Kiffian culture

Kiffian is the name given by archeologists to a prehistoric culture thriving between about 10,000 and 8,000 years ago in the Sahara Desert. This was during a wet period of Saharan history known as the Neolithic Subpluvial. Human remains from this culture were found in 2000 at a site known as Gobero, located in Niger in the Ténéré Desert.cite web | url = http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080815101317.htm | title = Stone Age Graveyard Reveals Lifestyles Of A 'Green Sahara' | publisher = Science Daily | date = 2008-08-15 | accessdate = 2008-08-15]

Characteristics

They were skilled hunters, and the discovery of bones of many large savannah animals in the same area suggest that they lived on the shores of a lake that was present during a period when the Sahara was verdant and wet.cite news | url = http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/science/15sahara.html | title = Graves Found From Sahara's Green Period | first = John Noble | last = Wilford | publisher = New York Times | date = 2008-08-14 | accessdate = 2008-08-15] The Kiffian people were tall, often over six feet tall.

Decline

Traces of the Kiffian culture do not exist after 8,000 years ago, as the Sahara went through a dry period for the next thousand years.cite news | url = http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14536-stone-age-mass-graves-reveal-green-sahara.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=news3_head_dn14536 | title = Stone Age mass graves reveal green Sahara | first = Nora | last = Schultz | publisher = NewScientist | date = 2008-08-14 | accessdate = 2008-08-15] After this time, another culture, the Tenerians, colonized the area.

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