Archaeologists Found Unknown Human Lineage in the Sahara

Bright Side

Just when we thought we knew the whole human story, the Sahara threw us a plot twist! Archaeologists have uncovered evidence of a mysterious human lineage that no one saw coming. These ancient remains are challenging everything we believed about who lived in Africa—and when. Could this be a missing branch on our family tree, hidden under the desert for thousands of years? It's a discovery that raises more questions than answers... and it's just the beginning. Hit play to unravel this ancient mystery with us!  Credit: Sahara satellite hires: By NASA, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sahara_satellite_hires.jpg Gobero: By Paul C. Sereno, Elena A. A. Garcea, Hélène Jousse, Christopher M. Stojanowski, CC BY 2.5, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gobero.jpg   Animation is created by Bright Side.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV  Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Our Social Media:  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightplanet/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en   Stock materials (photos, footages and other):  https://www.depositphotos.com  https://www.shutterstock.com  https://www.eastnews.ru  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

Transcript

00:00The Sahara Desert is like a Mad Max movie.

00:04Scorching heat, endless dunes, and an overall barren wasteland.

00:08A place where no one could live, right?

00:10Well, forget all you know about it.

00:13Because 5,000 years ago, the Sahara was a lush paradise of grasslands, lakes, and rivers.

00:19And the home of a ghost civilization that vanished without a trace.

00:24Our tale begins in the 1930s,

00:26when a Hungarian explorer stumbled upon a cave in the middle of the Sahara.

00:31Inside, he found something bizarre.

00:34Ancient rock paintings of people swimming in a lake,

00:37surrounded by giraffes, hippos, and crocodiles.

00:40At the time, everybody shrugged it off as some symbolic depiction of the afterlife.

00:45Because, really, who would imagine a lake in the Sahara?

00:49Well, fast forward some 70 years later,

00:52when a group of archaeologists made a discovery that flipped the script.

00:56In a rock shelter in Libya, they unearthed 15 mummies,

01:00along with baskets, ceramic pots, and other everyday items.

01:04This may look like prehistoric junk to most people,

01:06but to archaeologists, ooh,

01:08it was like uncovering a key piece of evidence.

01:11Those people weren't just passing through.

01:13They lived here.

01:15You see, those weren't just any mummies.

01:17They were some of the oldest, naturally mummified humans ever found,

01:21dating back over 7,000 years.

01:24Take that, Egypt.

01:26Two of them still had readable DNA,

01:29preserved thanks to a rare natural mummification process,

01:32almost a miracle considering the Sahara's climate's ability

01:35to turn everything into, well, beef jerky.

01:39Scientists struggled to understand where those mummies came from for a while,

01:43because the mitochondrial DNA they recovered was not helpful at all.

01:48But thanks to scientific progress,

01:50they eventually managed to do a full genome analysis

01:53that revealed some weird secrets.

01:56Those people belonged to a human lineage that was completely unknown,

02:01and they lived isolated from the rest of humanity for thousands of years.

02:05For decades, researchers assumed that the place where they lived,

02:09the Green Sahara, was like a prehistoric highway,

02:12a lush corridor that humans and animals used to migrate

02:15between sub-Saharan Africa and the Mediterranean.

02:18But the mummies demolished that theory,

02:21like a hippo sitting on a sandcastle.

02:24Their DNA showed zero genetic mixing with sub-Saharan and Eurasian migrants,

02:29keeping their genes pure for 7,000 years.

02:32Their closest genetic relatives weren't their neighbors

02:34living right below the famous desert,

02:37but some ancient hunter-gatherers from Morocco,

02:39and even some guys that lived in the Czech Republic,

02:43when it wasn't even a country yet, 50,000 years ago.

02:46We're not out of the woods yet,

02:48because those mummies also carried some teeny tiny traces of Neanderthal DNA,

02:53just 10% of the amount found in modern Eurasians.

02:57Now, if you paid attention in school,

02:59then you know that Neanderthals lived in Europe and Asia,

03:02and early humans only mixed with them after migrating out of Africa.

03:06But those green Sahara folks never left Africa.

03:10So how did they get Neanderthal genes?

03:13The leading theory is that their ancestors mingled with Neanderthals

03:16in North Africa 50,000 years ago

03:19before settling in the Sahara and cutting off contact with the outside world.

03:24Archaeologists also found cattle bones and tools made of stone and wood at that rock shelter,

03:30proving that those people led a thriving pastoral lifestyle.

03:33This discovery made scientists scratch their heads for a while,

03:37because, you see, animal domestication was not developed in Africa.

03:41So how did they learn it if they never mingled with anyone?

03:45Did they have ancient YouTube tutorials?

03:47Probably not.

03:49The researchers believe they must have traded knowledge with neighboring groups,

03:53but just knowledge, no saliva.

03:56It's almost too hard to believe that no outsiders mixed with them.

