The Rise and Fall of Atlatia

By D. Baxter Todd

Just as there has been much done to disclaim the African heritage of Khemet (Egypt), there has been much done to obfuscate and disclaim the African heritage of Atlatia (Plato's Atlantis).  Plato first introduced Atlantis in the Timaeus, a monologue of Timaeus of Locri, a character who appears as a philosopher and a wealthy aristocrat from the Greek colony of Lokroi Epizephyrio. The primary sources for the Greek (and thereby European and "Western") version and stories of Atlantis are Plato's dialogues (Timaeus and Critias) which claim to quote Solon, an Athenian statesman who visited Khemet (Egypt) between 590 and 580 BC; dialogues which profess Solon translated Egyptian records of Atlantis. 

 

Based on the priest's timeline (and Plato's given chronology of 9600 BC), Atlantis is placed in the 10th millennium BC at the beginning of the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic via the interim Mesolithic. Plato did with Atlantis just as Homer did with Troy a few hundred years earlier. He based his story of Atlantis on a real setting and a prehistoric civilization known to ancient Greeks.

 

Modern scholarship tends to dismiss Timaeus's history, considering him a literary construct by Plato, opining that the legend of Atlantis was almost certainly invented by Plato to promote the political ideal of his masterwork. To deny Atlatia (Plato's Atlantis) is to deny an important and significant part of African pre-history and heritage. Ancient Atlatia (Plato's Atlantis) emerged from a specific amalgamation of peoples in the post Ice Age Sahara;, a core group native to the central Sahara, and a related miscegenated group in the western Sahara.

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. Baxter Todd
• Release date: Feb 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798986636368

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Prologue

Ancient Atlatia emerged from a specific amalgamation of peoples, a core group native to the central Sahara, and a related miscegenated group that emerged in the western Sahara. Long and varied migrations and cultural flows from Sub-Saharan Alkebu- lan (Africa) northward towards the fertile grasslands and wetlands of the Sahel and the Sahara underly the earliest diffusion of emergent cultures in the northern African sphere. The demographics of the north were largely shaped by drought-like conditions that prevailed in Central Africa ; the heightening aridity, expanding drought, and increasing severity of life prompted successive waves of migrations towards the fertile wetlands of the Sahel and Sahara .

The Saharan Pump

The ‘Saharan Pump’ hypothesis postulates that long periods of heavy rainfall for thousands of years have alternated with long periods of drought for thousands of years in the Sahara. It is postulated that the so-called wet Sahara phase, during which rivers, large mega-lakes and the Saharan Inland Seas existed alternately with an immense Sahara desert. A cycle in which extended periods of rainfall, lasting thousands of years (the pluvial periods) precede a Wet Sahara phase, during which Saharan terrain becomes green and fertile (the Green Sahara), with an abundance of plants, trees, forests, lakes, vast river networks, and huge inland seas.

People have anciently migrated into the Sahara from Sub-Saharan Africa during the Wet Saharan and Green Saharan phases and migrated out of the Sahara during the long transition to the Saharan Desert phases. During the transition, which is essentially the closing periods of the Green Saharan phase, the Sahara becomes a vast savanna-like grassland, and during the subsequent inter-pluvial (or arid) periods, it gradually reverts to desolate desert-like conditions.

This back-and-forth climate-shift and resulting migration(s) are together referred to as the Saharan Pump; describing the ancient movement of peoples, primarily between Sub-Saharan and Sahara Africa, and Asia and Eurasia, during these cyclical climatic shifts.[i] The Sahara has passed through several such wet and dry phases during the past 120,000 years; climatological data indicate the earliest of the last three phases marked by extensive (pluvial) rains was between 50,000 and 18,000 BC.

Much of the Saharan central lowlands are below sea level, with its major aquifers comprised of three great basins, the northern, central, and western basins. The massive rains of the First Mousterian Pluvial flowed freely into the Saharan basins, eventually all but completely flooding, fully inundating, and forming the greater proportion of the early ancient Saharan Inland Sea (the fabled Atlantean Sea) in the central and western basins, bounded in the southeast by the Ahaggar and Tasili mastiffs, and in the northwest by the Atlas mountains.

