The Sahara & The Atlas Mountains
The boundaries of the Sahara are the Atlantic Ocean on the west, the Atlas Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea on the north, the Red Sea and Egypt on the east, and the Sudan and the valley of the Niger River on the south. Since the end of the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago, the north and sub-Saharan regions of Africa have been separated by the extremely harsh climate of the sparsely populated Sahara, forming an effective barrier interrupted by only the Nile River. Sub-Saharan Africa has been the site of many empires and kingdoms, including the Axum, Wagadu (Ghana), Mali, Nok, Songhai, Kanem-Bornu, Benin and Great Zimbabwe.
Humans lived on the edge of the desert thousands of years ago since, immediately after the last ice age, the Sahara was a much wetter place than it is today. The modern Sahara, though, is not as lush in vegetation, except in the Nile Valley, at a few oases, and in the northern highlands, where Mediterranean plants such as the olive tree are found to grow. The region has been this way since about 3000 B.C. Some 2.5 million people live in the Sahara, most of these in Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco and Algeria. Dominant ethnicities in the Sahara are various Berber groups including Tuareg tribes, various Arabised Berber groups such as the Hassaniya-speaking Maure (Moors, also known as Sahrawis), and various black African ethnicities including Tubu, Nubians, Zaghawa, Kanuri, Peul (Fulani), Hausa and Songhai.
By 6000 B.C. predynastic Egyptians in the southwestern corner of Egypt were herding cattle and constructing large buildings. Subsistence in organized and permanent settlements in predynastic Egypt by the middle of the 6th millennium B.C. centered predominantly on cereal and animal agriculture: cattle, goats, pigs and sheep. Sicily was colonized by Phoenicians and Punic settlers from Carthage and by Greeks, starting in the 8th century BC. The Phoenicians created a confederation of kingdoms across the entire Sahara to Egypt, generally settling on the coasts but sometimes in the desert also. By 2500 B.C. the Sahara was as dry as it is today, and it became a largely impenetrable barrier to humans, with only scattered settlements around the oases, but little trade or commerce through the desert. Aryan civilization first entered the north-west of India probably around 2000 BCE.
The Sahara divides the continent of Africa into North and Sub-Saharan Africa (Chad, Mali, Sudan, Niger, and Mauritania). The one major exception was the Nile Valley. The Nile, however, was impassable at several cataracts, making trade and contact difficult. Sometime between 633BC and 530 BC, Hanno the Navigator either established or reinforced Phoenician colonies in the Western Sahara, but all ancient remains have vanished with virtually no trace. In the Phoenician homeland: Arka , Arwad (Classical Aradus), Batroun , Berut (Beirut), Byblos, Safita, Sidon, Tripoli, Tyre, Ugarit, Zemar (Sumur). From the 10th century BC, their expansive culture established cities and colonies throughout the Mediterranean. Canaanite deities like Baal and Astarte were being worshipped from Cyprus to Sardinia, Malta, Sicily, and most notably at Carthage in modern Tunisia.
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The Atlas Mountains mountain range in northwest Africa extends through Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, and including The Rock of Gibraltar. The Atlas ranges separate the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastlines from the Sahara Desert. It was eons ago that the Appalachian orogeny is one of the geological mountain-forming event (orogeny) that formed the Appalachian Mountains and Allegheny Mountains. These mountains were formed when Africa and America collided, and were once a chain far higher than today's Himalaya. Today, the remains of this chain can be seen in the Fall line in the eastern United States. Some remnants can also be found in the later formed Appalachians in North America. The Sierra Nevada mountains in Spain were similarly formed in this continental collision. The mountains are divided into the Grand Atlas of Morocco, which includes the Middle Atlas, High Atlas and Anti-Atlas. The lower Tell Atlas running near the coast and the larger Saharan Atlas running further south are located in Algeria. |
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