Live data from Hacker News

5000 years ago Sahara was a green landscape with lakes and rivers

twitter.com

11–20 of 56 posts

Re: 5000 years ago Sahara was a green landscape with lakes and rivers

#11

Is this suggesting that modern civilization started with climate change? At the end, he points out that the occupants of these areas moved towards the coasts during the desertification. This would have been immediately preceding the establishment of the first Egyptian dynasty.

No it's not suggesting. The desert could procede without civilization I guess.

The bronze age started slightly later--just saying in case that was the next question.

Re: 5000 years ago Sahara was a green landscape with lakes and rivers

#12

Twitter is such a terrible way of displaying long form content like this.

You beat me to it. I find this subject interesting but the platform of Twitter is incredibly ill-fitting for this. I've noticed recently more and more people doing long-form content on Twitter - I hope it's not a trend that catches on.

Being able to link and pass around the most interesting sentence (and associated media) as a unit separate from the rest (but keeping the original context attached) makes it much easier for things to spread. How often have you wanted to share an interesting paragraph from an article and been unable to link to it? Twitter threads are an awkward solution to this, but they're the best available.

Re: 5000 years ago Sahara was a green landscape with lakes and rivers

#13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You beat me to it. I find this subject interesting but the platform of Twitter is incredibly ill-fitting for this. I've noticed recently more and more people doing long-form content on Twitter - I hope it's not a trend that catches on.

Being able to link and pass around the most interesting sentence (and associated media) as a unit separate from the rest (but keeping the original context attached) makes it much easier for things to spread. How often have you wanted to share an interesting paragraph from an article and been unable to link to it? Twitter threads are an awkward solution to this, but they're the best available.

They are far from the best available. The best option is to send the link and then send the text of the paragraph you wanted to highlight.

Re: 5000 years ago Sahara was a green landscape with lakes and rivers

#14

Is this suggesting that modern civilization started with climate change? At the end, he points out that the occupants of these areas moved towards the coasts during the desertification. This would have been immediately preceding the establishment of the first Egyptian dynasty.

It's worth remembering that civilization was independently invented in several different places, at least in Mesoamerica, Peru, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indus River, and China. Possibly more, as anthropology has tended to assume that cultural innovation is imported (or at least adapted) from elsewhere in the absence of evidence one way or the other.

Climate change is presently believed to be a major catalyst to the development of civilization in Egypt and Mesopotamia. It also thought to have led to the collapse of the Indus River Valley civilization. But it is not thought to have played major roles in the other developments of civilization.

Re: 5000 years ago Sahara was a green landscape with lakes and rivers

#15

Is this suggesting that modern civilization started with climate change? At the end, he points out that the occupants of these areas moved towards the coasts during the desertification. This would have been immediately preceding the establishment of the first Egyptian dynasty.

> Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.

Longer quote from The Agricola translated:

> These plunderers of the world [the Romans], after exhausting the land by their devastations, are rifling the ocean: stimulated by avarice, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor; unsatiated by the East and by the West: the only people who behold wealth and indigence with equal avidity. To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.

Re: 5000 years ago Sahara was a green landscape with lakes and rivers

#16

Is this suggesting that modern civilization started with climate change? At the end, he points out that the occupants of these areas moved towards the coasts during the desertification. This would have been immediately preceding the establishment of the first Egyptian dynasty.

5000 BC, when the Sahara was still habitable, the society at the Nile was already more advanced than other societies in Africa.

Re: 5000 years ago Sahara was a green landscape with lakes and rivers

#17
> https://www.reddit.com/r/islam/comments/7go26a/the_hour_will...

> It was narrated from Abu Hurayrah (may Allaah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “The Hour will not begin until the land of the Arabs once again becomes meadows and rivers.”

When I was a teenager, I was interested in what people used to say about the future in the past and this was the one thing that ever stuck out to me in my readings.

I guess it was common knowledge among the knowledgeable at the time that this was true but I was never able to corroborate it.

Re: 5000 years ago Sahara was a green landscape with lakes and rivers

#18

Is this suggesting that modern civilization started with climate change? At the end, he points out that the occupants of these areas moved towards the coasts during the desertification. This would have been immediately preceding the establishment of the first Egyptian dynasty.

It's worth remembering that civilization was independently invented in several different places, at least in Mesoamerica, Peru, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indus River, and China. Possibly more, as anthropology has tended to assume that cultural innovation is imported (or at least adapted) from elsewhere in the absence of evidence one way or the other. Climate change is presently believed to be a major catalyst to the develo…

> Climate change is presently believed to be a major catalyst to the development of civilization in Egypt and Mesopotamia. It also thought to have led to the collapse of the Indus River Valley civilization. But it is not thought to have played major roles in the other developments of civilization.

Are you sure about that? From what I have read, climate has a pretty big influence on society, and therefore changes in climate would play major roles everywhere.

Post reply on HN