The conjoined Saharan Inland Sea covered much of the northern, central, and western Sahara for thousands of years, with its cresting waters eventually finding outlet to the Atlantic Ocean at the lowest point on the West African Seaboard (on the southern coast of present-day Mauritania). For thousands of years the huge inland sea connected the waters of the great eastern ocean (the Atlantic), with those of the external northern sea (the Mediterranean) via the inundated northern Saharan basins, rendering the Atlas Mountains surrounded on all sides by water, forming the main Isles of Ancient Atlatia.

However, this the first iteration or permutation of the great inland sea and the Atlatian Isles during the dawn of humankind did not go peacefully into the passages and fables of earliest antiquity. The great Saharan Inland Sea was revived and reinvigorated on several occasions for comparatively shorter and shorter periods by the fading rains of the pluvial. As the waters of inland sea fluctuated, some areas emerged and were then re-submerged again, only to re-emerge over the long passage of time.

As recently as 30,000 years ago, near the end of the first pluvial, the vast Sahara was again partly covered by remnants of the inland sea (the fabled Atlantean Sea ). The immense inland sea once again fully occupied the combined central and western basins of the Sahara, conjoining to eventually reach the Atlantic Ocean off the West African seaboard; again, rendering the Atlas mountains surrounded on all sides by water. Outcrops of the northern, central, and western Saharan basins outline the immense size and structure of the ancient inland seabed.

Over time, the waters of the Atlantean Sea again gradually receded, eventually fragmenting into the huge Northern and Western Inland Seas, large paleo-lakes, and the lesser residual lakes and marshlands occupying the low-lying depressions of the northern, central and Western Sahara. Long periods of renewed persistent rainfall announcing the second pluvial expanded the remnant lakes and rivers throughout the Sahara, prompting the onset of the second great northern migrations into the Green Sahara. 

Central Saharan Seas

The present-day Fezzan basin is west of the Nile Valley, an area in which a gigantic ancient lake existed throughout much of antiquity, around which a distinct culture emerged and rose to great prominence. The present-day Fezzan depression is a large, closed basin that contains numerous ancient paleolake sediment outcrops, shorelines and a wealth of ancient lake deposits that have been dated, using up to date techniques, to produce a chronology of climate change in the Central Sahara .

The chronology demonstrates evidence of warm, humid conditions prevailing in the Sahara during the interglacial periods, generating high enough rainfall to produce a giant lake, roughly the size of England in the Fezzan, this was "Paleo-Lake Fezzan".[1];[2] Paleo-Lake Fezzan was one of several great lakes that then existed in the Sahara; these were part of a larger network of greater and lesser lakes and inland seas which included Mega-Lake Chad in the south, the mysterious Mauritanian Sea in the west, and legendary Lake Tritonis and the fabled Triton Sea in the central north, paralleling the southern foothills of present-day Tunisia and Algeria.

Lake Moeris to the east was among a number of other smaller lakes linked through interconnecting rivers, forming waterways and corridors across the Sahara. There were other lakes bridging the central Sahara; their catchments broadened the network of rivers, lesser lakes, and tributaries forming the corridors across the central Saharan lowlands. The Sahel is a transition zone between the Sahara Sub and -Saharan Africa, bordering the Sahara in the south. The Sahel is predominantly flat with a few isolated plateaus and mountains; it is a broad fully encompassing region extending from the coast of the Atlantic Ocean in the west, to the coast of the Indian Ocean in the east.

Between 70,000 BC and 30,000 BC, the Sahel was very wet, rainy, and humid, and, in consequence, contained a series of large and small lakes. Ancient lithic art in the region portray crocodiles and elephants, depicting remnants of the vast wetlands that once existed. Mega-Lake Chad was then a huge lake straddling the Sahel and Sahara along the borders of present-day Chad and Niger. At its peak, the lake was then bigger than the present-day Caspian Sea and fed a broad band of tropical vegetation extending northwards into the Sahara, which, in turn, attracted those who migrated northward from central Africa.

