found, which was nicknamed the “Loulan Beauty”. She belongs to a young Caucasian woman (tall 180 cm and strands of brown hair). Approximate age 3800 years. The burial of a 50-year-old “Cherchen man” was found next to the Loulan beauty. These finds indicate the widespread distribution of Caucasians in Inner Asia 2000-3000 years ago.
14. Shell Mystery in the New Mexico Desert
In the 1990s, one of Shell's pipelines suffered an oil spill, but the company quickly sold it. To avoid litigation, managers decided to bury 190 boxes of documentation at a depth of 12 meters in the New Mexico desert. But the secret always becomes clear. Information about the buried incriminating evidence was leaked to the authorities by a former employee of the oil giant.
13. Mysterious circles in the Namib Desert
An unusual phenomenon can be found in the Namib Desert - hundreds of miraculous circles with a diameter of 2 to 10 meters on rocky soil. The local population is sure that a dragon lives underground, and its breath burns out these circles. Scientists believe that the phenomenon is caused by termites, radioactive soil or toxins released by a certain plant.
12. Purple balls
In 2013, while walking, the couple discovered thousands of purple balls in the Arizona desert. They were sticky, watery and translucent. There was even a story about the mysterious spheres. Botanists suggest that these could be slime molds or jelly-like molds.
11. Giant Alien Brush
In 2016, a group of self-proclaimed paranormal investigators claimed to have discovered a three-fingered hand in a cave excavation in Cusco, Peru. In addition, the team discovered an elongated skull containing fragments of skin. An X-ray showed that there were what appeared to be metal implants in his arm. Scientists are still finding it difficult to answer who the three-fingered hand could have belonged to.
10. Marfa's Ghost Lights
For many years now, will-o'-the-wisps have been appearing at night in the Chihuahuan Desert, near Marfa, Texas. Indians consider them shooting stars, and ufologists consider them the ghosts of Spanish conquistadors. Experts believe that this is how methane and phosphine come out and, for one reason or another, ignite.
9. Lake out of nowhere
Several years ago in Tunisia, 25 kilometers from the city of Gafsa, a lake formed in the middle of the desert. Scientists have not been able to explain how the mysterious reservoir appeared. Perhaps seismic activity is to blame.
8. Dead Sea Copper Scroll
"Copper Scroll" - a list of places in which various objects of gold and silver are supposedly hidden. The manuscript was created by the Essenes in 50-100 AD and was found in Cave No. 3 of Qumran on March 20, 1953. After deciphering the text, a treasure hunt began, but nothing was found.
7. Chinguette Libraries
Chinguetti, Mauritania, was once a medieval metropolis of 20,000 people and even a gathering place for pilgrims on their way to Mecca. In its heyday, this city in the western part of the Sahara had 30 libraries with the works of mathematicians, astronomers and doctors. Over time, only five remained, but today 6,000 valuable manuscripts have survived. Unfortunately, in 30 years these manuscripts will no longer exist due to climate change.
6. Bizarre patterns in the Gobi Desert
In 2011, Google Earth users saw bizarre patterns in the Gobi Desert in China. These objects on the border with the Xinjiang region and Gansu province seemed to some to be the creation of aliens, while others even suggested that China was preparing an air strike on the United States and was conducting exercises in the desert for this purpose. In fact, these drawings once served as markers for satellites so that spacecraft could navigate and calibrate their lenses using them.
5. Funeral boat
In January 2016, archaeologists from the Czech Republic excavated an 18-meter ship approximately 4.5 thousand years old in Abusir, Egypt. The Egyptian custom of burying boats near tombs dates back to the Early Kingdom. Until the recent discovery, not a single boat of this size had been discovered near a deceased person who was not from the royal family. The appearance of the ship indicates a very high social status of the owner, but he was still one of the common people.
4. Whale Cemetery in the Chilean Desert
In 2010, scientists found 75 whale skeletons in the Atacama Desert. Species included the fin whale, minke whale, blue whale and even the long-extinct walrus dolphin. It was also possible to establish the cause of death of the mammals - toxic substances released during water blooms.
3. Geoglyphs in Jordan
These patterns in the Black Desert in Jordan were first discovered by British Air Force Lieutenant Percy Maitland in 1927. He published a report on what he saw in the journal Antiquity. Archaeologists have concluded that the two giant "wheels" from Wadi Al Qatafi and the Wisad Ponds are at least 8,500 years old, and predate the famous Nazca Lines of Peru by 6,000 years. However, the purpose of the drawings remains unclear.
2. Atacama humanoid
The Atacama humanoid is a small human mummy of 15 cm, found in 2003 in the abandoned village of La Noria in the Atacama Desert. This mummy has only nine pairs of ribs, as opposed to the usual twelve for humans, and a greatly elongated skull. DNA analysis showed that the find is a rare mutation in a male person. The boy suffered from a severe form of dwarfism and lived for about seven years.
1. Kangaroo with horns
In 2002, skeletons of animals resembling kangaroos were found in the Australian Nullarbor Desert. The species was distinguished by unusual processes above the eye sockets, resembling horns. Apparently, these were special brow ridges that protected the eyes from injury.
