3400 BC to 799

Toumai and the green Sahara

In 2001 a skull about seven million years old, nicknamed Toumai, is found in the Djurab desert of northern Chad. Thousands of years ago, when the Sahara was green, hunters and herders painted cattle and wild animals on the rocks of Ennedi and Tibesti, and Lake Chad was far larger. Later the Sao people build walled towns south of the lake.