Uan Muhuggiag is an archaeological site in Libya that was occupied by pastoralists between the early Holocene and mid- Holocene ; the Tashwinat mummy, which was found at Uan Muhuggiag, was dated to 5600 BP and presently resides in the Assaraya Alhamra Museum in Tripoli .
134-788: Uan Muhuggiag is a rock shelter in southwestern Libya in what is now the Sahara Desert . It is located on the bank of the Wadi Teshuinat, sitting on a plateau in the Tadrart Acacus at almost 3000 feet above sea level. The site is approximately 1500 miles west of the Nile Valley. Uan Muhuggiag was inhabited during the early- to mid-Holocene in what has been termed as the African Aqualithic culture complex, or " Green Sahara " period. Analysis of pollen found at
268-480: A cattle cult and ritual sacrifice at a location in the Messak Plateau , approximately 60 miles in distance from the site. The Tashwinat mummy found at Uan Muhuggiag was one thousand years older than the oldest known Egyptian mummy. Its sophisticated form of evisceration indicates a highly advanced society. Some scholars argue that the sub-Saharan African population living there could have had an influence on
402-966: A "deep significance" that is not always understandable to modern scholars. In many instances, the creation of rock art was itself a ritual act. In the Upper Palaeolithic of Europe, rock art was produced inside cave systems by the hunter-gatherer peoples who inhabited the continent. The oldest known example is the Chauvet Cave in France, although others have been located, including Lascaux in France, Alta Mira in Spain and Creswell Crags in Britain and Grotta del Genovese in Sicily . The late prehistoric rock art of Europe has been divided into three regions by archaeologists. In Atlantic Europe ,
536-484: A bed of flowers. The three are assumed to have died within 24 hours of each other, but as their skeletons hold no apparent trauma (they did not die violently) and they have been buried so elaborately – unlikely if they had died of a plague – the cause of their deaths is a mystery. Rock art In archaeology , rock arts are human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art
670-429: A composition analysis, which most of these figurines are made of steatite but there are still made of other materials. As a result from these archaeological studies, these figures provided context about spheres of interaction between tribal groups, demonstrate economical significance, and possibly hold a ritual function as well. Under one study by archaeologists Richard T Fitzgerald and Christopher Corey, they dated
804-426: A consequence, the weather tends to be sunny, dry and stable with a minimal chance of rainfall. Subsiding, diverging, dry air masses associated with subtropical high-pressure systems are extremely unfavorable for the development of convectional showers. The subtropical ridge is the predominant factor that explains the hot desert climate ( Köppen climate classification BWh ) of this vast region. The descending airflow
938-734: A deep well of cattle integration and early association of cattle with religious and subsistence strategies in Holocene Africa. More modern scholarship has instead found that the origins of pastoralism, cattle worship and cattle domestication lie most likely in areas of the Sudanese Nile Valley (e.g., Affad ). Several discoveries at Letti, in Sudan , suggest early burial and domestication of cattle, including early implements used to safely bleed cattle without harming them. The cultural practice of drinking cow blood on special occasions
1072-519: A healthy adult. The Saharan silver ant is unique in that due to the extreme high temperatures of their habitat, and the threat of predators, the ants are active outside their nest for only about ten minutes per day. Dromedary camels and goats are the domesticated animals most commonly found in the Sahara. Because of its qualities of endurance and speed, the dromedary is the favourite animal used by nomads . Human activities are more likely to affect
1206-491: A much wetter period than today. The Tashwinat mummy was found on the eastern side of a 160 by 80 cm. excavation, under the lowest layer of coals, where the sandstone floor showed a deliberate round excavation of approximately 25 cm. in diameter and 3 cm. deep. The mummy lay just beneath a layer of vegetable fibers. Uan Muhuggiag was first excavated in 1950. The Tashwinat mummy was discovered by University of Rome Professor Fabrizio Mori in 1958. More recently, in 1982,
1340-401: A rock relief or rock-cut relief is a relief sculpture carved on solid or "living rock" such as a cliff, rather than a detached piece of stone. They are a category of rock art, and sometimes found in conjunction with rock-cut architecture . However, they tend to be omitted in most works on rock art, which concentrate on engravings and paintings by prehistoric peoples. A few such works exploit
1474-656: A significant component of their cultural heritage. It also serves as an important source of cultural tourism, and hence as economic revenue in certain parts of the world. As such, images taken from cave art have appeared on memorabilia and other artifacts sold as a part of the tourist industry. In most climates, only paintings in sheltered sites, in particular caves, have survived for any length of time. Therefore, these are usually called "cave paintings", although many do survive in "rock-shelters" or cliff-faces under an overhang. In prehistoric times, these were often popular places for various human purposes, providing some shelter from
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#17327647731711608-726: A specific point in time and space (in Rose Valley, Inyo County). Rose Valley is located in the boundaries of the cultural Great Basin and the territory of the Timbisha Shoshone . This site is important to understanding the symbolism and value of North American rock art because it is one of the largest collections of rock art unrelated to the Coso (an indigenous tribe/people of the Mojave Desert ). Its importance to territorial and anthropological studies helps many understand
1742-554: A stamp. Alternately, the pigment could have been applied on dry, such as with a stick of charcoal. In some societies, the paint itself has symbolic and religious meaning; for instance, among hunter-gatherer groups in California, paint was only allowed to be traded by the group shamans, while in other parts of North America, the word for "paint" was the same as the word for "supernatural spirit". One common form of pictograph, found in many, although not all rock-art producing cultures,
1876-569: A summer rainy season that extends across Africa from east to west. The southern limit of the Sahara is indicated botanically by the southern limit of Cornulaca monacantha (a drought-tolerant member of the Chenopodiaceae ), or northern limit of Cenchrus biflorus , a grass typical of the Sahel. According to climatic criteria, the southern limit of the Sahara corresponds to the 150 mm (5.9 in) isohyet of annual precipitation (this
2010-542: A surface feature of Earth, with near-current technology. The Sahara is mainly rocky hamada (stone plateaus); ergs (sand seas – large areas covered with sand dunes ) form only a minor part, contrary to common misconception , but many of the sand dunes are over 180 metres (590 ft) high. Wind or rare rainfall shape the desert features: sand dunes, dune fields, sand seas, stone plateaus, gravel plains ( reg ), dry valleys ( wadi ), dry lakes ( oued ), and salt flats ( shatt or chott ). Unusual landforms include