Other paleo-lakes and wetlands existed at southern reaches of the Sahara; the southernmost being Lake Turkana and Lake Sudd west of Lake Turkana,. During the interglacial, Lake Chad and Lake Sudd expanded to fill about half the gap between them, resulting in vast areas between Chad and Ethiopia-Kenya alternating between desert and wetland. Lake Sudd was an immense shallow wetlands fed by the White Nile descending from Lakes Mwitanzige (colonial Lake Albert), Rutanzige (colonial Lake Edward), and Nanza (Lake Victoria). The Sudd wetlands then expanded into the Sudan, forming a formidable obstacle to migration; it was considered nearly impassable either overland or by watercraft.

The Northern Migrations

The largest waves of migrations occurred during the Wurm glaciations (approximately 16,000 B.C.), a period characterized by climate fluctuations between extreme aridity and sustained rains. During wetter periods rainfall reached the Saharan highlands as far north as the Tropic of Cancer , engorging rivers, lakes and tributaries draining southward, filling and often overflowing the central southern Saharan drainage basins in the Sudd and Mega-Lake Chad . Paleo-Lake Sudd  expanded the wetlands, filling about half the gap between it and Mega-Lake Chad, which, in turn, also expanded into the wetlands, connecting the two immense bodies of water. In drier times Paleo-Lake Sudd and Mega-Lake Chad dwindled and contracted their shorelines, while in wetter times the lakes expanded into the lowlands transforming the Sudd into an impassable swampland.

It appears the Adi-Dasas (pure Dravidians) migrated along the course of the White Nile through the plains of the Sudan, where some temporarily settled along the banks of the river south of its ostensible terminus point at the Sudd Wetlands. The White Nile then all but disappeared under the floating canopy of the Sudd swamplands, with the migrating Dasas temporarily settling along the upper part of the river, before pressing onward towards fertile lands in which to settle. Expansion of the Paleo-Sudd Wetlands along with the villages of Nilotics in the natural harbors and best settlement areas around the Sudd combined to push the Dasas migrations westward toward the fertile and well-watered lands along the eastern shores of Mega-Lake Chad. [ii]

The Adi-Dasas settled and expanded northward along the eastern coast of Mega-Lake Chad, the northern basin of which was the Bodélé Depression, lowest point in Mega-Lake Chad. The fertile lands around Mega-Lake Chad acted as a center of gravity for the Adi-Dasas and neighboring populations of the autochthonous Si (Xi, Shi), whose ancestors had been the northern-most, and first of the sacred tribes of Yam, to migrate into the Sahara (during earliest antiquity). Though the Si (Xi, Shi) anciently inhabited the coastal lands along the northeastern and northern shores of Mega-Lake Chad, their core stronghold was in the highlands of the great mountains to the northeast of the Mega-Lake.

The entire Ounianga Basin between the Tibesti and Ennedi mountains in present day Northern Chad was anciently occupied by Paleo-Lake Yoa, a large highland lake replete with several islands, transforming the basin into a rich green valley, filled with trees, grasslands and a variety of wild life; an ideal environment for the early habitations of the ancestral Si (Xi, Shi).[iii] The interactions between the Adi-Dasas and Si (Xi, Shi) around the eastern, northeastern and northern shores of Mega-Lake Chad led to resemblances and affinities in certain beliefs; this is particularly evident in the affinity in spiritual beliefs.[iv] Like the Si the Adi-Dasas worshipped Amun/Amon/Amma, a Deity representing the flowering life force hidden in the primordial waters of consciousness.

The Mega-Lake Chad basin was situated within the bidirectional corridors of both the Sahara and Sahel of distant antiquity, and thus became one of the most populated places in the Northern Sphere. The impetus for settlement in the lands along and around it shores appears to have been connected if not driven by a series of heavy and extended pluvial (rainy periods) during distant antiquity; climatic ameliorations that started over 60,000 years before present (YBP).

