ABSTRACT
Few places on earth are more desolate than the Sahara, the largest of the hot deserts. Taking on its present form some 4,000-5,000 years ago, it became a formidable obstacle to human contact. It separated ‘black’, inner Africa socially and culturally from its Mediterranean and Asian neighbours, while isolating the ‘white’ northern quarter to the north of the desert from the greater part of the continent to the south.
