- 2 days ago
Scientists have finally cracked the code on how a lush, green oasis transformed into the world’s largest hot desert. New archaeological evidence and climate modeling suggest that subtle shifts in Earth’s orbit triggered a massive ecological collapse thousands of years ago. This science documentary explores the African Humid Period and the shocking geological findings that explain the Sahara’s desertification. We’re diving deep into paleoclimatology to show how monsoon patterns shifted, forever changing the face of the African continent. Watch now to see the CGI reconstructions of the "Green Sahara" and understand the environmental science behind this epic transformation. Animation is created by Bright Side.
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Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz
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https://www.eastnews.ru
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For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me
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This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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00:00When you think of an epic desert scene with blazing sun, endless dunes, and those magical little oases,
00:07you probably picture the legendary Sahara, right?
00:10But what if I tell you that 11,000 years ago, this vast expanse of hot sand looked totally different
00:17than it does today?
00:18Yeah, I don't know, I wasn't around then.
00:20But I'm told that back then, what we now call a desert was a lush paradise, brimming with lakes, rivers,
00:27grassy plains, and even woodsy forests.
00:30So, where did all this water go?
00:33There are many stories about the distant past of our planet, when deserts were covered with jungles and forests.
00:40And then something happened, like changing climates or colossal earthquakes, and it all turned green lands into dunes.
00:47But how about a theory that Sahara became a desert because of humans and ghosts?
00:54The Sahara has seen its fair share of wet and dry drama throughout the ages,
00:58mostly thanks to little shifts in Earth's orbital tilt, causing variations in how much solar radiation hits the atmosphere.
01:05There were even times, called the African humid periods,
01:09when the rain would pour in and transform the dry landscape into a bright green haven.
01:15But between 8,000 and 4,500 years ago, something really funky happened to this region.
01:22Certain areas went from humid to dry, way too fast to explain it by just orbital changes.
01:28In the blink of an eye, the lush Sahara turned into the Sahara we know today.
01:33Now, if you ask scientists why it happened, they will tell you,
01:37oh, it's just poor parameterization of the data.
01:41Bet you didn't get it, did you?
01:42Well, right, let me translate it from scientific to common human.
01:47It means they really don't know the answer themselves, and they got a bunch of missing puzzle pieces.
01:52But as scientists sifted through ancient dirt and pollen samples, they spotted a quirky trend.
01:59Wherever there were pastoralists, also known as humans with their domesticated animals, the plant life seemed to shift.
02:06It was as if every time humans and their furry friends meandered through the greenery,
02:11they turned it into scrub and desert right behind them.
02:15Oops.
02:16Yep, chances are that by overgrazing, humans were sapping moisture out of the atmosphere,
02:22since plants give off moisture, which helps make clouds and making things even sunnier,
02:27leading to a quicker end of the humid vibes.
02:30Plus, our ancestors may have been getting a little too cozy with fire for land management,
02:35further speeding up the desert takeover.
02:39Anyway, scientists are sure that this lush Sahara would have turned back into desert eventually.
02:45Even if humans hadn't shown up, thanks to Earth's natural rhythms.
02:49So, there's no need to pin this abrupt change solely on humans.
02:53It could simply be about nature getting feedback from vegetation and dust cycles.
03:00It's difficult to determine what caused these changes, as it's all interconnected.
03:05During the last humid period, the Sahara was filled with hunter-gatherers.
03:10As things got a little drier, they started herding animals for food.
03:14The weather pushed people to herd cattle.
03:16It's also possible that grazing sped up the landscape degradation.
03:20So, which came first?
03:22The chicken or the egg?
03:24Or in this case, the human or the cow?
03:26It's tough to tell with the evidence we have now.
03:30Now today, it's safe to say that water is no longer that big of a problem in the Sahara,
03:35even though it's a huge desert and the times of lush forests there are long gone.
03:40But technology's got us covered.
03:43For example, the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System, the biggest underground water stash on the planet.
