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The Sahara Desert Today Vs 8,000 Years Ago
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2026
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Mildly Interesting
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Green Sahara/Desert Sahara is a cycle that happens.
I've heard people try to claim the garden of eden is a memory of the green sahara, but that's not provable.
I also heard it has an effect on animal evolution - the desert acts as a wall, seperating north and south, then goes green and the two regions' life mingle and compete for a while until it desertification seperates them to evolve independantly of each other until the next green phase.
Early civilizations were routinely centered around lush green river valleys, with political strife forcing dissidents out into the dry and sterile periphery. So, I wouldn't say it's a memory of a green Sahara so much as a cycle of cultivation and degradation that has informed human storytelling for millennia.
"Eden" could just as easily be the Indus Valley in modern-day Pakistan. Or the Fertile Crescent of Iraq/Iran. Or the Göbekli Tepe of southeast Turkiye. Or the Nile Delta. Or the modern-day Gaza Strip. Or the rich soils along the slopes of Mount Kenya. Or the bountiful soil of Ukraine. Or yadda yadda yadda.
Maybe all of these places, with migrating peoples constantly looking for the next Promised Land of Fruit and Honey, settling for a time, and being uprooted again.
Yeah for sure, that's all possible. Or eden could just be an idealized dream of an agricultural society and not a historical memory at all.
Well, it's metaphorically one way or another. I don't think there was a big tree with magic apples and talking snakes in any of these places.
Sure yep, that also seems unlikely 😆
That's pretty cool. I've heard the idea that the Garden of Eden is where the Persian Gulf is now. It supposedly had incredibly rich soil and an immense supply of fresh water until the glaciers over Europe melted and eventually flooded the area.
Something about the wobble of the earth's axis shifting every once in a while. Also the poles can switch too and our sun does it way more often.
i heard that the amazon rainforest was a desert when the sahara was green too