The Abbassia Pluvial was an extended wet and rainy period in the

climate history Paleoclimatology (British spelling, palaeoclimatology) is the study of climates for which direct measurements were not taken. As instrumental records only span a tiny part of Earth's history, the reconstruction of ancient climate is important to ...

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

, lasting from c. 120,000 to 90,000 years ago. As such it spans the transitional period connecting the

Lower Lower may refer to: *Lower (surname) *Lower Township, New Jersey *Lower Receiver (firearms) *Lower Wick Gloucestershire, England See also *Nizhny Nizhny (russian: Ни́жний; masculine), Nizhnyaya (; feminine), or Nizhneye (russian: Ни́� ...

and

Middle Paleolithic The Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic) is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleoli ...

. As with the subsequent

Mousterian Pluvial The Mousterian Pluvial is a mostly obsolete term for a prehistoric wet and rainy ( pluvial) period in North Africa. It was described as beginning around 50,000 years before the present ( BP), lasting roughly 20,000 years, and ending ca. 30,000 BP. ...

(c. 50,000 to 30,000 years ago), the Abbassia Pluvial brought wet and fertile conditions to what is now the

Sahara Desert , photo = Sahara real color.jpg , photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972 , map = , map_image = , location = , country = , country1 = , ...

, which bloomed with lush vegetation fed by lakes, swamps, and river systems, many of which later disappeared in the drier climate that followed the pluvial. African wildlife that is now associated with the grasslands and woodlands south of the Sahara penetrated the entire North African region during the Abbassia Pluvial. Stone Age cultures (notably the

Mousterian The Mousterian (or Mode III) is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the latt ...

and the

Aterian The Aterian is a Middle Stone Age (or Middle Palaeolithic) stone tool industry centered in North Africa, from Mauritania to Egypt, but also possibly found in Oman and the Thar Desert. The earliest Aterian dates to c. 150,000 years ago, at the sit ...

industries) flourished in North Africa during the Abbassia Pluvial. The shift to harsher climate conditions that came with the end of the pluvial may have promoted the emigration of modern ''

Homo sapiens Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...

'' out of Africa to the rest of the globe.

Sources

* Burroughs, William J., ed. ''Climate: Into the 21st Century.'' Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003. *{{cite book , isbn = 978-0-8129-7146-0 , title = The Journey of Man : A Genetic Odyssey , last1 = Wells , first1 = Spencer , year = 2004 , publisher = Random House Trade Paperbacks , location = New York, NY * Wilson, R. C. L., S. A. Drury, and J. L. Chapman. ''The Great Ice Age: Climate Change and Life.'' London, Routledge, 2000. History of climate variability and change History of the Sahara Prehistoric Africa