Mega-Lake Chad

The Sao, whose origins were southeast of Mega-Lake Chad, were amongst the earliest of the "full statured’ Negroid types to emerge in the tropical interior river valleys; with characteristics and affinities identifiable as early as 45,000 BC. According to legend and oral traditions ‘the Sao were as tall as giants’; the legends described them not only as giants, but as keen hunters, who planned and constructed towns and walled villages. They were among the earliest people to migrate along the course of the Chari River and settle in the delta and along the southern shores of Paleo Lake Chad.[v]

The Sao were comprised of several clans united into a single polity by language; they were the earliest people to have left clear traces of their presence in Cameroon and the southern Lake Chad basin. The Lake Chad Basin is situated at the intersection of Cameroon, Chad, and Nigeria; the Sao spread from northeastern Cameroon to areas around the Mega-Lake Chad basin. The largest archaeological finds of the Sao have been uncovered in their original homeland, by the Chari River, south of the Lake Chad Basin, in northern eastern Cameroon. Archaeological evidences suggest that while societies in the southern basin were not yet farming, they were harvesting wild grains. They didn’t have to cultivate in order to support themselves; this is probably the way domestication of cereal crops first emerged around the basin.

By the time of the Proto-Anu and Adi-Dasas migrations, the Sao inhabited much of the coastal belt along the southern basin east of the Chari-Logone Delta, at the southeastern extent of Lake Chad. [vi] Upon arrival, the Adi-Dasas found the jealously guarded territories of the Sao, whose terrain stretched along the southeastern coast of the lake, and throughout much of the eastern Chari-Logone Delta. Adi-Dasas migrations were thus pressed further westward, through and past the long-established settlement ranges of the Nwa-Nshi, Ndi-Igbo, and other descendants of the  Kwa" who anciently settled on the southwestern coast of Lake Chad.

The Ndi-Igbo and most of their neighbors were descendants of the Proto-Kwa who migrated from the Western Rift Valley.[3] "Ndi-Igbo simply means, the Ancients, the First People, the Aboriginals (Ndi Gbo)". Ndi-Igbo synthesized over thousands of years from their ancestral Proto-Kwa. Proto-Kwa clans migrated northward along major West African river corridors until finally reaching and progressing northward along the Logone River, which forms a broad delta with the Chari River, the "Chari-Logone Delta", at the southeastern extent of Lake Chad. The Chari and Logone were key corridors leading ancient migrants to the delta and lands surrounding the southern basin. The Logone is situated west of the Chari River, leading the Nwa-Nshi and Ndi-Igbo to settlement areas west of the territories of the Sao.

Satellite imagery has enabled a detailed mapping of the paleo-shoreline of Lake Chad, which has been identified to the north-west of the present-day lake, where the north-central basin of the lake was then still filled with water, and people settled and farmed around its shores.[4] The westernmost shoreline of Paleo-Lake Chad consisted of an extensive beach ridge, known as the Bama Ridge, extending around the western shores of the paleolake in a relatively straight shoreline. The Bama Ridge terminates in the north, at the Komadugu-Yobe Rivers, which enter the lake at the northwest. The main rivers flowing into Paleo-Lake Chad are the Chari-Logone, which enters the lake in the southeast, and the Komadugu-Yobe that enters in the northwest. The flow patterns of the two rivers gave rise to a massive swampland across the middle of the lake: dividing its southern and northern basins.

The greater Chad Basin is actually comprised of two separate basins,  northern and southern basins. The northern basin is primarily fed by the Komadugu-Yobe Rivers, which flow eastward through Nigeria and Niger to enter Lake Chad in the northeast; while the southern basin is primarily fed by the Chari-Logone Rivers  which flow northward from the southeast to enter the lake in the southeast. The Adi-Dasas settled in the region straddling Lake Chad’s southern and northern basins, along the western coast of the lake, well north of the settlement range of the Ndi-Igbo. The final Adi-Dasas settlement range straddled the great central swamplands separating the southern and northern basins, affording access to the resources of the wetlands, as well as the southern and northern hemispheres of the basin.

To the north of the Adi-Dasas settlement range was the Komadougou-Yobe Delta, where the Komadugu-Yobe River then emptied into the western end of Paleo-Lake Chad; the then settlement province of those referred to as the Oru. The Oru were descendent Anu migrating from the southern shores of Paleo-Lake Chad, prompted by expansions of the Sao, and migrations of the Nwa and Ndi-Igbo. The term Oru was a derivative of the ancient term Heru (for the Followers of Heru).[vii] The Oru were Anu, who, having rejected the encroaching over lordship of the Nagas, immigrated seeking lands beyond their reach; prompting their settlements around the southern shores of Paleo-Lake Chad.

