History of the Sahara Desert Timeline

During the Neolithic Era, before the onset of desertification around 9500 BCE, the central Sudan had been a rich environment supporting a large population ranging across what is now barren desert, including the Wadi el-Qa'ab region.

By 6000 BCE, predynastic Egyptians in the southwestern corner of Egypt were herding cattle and constructing large buildings, taking advantage of the still-fertile Saharan environment.

Image source: Prehistoric Egypt

Uan Muhuggiag, a rock shelter in Libya, appears to have been inhabited from at least the 6th millennium BCE to about 2700 BCE, although not necessarily continuously, serving as home to Saharan pastoral peoples.

Archaeologist Fekri Hassan indicated in 2002 that the megalithic monuments in the Saharan region of Niger and the Eastern Sahara, which developed as early as 4700 BCE, may have served as antecedents for the mastabas and pyramids of ancient Egypt.

Image source: Nabta Playa

The post-Kiffian desiccation lasted until around 4600 BCE, when the earliest artefacts associated with the Tenerians have been dated, marking a new chapter of human occupation at the Gobero site in Niger's Ténéré Desert.

Image source: Gobero

In 4000 BCE, sophisticated social structures, such as the trade of cattle as valued assets, developed among herders amid the Pastoral Period of the Sahara, marking an important stage in the region's economic history.

Image source: Pastoral period

The most interesting find at Gobero is a triple burial, dated to 5300 years ago (around 3300 BCE), of an adult female and two children, estimated through their teeth as being five and eight years old, hugging each other.

The Tichitt Tradition of eastern Mauritania dates from 2200 BCE to 200 BCE, representing one of the oldest known urbanized societies in West Africa, with stone-built settlements along escarpments.

Image source: Tichitt tradition

By 1800 BCE, Saharan pastoral culture expanded throughout the Saharan and Sahelian regions, spreading herding lifeways across a vast area even as the desert grew more arid.

After its decline in Mauritania, the Tichitt Tradition spread to the Middle Niger region of Mali, where it developed into and persisted as Faïta Facies ceramics between 1300 BCE and 400 BCE, alongside rammed earth architecture and iron metallurgy which developed after 900 BCE.

A 2018 study on the epipalaeolithic Taforalt remains from Morocco identified Y-DNA haplogroup EM35 common in northeastern Africa but characterised mtDNA haplogroups U6 and M1 as 'Eurasian', questioning this classification given their localised, long-established presence in ancient African populations.

Image source: Taforalt

A 2025 study sequenced individuals from Takarkori (7,000 years ago) and discovered that most of their ancestry came from an unknown ancestral North African lineage, related to the African admixture component found in Iberomaurusians, reshaping understanding of Saharan population history.

Image source: Takarkori

The people of Phoenicia, who flourished from 1200 to 800 BCE, created a chain of settlements along the coast of North Africa and traded extensively with the Sahara's inhabitants, linking the desert to Mediterranean commerce.

Image source: Phoenicia

The Periplus of the Phoenician navigator Hanno, who lived sometime in the 5th century BCE, claims that he founded settlements along the Atlantic coast of Africa, possibly including the Western Sahara.

Between the first century BCE and the fourth century CE, several Roman expeditions into the Sahara were conducted by groups of military and commercial units of Romans, probing deep into the desert for trade routes and exploration.

Image source: Romans in sub-Saharan Africa

The Byzantine Empire ruled the northern shores of the Sahara from the 5th to the 7th centuries, controlling the coastal fringe between the Mediterranean and the great desert before the Arab conquests.

Image source: Byzantine Empire

After the Muslim conquest of Arabia, specifically the Arabian peninsula, the Muslim conquest of North Africa began in the mid-7th to early 8th centuries, and Islamic influence expanded rapidly on the Sahara, reshaping the region's culture and politics.

Image source: Muslim conquest of the Maghreb

It has been estimated that from the 10th to 19th centuries some 6,000 to 7,000 slaves were transported north each year across the Sahara, forming a tragic component of the trans-Saharan trade networks.

Image source: Trans-Saharan slave trade

In the 16th century the northern fringe of the Sahara, such as coastal regencies in present-day Algeria and Tunisia, as well as some parts of present-day Libya, together with the semi-autonomous kingdom of Egypt, were occupied by the Ottoman Empire.

