Lost Tribes of the Green Sahara

While looking for dinosaurs on a Paul Sereno expedition in Niger in 2000, we found an ancient human site in the Gobero area of the Sahara. There were two distinct cultures - The Kiffian were a robust group of fishermen that lived from 7-9,500 years ago. The Tenerean were more gracile hunters that lived from 4-6,000 years ago.  

It contained 200 partially buried human skeletons, hundreds of animal bones, and thousands of artifacts. Most poignant was the triple burial of a young Tenerian mother and two small children. They were all holding hands and buried with flowers by someone who obviously cared a great deal. 

Ten thousand years ago when the ice from the last ice age melted, it formed a thousand mile lake system. The water attracted huge numbers of animals and provided a stable food source for the Stone Age hunter gatherers for thousands of years.