00:00The Sahara Desert is like a Mad Max movie.
00:04Scorching heat, endless dunes, and an overall barren wasteland.
00:08A place where no one could live, right?
00:10Well, forget all you know about it.
00:13Because 5,000 years ago, the Sahara was a lush paradise of grasslands, lakes, and rivers.
00:19And the home of a ghost civilization that vanished without a trace.
00:24Our tale begins in the 1930s,
00:26when a Hungarian explorer stumbled upon a cave in the middle of the Sahara.
00:31Inside, he found something bizarre.
00:34Ancient rock paintings of people swimming in a lake,
00:37surrounded by giraffes, hippos, and crocodiles.
00:40At the time, everybody shrugged it off as some symbolic depiction of the afterlife.
00:45Because, really, who would imagine a lake in the Sahara?
00:49Well, fast forward some 70 years later,
00:52when a group of archaeologists made a discovery that flipped the script.
00:56In a rock shelter in Libya, they unearthed 15 mummies,
01:00along with baskets, ceramic pots, and other everyday items.
01:04This may look like prehistoric junk to most people,
01:06but to archaeologists, ooh,
01:08it was like uncovering a key piece of evidence.
01:11Those people weren't just passing through.
01:13They lived here.
01:15You see, those weren't just any mummies.
01:17They were some of the oldest, naturally mummified humans ever found,
01:21dating back over 7,000 years.
01:24Take that, Egypt.
01:26Two of them still had readable DNA,
01:29preserved thanks to a rare natural mummification process,
01:32almost a miracle considering the Sahara's climate's ability
01:35to turn everything into, well, beef jerky.
01:39Scientists struggled to understand where those mummies came from for a while,
01:43because the mitochondrial DNA they recovered was not helpful at all.
01:48But thanks to scientific progress,
01:50they eventually managed to do a full genome analysis
01:53that revealed some weird secrets.
01:56Those people belonged to a human lineage that was completely unknown,
02:01and they lived isolated from the rest of humanity for thousands of years.
02:05For decades, researchers assumed that the place where they lived,
02:09the Green Sahara, was like a prehistoric highway,
02:12a lush corridor that humans and animals used to migrate
02:15between sub-Saharan Africa and the Mediterranean.
02:18But the mummies demolished that theory,
02:21like a hippo sitting on a sandcastle.
02:24Their DNA showed zero genetic mixing with sub-Saharan and Eurasian migrants,
02:29keeping their genes pure for 7,000 years.
02:32Their closest genetic relatives weren't their neighbors
02:34living right below the famous desert,
02:37but some ancient hunter-gatherers from Morocco,
02:39and even some guys that lived in the Czech Republic,
02:43when it wasn't even a country yet, 50,000 years ago.
02:46We're not out of the woods yet,
02:48because those mummies also carried some teeny tiny traces of Neanderthal DNA,
02:53just 10% of the amount found in modern Eurasians.
02:57Now, if you paid attention in school,
02:59then you know that Neanderthals lived in Europe and Asia,
03:02and early humans only mixed with them after migrating out of Africa.
03:06But those green Sahara folks never left Africa.
03:10So how did they get Neanderthal genes?
03:13The leading theory is that their ancestors mingled with Neanderthals
03:16in North Africa 50,000 years ago
03:19before settling in the Sahara and cutting off contact with the outside world.
03:24Archaeologists also found cattle bones and tools made of stone and wood at that rock shelter,
03:30proving that those people led a thriving pastoral lifestyle.
03:33This discovery made scientists scratch their heads for a while,
03:37because, you see, animal domestication was not developed in Africa.
03:41So how did they learn it if they never mingled with anyone?
03:45Did they have ancient YouTube tutorials?
03:47Probably not.
03:49The researchers believe they must have traded knowledge with neighboring groups,
03:53but just knowledge, no saliva.
03:56It's almost too hard to believe that no outsiders mixed with them.
03:59After all, who wouldn't want to live in a thriving civilization in the middle of a green paradise,
04:05drinking milk, eating meat, and even using animal blood as a protein source?
04:09Ooh, yummy.
04:11They didn't have to hunt for every meal, thanks to their livestock,
04:14and the abundant water made life pretty sweet.
04:17And yet, they never married outsiders.
04:20Why?
04:20Maybe it was a cultural choice to never date outside their own group.