2144-548: Is a charcoal drawing on a rock fragment found during the excavation of the Nawarla Gabarnmang rock shelter in south western Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory . Dated at 28,000 years, it is one of the oldest known pieces of rock art on Earth with a confirmed date. Nawarla Gabarnmang has one of the most extensive collections of rock art in the world and predates both Lascaux and Chauvet cave art -
2278-527: Is a desert spanning across North Africa . With an area of 9,200,000 square kilometres (3,600,000 sq mi), it is the largest hot desert in the world and the third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Arctic . The name "Sahara" is derived from Arabic : صَحَارَى , romanized : ṣaḥārā /sˤaħaːraː/ , a broken plural form of ṣaḥrā' ( صَحْرَاء /sˤaħraːʔ/ ), meaning "desert". The desert covers much of North Africa , excluding
2412-660: Is a long-term average, since precipitation varies annually). Important cities located in the Sahara include Nouakchott , the capital of Mauritania; Tamanrasset , Ouargla , Béchar , Hassi Messaoud , Ghardaïa , and El Oued in Algeria; Timbuktu in Mali; Agadez in Niger; Ghat in Libya; and Faya-Largeau in Chad. The Sahara is the world's largest hot desert . It is located in
2546-583: Is a negative print of the hand, and is sometimes described as a " stencil " in Australian archaeology. Miniature stencilled art has been found at two locations in Australia and one in Indonesia . Petroglyphs are engravings or carvings into rock which is left in situ . They can be created with a range of scratching, engraving or carving techniques, often with the use of a hard hammerstone , which
2680-422: Is a north African gazelle that can also go for a long time without water. Other notable gazelles include the rhim gazelle and dama gazelle . The Saharan cheetah ( northwest African cheetah ) lives in Algeria, Togo , Niger, Mali, Benin , and Burkina Faso . There remain fewer than 250 mature cheetahs, which are very cautious, fleeing any human presence. The cheetah avoids the sun from April to October, seeking
2814-629: Is a prehistoric industry, or domain, that existed between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago in the Sahara, during the Neolithic Subpluvial . Human remains from this culture were found in 2000 at a site known as Gobero , located in Niger in the Ténéré Desert . The site is known as the largest and earliest grave of Stone Age people in the Sahara. The Kiffians were skilled hunters . Bones of many large savannah animals that were discovered in
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#17327647731712948-420: Is a subset of the wider term, rock art. It is mostly on rock walls, but may be on ceilings and floors. A wide variety of techniques have been used in its creation. The term usually is applied only to prehistoric art , but it may be used for art of any date. Sheltered parietal art has had a far better chance of surviving for very long periods, and what now survives may represent only a very small proportion of what
3082-465: Is associated with high rates of wind-blown mineral dust, and these dust levels are found as expected in marine cores from the north tropical Atlantic. But around 12,500 BCE the amount of dust in the cores in the Bølling / Allerød phase suddenly plummets and shows a period of much wetter conditions in the Sahara, indicating a Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) event (a sudden warming followed by a slower cooling of
3216-550: Is battered against the stone surface. In certain societies, the choice of hammerstone itself has religious significance. In other instances, the rock art is pecked out through indirect percussion, as a second rock is used like a chisel between the hammerstone and the panel. A third, rarer form of engraving rock art was through incision, or scratching, into the surface of the stone with a lithic flake or metal blade. The motifs produced using this technique are fine-lined and often difficult to see. Normally found in literate cultures,
3350-472: Is crucial to focus on the variable resources to understand how cultures were abiding with their environment. However, the rock art related sites at Little Rock can't be directly dated or analyzed. Australian Indigenous art represents the oldest unbroken tradition of art in the world. There are more than 100,000 recorded rock art sites in Australia . The oldest firmly dated rock-art painting in Australia
3484-403: Is estimated to include five hundred species of plants, which is extremely low considering the huge extent of the area. Plants such as acacia trees, palms, succulents, spiny shrubs, and grasses have adapted to the arid conditions, by growing lower to avoid water loss by strong winds, by storing water in their thick stems to use it in dry periods, by having long roots that travel horizontally to reach
3618-675: Is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters ; this type also may be called cave art or parietal art . A global phenomenon, rock art is found in many culturally diverse regions of the world. It has been produced in many contexts throughout human history. In terms of technique, the four main groups are: The oldest known rock art dates from the Upper Palaeolithic period, having been found in Europe, Australia, Asia, and Africa. Anthropologists studying these artworks believe that they likely had magico-religious significance. The archaeological sub-discipline of rock art studies first developed in
3752-540: Is still shared to this day by many Nilotic cattle herding groups in Africa, such as the Maasai and Dinka . One of the earliest burials of cattle can be found at the site of Nabta Playa , which had inhabitants that were of the same Nilo-Saharan traditions of Sudan and the broader Nile Valley. These people were responsible for sacrificial cattle burials in clay-lined and roofed chambers covered by rough stone tumuli. At one of
3886-493: Is that it is placed on natural rock surfaces; in this way, it is distinct from artworks placed on constructed walls or free-standing sculpture. As such, rock art is a form of landscape art, and includes designs that have been placed on boulder and cliff faces, cave walls, and ceilings, and on the ground surface. Rock art is a global phenomenon, being found in many different regions of the world. There are various forms of rock art. Some archaeologists also consider pits and grooves in
4020-436: Is the hand print. There are three forms of this; the first involves covering the hand in wet paint and then applying it to the rock. The second involves a design being painted onto the hand, which is then in turn added to the surface. The third involves the hand first being placed against the panel, with dry paint then being blown onto it through a tube, in a process that is akin to air-brush or spray-painting. The resulting image
4154-667: Is the strongest and the most effective over the eastern part of the Great Desert, in the Libyan Desert: this is the sunniest, driest and the most nearly "rainless" place on the planet, rivaling the Atacama Desert , lying in Chile and Peru . The rainfall inhibition and the dissipation of cloud cover are most accentuated over the eastern section of the Sahara rather than the western. The prevailing air mass lying above
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4288-570: Is under study in Colombia , South America at Serranía de la Lindosa was revealed in November 2020. Their age is suggested as being 12,500 years old (c. 10,480 B.C.) by the anthropologists working on the site because of extinct fauna depicted. Rock paintings or pictographs are located in many areas across Canada. There are over 400 sites attributed to the Ojibway from northern Saskatchewan to
