People of the Green Sahara

November 2000

A recording was made in early November 2000 by Paul Sereno just days after the discovery of the site. He posted the “audio update” to Project Exploration from Gobero via satellite phone, and speculated about what the site might be and what it might represent.

At the time, the team did not realize the extent of the site, how many skeletons were preserved, or how old the site was. In the audio update Paul talks about someone stumbling “on the back end of a fossilized cow skull.” We now realize that this is the fossilized skull parts of a hippopotamus, which like a cow is an even-toed, hoofed mammal (artiodactyl).

• Click HERE to hear the audio update.
• Click HERE to read a transcript of the audio file.