WI: Sahara remains Lush Greens?

Herding might lead to overgrazing, and then you'll end up with a desert anyway.

True, but maybe not permanently. If the climatic conditions are there to keep the Sahara green, then humans are likely to first boom and then crash as herding spreads and then overgraze. But if this drives more people to the river valleys to become farmers and herding becomes less common, the Sahara is likely to remain a dry and sparse grassland instead of the out and out desert it is today.

Which makes me wonder just what climatic conditions are required to keep the Sahara green. Wouldn't this require an extended ice age or something?
 

elkarlo

Banned
One thing to note. There wouldn't be a massive barrier between Africa and Europe. Meaning more trade and interactions. Maybe to the point where there would be no Caucasian peoples due too intermixing
 
The classical African Phenotype seems to have evolved just south of the Sahal with most of central and southern Africa inhabited by Pygmies and Khoisan. It spread across Africa with the Bantu expansion. The Sahara was probably inhabited by groups who looked like the Egyptions and the Ethiopians.
 

elkarlo

Banned
The classical African Phenotype seems to have evolved just south of the Sahal with most of central and southern Africa inhabited by Pygmies and Khoisan. It spread across Africa with the Bantu expansion. The Sahara was probably inhabited by groups who looked like the Egyptions and the Ethiopians.


Interesting. I wish we could do some excavation there.
 
slydessertfox said:
How large would the effects be if the Sahara remained wet, lush, greens?
IMO, the bigger question is why it happened. If the Sahara stayed green (& a forest at one time IIRC), what is the rest of the world like?

That said, it's going to impact the number of Atlantic hurricanes, since it changes the amount of moisture over the ocean, & also the amount of heat. (IDK which way it goes: more moisture =more hurricanes or fewer...). It also changes the global rate of CO2 absorption, & has some impact on global warming.

This may also impact the development of the Amazon Rain Forest, since IIRC the moisture delivery changes.
 
On the topic of Rivers, I feel I should point out that it was the desertification that forced people into the River Valleys that lead to the complex civilization in Egypt, so with the Sahara remaining green, it's very possible either only a small civilization develops or their is no Egyptian civilization at all.

I'm not sure about this. The Middle East was much greener 10,000 years ago, but civilization still developed in the great river valleys there. The Nile is a great place to be-the soil is super rich due to the flooding deposits, there's plenty of fish, and even if the rest of the Sahara is green the presence of the river will ensure that water is more reliable year-to-year there than in the rest of the Sahara were droughts may still occur.

I agree with the idea that it was desertification in the first place that led to the Egypt we all know and love coming to be. I believe the current theory is that herders forced out of the desert mixed with farmers in the Nile Valley and created Egypt. While civilization in the Nile is not and cannot be ruled out in a world where the Sahara stays wet, our Egypt will almost certainly not come to be.
 
IMO, the bigger question is why it happened. If the Sahara stayed green (& a forest at one time IIRC), what is the rest of the world like?

That said, it's going to impact the number of Atlantic hurricanes, since it changes the amount of moisture over the ocean, & also the amount of heat. (IDK which way it goes: more moisture =more hurricanes or fewer...). It also changes the global rate of CO2 absorption, & has some impact on global warming.

This may also impact the development of the Amazon Rain Forest, since IIRC the moisture delivery changes.
The thing is, a green Sahara was an aberration. You can tell that because the boundaries of the biogreographic zones.

The boundary between Eurasia (palearctic) and Africa isnt the Med, as youd expect, but the Sahara. For the zones to be separated that way, you need there to have been a barrier ther for most of the quaternary era, imo.
 
The thing is, a green Sahara was an aberration. You can tell that because the boundaries of the biogreographic zones.

The boundary between Eurasia (palearctic) and Africa isnt the Med, as youd expect, but the Sahara. For the zones to be separated that way, you need there to have been a barrier ther for most of the quaternary era, imo.

From a geological POV, a 12,000 year long aberration isn't that long, and that encompasses the entire history of human civilization and then some.

Of course, once things start to return to normal the people in the Sahara or the neighbors that they migrate to are pretty effectively screwed.
 
The thing is, a green Sahara was an aberration. You can tell that because the boundaries of the biogreographic zones.

It may be an aberrationm, but it's one that is'nt a one-off, the Sahara has gone between Desert and Green several times throughout history as part of a long-term natural process.
 
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