03:49It's nestled beneath the Sahara Desert's eastern edge and stretches across four northeastern African countries –
03:56Sudan, Chad, Libya, and Egypt – covering a whopping 770,000 square miles
04:02and holding around 36,000 square miles of groundwater.
04:07Just look at the pipes transported when it was being built.
04:10It's the world's largest irrigation project.
04:13No wonder it's feasible to thrive in the Sahara today.
04:18But imagine thriving in the Sahara Desert with just one water source.
04:22Sounds like a tough gig, right?
04:24But the ancient Garamantes did just that, surviving and even thriving for nearly a thousand years
04:30without monsoons or rivers flowing to their desert paradise.
04:34These clever folks were the trendsetters of urban life in the sands.
04:38And even the Romans couldn't help but notice their genius.
04:41While many thought they were just desert-dwelling savages, the Garamantes were busy building an empire
04:48in one of the toughest climates on Earth.
04:50But how did they do that?
04:52Well, they got crafty and dug a whole bunch of underground tunnels to tap into a massive sandstone aquifer.
04:59They were literally squeezing every drop of life from under the dunes.
05:03But recently, research showed that the Garamantes weren't just hardworking.
05:07They were pretty lucky, too.
05:10The Garamantes had an underground aquifer that brought water up to a hill where they built over 500 Fagras,
05:17which are irrigation systems, some stretching as long as two and a half miles.
05:22It was like sipping water through a straw, which let them irrigate their crops for nearly a century,
05:27especially since even a little rain would help recharge the system.
05:32But eventually, due to rain insufficiency, the aquifer ran low,
05:37and reaching it again would have meant digging more tunnels and relying on more people.
05:41That's a tough problem, considering these people were in the middle of food and water shortages.
05:46Guess I don't need to tell you what happened to the Garamantes, do I?
05:51The fall of the Garamantian culture might be linked to several factors.
05:55It may have been due to climate changes, or they may have simply used their water resources too much.
06:01Back in the day, the Sahara Desert was actually fertile agricultural land,
06:05thanks in part to the cool irrigation system the Garamantians created.
06:09But since fossil water isn't something you can replenish over time,
06:13the groundwater levels dropped pretty low.
06:16This likely played a big role in the kingdom's decline by the late 7th century CE.
06:22That sounds like someone who hit a lottery jackpot, used up all the money,
06:26and went back to their original not-so-cool job once the bank account got fully drained.
06:31Oh, by the way, even if the Garamantes left some secret wisdom messages for us,
06:37the chances are we'll never get what they wanted to tell us.
06:40Nobody really knows what language they used, and their texts are nearly indecipherable to us today.
06:48But let's go back to the Green Sahara.
06:51So it transformed into a desert about 4,500 years ago.
06:55But today, we can understand how people lived in those times in the Sahara,
06:59thanks to natural parks in Africa that have the ultimate outdoor art gallery.
07:04There are well over 15,000 ancient paintings and carvings depicting everyday life from around 11,000 years ago.
07:12However, if the carvings aren't enough for you, and you feel like visiting an actual green desert,
07:18all you have to do is book a flight to California.
07:21One of the most beautiful phenomenon in the world, the super bloom takes place here.
07:26Look at all these colors. Orange, green, pink. It's a miracle.
07:31Wild flowers bloom right in the middle of a hot desert after several years of rainfall and dry places.
07:38It's such a bright and colorful landscape that super blooms can be seen from space.
07:43This rare phenomenon can be observed in other arid places and deserts in western and southern Africa, western Australia, and
07:51Chile.
07:52In all these places, the weather is very hot and dry in summer.
07:56Mild human air comes in winter, and this is the ideal environment for mass flowering.
08:02Flower seeds that lie in desert sands can wait for decades before starting to produce flowers.
08:07When the hot sun destroys all the weeds and grass, and the rainfall becomes enough to moisten the soil,
08:13the seeds are kind of like, well, okay, now it's our turn to play a big game.
08:18And then hundreds of thousands of tourists come to take photos and post these beautiful pictures on social media.
