Life in the Green Sahara

The Sahara today is known for its endless sand seas of dunes under a scorching hot sun. 

But that region didn’t always look like that. 

Between 5,000 and 14,000 years ago, the Sahara hosted lush vegetation, with rivers and lakes, and was home to a variety of animals, including humans. 

Now, researchers say they may have found details of the lives of those who lived in this landscape after successfully analyzing the DNA of two naturally mummified livestock herders who lived there 7,000 years ago, explained the Smithsonian Magazine. 

In the early 2000s, researchers found the skeletons of 15 ancient humans in what is now southwestern Libya in a rock shelter named Takarkori, along with pottery shards and rock art. They theorized that these people survived by hunting, fishing, and herding animals. 

According to a new study, this population of ancient humans was previously unknown, largely genetically distinct from others, whose remains have been studied, and didn’t show significant genetic influence from sub-Saharan populations to the south nor from Near Eastern and prehistoric European groups to the north, study co-author Johannes Krause told Reuters. 

The two skeletons researchers analyzed were remarkably well-preserved, with skin, ligaments, and soft tissue still intact. Researchers believe they come from two women in their 40s who died around 5,000 BCE, according to CNN. 

Initially, only mitochondrial DNA was recovered, which is passed down from mothers, but full genome sequencing later provided a clearer picture of the mummies’ ancestry: Researchers say it is likely that so-called Green Sahara individuals split from the ancestors of sub-Saharan Africans around 50,000 years ago. 

From there, they somehow managed to remain genetically isolated for tens of thousands of years – a finding that surprised researchers. 

They resemble “living fossils,” Krause told the BBC. “If you’d told me these genomes were 40,000 years old, I would have believed it,” he added. 

More research is needed to have a better representation of those who lived in the Green Sahara at the time, but the study is an important contribution to the understanding of human ancestry.  

“Research is just beginning to reveal Africa’s complex population history, uncovering lineages barely detectable in the genomes of present-day people,” wrote Mary Prendergast, an anthropologist not involved in the study, in Nature.