Noah's Flood: Where and When?

Alice C. Linsley

Noah's flood took place c. 4500-4000 BC. Noah was a Proto-Saharan ruler at a time when the Sahara was wet. He lived in the region of Lake Chad in the last high-water period of the African Aqualithic. According to Genesis 6, he saw the waters rise to such as height that the ridges surrounding the Lake were submerged. 

While flooding was occurring in the Noah’s homeland, other regions of the world were relatively stable environments with populations that did not suffer from a global deluge. In 4000 BC, Mesoamericans were cultivating maize and natives of the Andes were cultivating beans and squash.

Noah and his sons lived in relatively recent history, not at the dawn of human existence. He and his descendants appear to be Haplogroup R1. Those populations dispersed out of Africa.

The flood of Noah occurred in the region of Lake Chad during the African Aqualithic, a term coined by the British archaeologist John Sutton (Journal of Africa History 1974; Antiquity 1977). These years of wetness were likely due to monsoonal patterns that brought an extended rainy season to the Lake Chad Basin (outlined in red on the map below). The Basin is ringed by mountains from which the water would have drained into the Basin.

Lake Chad is a great depression or basin which in the Nilo-Saharan is Tchad. The etymology of the word is very interesting. It is linguistically related to the Luo word chaddhoreh, meaning a wound or bruise. In Isaiah 1:6 the King James Version translates the Hebrew chabbarah as "bruises", but it also means wound or depression where something has been cut out. The Luo verb chaddho means to cut out, to pluck out, or to bruise the skin. A wound of this type is called chaddhoreh in Luo. So, the name Chad describes the cut out basin which filled with water and became Mega Chad in the Middle Holocene.

The Proto-Saharans were river peoples who shared many common beliefs, customs and symbols. Their civilization was at its peak between 10,000 and 4000 BC when the Sahara was wet. The major water systems connected the Nile and Central Africa. The historian Roland Oliver describes the Green Sahara as follows:

"[In] the highlands of the central Sahara beyond the Libyan desert,... in the great massifs of the Tibesti and the Hoggar, the mountaintops, today bare rock, were covered at this period with forests of oak and walnut, lime, alder and elm. The lower slopes, together with those of the supporting bastions — the Tassili and the Acacus to the north, Ennediand Air to the south — carried olive, juniper and Aleppo pine. In the valleys, perennially flowing rivers teemed with fish and were bordered by seed-bearing grasslands."

The black mahogany Dufuna dugout (shown above) was found in the Sahara buried 16 feet under clays and sands whose alternating sequence showed evidence of deposition in standing and flowing water. The dugout is 8000 years old. By comparison, Egypt's oldest boat is only about 5000 years old. Peter Breunig (University of Frankfurt) has written this description of the Dufuna boat:

“The bow and stern are both carefully worked to points, giving the boat a notably more elegant form”, compared to “the dugout made of conifer wood from Pesse in the Netherlands, whose blunt ends and thick sides seem crude”. Judging by stylistic sophistication, Breunig reasons that, “It is highly probable that the Dufuna boat does not represent the beginning of a tradition, but had already undergone a long development, and that the origins of water transport in Africa lie even further back in time.”

Noah's Contemporaries

Territories adjoining Noah's territory were governed by other rulers, probably some of which were Noah's kinsmen. These were among the "mighty men of old." In Genesis 6:9-11, Noah is described as God's favored ruler on earth; "an upright man among his contemporaries." Some of the rulers known to have lived around the time of Noah include the chiefs of Nekhen on the Nile.

The oldest known zoological collection was discovered during excavations at Nekhen in Sudan in 2009. This royal menagerie dates to 3500 BC and included hippos, hartebeest, elephants, baboons and wildcats. The story of Noah preserving a collection of animals is based on historical reality.

Nekhen is the oldest know site of devotion to Horus, the son of Ra. This was the dominant religion of the Nilo-Saharan peoples. The Proto-Saharans venerated cattle and left engravings of bulls and oxen with solar disc between their horns. They imagined that the Y of the horns was a cradle for the sun, and they regarded the sun as the Creator's emblem.

Hathor, the mother of Horus, is shown with the sun cradled between the horns (image right). It was believed that she conceived by the overshadowing of the sun. The Y indicated divine appointment That is why many Biblical figures have names with the initial Y: Yaqtan (Joktan), Yishbak (son of Abraham by Keturah), Yitzak (Issac); Yishmael (Ishmael), Yetro (Jethro), Yosef (Joseph), and Yeshua (Joshua/Jesus).

Hathor was also the patroness of Horite Hebrew metal workers as shown by discoveries at Timna. A temple dedicated to Hathor was discovered at the southwestern edge of Mount Timnah by Professor Beno Rothenberg of Hebrew University.


Saharan peoples before Noah

Evidence of pre-Noah populations in the wet Sahara include the discovery of cemetery dating to about 5,000 years before Noah. Paul Sereno unearthed 10,000-year-old skeletons at Gobero in Niger. These were buried on the edge of a paleolake on the northwestern rim of the Chad Basin. The Gobero site is the earliest known cemetery in the Sahara and the skeletons found there indicated that some were at least 6 feet tall. Perhaps these are the Anakim, the giants of old, who dispersed out of Africa.

Gobero skeleton (G3B8) measures 6 feet 6 inches
Photo (c) Mike Hettwer, courtesy Project Exploration

According to Sereno, these earlier Holocene people left when it became arid, but the area was repopulated by a taller people around 4600 B.C. when humid conditions returned. Flooding occurred on and off over a long period. Wet conditions prevailed from 7700-6200 (phase 2). Sereno states, "The darkened bone color of all human skeletons in phase 2 burials is indicative of sustained inundation." (Read about Sereno's work here.) Another wet period corresponds to the time that Noah would have lived in the region of Lake Chad, between 4200 and 3800 B.C.

At the time of the Gobero populations, humans were dispersed globally, and during the time of Noah these populations were not destroyed. Consider the following population estimates by urban center  in 4000 BC:

Dobrovody (Ukraine) – 16,000

Eridu (Iraq) – 4000

Fedorivka (Ukraine) – 6000

Jericho (Israel) – 9000

Nebelivka (Ukraine) – 17,000

Nekhen (Nile Valley) – 5000

Tell Brak (Syria) – 5000

Urul (Iraq) 5000


All these population centers were located on water systems that would have been destroyed had there been a global deluge. However, there is no evidence of such a catastrophe.

Related reading: Water Systems Connected Nile and Central Africa; How Big Was Noah's Flood?; Boats and Cows of the Nilo-Saharans; Noah's Homeland in Historical Perspective; Why Cows Were Sacred in the Ancient World; The Mighty Men of Old; When the Sahara Was Wet; A Tent For the Sun; As in the days of Noah; Was Noah Mesopotamian or Proto-Saharan?; Noah's Homeland; Noah's Flood: Where and When?