04:24Or maybe the landscape itself kept them isolated.
04:28This is where scientists placed their bets.
04:30They believed that the dense forests and rivers that existed in the green Sahara
04:34acted like nature's no trespassing sign,
04:37creating a geographical barrier that isolates animals, plants, and whole societies.
04:43This isolation is the reason why their genes were so unique.
04:47These guys weren't swapping spit with anyone else.
04:49But this genetic time capsule almost didn't survive.
04:53For most of the last ice age, the Sahara was even harsher than today,
04:58a true dead zone where humans couldn't survive.
05:0170,000 years ago, even the toughest people disappeared,
05:05retreating to the Nile Valley and the Mediterranean coast.
05:08Why?
05:09Because Earth was a climate bully.
05:11Massive glaciers stole all the moisture,
05:14weakening monsoons until rain clouds barely reached North Africa.
05:18Then came the knockout punches.
05:20Armadas of icebergs flooded the North Atlantic, triggering devastating droughts each time.
05:26This was the Sahara's ultimate keep-out era.
05:30Now, you're probably wondering how in the world the Sahara turned green after all this,
05:34and then went back to being a desert again.
05:37Well, it all started 15,000 years ago, I wasn't around then,
05:41when Earth was shaking off the last ice age.
05:44Our planet's axis was a bit wobbly, and because of that,
05:48the northern hemisphere got closer to the sun, getting extra sunlight and heat.
05:53This eternal summer turned North Africa into a giant moisture magnet,
05:57pulling water from the Atlantic and making it all rain down on the Sahara.
06:01The result of this ridiculous amount of rain was a lush savannah,
06:05complete with lakes the size of small countries.
06:07But the African humid period was not just a one-time miracle.
06:12The truth is, this eternal on-and-off switch between green and desert
06:16happened to the Sahara more than 230 times since the desert was born.
06:22During one of these events, the Sahara even expanded, getting bigger than it is today.
06:27So when the green Sahara showed up, you can bet it brought the ultimate ecosystem glow-up.
06:33This wasn't just a light dusting of grass, we're talking full makeover.
06:38The transformation was so complete, it even reshaped animal populations.
06:42Cheetahs suddenly struggled with the new prey dynamics,
06:45while rodents like the multi-mammate mouse thrived in the suddenly-abunding grasslands.
06:51But don't pack your prehistoric swim trunks just yet.
06:54This paradise had teeth.
06:56The Sahara was an ecological maze of crocodile-infested rivers,
07:01malaria-carrying mosquitoes, and big cats lurking in the tall grass.
07:06Crossing it would have been like playing a real-life game of hungry-hungry hippos.
07:11This is probably why more groups didn't settle permanently.
07:15The Sahara's climate cycled between wet and dry every 20,000 years,
07:19hardly a stable zip code.
07:21For most ancient people, it was smarter to treat the green Sahara like an all-you-can-eat buffet,
07:27grab resources, and leave before the desert returned.
07:30Still, this green Sahara period lasted for 10,000 years,
07:34giving our mystery shepherds plenty of time to thrive.
07:37But around 5,000 years ago, Earth's axis shifted again,
07:42the rains moved away, and the Sahara dried up faster than a puddle in July.
07:46As the desert returned, the shepherds from the green Sahara had no choice
07:52but to pack up their livestock and leave.
07:54Some researchers believe they migrated toward the Nile,
07:57laying the groundwork for ancient Egypt, so I guess their legacy lives on.
08:02Besides, their pure lineage may be extinct by now,
08:05but some faint genes of the mummies can still be found in the people that live in North Africa today.
08:10But the introvert mummies were not the only ones using the green Sahara as an Airbnb.
08:17They actually had neighbors just around the corner,
08:20in a lakeside village in Niger, to be exact.
08:23Those people thrived for 5,000 years and left behind the oldest Sahara desert cemetery,
08:28including a man buried in a turtle shell,
08:31a grinning Halloween man with filed teeth,
08:34and a heartbreaking family embrace, frozen in time,
08:37victims of the very waters that sustained them.
08:41Eventually, those people disappeared too,
08:43just like it happened to our antisocial friends.
08:46This proves that this desert outsmarts everyone,
08:49with a landscape that gives paradise with one hand
08:51and takes it away with the other.
08:55That's it for today.
08:57So hey, if you pacified your curiosity,
08:59then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
09:01Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side!
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