Around 9,000 years ago, during the Neolithic period, parts of what is now the Sahara Desert experienced a very humid climate. For several thousand years this "green Sahara" was home to many domestic and wild animals, as well as people. In 2000, a burial area was discovered in Niger containing hundreds of skeletons from two different archaeological cultures, each dating back thousands of years. In addition to human skeletons, hunting tools, fragments of ceramics, and animal and fish bones were found in the burials.
This dinosaur skeleton, found in Agadez (Niger), was presented to the country of Niger by paleontologist Paul Sereno in a ceremony to mark the end of the five-year civil war. This creature with the body of a dinosaur and the head of a crocodile is about 110 million years old.
Human skeleton with the middle finger inserted into the mouth.
Average daily temperature in this part Sahara desert(49 degrees) is far from the times of the “green Sahara” 4-9 thousand years ago.
Men from one of the local tribes of Niger dancing and singing at the annual festival. Representatives of this tribe may be descendants of those who lived in these places many thousands of years ago, during the existence of the “green Sahara”.
An aerial view of a camp by a small group of archaeologists excavating among huge sand dunes in the completely deserted region of the Sahara. Looking at these places, it’s hard to believe that thousands of years ago everything here was surrounded by greenery.
Nigerian Army Soldiers, hired to protect archaeologists from a possible attack by bandits, are overseeing the excavation of an old skeleton, which is about 6 thousand years old. In this region of the Sahara, archaeologists have found many skeletons, tools, weapons, pottery shards and jewelry.
Six thousand years ago there were mother and two children buried. They lie in the grave holding hands. Someone carefully placed flowers at their head and at their feet, traces of which were discovered by scientists. How exactly these people died remains unclear.
Frequent sandstorms, whose speed reaches 30 miles per hour, greatly interfere with the work of archaeologists, falling asleep and destroying skeletons.
One of the best-preserved skeletons, lying in the sand for 6 thousand years, looks as if it was buried quite recently. The position of the skeleton suggests that the person was buried in a sleeping position.
Archaeologists are examining the skeleton of a woman who died at the age of twenty.
This man was buried with a pot on his head. Among the grave goods, archaeologists also found crocodile bones and wild boar tusks.
This 8,000-year-old rock carving of a giraffe is considered one of the best petroglyphs in the world. The giraffe is depicted with a leash on its nose, which implies the domestication of these animals by people. This image was discovered relatively recently on the top of Granit Hill by local Tuaregs.
These two skeletons are almost perfectly preserved and were found at the very beginning of the excavation process. The skeleton on the left was found with the middle finger inserted into its mouth. The skeleton on the right was buried in a grave where bones from a previous burial had been pushed to the side.
Interestingly, ancient sands can store information about the last time they “saw” light. To explore the original bottom of the former lake, it is necessary to carry out excavations on a moonless night. Optical luminescent studies of sand carried out in a US laboratory proved that the bottom of this lake was formed 15,000 years ago during the last ice age.
Everyone remembers the legend about the city of Atlantis, which sank underwater. However, this city has a fellow sufferer. Ubar, or as it is also called Iram or Irem, is located in the sands of the Arabian desert. He was buried alive in the sand. The catastrophe that happened to this city is still unknown to anyone, as is its history itself.
It is known that “Desert Atlantis” is the same age as the Egyptian pyramids. Here, once there was a home of alchemists, astrologers and aesculapians. This city was mentioned by Ptolemy, Herodotus and other scientists, and Lawrence of Arabia himself simply dreamed of finding this mythical place.
Where is Ubar?
According to archaeologists, the location of this fabulous place is the Rub al-Khali desert, which is located in Oman on the Arabian Peninsula. Now there is nothing here except hot sand from the sun. 4000 square meters keep the secret of the past. After all, once upon a time in the middle of Rub al-Khali there was Ubar, behind the walls of which there were lush gardens, peace and order reigned, and people here enjoyed life. This city was born more than 5,000 years ago. According to legends, here alchemists performed rituals, experiments to revive people, could fly and knew the secret of eternal youth, and astrologers knew everything about the past, present and future.
Death of Ubar
The Adits, the descendants of Hell itself, lived here. This family originates from Noah. At first these people lived wonderfully and did not regret anything, but over time they began to worship other gods, which Allah did not like. He decided to teach them a lesson by sending drought and troubles to the city, but this did not stop the Adits, and they continued to perform rituals and worship other gods. After this, Allah was greatly offended by the inhabitants of this once prosperous town. He sent whirlwinds and hurricanes, accompanied by sandstorms, to Ubar. It was the sands that swallowed up this city once and for all, leaving only a lot of mysteries and secrets for descendants. This legend is described in the Koran, and is constantly studied by archaeologists and scientists. This led them to some discoveries.
Ubar today
Researchers tried for many years to find the remains of the ancient city, but it all ended before it even began, since none of the archaeologists could even imagine where to begin the excavations of Ubar. But 20 years ago, a NASA satellite discovered straight lines that looked like walls in the Arabian Desert. They were in the middle of the sands, and created a picture of a full-fledged lost city. This is exactly what Ubar is.