4422-422: Is very unreliable and erratic in the Sahara as it may vary considerably year by year. In full contrast to the negligible annual rainfall amounts, the annual rates of potential evaporation are extraordinarily high, roughly ranging from 2,500 millimetres (100 in) per year to more than 6,000 millimetres (240 in) per year in the whole desert. Nowhere else on Earth has air been found as dry and evaporative as in
4556-543: The Adrar of Mauritania and a value of 75 °C (167 °F) has been measured in Borkou , northern Chad. Due to lack of cloud cover and very low humidity, the desert usually has high diurnal temperature variations between days and nights. However, it is a myth that the nights are especially cold after extremely hot days in the Sahara. On average, nighttime temperatures tend to be 13–20 °C (23–36 °F) cooler than in
4690-488: The Algerian Desert called Bou Bernous , at an elevation of 378 metres (1,240 ft) above sea level, and only Death Valley, California rivals it. Other hot spots in Algeria such as Adrar , Timimoun , In Salah , Ouallene , Aoulef , Reggane with an elevation between 200 and 400 metres (660 and 1,310 ft) above sea level get slightly lower summer average highs, around 46 °C (114.8 °F) during
4824-765: The Late Pleistocene Iberomaurusians , early Holocene Capsians , and mid-Holocene Mechta groups, whereas the Tenerian crania are more like those of Mediterranean groups. Graves show that the Tenerians observed spiritual traditions, as they were buried with artifacts such as jewelry made of hippo tusks and clay pots. The most interesting find is a triple burial, dated to 5300 years ago, of an adult female and two children, estimated through their teeth as being five and eight years old, hugging each other. Pollen residue indicates they were buried on
4958-711: The Niger River valley and the Sudan region of sub-Saharan Africa . The Sahara can be divided into several regions, including the western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains , the Tibesti Mountains , the Aïr Mountains , the Ténéré desert, and the Libyan Desert . For several hundred thousand years, the Sahara has alternated between desert and savanna grassland in a 20,000-year cycle caused by
5092-702: The Ottawa River . However, cave art is not the only type of rock art. While cave art provides the two-dimensional view on a rocky surface, figurines made of a rock material can provide a three-dimensional view that gives insight on indigenous views towards their visual arts. Many sites along and off the California coastline, such as the Channel Islands and Malibu , have both realistic and abstract styles of zoomorphic effigy figurines. From archaeological studies at these sites, archaeologists and other researchers discovered many of these figurines and performed
5226-694: The Richat Structure in Mauritania. Several deeply dissected mountains, many volcanic, rise from the desert, including the Aïr Mountains , Ahaggar Mountains , Saharan Atlas , Tibesti Mountains , Adrar des Iforas , and the Red Sea Hills . The highest peak in the Sahara is Emi Koussi , a shield volcano in the Tibesti range of northern Chad. The central Sahara is hyperarid , with sparse vegetation. The northern and southern reaches of
5360-474: The horse latitudes under the subtropical ridge , a significant belt of semi-permanent subtropical warm-core high pressure where the air from the upper troposphere usually descends, warming and drying the lower troposphere and preventing cloud formation. The permanent absence of clouds allows unhindered light and thermal radiation. The stability of the atmosphere above the desert prevents any convective overturning, thus making rainfall virtually non-existent. As
5494-581: The megafauna may have persisted later in refugia (wetter areas of the continent) as suggested by Wells (1985: 228) and has suggested a much younger age for the paintings. Pigments from the Gwion Gwion of the Kimberley are so old they have become part of the rock itself, making carbon dating impossible. Some experts suggest that these paintings are in the vicinity of 50,000 years old and may even pre-date Aboriginal settlement. Miniature rock art of
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5628-514: The precession of Earth's axis (about 26,000 years) as it rotates around the Sun, which changes the location of the North African monsoon . The Sahara covers large parts of Algeria , Chad , Egypt , Libya , Mali , Mauritania , Niger , Western Sahara and Sudan , and parts of southern Morocco and Tunisia . It covers 9 million square kilometres (3,500,000 sq mi), 31% of
5762-506: The stencilled variety at a rock shelter known as Yilbilinji, in the Limmen National Park in the Northern Territory , is one of only three known examples of such art. Usually stencilled art is life-size, using body parts as the stencil, but the 17 images of designs of human figures, boomerangs , animals such as crabs and long-necked turtles , wavy lines and geometric shapes are very rare. Found in 2017 by archaeologists ,
5896-402: The 1982 excavations by Barich, including millet and wild melon. The seeds spanned a long period of time, with the most recent being three date seeds that were radiocarbon dated to 2130 BP, suggesting that the shelter continued to be inhabited intermittently, even after the period of main occupation and subsequent drought. The pottery at Uan Muhuggiag was found mainly in the top layers. It is of
6030-509: The African continent. If all areas with a mean annual precipitation of less than 250 mm (9.8 in) were included, the Sahara would be 11 million square kilometres (4,200,000 sq mi). It is one of three distinct physiographic provinces of the African massive physiographic division . The Sahara is so large and bright that, in theory, it could be detected from other stars as
6164-417: The African humid period. At its largest extent, sometime before 5000 BCE, Lake Mega-Chad was the largest of four Saharan paleolakes, and is estimated to have covered an area of 350,000 km . The Sahara pump theory describes this cycle. During periods of a wet or " Green Sahara ", the Sahara becomes a savanna grassland and various flora and fauna become more common. Following inter-pluvial arid periods,
6298-607: The Americas is known as the "Horny Little Man". It is petroglyph depicting a stick figure with an oversized phallus and carved in Lapa do Santo , a cave in central-eastern Brazil. The most important site is Serra da Capivara National Park at Piauí state. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with the largest collection in the American continent and one of the most studied. A site including eight miles of paintings or pictographs that
6432-412: The Great Desert the hottest large region in the world, and the hottest place on Earth during summer in some spots. The average high temperature exceeds 38 to 40 °C (100.4 to 104.0 °F) during the hottest month nearly everywhere in the desert except at very high altitudes. The world's highest officially recorded average daily high temperature was 47 °C (116.6 °F) in a remote desert town in
6566-486: The Intertropical Convergence Zone from the south and the annual average rainfall ranges from 100 millimetres (4 in) to 250 millimetres (10 in). For example, Timbuktu, Mali and Agadez , Niger are found in this zone. The vast central hyper-arid core of the desert is virtually never affected by northerly or southerly atmospheric disturbances and permanently remains under the influence of
