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I'm writing an ASB timeline where the Congo river becomes blocked, overfills through the Chari river into Lake Chad. Lake Chad becomes permanent at its largest size, this results in a much smaller Sahara desert, the enlargement of the Sahel, and much of the Sahel being converted into grasslands/wooden forests. Another effect is greater rainfall in East Africa and in Arabia and the Sinai peninsula.

This also results in West African and East African kingdoms developing much earlier than in OTL, where West African Kingdoms only really developed around 600BC.

South Africa should remain much the same.

My question is this, what would the effects on European and Near Eastern history be? I think that there would be greater trade between Africa and the Far East but I don't think that there would be much cultural exchange. Conversely, the West Africans have a much shorter route to Spain and the East Africans (especially around the Horn of Africa) should affect the history of the Arabic nations as much as the West Africans should affect the history of the European ones.
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