Which describes the sahara

Hamburg: EB Verlag. Hall, Bruce. Hall, Bruce, and Charles Stewart. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. Hopkins, John, and Nehemia Levtzion, eds. Horden, Peregrine. Connectivity, the Mediterranean, the Sahara. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Horden, Peregrine, and Nicholas Purcell. The Corrupting Sea. Oxford: Blackwell. Jeppie, Shamil, and Souleymane B. Diagne, eds. The Meanings of Timbuktu. Johnson, Douglas. Keenan, Jeremy. The Tuareg, People of Ahaggar. London: Allen Lane. Africa Khazanov, Anatoly. Nomads and the Outside World.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Klute, Georg. Layish, Aharon. Lewicki, T. Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydam. Lovejoy, Paul. Lydon, Ghislaine. Mammeri, Mouloud. Martin, A. Mattingly, D. Sterry, and D. Edited by D. Mattingly, pp. London: Society for Libyan Studies. McDougall, E. Bloomington: Indiana University Press Find this resource:. McDougall, James. Meillassoux, Claude.

Meunier, O. Moussaoui, Abderrahmane. Paris: CNRS. Murphy, Robert F. Newbury, C. Nicolaisen, J. Ecology and Culture of the Pastoral Tuareg. Copenhagen: National Museum. Norris, H. Saharan Myth and Saga. The Arab Conquest of the Western Sahara. London: Longman.

Oussedik, Fatma. Pascon, Paul. Rabat: P. Rohlfs, Gerhard. Kufra, Reise von Tripoli nach der Oase Kufra. Leipzig: Brockhaus. Romey, A. Rossi, Benedetta. Edited by Benedetta Rossi, pp. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, Find this resource:. Saad, Elias. Scheele, Judith. Savant and H. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Stewart, Charles. Islam and Social Order in Mauritania. Testart, Alain. Touati, Houari. Triaud, Jean-Louis. Villasante-de Beauvais, M. Groupes serviles au Sahara.

Voguet, Elise. Warscheid, Ismail. Webb, J. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Wilson, Andrew. Zartman, W. Sahara: Bridge or Barrier. It is mostlyconstructed around the tomb of a founding saint and managed by his descendants or followers. In the Sahara, much emphasis is put on their functions as hostels, safe storehouses, and regular or seasonal markets.

All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice. Oxford Handbooks Online. Publications Pages Publications Pages. Recently viewed 0 Save Search. Crossroads Regions: The Sahara. Read More. Your current browser may not support copying via this button.

Subscriber sign in You could not be signed in, please check and try again. Username Please enter your Username. Password Please enter your Password. Forgot password? Don't have an account? Sign in via your Institution. You could not be signed in, please check and try again. Sign in with your library card Please enter your library card number. Search within The Circulation of Goods Saharan trade is the one topic that has brought the Sahara to the attention of historians and that has contributed most effectively to the dominance of trans-Saharan paradigms.

Pascon notes: The considerable investments that are necessary to start the irrigation of the smallest plot of land, the cost of the development and the maintenance of intensive arboriculture in an extremely dry environment cannot be justified solely by their financial return nor even by general economy. The Movement of People Given this priority of social over technical constraints, it is not surprising that local emphasis tends to be on the movement of people rather than on the exchange of goods.

The Circulation of Ideas Human connectivity pervades all aspects of Saharan life, shaping the history of the region, conceptually as well as statistically. A town placed strategically between the Sahara Desert and the Atlas Mountains. We take an afternoon walk through a local village filled with shy children and their Berber families. The old Kasbah, a grand yet worn down sandcastle sits at one end of the village. It lies empty now, instead, the families had rebuilt their homes across green fields and a small river.

The new village still had the feeling of a Kasbah, sandy in colour and each winding corridor cooling from the midday sun. Children ran through the streets, finding a particular joy in trying on our sunglasses and having their picture taken with them on. At sunrise, light floods the valley and shimmers on a faraway village I can see from the window of my room. Any sign of haze above the mountains had cleared and the snow topped peaks of the High Atlas stand majestic above the village.

Although Midelt already felt like a desert town, it turns out we have a long way to go before we reach Merzouga, where the sand dunes begin.

We have seven hours of driving to go, but luckily the landscape changes enough throughout the day to keep my eyes constantly occupied. Our first stop is a barren roadside tea shop. Where children pose on the dusty road to their village and cars drive ahead, disappearing into the wall of rock which will eventually become the Atlas Mountains. This time of year, the heat is manageable yet the sky is a constant bright blue that appears never-ending above the road. Mustafa plays Tinariwen through the speakers of our minibus, windows down and drifting into his home mindset.

Oases are common in this part of Morocco, where the desert lets go of its unforgiving nature and gives water, palm trees and a place for life to settle. We stop at view points to find green blooming Oases in the valleys below. This is date heaven, and most of the nomadic families in this region have settled to cultivate this sweet fruit. Our lunch stop is in another Oasis Valley, at one of the most idyllic restaurants of the trip.

We leave behind the lush oasis valleys and the landscape once again becomes dry and barren. Our final stop is at a Berber shop, where a blue-turbaned man fits our heads with matching scarves. While we take shelter in his tin hut, a sandstorm takes over and the rainbow shawls blow violently in the wind.

Merzouga is not much more than a few shabby hotels on the edge of the dunes. But of course, the main attraction lies beyond. Camelback is the main mode of transport to enter the dunes, and a row of 10 are majestically lined up for us. Our camel master is a nomad man who stands a few inches shorter than me.

His face has aged from the harsh sun, yet his eyes are wild and warm, his comfort in the desert is undeniable. Our guide Mustafa explains that people of the desert always know the time and direction based on the sun, stars and moon.

Camels are one of the most iconic animals of the Sahara. The large mammals are native to North America and eventually made their way across the Bering Isthmus between 3 and 5 million years ago, according to a study in the Research Journal of Agriculture and Environmental Management in Camels were domesticated about 3, years ago on the Southeast Arabian Peninsula, to be used for transportation in the desert, according to the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna.

Camels, also known as the "ships of the desert," are well-adapted for the hot, arid environment, according to the San Diego Zoo. The humps on a camel's back store fat, which can be used for energy and hydration in between meals. Camels store energy so efficiently that they can go more than a week without water and several months without food.

Other residents of the Sahara include a variety of gazelles , addax a type of antelope , cheetahs , caracals, desert foxes and wild dogs, according to the Sahara Conservation Fund. Many reptile species also thrive in the desert environment, including several species of snakes , lizards , and even crocodiles in places where there is enough water. Several species of arthropods also call the Sahara home, such as the dung beetle, scarab beetle, " deathstalker " scorpions and many types of ants.

Plant species in the Sahara have adapted to the arid conditions, with roots that reach deep underground to find buried water sources and leaves that are shaped into spines that minimize moisture loss. The most arid parts of the desert are completely void of plant life, but oasis areas, such as the Nile Valley, support a large variety of plants, including olive trees, date palms and various shrubs and grasses.

The Sahara alternates from being a dry, inhospitable desert and a lush, green oasis about every 20, years, according to a study published in the journal Science Advances in The study's authors examined marine sediments containing dust deposits from the Sahara from the past , years.

The team found that the cycle between a dry and a green Sahara corresponded to the slight changes in the tilt of Earth's axis, which also drives monsoon activity. When the Earth's axis tilted the Northern Hemisphere just a single degree closer to the sun about