3400 BC to 500

When the Sahara was green

Thousands of years ago, lakes covered parts of what is now desert. At Gobero in the Ténéré, people fished and buried their dead from about 7700 BC. Herders later carved the life size giraffes of Dabous in the Aïr mountains. As the Sahara dries, Berber nomads, ancestors of the Tuareg, become masters of the desert, helped by the camel in the first centuries AD.