By the time the Adi-Dasas settled along the central western coast of Lake Chad, the Oru had migrated westward through the delta along the courses of the Komadugu-Yobe river. The Komadugu-Yobe is actually a network of rivers flowing eastward over hundreds of miles; ultimately converging to form the Yobe and Komadugu Rivers, which, in turn, converge to form the Komadugu-Yobe River. The rivers flow through a sub-basin of the Lake Chad basin, forming extensive ancient floodplains and a rich fertile terrain in which early Oru settlements grew quickly, prompting further settlements, and further westward expansions of the Oru along the courses and tributaries of the river.

The Oru had become a primarily aquatic based culture, settling on the banks and tributaries of the Komadugu-Yobe. The "Oru" were a subset of the Anu who, in the west, had become known as the ‘Water People’. According to oral tradition, their migrations and settlements would eventually make their way to the Niger Delta, where they are said to have first settled along the coasts. The northern migrations of the Oru along the east-west corridors of the river intersected the far more ancient northern migrations of the Kwa who traversed the course of the Lower Niger, in present day Southern Nigeria, thousands of years before the Oru migrations into the region. Nonetheless, the infusion of the orthodoxy of the Oru would prove influential and instrumental in the adaptation of similarly constructed belief systems and organizing principals by other cultures in the region. 

Kwa of the Niger

The Kwa were essentially a land-based culture, whose descendent subsets settled in and along the fertile interior valleys and river corridors of West Africa on their northward migrations towards the wetlands of Northern Sphere. The Niger River became a key corridor in their northern migrations through present day Nigeria, Benin, Niger, and Mali, and across the Western Sudan into the wetlands of the Western Sahara. The Niger River is to Western Sudan, what the Nile River is to Khemet (Egypt); but rather than one delta, as in Khemet, the Niger River has three, forming a broad irrigation system that spreads over thousands of miles.

The Niger River Valley follows the course of the river, from Kanji Lake, in present day Nigeria in the south, to Niamey in present day Niger to the north, and from there through Ago and Bourse, in present day Mali, where the ancient river channel is well defined, but shallow, and interrupted by several rapids.  Early northward migrations of the Kwa progressed beyond the Niger-Benue confluence thousands of years before the Oru entered the region. Proto-Kwa migrated northward against the course of the Niger River, which flows south-eastward from Bourse, in the region of present-day Mali in the north, where it is received from the east, flowing from Timbuktu to Bourse.

The course of the Niger of distant antiquity ran through an enormous marshland to the north of Timbuktu that covered a surface area exceeding several hundreds of square miles. Early clans and village clusters of the Kwa settled, survived, prospered, and expanded, largely on diets of fish and the lush abundance of vegetation and wild game in the surrounding ancient terrain. During this period, what we today call the "Niger River" was then actually two rivers, the Upper Niger, and the distinctly separate Lower Niger.

The Upper Niger rose then in the highlands of southeastern Guinea and flowed northeasterly into a closed basin and ancient salt lake known as the "Juf", a remnant of an earlier more ancient inland sea... which once occupied a large portion of the Western Sahara. The Upper Niger flowed north and northwest to empty into the Juf, which in the quaternary age was a salt-water lake remnant of the earlier ancient inland sea which, in the tertiary age, once extended as far east as Bilmal; Lake Fagubini is a remnant of the ancient course of the upper river.

The Lower Niger traversed the central Sahara flowing southward, aided by tributaries descending the Adrar Massif, with the Lower Niger then emptying into the Gulf of Guinea. The Upper Niger, in turn, was once aided by tributaries from the Ahaggar mountains that flowed along the course of Wadi Taffassassent, now a dried-up ancient river-bed in the central Sahara. Although the upper and lower parts of the Niger River have all the appearance of ancient rivers, the Middle Niger is the result of a recent capture; it has no past, it scarcely has a present.[5] Though the geological changes that have taken place are imperfectly known, it is theorized that climatic conditions and shifts in the topography over the millennium caused the river to assume its present course.

When the Middle Niger arose in the hills near the Juf... from where it flowed southward connecting with the Lower Niger on its course to the Gulf of Guinea; creating the boomerang shaped geography that ultimately joined the courses of the rivers together. At the height of the Last Great Ice Age (the Glacial Maximum) sea levels were at their lowest, and a distinctly separate Upper Niger cut deep gulfs into the developing Inland Niger Delta, forming the valley of the Upper Niger, and the floodplain downstream where the river’s floodwaters spread through a maze of channels, replenishing the vast wetlands.