03:59After all, who wouldn't want to live in a thriving civilization in the middle of a green paradise,

04:05drinking milk, eating meat, and even using animal blood as a protein source?

04:09Ooh, yummy.

04:11They didn't have to hunt for every meal, thanks to their livestock,

04:14and the abundant water made life pretty sweet.

04:17And yet, they never married outsiders.

04:20Why?

04:20Maybe it was a cultural choice to never date outside their own group.

04:24Or maybe the landscape itself kept them isolated.

04:28This is where scientists placed their bets.

04:30They believed that the dense forests and rivers that existed in the green Sahara

04:34acted like nature's no trespassing sign,

04:37creating a geographical barrier that isolates animals, plants, and whole societies.

04:43This isolation is the reason why their genes were so unique.

04:47These guys weren't swapping spit with anyone else.

04:49But this genetic time capsule almost didn't survive.

04:53For most of the last ice age, the Sahara was even harsher than today,

04:58a true dead zone where humans couldn't survive.

05:0170,000 years ago, even the toughest people disappeared,

05:05retreating to the Nile Valley and the Mediterranean coast.

05:08Why?

05:09Because Earth was a climate bully.

05:11Massive glaciers stole all the moisture,

05:14weakening monsoons until rain clouds barely reached North Africa.

05:18Then came the knockout punches.

05:20Armadas of icebergs flooded the North Atlantic, triggering devastating droughts each time.

05:26This was the Sahara's ultimate keep-out era.

05:30Now, you're probably wondering how in the world the Sahara turned green after all this,

05:34and then went back to being a desert again.

05:37Well, it all started 15,000 years ago, I wasn't around then,

05:41when Earth was shaking off the last ice age.

05:44Our planet's axis was a bit wobbly, and because of that,

05:48the northern hemisphere got closer to the sun, getting extra sunlight and heat.

05:53This eternal summer turned North Africa into a giant moisture magnet,

05:57pulling water from the Atlantic and making it all rain down on the Sahara.

06:01The result of this ridiculous amount of rain was a lush savannah,

06:05complete with lakes the size of small countries.

06:07But the African humid period was not just a one-time miracle.

06:12The truth is, this eternal on-and-off switch between green and desert

06:16happened to the Sahara more than 230 times since the desert was born.

06:22During one of these events, the Sahara even expanded, getting bigger than it is today.

06:27So when the green Sahara showed up, you can bet it brought the ultimate ecosystem glow-up.

06:33This wasn't just a light dusting of grass, we're talking full makeover.

06:38The transformation was so complete, it even reshaped animal populations.

06:42Cheetahs suddenly struggled with the new prey dynamics,

06:45while rodents like the multi-mammate mouse thrived in the suddenly-abunding grasslands.

06:51But don't pack your prehistoric swim trunks just yet.

06:54This paradise had teeth.

06:56The Sahara was an ecological maze of crocodile-infested rivers,

07:01malaria-carrying mosquitoes, and big cats lurking in the tall grass.

07:06Crossing it would have been like playing a real-life game of hungry-hungry hippos.

07:11This is probably why more groups didn't settle permanently.

07:15The Sahara's climate cycled between wet and dry every 20,000 years,

07:19hardly a stable zip code.

07:21For most ancient people, it was smarter to treat the green Sahara like an all-you-can-eat buffet,

07:27grab resources, and leave before the desert returned.

07:30Still, this green Sahara period lasted for 10,000 years,

07:34giving our mystery shepherds plenty of time to thrive.

07:37But around 5,000 years ago, Earth's axis shifted again,

07:42the rains moved away, and the Sahara dried up faster than a puddle in July.

07:46As the desert returned, the shepherds from the green Sahara had no choice

07:52but to pack up their livestock and leave.

07:54Some researchers believe they migrated toward the Nile,

07:57laying the groundwork for ancient Egypt, so I guess their legacy lives on.

08:02Besides, their pure lineage may be extinct by now,

08:05but some faint genes of the mummies can still be found in the people that live in North Africa today.

08:10But the introvert mummies were not the only ones using the green Sahara as an Airbnb.

08:17They actually had neighbors just around the corner,

08:20in a lakeside village in Niger, to be exact.

08:23Those people thrived for 5,000 years and left behind the oldest Sahara desert cemetery,

08:28including a man buried in a turtle shell,

08:31a grinning Halloween man with filed teeth,

08:34and a heartbreaking family embrace, frozen in time,

08:37victims of the very waters that sustained them.

08:41Eventually, those people disappeared too,

08:43just like it happened to our antisocial friends.

08:46This proves that this desert outsmarts everyone,

08:49with a landscape that gives paradise with one hand

08:51and takes it away with the other.

08:55That's it for today.

08:57So hey, if you pacified your curiosity,

08:59then give the video a like and share it with your friends.

09:01Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side!

Category

Transcript

Recommended