Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt

swift changes in some locations of the Sahara. Then, in 2005–2006, Kuper and Kröpelin studied deep core samples from
Lake Yoa, in the Tibesti-Ennedi region of northeastern Chad, and found evidence there for a slow desertification that
occurred over several millennia from about 10,000 BCE to 3500 BCE. It seems, then, that there was a combination of
very rapid change in some areas and more gradual regional change as the monsoon pattern moved and continuously
reshaped itself. In any case, it seems the drying process eventually drove the prehistoric people out of the Sahara—
meanwhile giving them ample time across many generations to develop animal domestication; basic agriculture; art;
primitive sign writing; the knowledge of how to move large stones and construct complex megalithic structures; and
knowledge of the simple principles of navigation, orientation, and timekeeping with the sun and stars. In other words,
they acquired the practical and intellectual tools for building a civilization by the time they migrated into the Egyptian
Nile Valley around 3500 BCE.
Let us now take a closer look at Lake Yoa near the Tibesti-Ennedi highlands. This region warrants a closer
investigation, for it lies in the extended direction of Bergmann’s Abu Ballas Trail, which has as its starting point Dakhla
oasis and passes through the Gilf Kebir and Jebel Uwainat massifs.
THE SOURCE?
Lake Yoa is among the largest of a series of small lakes in the Ennedi that are located just 100 kilometers (62 miles)
from the Tibesti highlands. All of these lakes total some 20 square kilometers (12 square miles) of surface water and
were once part of a giant lake during the humid periods of the Sahara, between 13,000 BCE and 3500 BCE. These lakes
have a natural hydrological system that is unique in the world: because they are constantly fed with fresh water from
underground aquifers and are also protected by a natural matting of reeds that reduces the evaporation effect, their water
stays fresh in spite of the extreme heat and superaridity of the region that normally would lead to high evaporation and,
consequently, high water salinity. In addition, the water from the higher lakes perpetually filters through the surrounding
sand dunes and into the lower lakes, thus replenishing them with fresh water. Such conditions are ideal for human
settlement in an otherwise inhospitable environment. As we have already seen, these lakes lie in the extended direction of
the Abu Ballas Trail that runs southwest of Uwainat. The Tibesti-Ennedi region where these lakes are located is full of
prehistoric rock art that resembles that of Uwainat, and there are also prehistoric tumuli or tombs that recall those of
Nabta Playa. It seems almost certain, therefore, that the sub-Saharan people of the Tibesti-Ennedi highlands migrated
north into the Sahara, perhaps during more humid phases, when the desert was green and fertile, which explains the sixtyseven
human skeletons found at Gebel Ramlah, near Nabta Playa, in 2002 by Schild and Wendorf. These remains were
declared to be those of a Black sub-Saharan people.
MEET THE ANCESTORS
In the autumn of 2000, a team of paleontologists led by Dr. Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago were exploring the
western part of the Tenere Desert when they made a startling discovery at a place called Gobero, near the old Tuareg
caravan village of Agadez. Here, partly buried in the sand, were dozens of human skeletons amid a proliferation of stone
tools and potsherds. Many of the skeletons were in a fetal position, with legs tightly pulled up against their chests and
hands tucked close to their chins. Near the human skeletons were animal bones, including those of antelope, giraffe, and
hippopotamus. According to Sereno, “Everywhere you turned, there were bones belonging to animals that don’t live in
the desert. . . . I realized we were in the Green Sahara.” 55
As we saw in chapter 3, for the past couple of hundred thousand years or so the Sahara has fluctuated between wet
and dry phases caused by cyclical changes in Earth’s motion, including the precession of the equinoxes, combined with
other cyclical geologic processes. The most recent wet phase began after about 10,500 BCE, when the seasonal
monsoons of central Africa again migrated north, bringing rain and fertility to a broad strip of land in the southern part of
the Sahara running from the Nile in Egypt to the Atlantic coastline of Morocco. This wet phase brought into the Sahara
fauna and people from the south, where, at first, they survived as hunter-gatherers, but then, with the change in climate,
converted into pastoralists. In 2006, to find out more about what happened to these ancient people, Sereno teamed with
the Italian archaeologist Elena Garcea of the University of Cassino, and together they re-examined the prehistoric
skeletons of Gobero.
Garcea was very impressed by the large number of skeletons, which far outnumbered all others she had seen in the
Sahara. She also directed her attention to the potsherds that were all around the skeletons and was quick to recognize on
some of them the tiny dot marks that were typical of the Tenerian prehistoric herders that roamed the Sahara from 4000