Sahara Desert Rock Art, Documenting Climate Change
Sleeping Antelope Sahara Rock Art – Wikipedia
As anyone who knows me can attest, one of the photographic subjects I find most fascinating is rock art. Such art offers a window into the lives and minds of people who lived hundreds and in most cases thousands of years ago. Without a common language or reference, such art often leaves us with more questions than answers, while at the same time reminding us of our connection to the people who created them. The fascinating aspect of the Sahara cave paintings and petroglyphs is that they give us an extra element of detail about the world of their creators that you generally don’t get in the American Southwest, and other places. We know this, because of the animals and human activities they drew on walls thousands of years ago, are in most cases completely incompatible with the Sahara we see today. They even show us through the animals depicted at different times, how life in the Sahara was changing, so much so that the various dating periods for the rock art in this area have been defined by the animals displayed. The earliest rock art shows animals that are either completely extinct or which haven’t lived near the Sahara for thousands of years. While more recent rock art displays animals like horses and cattle that were able to live in the Sahara in more recent times, but no longer. And finally, the last prehistoric examples, show animals like the camel which are recent transplants from Arabia, that are among the only large animals that can withstand the Sahara as it currently is.
While some may be skeptical about the ability of such art to give us an accurate picture, other research techniques have since proven, from the study of ocean cores off the West coast of Africa to the finding of freshwater fossils, and lake bed soils in the middle of the Sahara desert, that the Sahara has undergone numerous and repeated climatic changes over at least the last 2 million years. These cycles have shifted it from a bone-dry desert to a lush green landscape sporting some of the biggest lakes in Africa. And the transition from wet to dry has been at times dramatic even on the scale of a single human lifetime. What the prehistoric rock art shows us, is merely the latest wet to dry cycle in a much longer story about climate.
Here are a few of the places where the Sahara’s dramatic and recent changes have been captured.
Tassili n’Ajjer (Find It) – is a large plateau in south-east Algeria famous for its cave paintings. Not surprisingly the area remains one of the few places in the Sahara where vegetation and animal life retain a foothold. This is in part due to its altitude and the water holding properties of the soil and rock that make up the plateau. Among the 15,000 carvings found in the area, are depictions of elephants, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, crocodiles, antelope, wild sheep, cattle herding, and horse-drawn chariots. The oldest rock art in the area has been dated to 10,000 B.C.
Because of the importance and abundance of prehistoric rock art in this area, it was designated a national park in 1972.
Acacus Mountains (Find It) – In these mountains located on the border of southern Libya and Algeria are depictions of giraffes, elephants, ostriches, camels, and horses.
Ennedi Mountains (Find It) – much of the rock art in this area is of a more recent variety, and displays animals that have lived in the Sahara during historic times, such as camels. Probably the best example is the cave art of Manda Guéli.
Sabu-Jaddi (Find It) – this rock art site, located in today’s Sudan, depicts life in ancient Nubia and features both domestic and wild animals. Animals depicted that are extinct in the Sahara include hippopotamus, crocodiles, giraffe, leopards, and antelope.
Cave of Swimmers (Find It), is a cave in southwestern Egypt, named after what has been interpreted as to be rock art of humans swimming. Other drawings in the cave display giraffe and hippopotamus. The rock art is believed to be from around 10,000 B.C.
Recommended Websites:
Trust for African Rock Art
Bradshaw Foundation African Rock Art Archive
Videos:
When The Sahara Desert Was Green
The Rise of Ancient Egypt
It has been speculated that it was this dramatic and sudden shift in climate that drove many people who lived in the Sahara to the Nile Valley, and to later form the civilization of Ancient Egypt. With its predictable water supply from the mountains of Ethiopia, the Nile River, and the fertile soils that surround it offered one of the few remaining refuges within the Sahara’s inhospitable vastness.
Suggested Reading:
Rock Art in Africa: Mythology and Legend – Jean-Loic Le Quellec
What Really Turned the Sahara Desert From a Green Oasis Into a Wasteland?
Green Sahara: African Humid Periods Paced by Earth’s Orbital Changes
National Geographic: Lost Tribes of the Green Sahara
