A study published in the PNAS journal (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) notes the discovery of another possible ancient river. This body of water would have flown from the middle of the Sahara desert, through Libya, to the Mediterranean Sea. A so called ‘central Saharan watershed’ is a range of volcanic mountains from where the river would have flown. It is also thought that the region northwards from here would have been much wetter, going thorough more cycles of rain than the present Sahara. This discovery also opens up another possibility of the route our ancestors might have taken out of Africa.
Even with sophisticated modern all-terrain vehicles, the Sahara is considered a treacherous drive. A hike remains out of question for most. So until now it was a little difficult to practically explain how a band of proto-sapiens would have trekked these thousands of kilometers. The Nile has always been thought of as that lender of life that allowed them to carry on. While the current discovery does not defeat the previous possibility, it certainly presents another viable alternative.
I can’t help but imagine the scene, where after generations of traveling, a small group of our ancestors must have found themselves facing the new sea – boundless water. To anyone who has not seen a large lake, sea or ocean before, the first view is usually breathtakingly stunning. What this group must have felt like on discovery of such a rich new ecosystem is probably one of those things we’ll never know in our lifetimes.
But perhaps I’m exaggerating. The Nile delta as it is today looks as fertile as a thick forest through satellite imagery. Most likely the trail the proto-sapiens followed was also much richer than we can imagine. And most of it did take place during a glaciation period. But still, like those of us who don’t live in coastal cities or towns can testify, a huge difference exists between the two.
The study was conducted by researchers from the universities of Bristol, Southampton, Oxford, Hull and Tripoli. The original Bristol press release can be found @ http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2008/5947.html.
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The desert conditions of the Sahara come and go, the most recent “pluvial” or relatively wet periods being:
Abbassia Pluvial: 120,000 – 90,000 ybp (years before present)
Mousterian Pluvial: 50,000 – 30,000 ybp
Neolithic Subpluival: 9,000 – 5,000 ybp
So the rain that fell during these pluvials could easily have flowed in those now-dry riverbeds.
Besides the Sahara-crossing routes mentioned here, there is another out-of-Africa route that’s commonly speculated about: crossing the Bab el Mandeb (Gate of Tears/Grief) strait, where the Red Sea meets the Indian Ocean. The strait’s width is now 20 mi / 30 km, and was likely even smaller during the Ice Ages.