6700-523: The Kiffian culture do not exist after 8,000 years ago, as the Sahara went through a dry period for the next thousand years. After this time, the Tenerian culture colonized the area. Gobero was discovered in 2000 during an archaeological expedition led by Paul Sereno , which sought dinosaur remains. Two distinct prehistoric cultures were discovered at the site: the early Holocene Kiffian culture, and
6834-462: The Sahara (birds in particular) such as African silverbill and black-faced firefinch , among others. There are also small desert crocodiles in Mauritania and the Ennedi Plateau of Chad. The deathstalker scorpion can be 10 cm (3.9 in) long. Its venom contains large amounts of agitoxin and scyllatoxin and is very dangerous; however, a sting from this scorpion rarely kills
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#17327647731716968-531: The Sahara area then reverts to desert conditions and the flora and fauna are forced to retreat northwards to the Atlas Mountains , southwards into West Africa , or eastwards into the Nile Valley . This separates populations of some of the species in areas with different climates , forcing them to adapt , possibly giving rise to allopatric speciation . It is also proposed that humans accelerated
7102-528: The Sahara is strongly influenced by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), with warmer winter temperatures during negative NAO events and cooler winters with more frosts when the NAO is positive. This is because the weaker clockwise flow around the eastern side of the subtropical anticyclone during negative NAO winters, although too dry to produce more than negligible precipitation, does reduce
7236-504: The Sahara is the continental tropical (cT) air mass, which is hot and dry. Hot, dry air masses primarily form over the North-African desert from the heating of the vast continental land area, and it affects the whole desert during most of the year. Because of this extreme heating process, a thermal low is usually noticed near the surface, and is the strongest and the most developed during the summertime. The Sahara High represents
7370-638: The Sahara region. However, at least two instances of snowfall have been recorded in Sahara, in February 1979 and December 2016, both in the town of Ain Sefra . One theory for the formation of the Sahara is that the monsoon in Northern Africa was weakened because of glaciation during the Quaternary period, starting two or three million years ago. Another theory is that the monsoon was weakened when
7504-654: The Tassili n'Ajjer in southeast Algeria. Fossils of dinosaurs , including Afrovenator , Jobaria and Ouranosaurus , have also been found here. The modern Sahara, though, is not lush in vegetation, except in the Nile Valley, at a few oases , and in the northern highlands, where Mediterranean plants such as the olive tree are found to grow. Shifts in Earth's axis increased temperatures and decreased precipitation, which caused an abrupt beginning of North Africa desertification about 5,400 years ago. The Kiffian culture
7638-595: The amount of rainfall received – the Northern (Mediterranean), Central and Southern Zones. There are two transitional zones – the Mediterranean-Sahara transition and the Sahel transition zone. The Saharan flora comprises around 2800 species of vascular plants . Approximately a quarter of these are endemic . About half of these species are common to the flora of the Arabian deserts. The central Sahara
7772-550: The ancient Tethys Sea dried up during the Tortonian period around 7 million years ago. The climate of the Sahara has undergone enormous variations between wet and dry over the last few hundred thousand years, believed to be caused by long-term changes in the North African climate cycle that alters the path of the North African Monsoon – usually southward. The cycle is caused by a 41,000-year cycle in which
7906-498: The animal hide made from the skin of an antelope , which was accompanied by remnants of a grind stone and a necklace made from the eggshell of an ostrich , is 4225 ± 190 BCE. In 1958-1959, an archaeological expedition led by Antonio Ascenzi conducted anthropological, radiological, histological, and chemical analyses on the Uan Muhuggiag mummy. Morphological, anthropometric, radiological, histological, and chemical examination
8040-421: The atmospheric circulation itself, the desert is made even drier by its geographical configuration and location. Indeed, the extreme aridity of the Sahara is not only explained by the subtropical high pressure: the Atlas Mountains of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia also help to enhance the aridity of the northern part of the desert. These major mountain ranges act as a barrier, causing a strong rain shadow effect on
8174-421: The band was twice the height of the others, and held in his hand something resembling the whaddie, or wooden sword of the natives of Port Jackson ; and was probably intended to represent a chief. They could not, as with us, indicate superiority by clothing or ornament, since they wore none of any kind; and therefore, with the addition of a weapon, similar to the ancients, they seem to have made superiority of person
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#17327647731718308-477: The base levels of the site dating to between 7500 and 5000 BC indicates a wet savannah. Extensive samples from a number of sites indicate that tropical humid plants began to expand northward around 12,000 years ago after a lengthy dry period, eventually reaching deep into what is today the Sahara Desert. NASA satellites have been able to detect a vast network of ancient river beds and paleolakes underneath
8442-442: The chasms were deep holes or caverns undermining the cliffs; upon the walls of which I found rude drawings, made with charcoal and something like red paint upon the white ground of the rock. These drawings represented porpoises, turtle, kanguroos [sic], and a human hand; and Mr. Westall, who went afterwards to see them, found the representation of a kanguroo [sic], with a file of thirty-two persons following after it. The third person of
8576-511: The child buried at the site in which the results verified that remains of the child possessed a dark skin complexion. Among other significant finds at Uan Muhuggiag are elaborate rock paintings , mostly attributed to the later occupation period of around 5000 BP. There are more than 100 rock paintings on the walls and ceiling of the shelter. The most notable of these are identified as, the Round Head paintings. They were named as such because
8710-616: The climate). The moister Saharan conditions had begun about 12,500 BCE, with the extension of the ITCZ northward in the northern hemisphere summer, bringing moist wet conditions and a savanna climate to the Sahara, which (apart from a short dry spell associated with the Younger Dryas ) peaked during the Holocene thermal maximum climatic phase at 4000 BCE when mid-latitude temperatures seem to have been between 2 and 3 degrees warmer than in
8844-409: The coastal seaboard on the west of the continent, which stretches from Iberia up through France and encompasses the British Isles, a variety of different rock arts were produced from the Neolithic through to the Late Bronze Age . A second area of the continent to contain a significant rock art tradition was that of Alpine Europe , with the majority of artworks being clustered in the southern slopes of
8978-439: The culture and period concerned, and except for Hittite and Persian examples they are generally discussed as part of that wider subject. The vertical relief is most common, but reliefs on essentially horizontal surfaces are also found. The term typically excludes relief carvings inside caves , whether natural or themselves man-made, which are especially found in India. Natural rock formations made into statues or other sculpture in
