In the middle of the 19 th century, the German explorer Heinrich Barth discovered prehistoric Saharan rock sculptures and engravings while traveling through the Sahara Desert in North Africa ... of ...

Between 5,000 and 14,500 years ago, the desert area was lush and fertile, and known as the Green Sahara. This led researchers to believe that ancient humans living here may have interacted more ...

Today, the Sahara Desert is a hot and dry belt of sand stretching across much of northern Africa. But between 15,000 and 5,000 years ago it would have been full of rivers, plants and people. New ...

This was an epoch between 14,500 and 5,000 years ago when the Sahara Desert was transformed into a lush green savanna with rivers and lakes. It was also home to small human communities ...

But the Green Sahara people carried only trace amounts of Neanderthal DNA, illustrating that they had scant contact with outside populations. Although the Takarkori population itself disappeared ...

Editor’s note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. Picture the Sahara, and an inhospitable landscape of ...

Picture the Sahara, and an inhospitable landscape of endless sand dunes and barren rock comes to mind. That’s largely the case today, but 7,000 years ago the vast desert was an altogether ...

Picture the Sahara, and an inhospitable landscape of endless sand dunes and barren rock comes to mind. That’s largely the case today, but 7,000 years ago the vast desert was an altogether ... by ...