Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt
Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt
Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt
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BCE to 2500 BCE. What she found odd, though, was the pottery with wavy lines that Garcea attributed to the Kiffian, a<br />
fishing people who had lived in this same region thousands <strong>of</strong> years before the Tenerian, roughly from 6000 BCE to<br />
4500 BCE. Garcea was baffled as to how the Kiffian and Tenerian peoples, whose presence here was separated by five<br />
hundred or more years, had used the same burial grounds. Garcea and Sereno also explored a dry lake nearby and found<br />
fishing hooks and harpoons made <strong>of</strong> bone and the remains <strong>of</strong> large Nile perch, crocodiles, and hippopotamus—all<br />
evidence <strong>of</strong> the Kiffian fishing people’s presence in this area. Yet what could have induced the Tenerian, centuries later,<br />
to bury their own people in the cemetery <strong>of</strong> the Kiffian? According to Garcea, “. . . perhaps the Tenerian found the<br />
Kiffian burials and recognized this place as sacred. It’s possible they thought these bones belonged to their own<br />
ancestors.” 56<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were more than two hundred burials at Gobero, and only carbon dating could determine their true age. Garcea<br />
and Sereno had to act quickly, because the site was unprotected and open to looting by Tuareg nomads who were in<br />
search <strong>of</strong> artifacts to sell to tourists. Many prehistoric sites in Niger have been looted before they could be studied and<br />
excavated by archaeologists, and Sereno wanted to avoid this calamity at Gobero. He finally managed to ship bone<br />
samples to his laboratory in the United States and have them dated by radiocarbon analysis. <strong>The</strong> results showed that some<br />
bones were nine thousand years old, falling in the Kiffian epoch, while others were six thousand years old, falling within<br />
the Tenerian epoch.<br />
A biochemist from Arizona State University, Chris Stojanowski, also went to Gobero to examine the prehistoric<br />
site, and his own study <strong>of</strong> bones and other prehistoric artifacts showed that the Kiffian men had huge leg muscles,<br />
implying a high-protein diet, and the wear and tear <strong>of</strong> their bones showed that they had arduous lives consistent with the<br />
theory that they were hunter-gatherers and efficient fishermen. <strong>The</strong> Tenerian, on the other hand, had slender legs, and their<br />
bone structure showed that their lives were less strenuous than those <strong>of</strong> the Kiffian. This was consistent with the theory<br />
that they were herders and pastoralists. It seems that in the area there had been a hunter-gatherer phase as well as a later<br />
pastoralist phase, the former when the Sahara was very humid and rich with fauna, and the latter when the climate became<br />
drier and the fish and fauna became scarce, forcing the Kiffians to domesticate the wild cattle so that they could move<br />
their food supply to watering holes and fresh grazing grounds.<br />
Of the hundreds <strong>of</strong> animal bones found at Gobero, none belonged to sheep or goats. <strong>The</strong>y were the remains only <strong>of</strong><br />
cattle. Yet the cattle bones were few, because the herders rarely slaughtered their cattle but rather kept them for milk and<br />
blood. In other words, the cattle were living protein larders. As far as we know, no DNA tests have been performed to<br />
determine the origins <strong>of</strong> the Kiffian or the Tenerian, although, apparently, scientists in the United States are working on<br />
this. In 2007 there was trouble in Niger from antigovernment insurgents, and the authorities imposed emergency rules<br />
that prohibited foreigners from traveling into the Tenere Desert. Sereno and Garcea were obliged to abort their planned<br />
2008 season at Gobero. As things stand now, this unique prehistoric graveyard may soon be lost forever. 57<br />
TWO GIANT GIRAFFES IN STONE<br />
Another fact regarding the prehistoric people <strong>of</strong> Gobero attracted our attention. Many <strong>of</strong> the stone tools that were<br />
examined by Sereno and his team had come from the mysterious region known as the Aïr Mountains, located some 100<br />
kilometers (62 miles) to the north <strong>of</strong> Gobero. A few years earlier, at the foot <strong>of</strong> the Aïr Mountains near a place called<br />
Dabous, there was discovered an abundance <strong>of</strong> prehistoric art, notably two life-size giraffes that were exquisitely carved<br />
on a flat outcrop <strong>of</strong> sandstone. <strong>The</strong>se engravings, according to the experts, probably belonged to the Kiffian and are<br />
tentatively dated to about 8000 BCE. <strong>The</strong> Dabous site contains more than eight hundred engravings, 50 percent <strong>of</strong> which<br />
are cows or other large bovines, and the rest <strong>of</strong> which are giraffes, ostriches, lions, rhinoceros, and even camels. <strong>The</strong>re are<br />
also some sixty human figures. <strong>The</strong> two huge giraffes, a male and smaller female, are engraved on an 80-meter-long by<br />
60-meter-wide (262-feet-long by 197-feet-wide) sandstone outcrop. <strong>The</strong> male giraffe is nearly 6 meters (20 feet) tall and<br />
the female about 3.5 meters (12 feet) tall. Albeit on a much larger scale, they resemble the giraffes engraved at Jebel<br />
Uwainat and Gilf Kebir in the <strong>Egypt</strong>ian Sahara. More intriguingly, both at Gobero and Uwainat/Gilf Kebir, next to the<br />
giraffes are carved human figures holding ropes attached to the mouths or heads <strong>of</strong> the animals—and this clearly shows a<br />
special connection between humans and giraffes, perhaps even an attempt at domestication.<br />
It is unlikely to be a coincidence that such similar images are found at Gobero and at Uwainat. Could the Gobero<br />
people and the Uwainat/ Gilf Kebir people have a common ancestry or origin? Although the answer is still unclear, all<br />
the evidence points to the possibility that the Kiffian and Tenere <strong>of</strong> Niger, the Nabta Playa pastoralists, and the pre-cattle<br />
and cattle herders <strong>of</strong> Gilf Kebir and Uwainat all had a common ancestral source in the Tibesti-Ennedi region in Chad. <strong>The</strong>