After this, scientists from all over the world went to excavations. Here they were able to excavate part of the wall of the ancient city. Three rivers once flowed nearby, so residents chose the site for construction not by chance. This location was perfect. Later they were able to dig up towers, residential buildings, shops and the palace of the rulers here. However, excavations provide few answers to questions. “Who were the local people really?” - this is the main question today. Perhaps tablets and jewels are still kept here, and life is in full swing deep in the sands. But these questions are a matter of time.
If you love ancient buildings and lost cities, then read about the ancient city.
It is no secret to many that the north of ancient Africa in the past was a fairly fertile area. With a large number of rivers, both crossing the current territory of the Sahara Desert and flowing into the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic.
Map 1688 Clickable.
Could medieval cartographers have been wrong when they drew this? Or did they copy everything from one more ancient source?
But whether this unknown North Africa existed in ancient times, or in times closer to us, is not so important for now. Moreover, it is difficult to say when such climate change and accumulation of such amounts of sand occurred. I will dwell on the question of where there is so much sand in the Sahara. And how did it happen, what kind of processes took place, that now this place is a lifeless desert?
Official science says that the Sahara was once the bottom of a huge ancient ocean. Even whale skeletons are found there:
Excavations in Eastern Sahara.
Thirty-seven million years ago, a 15-meter flexible beast with a huge mouth and sharp teeth died and sank to the bottom of the ancient Tethys Ocean.
And the age of the whale was invented and the ancient ocean has a name. If we dwell on this fact in more detail, then I have the following question for the scientific world: in 37 million years, how thick should the soil cover accumulate over the skeleton? Officially, the average soil growth rate is 1-2 mm per year. It turns out that in 37 million years the skeleton must be at a depth of at least 37 km! Even allowing for various erosions, erosion and swelling of rocks, uplifting of the earth's crust - with such an age it is impossible to find skeletons on the surface.
In Egypt there is even the Valley of the Whales, which is included by UNESCO in the list of sites with World Heritage status:
Wadi al-Hitan: Valley of the Whale in Egypt. They write that even the stomach contents of some samples were preserved. This means that not everyone is in a skeletal state, but in a mummified or petrified state. Of course, they won't show this to us.
The remains of other animals found in Wadi al-Hitan - sharks, crocodiles, sawfish, turtles and stingrays
So how could whale skeletons end up on the desert surface? Following this path, the skeletons of dinosaurs are not completely ancient at (at least) 65 million years. Their skeletons are also found on the surface of other deserts, in the Gobi, Atacama (Chile), for example.
Many readers probably already guess about my answer. The whale (or its remains) was brought here by a flood, water from the ocean. Using the source link, you can look at the photo (it’s small, I didn’t post it) of a shell rock, right there in the desert.
Below I want to show some photos of space images from Google Earth:
The territory of the Sahara is not entirely covered with sand. But we are presented with an image of this desert: continuous sands, dunes with rare rocky massifs.
For example, the following plateaus with a rocky desert landscape are often found:
Libya. Link
From above, these places appear to be like this spot-hill, surrounded by sands:
And somewhere there are endless sands and dunes:
But where did so much sand come from across most of the Sahara? In addition to the official version of “the bottom of the Tethys ocean”, there are fantastic ones, like V. Kondratov’s version in his films: Fabric of the Universe. Mine And
In his opinion, all this sand is dumps from the processing of underwater ores by giant alien mechanisms and the dumping of soil from their aircraft. I will not defend or refute this version, but will put forward my own, within the framework of one of the topics of this blog - the flood and its manifestations.
First, let's look at some landscapes of the Sahara that few people know about:
Egyptian desert
Do you think it's somewhere in North America? You're wrong, this is the Sahara, landscapes in Mali. 21° 59" 1.68" N 5° 0" 35.15" W
This is Chad. 16° 52" 24.00" N 21° 35" 31.00" E
There are a lot of such remains
Mali. Link
These rock masses are composed of sedimentary rocks. Their tops are flat
This is what this place looks like from above:
These are remnants close to the surface. It can be seen that these are remnants, islands from an ancient surface. What happened to the rest of the territory? And the rest of the soil was carried away by the flood when the wave passed through the continent. All the washed away soil is the sands of the Sahara. Soil, rocks, washed by water erosion of the flow of grains of sand to grains of sand.
IN this place There are these traces of erosion. But they are parallel, as if washed by streams of water. Maybe this is true?
And here, too, there are the same “furrows” going to the northeast (or southwest). Link
Of course, a possible version of their formation is the deposition of erosion products along the wind rose.
But upon closer inspection, it is clear that these grooves in the rock could only be made by water erosion:
Traces of erosion on a rocky hill
This is my conclusion about the origin of the sands of the Sahara Desert.
But in the process of creating this material, another conclusion emerged. It is possible that mud and mudflow masses emerged from the depths during one event. But more about that next time...
