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Exodus From Drying Sahara Gave Rise to Pharaohs, Study Says
Sean Markey
for National Geographic News
July 20, 2006

The pharaohs of ancient Egypt owed their existence to prehistoric climate change in the eastern Sahara, according to an exhaustive study of archaeological data that bolsters this theory.

Starting at about 8500 B.C., researchers say, broad swaths of what are now Egypt, Chad, Libya, and Sudan experienced a "sudden onset of humid conditions." (See a map of Africa.)

For centuries the region supported savannahs full of wildlife, lush acacia forests, and areas so swampy they were uninhabitable.

During this time the prehistoric peoples of the eastern Sahara followed the rains to keep pace with the most hospitable ecosystems.

But around 5300 B.C. this climate-driven environmental abundance started to decline, and most humans began leaving the increasingly arid region.

"Around 5,500 to 6,000 years ago the Egyptian Sahara became so dry that nobody could survive there," said Stefan Kröpelin, a geoarchaeologist at the University of Cologne in Germany and study co-author.

Without rain, rivers, or the ephemeral desert streams known as waddis, vegetation became sparse, and people had to leave the desert or die, Kröpelin says.

Members of this skilled human population settled near the Nile River, giving rise to the first pharaonic cultures in Egypt (related feature: sample and download Egyptian music).

Gift of Pottery

The new study, which appears online today on the Science Express Web site, is based on painstaking research that combines new radiocarbon dating of about 500 artifacts from the region with data from past studies.

Kröpelin and study co-author Rudolph Kuper also collected geological climate data from countless ancient lakebeds, rain pools, and rivers.

Over the course of 30 years the researchers labored for months at a time in deserts where daytime temperatures sometimes topped 120° to 140°F (50° to 60°C).

The information collected allowed the scientists to piece together a picture of the ancient climate, environment, and migration of prehistoric peoples in the eastern Sahara over the past 12,000 years.

Among their findings, the researchers provide further evidence that the human exodus from the desert about 5,000 years ago is what laid the foundation for the first pharaohs' rule.

"Egypt is a gift of the Nile, as Herodotus said, as many people still think today," Kröpelin said, referring to the 5th-century B.C. Greek historian. "But at the same time also it is a gift of the desert."

"Without the tradition and the know-how and the knowledge of the desert, probably the Egyptian pharaonic civilization wouldn't have emerged as it did."

For example, pottery was first invented in Africa in the Egyptian Sahara at the same time, if not before, it was developed in the Middle East.

"[Pottery] is the first modern plastic, one of the most important inventions in human history," Kröpelin said.

The innovation provided the economic basis for the Neolithic revolution—a period of human cultural development about 5,200 to 4,500 years ago.

Pottery vessels enabled nomadic peoples to preserve and store food and thus settle down (photo: excavating ancient Egyptian pottery).

"It was really a very, very big step in human evolution, and this happened in the desert," Kröpelin said. "Only when the desert dried out, this condition was brought to the Nile Valley."

Adding Some Meat

In their study, Kröpelin and Kuper also describe how pastoral cultures moved along with the desert's southern march.

The ancient peoples' progress helped sow aspects of farming, particularly domestic animal herding, throughout Africa (explore an interactive atlas of the human journey out of Africa).

David Phillipson, a professor of African archaeology, directs the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge in England.

The study "adds a great deal of meat and detail to something which has been envisaged for a little while," he said.

"And it's extremely useful to have this, because it enormously increases the amount of basic data on which the conclusions are drawn.

"As the Sahara dried and became less suited and eventually unsuited to habitation, people ultimately had to move out, whether it be southward or to the east into the Nile Valley," Phillipson said.

"And this [study] helps [us] to understand the apparent rather sudden development of intensive settlement by sophisticated societies in the Nile Valley 'round about five or six thousand years ago." http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...-sahara_2.html

LOL, do you always shat such stupidity? The article doesn't mention a race at all. Secondly, even though I agree with you that the first Pharaohs would be considered Black in this country, it does not mean all the population would, nor that Egyptians defined themselves that way. That is like assuming the US or Mexico is White because of Fox or Bush. The article is good, its your interpratation that sucks.

http://www.fulcrumtv.com/program.php...ries&year=2003





All these elements combine to describe a composite society, probably the result of mixing and interaction with neighbouring regions. Even rock art seems to indicate a mingling of different races, portraying individuals with ‘Negroid’ characteristics, but also ‘Mediterranean’ or ‘Nilotic’ types.
http://www.acacus.it/eng/ricter_arch_pre1b.htm

Of course i think the continuing usage of race is bullocks, but it does show there was a variety of phenotype even then.

the reason many afrocentric people continue to say stuff like this is because in the "consciousness" or the main stream ideas about the world... civilizations like egypt are somewhat seperated from the rest of africa, as well as other africans.

and yes race is bollocks, but at the same time its a real dynamic, with problems and misconceptions on ALL sides. some points are just more urgent than others due to the way societies operate. and thats why it needs to still be discussed along with the rising urge to relegate all the worlds problems to "socio economic levels" both sides are relevant and there are more sides to it than that.

When you cannot DEAL with the TRUTH, the LOGICAL conclusion is to RESORT to your USUAL troll stance.

It is truly AMAZING that you would be so BOLD as to say that the KEMETIANS aka ANCIENT EGYPTIANS did not DEFINE themselves as being BLACK, especially after you have been SCHOOLED, as if you were a 2 year old, by others on Egyptsearch. Truly amazing.

But you're only doing this on Islandmix because you're of the BELIEF that you can put the wool over their eyes with your EUROCENTRIC sources and PSEUDO-SCIENCE logic.

My INTERPRETATION sucks? No, it is your DENIAL of the FACTS and INABILITY to FACE REALITY are what SUCKS.

The BLACK MAN are the PHAROAHS. What CAME after the BLACK MAN is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT!!!

The END.

Sebas, you keep it real and make claims NO ONE can dispute.

First known Pharaoh's only known facial portrait is clearly of an African population that was not Mediterranean looking. Like a KhoiSan or Dinka phenotype.


And if they are going to use a racial concept like Black to describe Taharka, then they can't hide behind racelessness with Narmer. Either you beleive or you don't beleive in Race. I don't but for those that do, Narmer would have fit in the concept of Black easily. We may not know if he was light or dark, but his facial structure is obvious.

LMAO. You have no clue what logic is.

Schooled my ass. In fact they had to delete me because they couldn't deal with some of their own medicine.

LOL. That source is the official website of those who discovered the mummy and are studying the pre-egyptian Saharan culture.

Nice try. You just can't cope with reality.

Wrong as usual. Some looked like what racialists would call black today. (not one droppists) Others did not. Quite simple.

AFRICA/BLACK MAN=FOREVER ADMIRED/ENVIED by the WHITE MAN/EUROPEANS, which led to JEALOUSY, thus their CONTINUED OBSESSION with DISTORTING the TRUTH.

LMAO Poster child for Afrocentric mythology. Too bad you can't back most of your claims with any primary evidence.

The PRIMARY EVIDENCE is right there in the INITIAL POST. But because the STUDY stated "AFRICAN," you FELT it GAVE you an OPENING to say that not ALL AFRICANS during that PERIOD were BLACKS.

Maybe you BELIEVE that, through some FANTASY of yours, they were of the "BLACK CAUCASIAN" persuasion.

@"BLACK CAUCASIAN"