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After 5000 BC: The Libyan desert in transition

Rudolph KUPER

en Comptes Rendus Palevol 5 (1-2) - Pages 409-419

Published on 28 February 2006

This article is a part of the thematic issue Climates - Culture - Society in prehistoric times. From the appearance of hominids to the Neolithic.

The eastern Sahara of Egypt, Sudan and Libya – also called the 'Libyan Desert'– constitutes the most arid part of the entire Sahara, with almost no rainfall and thus a lack of any human occupation. For this reason, and because the climate regime is not influenced by higher topographic features, this region provides a unique study area for the relationship between changing climates and human occupation, using Man as a sensitive indicator of past living conditions. In a synoptic view based on some 500 radiocarbon dates, the Holocene human occupation of the eastern Sahara is presented here in four major time slices.


Keywords:

Libyan Desert, Early and Mid-Holocene, climate change, human occupation, radiometric data, archaeology

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