08:25And this, unfortunately, is one of the main dangers for flowers.
08:29Therefore, if you find yourself in a place like this, don't pick the flowers and don't trample on them.
08:35Stay on the path, don't litter.
08:37Take only pictures and leave only footprints.
08:41You get it?
08:42Good.
08:43We all grew up believing that Stonehenge is the world's most ancient observatory,
08:48but now it has some serious competition for the title.
08:52Nabta Playa was built more than 2,000 miles away in southern Egypt,
08:56and thousands of years before Stonehenge and even the pyramids of Giza.
09:02In 1973, a Bedouin guide stumbled upon a strange group of huge stone formations while crossing the Sahara Desert.
09:11He led American archaeologist Fred Wendorf to the site, located about 60 miles from the Nile.
09:19Wendorf's friend and colleague claims the team found the stones while stopping for a bathroom break in the desert.
09:26Either way, what they found changed history.
09:29At first, Wendorf thought the stone structures were just natural formations, but then it hit him.
09:35This area was once a lake, meaning no natural rocks should even be there.
09:41He kept coming back to the site for decades, and by the early 1990s,
09:46his team finally uncovered a circle of stones that seemed to line up with the stars in a way no
09:51one could explain.
09:53After seven long years of trying to crack the mystery of the site,
09:58Wendorf reached out to an expert in archaeoastronomy.
10:01They study how ancient people used the stars.
10:05One evening, while the expert sat in the cool desert sand staring at the stones,
10:09he realized that they formed a pattern radiating outward from a massive burial mound.
10:15One by one, as they dug into the sediment, the buried megaliths started lining up like spokes on a wheel.
10:22The team had already used radiocarbon dating to test samples from fire hearths and tamarisk wood roofing found inside the
10:29stone circle.
10:31Nabta Playa had dozens of standing stones, all a few feet tall.
10:35Some of them lined up exactly with the sunrise on special days, and others matched up with bright stars in
10:42the sky.
10:43Inside the big circle, there were six special stones that may have been used for rituals or marking important times
10:50of the year.
10:52Around them, 29 standing stones might have worked like a simple calendar to help people know when it was time
10:58for something important,
10:59like the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.
11:03When the sun rose in just the right spot, it was a sign that the rainy season was coming.
11:08The stone circle once aligned with the brightest stars in the northern sky, Arcturus, Sirius, and Alpha Centauri.
11:16Some stones even pointed to the constellation Orion.
11:20By tracing Arcturus' movement across the sky, they figured out that it matched perfectly with the circle around 4800 BCE.
11:28That means it was the oldest astronomical site ever discovered.
11:32And the people of Nabta Playa may have been watching the stars thousands of years before telescopes were even invented.
11:40It looks like it had a huge meaning for people living and traveling through the desert.
11:46Over 10,000 years ago, the long, cold, and dry ice age that lasted for tens of thousands of years
11:52was finally fading away.
11:55Northern Africa got massive monsoons and rains that filled up seasonal lakes.
12:00So, parts of the desert turned into short-lived oases.
12:04For the nomadic people who roamed this harsh land, these summer rains were everything.
12:09Their entire way of life revolved around cattle.
12:13When archaeologists opened the central tomb at Nabta Playa, they dug up cattle bones and even a massive rock carved
12:21into the shape of a cow.
12:22The people who built it used the stars to guide them and find hidden watering holes like Nabta Playa,
12:28which likely held water for about four months a year, starting with the summer monsoons.
12:33But there was no north star back then.
12:36So instead, they navigated using bright stars and the way the sky seemed to spin in circles above them.
12:43When the lakes were full, the standing stones would be partly submerged,
12:47and from the western shore, you would see the reflection of the stars on the dark water.
12:53Nabta Playa is way less famous than Stonehenge,
12:56perhaps because its stones were buried and the famous site in England was open to visitors for thousands of years.
13:03Sadly, when Nabta Playa did become famous, some tourists ruined parts of it by moving stones around,
13:09which messed up the ancient star alignments.
