The Sahara Desert had an abrupt change from 'green' to today's landscape.
The Sahara Desert in Africa is the largest hot desert on the surface of planet Earth but it used to be a populated by rich plant life and several lakes during the era known as the African Humid Period from around 11 thousand to 5 thousand years ago.
Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, along with other studies shows that the area dried up in only one or two hundred years.
Prehistoric cave paintings in the area show herds of elephants, giraffes and hippos in watering holes.
By studying sediment from the Atlantic Ocean, researchers have shown that the area was about five times less dusty 6 thousand years ago than it is today.
Dust from Africa has been known to blow all the way to North America.
David McGee, an assistant professor at MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences said: "Our results point to surprisingly large changes in how much dust is coming out of Africa. This gives us a baseline for looking further back in time, to interpret how big past climate swings were. This was the most recent climate swing in Africa."
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