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Fish may have once swum across the Sahara , a finding that could shed light on how humanity made its way out of Africa , researchers say .
Thecradle of humanitylies south of the Sahara , which begs the doubtfulness as to how our species made its way past it . The Sahara is the largest hot desert in the world , and would seem a major roadblock for any humans endeavour to migrate off the continent .
A map of what the Sahara was like 8,000 to 11,000 years ago, revealing rivers, lakes, swamps and fan-shaped deposits where rivers emptied out. The dots indicate where various kinds of pottery were found.
scientist have often focus on the Nile Valley as the corridor by which humans leave Africa . However , considerable research endeavor have fail to uncover grounds for its ordered enjoyment by people leaving the continent , and precisely how watery it has been over time is controversial .
Now it turn out the Sahara might not have been quite as impassable as once conceive — not only for humanness , but for fish as well .
" Fish appear to have swam across the Sahara during its last slopped phase sometime between 10,000 and 6,000 years ago , " investigator Nick Drake , a geographer at King ’s College London , told LiveScience . " The Sahara is not a barrier to the migrations of animals and people . Thus it is potential — likely ? — that early modern human did so , and this could explain how we gotout of Africa . "
Using planet imagery and digital maps of the landscape , the researcher found theSahara was once coveredby a dim web of rivers , lake and inland delta . This large waterway transfer water and animals into and across the Sahara during wet , " green " times .
In their analysis , Drake and his fellow worker find grounds that many creatures , including aquatic ones , scatter across the Sahara recently . For example , 25 North African animal species have populations both north and Confederate States of America of the Sahara with small refuge within the desert , including wolffish ( Clarias gariepinus ) , tilapia ( Tilapia zillii ) , jewel cichlid fish ( Hemichromis letourneuxi ) and fresh water snails such as the red - rim melania ( Melanoides tuberculata ) . Indeed , more animals may have once crossbreed over the Sahara than over the Nile corridor , the researchers said — only nine fauna metal money that occupy the Nile corridor today are also found both magnetic north and south of the Sahara .
If Pisces could have crossed the Sahara , it is hard to imagine that humanity did n’t . Analysis of African languages and artifact suggest that ancient waterways recently feign how humankind take the Sahara . For instance , talker of Nilo - Saharan words once lived across central and southern Sahara , and may have once hunted aquatic animal with pungent bone point and Pisces come-on . In addition , ancient lake sediments indicate the Sahara was green roughly 125,000 geezerhood ago , back whenanatomically forward-looking humansmight have begun migrating out of Africa .
next work could focus on when species got across the Sahara — transmitted analysis of fish could help nail such prison term in fish , Drake said . However , further research into the past tense of the Sahara could try unmanageable and even grievous , he observe . Some of the Saharan country the investigator would like to visit in order of magnitude to psychoanalyse the genetic science of Pisces populations or engagement the ages of ancient shorelines " are hold to be too dangerous to see due to terrorist action or civic war , " Drake said .
The scientists detail their findings online Dec. 27 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .
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