13:12To protect it, the authorities moved everything to a museum,
13:15where people can see the stones and the carved cow statue without damaging them.
13:20The Egyptian observatory isn't the only construction similar to Stonehenge.
13:25It has versions that were used for different purposes,
13:27from Germany and France to the U.S. and the Andes in northern Peru.
13:33This last one is actually one of the oldest big structures ever built in this region.
13:38The circular plaza is made of two giant stone walls arranged in a ring.
13:43It was likely used for ceremonies and gatherings.
13:46Scientists have carbon dated it to be about 4,750 years old,
13:51which means it was built before the Great Pyramids of Egypt and Stonehenge.
13:56The plaza had two entrances and a special layer of clay, soil, gravel, and charcoal underneath.
14:03It was carefully planned and built.
14:06Archaeologists also found ceramic pieces, quartz crystals, and gemstones at the site,
14:11so it was definitely a special place.
14:14People visited it for centuries, but at some point it was sealed off,
14:18probably because of changing beliefs and traditions.
14:23The most recent discovery was the remains of a large timber circle roughly the same age
14:28and with parallels to Stonehenge, all the way up in Denmark.
14:32This open-air structure was likely part of a special area
14:36where prehistoric people from the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age
14:40gathered for rituals and ceremonies.
14:43The circle was made up of 45 giant wooden posts,
14:46forming a huge ring about 100 feet wide.
14:50The wood is gone now, but scientists believe tall timbers once stood in the holes
14:55and created an impressive wood henge.
14:58No one knows exactly what these circles were used for,
15:02but archaeologists have found animal bones and food remains at similar sites.
15:06So, people probably used to gather there for feasts and rituals.
15:10In 2024, scientists found two ancient stone circles
15:15from the Neolithic period in Dartmoor National Park in England.
15:19Some archaeologists believe they might form a sacred ark.
15:23Many of Dartmoor's stone structures were built in a curved shape
15:26on the high ground in the center of the area.
15:29A long time ago, Dartmoor was covered in forests,
15:32so people may have used the high ground as important markers.
15:36One of the newly found circles fits inside this ark,
15:39but the other one is outside of it, to the north.
15:42This could have been an entrance point into the ark.
15:45There's also a raised bank of earth near the stones,
15:48which looks similar to other famous Neolithic sites,
15:51like the Ring of Brodger in Scotland and Stonehenge itself.
15:54This means the people who built these circles may have visited Stonehenge
15:59or been inspired by it.
16:03Archaeologists in Oman found ancient stone monuments called Tralit,
16:07which got the nickname Arabian Stonehenge.
16:10They were finished about 2,000 years ago,
16:12but no one knows for sure who built them or why.
16:15Scientists also found stone hand axes that are incredibly old,
16:21between 300,000 and 1.3 million years old,
16:25from the time when the first humans left Africa.
16:29At another site in central Oman,
16:31archaeologists discovered a Neolithic tomb
16:34from around 5,000 to 4,600 BCE.
16:38There are two chambers with the bones of dozens of people inside
16:42beneath a giant megalithic structure.
16:45Nearby, they also discovered rock carvings
16:47that were made by people who lived in the area.
16:50And then, there is another Stonehenge look-alike,
16:54this time in Saudi Arabia,
16:56that was used as an apartment complex thousands of years ago.
17:00Archaeologists discovered a total of 345 stone circles
17:04by looking at aerial photos of a lava field.
17:08Each circle is between 13 to 26 feet
17:11and has at least one large standing stone in the middle.
17:15These structures still have remains of stone walls and doorways.
17:19Stone circles like Stonehenge are often linked to ceremonies and rituals,
17:24but scientists say that many early houses were actually built in round shapes,
17:29and rectangular homes only became common much later in history.
17:33That's it for today.
17:35So hey, if you pacified your curiosity,
17:37then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
17:40Or if you want more, just click on these videos
17:42and stay on the bright side!
17:43So you can do the videos about date!
17:44Thank you!
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