Around 4000 BP a climate change leading to desertification of the Sahara forced cattle and pastoralists southward.

Evidence

On the History of Cattle Genetic Resources (MDPI Diversity)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Desertification forced ancient humans to domesticate cattle as a food resource. — Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects, 162; Pastoralism spread across the Sahara while it was still well-watered, and may have delayed desertification. — Pastoralism may have delayed the end of the green Sahara; Pastoralism blossomed in the Sahara from around 1000 years before collapse; humans may have held back the Sahara desert by around 500 years. — Humans delayed the onset of the Sahara desert by 500 years

Related

• Pastoralism blossomed in the Sahara from around 1000 years before collapse; humans may have held back the Sahara desert by around 500 years. (similarity 0.91)
• Pastoralism spread across the Sahara while it was still well-watered, and may have delayed desertification. (similarity 0.90)
• The transition to desert would have happened about 500 years earlier without the influence of hunter-gatherers and cattle-herders. (similarity 0.89)
• Increasing human population and sustainable pastoralism did not accelerate—and may even have delayed—the decline of the Green Sahara. (similarity 0.88)
• Using a climate-vegetation model, pastoralism in fact likely slowed the deterioration of orbitally-driven climate change. (similarity 0.87)
• Desertification forced ancient humans to domesticate cattle as a food resource. (similarity 0.87)
• The earliest evidence of cattle domestication comes from the Eastern Sahara, where climatic desiccation advanced most rapidly. (similarity 0.85)
• Nomads who roamed the Sahara millennia ago were the first to domesticate cattle. (similarity 0.81)
• Pastoralism itself is argued to enhance devegetation and regime shifts in unbalanced ecosystems, contributing to desertification. (similarity 0.81)
• African Bos primigenius was the primary source for early Saharan domesticated cattle. (similarity 0.79)
• In the 1980s, archaeologists began to argue that inhabitants of northeastern Africa had domesticated cattle independently some 10,000 years ago. (similarity 0.78)
• Cattle could have been domesticated independently in Africa at the same time as in the Middle East, around 10,000 years ago. (similarity 0.78)