https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Subpluvial
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_pump_theory
How different would the world be if the Sahara stayed green? Ever couple of thousand of years, the Sahara suddenly goes back to being a fairly wet savanna, and the most recent of these event ended about 5,000 years ago. Would Eurasia be even more connected with Africa?
>>488798
>Would Eurasia be even more connected with Africa
of course.
the greatest civilizations arose from fertile regions like Mesopotamia, or the Nile.
If, for the sake of argument, the Sahara region were as green as your pic, it would have been Mesopotamia x 50. That's a huge fucking area there, i mean, the size of that empire would be even unrealistic. Just look at the shit that Italy or Spain is.
I mean, I cannot get over how fucking green the Arabian peninsula is, how does that get irrigated?
I don't think you realize just how big Africa is.
But, if for whatever reason this did happen, then civilization would have probably seen more North African civilizations/states arise due to the increased capacity for agriculture. Rome (If it ever comes about because we're talking about a massive change at 7,000BC) would certainly focus on North Africa and the African interior far more than Europe proper. Carthage (Again, if it even comes about) might also have been more than just covetous Semites and instead been a vast expanding agricultural power. The Bantu migration might head north instead of South, and Sub-Saharan Africans may have been contacted by Eurasians before the 8th century.
And then when any sufficiently advanced polity finds this shit out it's basically gg no re for Africa. Not only would African populations be more spread out (making colonization easier) but there would be far more untouched land. Imagine what the Ottomans (Or worse, the Chinese) would do to get their hands on this territory. It would make whatever the Europeans did and would do look like sunshine and rainbows.
>>488830
>how does that get irrigated?
It doesn't. Arabia used to naturally look like that.
>
And then when any sufficiently advanced polity finds this shit out it's basically gg no re for Africa. Not only would African populations be more spread out (making colonization easier) but there would be far more untouched land. Imagine what the Ottomans (Or worse, the Chinese) would do to get their hands on this territory. It would make whatever the Europeans did and would do look like sunshine and rainbows.
What makes you think, if Africa had these advantages, they'd be worried about this shit. If the map really looked like this, it would be more likely gg no re for Europe.
>>488798
>couple thousand
More like tens of thousands dude.
Had the green Sahara extended the tsetse zone would have continued to expand into Eurasia resulting in a tsetse tolerant mileu of dwarfed goats, sheep, cows and ponies that would probably inhibit a number of things. Rinderpest would have made landfall in Africa and wiped out most four legged animals even sooner than it did in dynastic Egypt and later colonial east and south Africa. Malaria as well.
Also plant domestication wouldn't have occurred, a dry period spurred most of the world's agriculture.
+ it'd remain a land of giants.
Secondly I don't understand that last part, Eurasia and Africa have always and remains quite connected culturally. Maybe not in the most blunt and clear-cut way but Afroeurasia is merely a series of continuums on a massive scale.
Quite beautiful when you begin to recognize things and patch together all sorts of papers together.
>>488906
You're absolutely right, but I was more so talking about China rather than Europe playing colonial power.
Sub-Saharan Africans already had a very fertile incredibly large patch of land to play with. We all know how that turned out. Access to more of the same won't change anything. However, Afro-Asiatics would have a fucking field day. As I said, Carthage might have done more than just jerk off about MUH TRADE. Egypt could have expanded as far as it wanted (all the way down to fucking Lake Victoria). If either gets their hands on the horse from some bumfuck European barbarian then both have the tools to become super powers.
>>488913
Also I think this map sucks, the Sahara was only forested in aïr and other highlands, most was riverine grasslands and from what I recollect the green sahara coincides with a dry period in the Levant and I'm pretty sure that beyond the afromontane of Arabia Felix the rest of the peninsula was still rather dry.