9112-474: The daytime. The smallest variations are found along the coastal regions due to high humidity and are often even lower than a 10 °C (18 °F) difference, while the largest variations are found in inland desert areas where the humidity is the lowest, mainly in the southern Sahara. Still, it is true that winter nights can be cold, as it can drop to the freezing point and even below, especially in high-elevation areas. The frequency of subfreezing winter nights in
9246-469: The desert experiences around three to five months when the average high strictly exceeds 40 °C (104 °F); while in the southern central part of the desert, there are up to six or seven months when the average high temperature strictly exceeds 40 °C (104 °F). Some examples of this are Bilma , Niger and Faya-Largeau, Chad. The annual average daily temperature exceeds 20 °C (68 °F) everywhere and can approach 30 °C (86 °F) in
9380-561: The desert pavements (pebbles covering the ground) to reveal a negative image on the bedrock below. The best known example of such intaglio rock art is the Nazca Lines of Peru . In contrast, geoglyphs are positive images, which are created by piling up rocks on the ground surface to resulting in a visible motif or design. Traditionally, individual markings are called motifs and groups of motifs are known as panels . Sequences of panels are treated as archaeological sites . This method of classifying rock art however has become less popular as
9514-405: The desert, along with the highlands, have areas of sparse grassland and desert shrub , with trees and taller shrubs in wadis , where moisture collects. In the central, hyperarid region, there are many subdivisions of the great desert: Tanezrouft , the Ténéré , the Libyan Desert , the Eastern Desert , the Nubian Desert and others. These extremely arid areas often receive no rain for years. To
9648-510: The dotted wavy-line decorated variety that was common in the region during that period. There is evidence that a two-toothed tool was used in order to create equal spacing between the dots, known as the "return" technique. Other finds at Uan Muhuggiag include two hemispherical hollows dug out of the rock, measuring approximately 30 to 40 centimeters, called "kettles". These were found completely covered by deposits and are estimated to be from at least 7500 BP. Several pieces of charcoal were also found,
9782-531: The drying-out period from 6000 to 2500 BCE by pastoralists overgrazing available grassland. The growth of speleothems (which requires rainwater) was detected in Hol-Zakh, Ashalim , Even-Sid, Ma'ale-ha-Meyshar, Ktora Cracks, Nagev Tzavoa Cave, and elsewhere, and has allowed tracking of prehistoric rainfall. The Red Sea coastal route was extremely arid before 140 and after 115 kya (thousands of years ago). Slightly wetter conditions appear at 90–87 kya, but it still
9916-470: The earliest figurines to be around the Middle Holocene, suggesting two socioeconomic interactive spheres (one in the northern and one in the southern Channel Islands) and linguistic similarities between Takic-speaking Gabrileno and Chumash neighbors. These figurines share similar styles between these tribes, providing a history of interactive contact. Little Lake is a complex of rock art located in
10050-547: The earliest known art in Europe - by at least 10,000 years. In 2008 rock art depicting what is thought to be a Thylacoleo was discovered on the north-western coast of the Kimberley . As the Thylacoleo is believed to have become extinct 45000–46000 years ago (Roberts et al. 2001) (Gillespie 2004), this suggests a similar age for the associated Gwion Gwion rock paintings . Archaeologist Kim Akerman however believes that
10184-667: The eastern continental extension of the Azores High , centered over the North Atlantic Ocean . The subsidence of the Sahara High nearly reaches the ground during the coolest part of the year, while it is confined to the upper troposphere during the hottest periods. The effects of local surface low pressure are extremely limited because upper-level subsidence still continues to block any form of air ascent. Also, to be protected against rain-bearing weather systems by
10318-614: The edge of the desert thousands of years ago, since the end of the last glacial period . In the Central Sahara, engraved and painted rock art were created perhaps as early as 10,000 years ago, spanning the Bubaline Period , Kel Essuf Period , Round Head Period , Pastoral Period , Caballine Period , and Cameline Period . The Sahara was then a much wetter place than it is today. Over 30,000 petroglyphs of river animals such as crocodiles survive, with half found in
10452-822: The fertile region on the Mediterranean Sea coast, the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb , and the Nile Valley in Egypt and the Sudan . It stretches from the Red Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, where the landscape gradually changes from desert to coastal plains. To the south it is bounded by the Sahel , a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna around
10586-484: The flow of dry, cold air from higher latitudes of Eurasia into the Sahara significantly. The average annual rainfall ranges from very low in the northern and southern fringes of the desert to nearly non-existent over the central and the eastern part. The thin northern fringe of the desert receives more winter cloudiness and rainfall due to the arrival of low pressure systems over the Mediterranean Sea along
10720-699: The habitat in areas of permanent water (oases) or where water comes close to the surface. Here, the local pressure on natural resources can be intense. The remaining populations of large mammals have been greatly reduced by hunting for food and recreation. In recent years development projects have started in the deserts of Algeria and Tunisia using irrigated water pumped from underground aquifers. These schemes often lead to soil degradation and salinization . Researchers from Hacettepe University have reported that Saharan soil may have bio-available iron and also some essential macro and micro nutrient elements suitable for use as fertilizer for growing wheat. People lived on
10854-409: The heads depicted were quite large, out of proportion to the rest of the body, and also very round with a distinct lack of features. Additionally, there was one painting depicting these types of figures inside a boat, which may have had a ritual or religious significance. One particular figure inside the boat was upside-down and Mori interpreted that figure as representing someone who was dead. Some of
10988-405: The highest recorded worldwide. The sky is usually clear above the desert, and the sunshine duration is extremely high everywhere in the Sahara. Most of the desert has more than 3,600 hours of bright sunshine per year (over 82% of daylight hours), and a wide area in the eastern part has over 4,000 hours of bright sunshine per year (over 91% of daylight hours). The highest values are very close to
11122-551: The hottest months of the year. Salah, well known in Algeria for its extreme heat, has average high temperatures of 43.8 °C (110.8 °F), 46.4 °C (115.5 °F), 45.5 °C (113.9 °F) and 41.9 °C (107.4 °F) in June, July, August and September respectively. There are even hotter spots in the Sahara, but they are located in extremely remote areas, especially in the Azalai , lying in northern Mali. The major part of