Image source: Ottoman Empire

From 1517 Egypt was a valued part of the Ottoman Empire, ownership of which provided the Ottomans with control over the Nile Valley, the east Mediterranean and North Africa.

Image source: Ottoman Egypt

After the Char Bouba war of the 17th century, the Beni Ḥassān and other nomadic Arab tribes dominated the Sanhaja Berber tribes of the western Sahara, reshaping the social hierarchy of the region.

Image source: Char Bouba war

By the beginning of the 20th century, the trans-Saharan trade had clearly declined because goods were moved through more modern and efficient means, such as airplanes, rather than across the desert by camel caravan.

Image source: Trans-Saharan trade

A remarkable film shot by famous aviator Captain René Wauthier in 1933 documents the first crossing by a large truck convoy from Algiers to Tchad across the Sahara, heralding a new age of mechanized desert travel.

Egypt became independent of Britain in 1936, although the Anglo-Egyptian treaty allowed Britain to keep troops in Egypt and maintain the British-Egyptian condominium in the Sudan.

Image source: Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936

Most of the Saharan states achieved independence after World War II: Libya in 1951; Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia in 1956; Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger in 1960; and Algeria in 1962.

Image source: Decolonisation of Africa

British military forces were withdrawn from Egypt in 1954, marking the end of direct British military presence and paving the way for full Egyptian sovereignty.

Image source: History of Egypt under the British

Spain withdrew from Western Sahara in 1975, and the territory was partitioned between Mauritania and Morocco, igniting a long-running conflict over its status.

Image source: Western Sahara conflict

Mauritania withdrew from Western Sahara in 1979, leaving Morocco to continue holding the entire disputed territory, a situation persisting into the modern era.

Tuareg people in Mali rebelled several times during the 20th century before finally forcing the Malian armed forces to withdraw below the line demarcating Azawad from southern Mali during the 2012 rebellion.

Image source: Tuareg rebellion (2012)

Egypt, under Muhammad Ali and his successors, conquered Nubia in 1820–22 and founded Khartoum in 1823, extending Egyptian control southward along the Nile toward the Saharan interior.

Image source: Muhammad Ali dynasty

European colonialism in the Sahara began in the 19th century when France conquered the regency of Algiers from the Ottomans in 1830, after which French rule spread south from French Algeria and eastwards from Senegal into the upper Niger.

Image source: French conquest of Algeria

To promote the Roman Catholic religion in the desert, Pope Pius IX appointed a delegate Apostolic of the Sahara and the Sudan in 1868; later in the 19th century his jurisdiction was reorganized into the Vicariate Apostolic of Sahara.

Image source: Diocese of Laghouat

Spain captured present-day Western Sahara after 1874, although Rio del Oro remained largely under Sahrawi influence, beginning decades of Spanish colonial presence in the territory.

Image source: Spanish West Africa

French colonial expansion across the Sahara included Tunisia in 1881 and Morocco in 1912, completing French dominance over much of the northern and western Sahara alongside its West African territories.

Image source: French protectorate in Morocco

Egypt and Britain lost control of the Sudan from 1882 to 1898 as a result of the Mahdist War, in which Mahdist forces established an independent state before being defeated by Anglo-Egyptian troops.

Image source: Mahdist War

Egypt, including Sudan, became a British protectorate in 1882, bringing much of the Nile Valley and adjacent Saharan lands under British imperial administration.

Image source: Sultanate of Egypt

As French rule spread eastwards from Senegal into the upper Niger, France captured Timbuktu in 1893, incorporating it into French Sudan as colonial powers carved up the Sahara and the Sahel.

Image source: French Sudan

After its capture by British troops in 1898, the Sudan became an Anglo-Egyptian condominium, jointly administered by Britain and Egypt until Sudanese independence decades later.

Image source: Anglo-Egyptian Sudan

In 1902, the French penetrated the Hoggar Mountains and defeated the Ahaggar Tuareg at the battle of Tit, breaking Tuareg resistance and consolidating French control over the central Sahara.

Image source: Tit, Tamanrasset

In 1912, Italy captured parts of what was to be named Libya from the Ottomans, establishing Italian colonial rule over the Saharan territory following the Italo-Turkish War.

Image source: Italian colonization of Libya