Africa, North: Eastern Sahara

Abstract

The Eastern Sahara is one of the best-known areas of North Africa when it comes to archaeological and geoarchaeological research. A fair amount is known about the region's past cultural and climatic developments. The present entry features some of the events related to Eastern Sahara's long term occupational history, stretching from early human settlement during the Early and Middle Stone Age to the last human settlement of the Aterian before the long late Pleistocene hiatus. At the beginning of the Holocene the desert transformed into a savannah thanks to the northward penetration of the monsoon. Following the greening of the Sahara, complex pottery producing hunter-gatherers thrived in the area, accompanied during the very beginning of the Middle Holocene by the development of animal husbandry and food producing Neolithic societies.