The climatology of deserts and their origin and growth are coming increasingly to be understood. That there have been frequent relatively short-term fluctuations in precipitation and humidity in regions which are now wholly desert is clear, though these should not encourage a picture of lush, verdant landscapes teeming with animals where now there are only rock - or sand-strewn wastes. Even a very small variation in precipitation or mean temperature can permit a significantly larger faunal or human population to become rooted in a particular region. The establishment of a larger community with the introduction of animal species which may cause further depredation or, conversely, the planting of trees and crops which can, for a time at least, arrest it, are factors which promote or control the spread of deserts. However, there is little doubt that where human communities flourish the greatest agent for their spread is man himself, though he is assisted enthusiastically by the goat, one of the earliest of his domesticates.
Twelve thousand years ago, when settlement began in the Near East, very marked and remarkable phenomena began to appear. Away to the east in the valley watered by the twin rivers of Mesopotamia, men were putting down roots (literally as well as metaphorically) by starting and maintaining small settlements which were to become the first farming villages. In sites to the north of what is today Iraq and in northern Iran and parts of Syria, increasing sedentation led to the realization that cereals could be cultivated and, later, that animals, corralled or herded, could be managed to the benefit of populations growing increasingly numerous as a consequence of precisely these factors of sedentary existence and the controlled management of the resources which were to hand. The first of the animals to be domesticated was, almost certainly, the dog. It may be questioned which domesticated which, the dog or the man but, in any event, the dog had long been the loyal companion of the hunting bands to which these little settlements were the successors and which was to become a familiar and affectionately regarded companion wherever humans congregated. The integration of the dog into the company of humans probably long predates the change to sedentary living.
In North and Central Africa different sets of circumstances developed which determined the way in which human societies evolved there.6 The Sahara had supported large herds of wild cattle which had been exploited by bands of hunters since the end of the last glaciation, c. twelve thousand years ago. The Ice Age did not extend to North Africa but the general moderation of the climate over much of the northern hemisphere also affected the northern reaches of Africa. By the beginning of the sixth millennium, c. 5000 BC, the western Sahara was inhabited by communities which still followed the wild cattle and had begun to domesticate animals which were managed in herds. The moderation of the climate had provided for an increase in precipitation and for the formation of large bodies of standing water, which provided the one resource vital to the survival of wild cattle, which could not manage for more than three days without access to plentiful quantities of water. Conditions in the Sahara must generally have been very agreeable at this time. Gradually, however, the climate changed again and the process of desiccation set in; this led ultimately to the conditions of extreme aridity which have characterized the region over the past four thousand years.
The people who lived in the Sahara were remarkable in one particular respect, the production of one of the great artistic traditions of the late Stone Age.7 The paintings of the animals with which they shared the pasture lands, the vivid scenes of the hunt and, occasionally, the creation of strange and often menacing creatures of fantasy are, by any standards, of the highest quality of rupestral art. As their lands desiccated the Saharan people migrated eastwards, towards the Valley of the Nile. These migrants were one of the founding stocks of what became the population of Egypt.
Until the beginning of the sixth millennium BC the Nile Valley was relatively unpopulated, except by the animals for which it must have been paradisial as it must also have been for the hunters who occasionally preyed on them. The change in climatic conditions which triggered the migrations had effects over large parts of the Near East and other migrant communities moved into the Valley, from the south, from whence hunters had long followed the wild herds northwards from the East African savanna and from the north, through the route which in historic times was to be known as ‘The Way of Horus’, by means of which the legendary ‘Followers of Horus’ came into Egypt. They were revered by the Egyptians in historic times as providing one of the crucial contributions to the unique culture which was to be seeded in the Valley and which was, in a remarkably short time, to become the majestic civilization of the world’s first nation-state. Other migrants came from the east, entering the Valley via the Wadi Hammamat, the Eastern desert. All of these groups coalesced to form the historic population of Egypt.
World History