>>488913
>Eurasia and Africa have always and remains quite connected culturally
well, yes, but with such plentiness in the middle Central and South Africa would have been different things. not to say they were unconnected by all means, but there wasn't exactly a silk road going to the Ivory Coast. n ow imagine having those two great lakes there.
imo, such a fertile africa would have become the center of the world, instead of being a conquerable strip of land in the eyes of the Roman Empire, and irrelevant below the equator
>>488931
Most of Africa wasn't and hasn't been especially fertile in most places and where it was there certainly were major agricultural hubs.
>>488936
You don't seem to know much about Africa.
>>488937
This. The problem is the hubs weren't connected. The problem with looking at "Europeans" and "Africans" is that the Europeans had contact with say, the Igbo, Zulu and Bugandans before the Igbo, Zulu and Bugandans had contact with each other.
This map proposes that there is a vast trade network stretching from the Great Lakes on one end, to Nigeria/West Africa on the other, up to the Alps, connected by rivers all the way.
This would basically make what's now Chad the center of the world.
You're talking about Ottomans and Carthaginians and shit, you're not envisioning how colossal a shift if human history we're talking.
>>488956
Agreed. The amount of butterflies involved with a perpetual green Sahara is beyond the scope of comprehension.
The world would have to look completely different to sustain that kind of moisture and I'd argue human evolution itself would have either been severely stunted or even completely shifted course if such an event could occur.
You can't just have it freeze to conditions only in the Holocene Wet Phase either, the Intertropical Convergence Zone doesn't work like that.
>>488989
>The world would have to look completely different to sustain that kind of moisture and I'd argue human evolution itself would have either been severely stunted or even completely shifted course if such an event could occur.
I can't speak for the ecological sustainability, but I'd argue it would, rather then stunting, wildly advance human civilization. Unless it ecologically fucks over something else severely, given the development of Green Saharan peoples, this would seriously improve the development of human civilization.
>>489033
You don't get it do you? The oscillating climate is the basis of floral and fauna migration to and from Afro-Eurasia for millions of years.
If the environment was far more forested than the Sahelian environs we very well may have never gained bipedal movement as our primary mode of movement, we could have been forced to compete against predators and overlapping herbivores and scavengers, could have possibly never succeeding in controlling and preparing fire and even the intrusion of even more archaic hominid ancestry.
The earliest stages of man kind are only known within certain parameters, who can say one change doesn't alter humanity?
>>488798
That depends. Rain forests are pretty shit for humans, even if you cut then down.
Large parts of the Sahara are below sea level. I don't think there's any practical way to flood it with fresh water, but it wouldn't be too difficult to flood with sea water. That might be enough to later the climate there.
>>488798
aren't those the parts of Africa right on the equator where it gets very hot.
this could lead dry seasons that could result in large forest fires burning away large parts of the forests
>>489171
Actually nevermind, it's less than I thought. But you can see the spots in Egypt and by Tunisia.
>>488875
>The Bantu migration might head north instead of South, and Sub-Saharan Africans may have been contacted by Eurasians before the 8th century.
Apparently, early Nilo-Saharans (the name fits in this case) have been already living in the formerly green Sahara for a while, along with proto-Berbers.
>>488798
>Ever couple of thousand of years
>the most recent of these event ended about 5,000 years ago
>>489080
Considering we came about in jungles instead of the savanna (thanks to Ardipithecus being found in what was once an area filled with trees and being fully bipedal), I think we would turn out mostly okay. But what I was asking if the most recent event stayed that way, some 8,000 years ago.
>>489170
It wouldn't all be rain forest, it would be about as green as the savannas appear from space.
>>489661
Perhaps I should have been more specific.
>>488875
The Chinese are already in Africa.
When will this meme end. It's well known it is beasts of burden that allowed agriculture to be good. Even if it is all fertile land it doesn't mean it would be put to the greatest use.
>>488830
The greatest civilizations arose from areas that required competition. Extremely fertile regions don't produce great civilizations because they don't require competition. That's why sub-Saharan African history is so shitty compared to north African and Arabian history.
>>489189
There actually have been proposals to flood that spot in Egypt with water from the Mediterranean.
>green Arabia
JUST