11256-491: The hottest regions year-round. However, most of the desert has a value in excess of 25 °C (77 °F). Sand and ground temperatures are even more extreme. During daytime, the sand temperature is extremely high: it can easily reach 80 °C (176 °F) or more. A sand temperature of 83.5 °C (182.3 °F) has been recorded in Port Sudan . Ground temperatures of 72 °C (161.6 °F) have been recorded in
11390-400: The in-depth descriptions and stylistic analyses of large rock art concentrations, which are valued by archaeologists, anthropologists, ethnographers, and even art enthusiasts. Referring back to these sites help social scientists understand and record the values that were important to the creators; it shows economic values or settlement patterns that were once a daily part of life. As a result, it
11524-404: The island's rock shelters, Flinders discovered an array of painted and stenciled patterns. To record these images, he enlisted the ship's artist, William Westall . Westall's two watercolour sketches are the earliest known documentation of Australian rock art. In his journal, Flinders not only detailed the location and the artworks but also authored the inaugural site report: In the deep sides of
11658-406: The last glacial period , the Sahara was much larger than it is today, extending south beyond its current boundaries. The end of the glacial period brought more rain to the Sahara, from about 8000 BCE to 6000 BCE, perhaps because of low pressure areas over the collapsing ice sheets to the north. Once the ice sheets were gone, the northern Sahara dried out. In the southern Sahara, the drying trend
11792-458: The late nineteenth century, The hypothesis was later formally proposed and tested by the meteorologist John Kutzbach in 1981. Kutzbach's ideas about the impacts of insolation on global monsoonal patterns have become widely accepted today as the underlying driver of long-term monsoonal cycles. Kutzbach never formally named his hypothesis and as such it is referred to here as the " Orbital Monsoon Hypothesis " as suggested by Ruddiman in 2001. During
11926-590: The late-19th century among Francophone scholars studying the rock art of the Upper Palaeolithic found in the cave systems of parts of Western Europe. Rock art continues to be of importance to indigenous peoples in various parts of the world, who view them as both sacred items and significant components of their cultural heritage. Such archaeological sites may become significant sources of cultural tourism and have been used in popular culture for their aesthetic qualities. The term rock art appears in
12060-530: The leeward side by dropping much of the humidity brought by atmospheric disturbances along the polar front which affects the surrounding Mediterranean climates. The primary source of rain in the Sahara is the Intertropical Convergence Zone , a continuous belt of low-pressure systems near the equator which bring the brief, short and irregular rainy season to the Sahel and southern Sahara. Rainfall in this giant desert has to overcome
12194-502: The lowest layers and perhaps date from the eighth millennium BP, providing some of the earliest known evidence of pastoralism in the Sahara. Among the faunal remains in the middle layers, dated to be roughly between 5300 and 6000 BP, remains of sheep and goats appear more frequently. It has been surmised that this was probably the time period when the shelter was most actively occupied. Fruits and plant seeds were also found. There were more than 30 different species of plant seeds found during
12328-419: The maximum area of water and to find any surface moisture, and by having small thick leaves or needles to prevent water loss by evapotranspiration . Plant leaves may dry out totally and then recover. Several species of fox live in the Sahara including: the fennec fox , pale fox and Rüppell's fox . The addax , a large white antelope , can go nearly a year in the desert without drinking. The dorcas gazelle
12462-437: The middle Holocene Tenerian culture . The post-Kiffian desiccation lasted until around 4600 BCE, when the earliest artefacts associated with the Tenerians have been dated to. Some 200 skeletons have been discovered at Gobero. The Tenerians were considerably shorter in height and less robust than the earlier Kiffians. Craniometric analysis also indicates that they were osteologically distinct. The Kiffian skulls are akin to those of
12596-639: The mountainous region, in what is now south-eastern France and northern Italy. Cave paintings are found in most parts of Southern Africa that have rock overhangs with smooth surfaces. Among these sites are the cave sandstone of Natal, Orange Free State and North-Eastern Cape, the granite and Waterberg sandstone of the Northern Transvaal, and the Table Mountain sandstone of the Southern and Western Cape. The oldest reliably dated rock art in
12730-553: The natural contours of the rock and use them to define an image, but they do not amount to man-made reliefs. Rock reliefs have been made in many cultures, and were especially important in the art of the Ancient Near East . Rock reliefs are generally fairly large, as they need to be to make an impact in the open air. Most have figures that are over life-size, and in many the figures are multiples of life-size. Stylistically they normally relate to other types of sculpture from
12864-579: The north, the Sahara skirts the Mediterranean Sea in Egypt and portions of Libya, but in Cyrenaica and the Maghreb , the Sahara borders the Mediterranean forest, woodland, and scrub eco-regions of northern Africa, all of which have a Mediterranean climate characterized by hot summers and cool and rainy winters. According to the botanical criteria of Frank White and geographer Robert Capot-Rey,
12998-477: The northern limit of the Sahara corresponds to the northern limit of date palm cultivation and the southern limit of the range of esparto , a grass typical of the Mediterranean climate portion of the Maghreb and Iberia . The northern limit also corresponds to the 100 mm (3.9 in) isohyet of annual precipitation. To the south, the Sahara is bounded by the Sahel, a belt of dry tropical savanna with
13132-417: The oldest of which were determined to be 7800 years old. They were probably used in large fireplace pits. The lower levels also uncovered backed and microlithic tools, while lithics such as flakes and arrowheads were found in the upper layers. A total of 406 stone tool fragments were found in level 2a, and 77 in the earliest occupation level of 2d. Antonio Ascenzi, a pathologist, believes that Uan Muhuggiag and
13266-626: The only other recorded examples are at Nielson's Creek in New South Wales and at Kisar Island in Indonesia. It is thought that the designs may have been created by stencils fashioned out of beeswax . The first European discovery of aboriginal rock paintings took place on 14 January 1803. While on a surveying expedition along the shores and islands of the Gulf of Carpentaria , British navigator and explorer Matthew Flinders made landfall on rugged Chasm Island off Groote Eylandt . Within
13400-459: The opposite is true, with decreased annual precipitation and less vegetation resulting in a phase of the Sahara climate cycle known as the "desert Sahara". The idea that changes in insolation (solar heating) caused by long-term changes in Earth's orbit are a controlling factor for the long-term variations in the strength of monsoon patterns across the globe was first suggested by Rudolf Spitaler in
