LETTERS TO THE EDITORS
A Climate of Change
To the Editors:
It was with great pleasure I read the article "Ancient Lakes of
the Sahara" (January-February) by Kevin White and David J. Mattingly.
In the mid-1980s, I produced a dissertation at the University of
Kansas which, as part of its study, compared the intensity of world
desert regions and encompassed a review of climate-change evidence
over what I identified and termed the "Saharasian Desert
Belt." The shift from relatively moist to arid conditions which
was recorded in the Sahara was generally reflected in climate-change
records over a much larger territory, ranging across North Africa,
the Middle East and into Central Asia as well, thus the term "Saharasia."
Evidence is clear for previously moist conditions across nearly all
of Saharasia prior to circa 3000 B.C.E., with large lakes and
year-round rivers, as well as a vast semi-forested grassland thick
with large and small animals, to include fish, crocodile, hippo,
elephant, lion, giraffe, equines, bovines and so forth, upon which
early humans hunted and thrived. The drying up of Saharasia, which
appears earliest in the region encompassing the dry core of Arabia,
continues across the Levant and into Central Asia, started around
4000-3500 B.C.E., possibly as early as 5000 B.C.E. in a few spots,
but with North Africa and the more peripheral areas of the Western
Sahara and Gobi drying out only later on—I haven't seen
anything since my original 1986 publication that would significantly
alter those conclusions.
What is most remarkable, however, is the change in human
subsistence, settlement, migration and even behavior patterns
(related to early childhood, status of women, family life and social
violence) that attended the massive climate change. For those early
peoples it could only be termed a giant climatic disaster that
progressively destroyed their subsistence, sometimes in a dramatic
manner, with the quick appearance of extreme multi-year droughts,
and often leading to widespread famines, starvation, social collapse
and forced migrations. The Garamantes were notable for their finding
a way to survive this climate change—most other human
societies were not so fortunate. It was the largest single
climate-change episode to occur on the planet since the end of the
Pleistocene glaciation, and it profoundly affected early Homo
sapiens and human social existence.
James DeMeo
Ashland, OR