Emergence of the Manding

Early settlers of the Inland Niger Delta formed riverine communities where vegetation, fish and other small aquatic animals were eaten.[viii] The Manding emerged as full statured Negroids from the ancestral Kwa in the fertile wetlands of the Inland Delta.[6] [7] Like that of the Nilotics from the Anu in the wetlands south of the East African Highlands, and the Sao in the Chari River wetlands south of Paleo-Lake Chad; the Manding emerged in the abundance of the wetlands of the Niger Basin, with characteristics clearly identifiable as early as 40,000 BC.[8] The early Manding lived in mounds along the corridors and tributaries of the Niger, and, like the Sao of the Chari River wetlands, were formed essentially by clans, united into a single polity by one language.

Over the ensuing centuries they spread throughout and beyond the Middle Niger, extending their settlement range northward into and beyond the Inland Niger Delta.[9] Hunter-gatherer groups, who had specialized in the hunting of animals, used their knowledge of the habits of game to shift to animal husbandry. Growth, specialization, and rising demand throughout the region stimulated and encouraged trade throughout the expanding settlement clusters in the region. During the First Mousterian Pluvial, the Sahara bloomed like never before, not only in vegetation and wildlife but also in new settlements.[ix]

By the latter phases of the pluvial clusters of villages had arisen, leading to early refinements in farming.[x] Saharan terrain then consisted of rolling grasslands with thick and abundant vegetation, nourished by ample seasonal rainfall, which fed a vast network of rivers, tributaries, and greater and lesser lakes scattered across the ancient landscape. A period that lasted over twenty thousand years, until about 30,000 BC, when pluvial conditions began to gradually end, and desertification gradually began to overtake the interior Sahara. It was prior to this that the Manding pressed northward beyond the Inland Niger Delta, into the wetlands south of a  huge inland sea that then occupied much of the Western Sahara.

The Legends

The Manding call themselves Ma-nde: children of Ma, in acknowledgement to their ancient concept and reverence for truth, balance, order, morality and justice; ideals they propounded as the essential order of the Cosmos.[xi] Ma’at was the personified Goddess of the Virtues of Truth, Balance, Justice, and Order, and was said to regulate the actions of both mortals and the deities. It was said to be Ma’at who set the order of the Cosmos from Chaos at the moment of Creation.[10] [xii]

Maat is the eternal antagonist of Chaos, and it is said that Ma’at’s battle with Chaos commences on several levels; Maat is said to battle all forms of destructive chaos and uncreation; the essence of imbalance or impurity. How Chaos manifests in each person's life is different, but many souls can identify the sort of turmoil that leaves them feeling undone, as if their selfness is being stripped away and destroyed, their very sense of identity: that is Chaos. Chaos acts counter to Ma’at. Chaos  is the opposite of Ma'at. It is imbalance, impurity, destructive power, and worse – it is uncreation. The opposite of Ma`at, chaos" is, untruth, falsehood, disorder, unrighteousness, and injustice.

Ancient Scriptures teach that Chaos is an abomination to Deity. It may gain ground for a while; it may bring pleasure for a while; it may bring gratification for the moment; but in the end it leads to destruction. Ma'at was the solid reason the sun rises, and the earth maintains its movement. Without Ma’at, there would be no balance.

The low-lying basins of the Western Sahara were then still occupied by remnants of the once massive ancient Saharan Inland Sea that fully occupied the basins, and thus covered much of the Western and Central Sahara. Though greatly diminished before the onset of the First Mousterian Pluvial, surviving remnants of the perennial ancient inland sea were prominent throughout the Sahara of the era, the most significant of which was a huge Western Inland Sea occupying the basins of the present day 'Spanish Sahara'.

The huge Western inland Sea expanded and was annexed during the opening phases of the first pluvial, bringing the gigantic, perennial ancient Saharan Inland Sea back to life, and near full form and dimension; fully occupying the huge northern, central, and western basins of the Sahara. After the closing phases of the First Pluvial, over five thousand years after