13534-502: The origins of art and belief. One of the most significant figures in this movement was the South African archaeologist David Lewis-Williams , who published his studies of San rock art from southern Africa, in which he combined ethnographic data to reveal the original purpose of the artworks. Lewis-Williams would come to be praised for elevating rock art studies to a "theoretically sophisticated research domain" by Whitley. However,
13668-419: The physical and atmospheric barriers that normally prevent the production of precipitation. The harsh climate of the Sahara is characterized by: extremely low, unreliable, highly erratic rainfall; extremely high sunshine duration values; high temperatures year-round; negligible rates of relative humidity ; a significant diurnal temperature variation ; and extremely high levels of potential evaporation which are
13802-401: The polar front, although very attenuated by the rain shadow effects of the mountains and the annual average rainfall ranges from 100 millimetres (4 in) to 250 millimetres (10 in). For example, Biskra , Algeria, and Ouarzazate , Morocco, are found in this zone. The southern fringe of the desert along the border with the Sahel receives summer cloudiness and rainfall due to the arrival of
13936-667: The principal emblem of superior power, of which, indeed, power is usually a consequence in the very early stages of society. In New Zealand, North Otago and South Canterbury have a rich range of early Māori rock art. The archaeological sub-discipline devoted to the investigation of rock art is known as "rock art studies". Rock art specialist David S. Whitley noted that research in this area required an "integrated effort" that brings together archaeological theory , method, fieldwork, analytical techniques and interpretation. Although French archaeologists had undertaken much research into rock art, Anglophone archaeology had largely neglected
14070-628: The process of mummification used in Ancient Egypt a thousand years later. Considerable debate also exists about whether the rock art found at Uan Muhuggiag along with the two mummies, signify that the shelter was a burial place or otherwise sacred. Mori was a strong advocate of this theory and believed that the site was a place where a cult of the dead took place. 24°54′N 10°22′E / 24.900°N 10.367°E / 24.900; 10.367 Sahara The Sahara ( / s ə ˈ h ɑːr ə / , / s ə ˈ h ær ə / )
14204-403: The published literature as early as the 1940s. It has also been described as "rock carvings", "rock drawings", "rock engravings", "rock inscriptions", "rock paintings", "rock pictures", "rock records", and "rock sculptures". Parietal art is a term for art in caves ; this definition usually extended to art in rock shelters under cliff overhangs. Popularly, it is called "cave art", and
14338-532: The recent past. Analysis of Nile River deposited sediments in the delta also shows this period had a higher proportion of sediments coming from the Blue Nile , suggesting higher rainfall also in the Ethiopian Highlands . This was caused principally by a stronger monsoonal circulation throughout the sub-tropical regions, affecting India, Arabia and the Sahara. Lake Victoria only recently became
14472-526: The rock art depicted cattle with herders and running hunters. There was also a painting of two oxen that was found on a rock that had detached from the wall above. The stratigraphic layer confirmed the painting to date from about 4700 BP. This provided conclusive evidence that the inhabitants of Uan Muhuggiag at that time were pastoralists. Animal remains found at the site include domestic cattle, sheep or goat, wild cat, wild donkey, warthog, gazelle, hare, baboon, and turtle. Domestic cattle bones were also found in
14606-451: The rock known as cupules , or cups or rings , as a form of rock art. Although there are exceptions, the majority of rock art whose creation was recorded by ethnographers had been produced during rituals. As such, the study of rock art is a component of the archaeology of religion. Rock art serves multiple purposes in the contemporary world. In several regions, it remains spiritually important to indigenous peoples , who view it as
14740-582: The round, most famously at the Great Sphinx of Giza , are also usually excluded. Reliefs on large boulders left in their natural location, like the Hittite İmamkullu relief , are likely to be included, but smaller boulders may be called stelae or carved orthostats . Earth figures are large designs and motifs that are created on the stone ground surface. They can be classified through their method of manufacture. Intaglios are created by scraping away
14874-608: The same area suggest that they lived on the shores of a lake that was present during the Holocene Wet Phase, a period when the Sahara was verdant and wet. The Kiffian people were tall, standing over six feet in height. Craniometric analysis indicates that this early Holocene population was closely related to the Late Pleistocene Iberomaurusians and early Holocene Capsians of the Maghreb, as well as mid-Holocene Mechta groups. Traces of
15008-450: The sand dunes around Uan Muhuggiag. Rock art findings depicting elephants, giraffes, and crocodiles were discovered at sites surrounding Uan Muhuggiag. Furthermore, fish bones, fish hooks, and harpoons were found at several sites in the Sahara region. It is speculated that the dry period that continues into the present day began around 5000 BP, which led to the abandonment of the site. Uan Muhuggiag appears to have been inhabited from at least
15142-463: The scale of the Nile floods between 2700 and 2100 BCE. The Sahara comprises several distinct ecoregions . With their variations in temperature, rainfall, elevation, and soil, these regions harbor distinct communities of plants and animals. The flora of the Sahara is highly diversified based on the bio-geographical characteristics of this vast desert. Floristically , the Sahara has three zones based on
15276-521: The shelter of shrubs such as balanites and acacias. They are unusually pale. The other cheetah subspecies ( northeast African cheetah ) lives in Chad, Sudan and the eastern region of Niger. However, it is currently extinct in the wild in Egypt and Libya. There are approximately 2000 mature individuals left in the wild. Other animals include the monitor lizards , hyrax , sand vipers , and small populations of African wild dog , in perhaps only 14 countries and red-necked ostrich . Other animals exist in
15410-441: The site was excavated again by Barbara Barich. The most noteworthy find at Uan Muhuggiag is the well-preserved mummy of a young boy of approximately 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 years old. The child was embalmed, positioned into a fetal position, then placed in a sack made of antelope skin which was insulated by a layer of leaves. The boy's organs were removed, as evidenced by incisions in his abdomen and thorax, and an organic preservative
15544-455: The sites from the beginning of the Holocene (~10,000 BP), among the bones of wild fauna , remains of domesticated cattle with ' auroch -like' features were found. There is strong evidence that domestic livestock, principally cattle, played an important role in the lives of the inhabitants of Uan Muhuggiag, which is supported by the amount of cattle bones found at the site as well as evidence of
15678-497: The sixth millennium BC to about 2700 BC, although not necessarily continuously. The stratigraphic sequence comprises seven distinct occupation levels. Layer 1 is the very top layer, followed by layer 1a. The middle level is labeled from 2a to 2d, with 2d being the oldest. Finally, below that, there is also a layer 3, which is further subdivided into section A, at the top, and section B, at the bottom. Layer 1 has been dated as beginning around 3800 BP, and consists of loose aeolian sand at
