An archaeologist who has spent decades studying sites in the Sahara says nomads who roamed the area millennia ago were the first to domesticate cattle.

At the time, what is now desert was a vast savannah with a humid climate, Stefan Kropelin of the University of Cologne told the BBC. When the climate changed and the area became one of the driest places on Earth, its inhabitants moved into the Nile Valley.

"They brought all their know-how to the rest of the continent - the domestication of cattle was invented in the Sahara in the humid phase and was then slowly pushed over the rest of Africa," he said. "This Neolithic way of life, which still is a way of life in a sense; preservation of food for the dry season and many other such cultural elements, was introduced to central and southern Africa from the Sahara."

The dry conditions in the Sahara, which have also left it almost empty of people and any other form of life, have had one ironic result - its archaeological sites are exceptionally well-preserved.

This relates to the two stories from last week.

Cattle first kept in Sahara, archaeologist says, UPI via Middle East Times, Cyprus, July 22, 2006.

In a journey of discovery much like opening an Egyptian tomb, work has begun to refurbish the exhibit that surrounds the mummy at the Wayne County Historical Museum.

The mummy, bought for the museum by its founder Julia Meek Gaar, is one of the most beloved exhibits — intriguing thousands of school children for decades.

The project to refurbish the exhibit and catalog the museum's Egyptian collection developed when Richmond native Bonnie M. Sampsell of Chapel Hill, [North Carolina] — who happens to have a passion for Egyptology — came home to visit her mother, Gene McClelland.

After seeing the current exhibit and talking with museum executive director Jim Harlan, they developed a plan for her to renew and expand the exhibit, catalog the collection and do more research on the items in the collection...

Even mummies need scenery change, Rachel E. Sheeley, Richmond Palladium-Item, Indiana, USA, July 24, 2006.

Scientists have tagged three northern bald ibis, among the last survivors of a species of Middle Eastern bird once so revered that it had its own ancient Egyptian hieroglyph, in an effort to save them from extinction.

Only 13 of the birds remain in Syria, Britain's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the conservation agency BirdLife International said in a news release.

The birds, with their distinctive black Mohican-style plumage and long, downward-curved red bills, were once revered by pharaohs and were found throughout the Middle East, northern Africa and the European Alps...

Rare Ibis Tagged in Race to Save Bird of Pharaohs, Reuters via Environmental News Network, USA, July 25, 2006.