15812-596: The source of the White Nile and dried out almost completely around 15 kya. The sudden subsequent movement of the ITCZ southwards with a Heinrich event (a sudden cooling followed by a slower warming), linked to changes with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation cycle, led to a rapid drying out of the Saharan and Arabian regions, which quickly became desert. This is linked to a marked decline in
15946-561: The strongest anticyclonic weather regime, and the annual average rainfall can drop to less than 1 millimetre (0.04 in). In fact, most of the Sahara receives less than 20 millimetres (0.8 in). Of the 9,000,000 square kilometres (3,500,000 sq mi) of desert land in the Sahara, an area of about 2,800,000 square kilometres (1,100,000 sq mi) (about 31% of the total area) receives an annual average rainfall amount of 10 millimetres (0.4 in) or less, while some 1,500,000 square kilometres (580,000 sq mi) (about 17% of
16080-540: The structure imposed is unlikely to have had any relevance to the art's creators. Even the word 'art' carries with it many modern prejudices about the purpose of the features. Rock art can be found across a wide geographical and temporal spread of cultures perhaps to mark territory, to record historical events or stories or to help enact rituals . Some art seems to depict real events whilst many other examples are apparently entirely abstract. Prehistoric rock depictions were not purely descriptive. Each motif and design had
16214-533: The subject for decades. The discipline of rock art studies witnessed what Whitley called a "revolution" during the 1980s and 1990s, as increasing numbers of archaeologists in the Anglophone world and Latin America turned their attention to the subject. In doing so, they recognised that rock art could be used to understand symbolic and religious systems, gender relations, cultural boundaries, cultural change and
16348-610: The surrounding area became inhabited around 10,000 BP by Negroid peoples, who followed the monsoon north. It has been suggested that some time later, around 7000 BP, people from Mesopotamia and the Middle East arrived, introducing pastoralism to the region. The idea of domestic cattle in Africa coming from the Fertile Crescent exclusively is now seen as having serious shortcomings. As no hard archaeological evidence supports this claim and subsequent archaeology has revealed
16482-562: The theoretical maximum value. A value of 4300 hours (98%) of the time would be recorded in Upper Egypt ( Aswan , Luxor ) and in the Nubian Desert ( Wadi Halfa ). The annual average direct solar irradiation is around 2,800 kWh/(m year) in the Great Desert. The Sahara has a huge potential for solar energy production. The high position of the Sun, the extremely low relative humidity, and the lack of vegetation and rainfall make
16616-472: The tilt of the earth changes between 22° and 24.5°. At present, it is in a dry period, but it is expected that the Sahara will become green again in 15,000 years. When the North African monsoon is at its strongest, annual precipitation and subsequent vegetation in the Sahara region increase, resulting in conditions commonly referred to as the " green Sahara ". For a relatively weak North African monsoon,
16750-478: The total area) receives an average of 5 millimetres (0.2 in) or less. The annual average rainfall is virtually zero over a wide area of some 1,000,000 square kilometres (390,000 sq mi) in the eastern Sahara comprising deserts of: Libya, Egypt and Sudan ( Tazirbu , Kufra , Dakhla , Kharga , Farafra , Siwa , Asyut , Sohag , Luxor, Aswan, Abu Simbel , Wadi Halfa) where the long-term mean approximates 0.5 millimetres (0.02 in) per year. Rainfall
16884-410: The use of ground ochre , while black paint is typically composed of charcoal , or sometimes from minerals such as manganese . White paint is usually created from natural chalk, kaolinite clay or diatomaceous earth. Once the pigments had been obtained, they would be ground and mixed with a liquid, such as water, blood, urine, or egg yolk, and then applied to the stone as paint using a brush, fingers, or
17018-401: The very top, slightly cemented sand and dung below that, and hearths at the bottom. Farther down, layer 2 has evidence of humified organic sand and lenses of fresh plant remains. These two layers represent the period of human occupation of the shelter. Layer 3 has even stronger humidified sand, as well as gypsum concretions. The stratigraphic sequence suggests that the shelter was inhabited during
17152-407: The weather, as well as light. There may have been many more paintings in more exposed sites, that are now lost. Pictographs are paintings or drawings that have been placed onto the rock face. Such artworks have typically been made with mineral earths and other natural compounds found across much of the world. The predominantly used colours are red, black and white. Red paint is usually attained through
17286-460: Was created. Both parietal and cave art refer to cave paintings , drawings, etchings, carvings, and pecked artwork on the interior of caves and rock shelters. Generally, these either are engraved (essentially meaning scratched) or painted, or, they are created using a combination of the two techniques. Parietal art is found very widely throughout the world, and in many places new examples are being discovered. The defining characteristic of rock art
17420-403: Was initially counteracted by the monsoon , which brought rain further north than it does today. By around 4200 BCE, however, the monsoon retreated south to approximately where it is today, leading to the gradual desertification of the Sahara. The Sahara is now as dry as it was about 13,000 years ago. Lake Chad is the remnant of a former inland sea, paleolake Mega-Chad, which existed during
17554-436: Was inserted to stop his body from decomposing. An ostrich eggshell necklace was also found around his neck. The mummy of the child has been radiocarbon dated, via the deepest coal layer where it was found, to 7438 ± 220 BP, and, via the animal hide it was wrapped in, to 5405 ± 180 BP, which has been calibrated to 6250 cal BP. This date precedes the earliest known Ancient Egyptian mummies by one thousand years. Another date for
17688-470: Was just one tenth the rainfall around 125 kya. In the southern Negev Desert speleothems did not grow between 185 and 140 kya ( MIS 6), 110–90 (MIS 5.4–5.2), nor after 85 kya nor during most of the interglacial period (MIS 5.1), the glacial period and Holocene . This suggests that the southern Negev was arid-to-hyper-arid in these periods. During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) the Sahara
17822-575: Was more extensive than it is now with the extent of the tropical forests being greatly reduced, and the lower temperatures reduced the strength of the Hadley Cell . This is a climate cell which causes rising tropical air of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) to bring rain to the tropics, while dry descending air, at about 20 degrees north , flows back to the equator and brings desert conditions to this region. It
17956-419: Was performed. By these means it was possible to deduce the child had negroid features. The body had been eviscerated and undergone natural desiccation. One other individual, an adult, was found at Uan Muhuggiag, buried in a crouched position. However, the body showed no evidence of evisceration or any other method of preservation. Soukopova (2013) referenced a laboratory examination of the cutaneous features of
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