Located in the Air Massif of Niger are two of the largest animal rock petroglyphs in the world. Known as the Dabous Giraffes they have been dated to about 8,000BCE. While the artist will forever remain unknown, this area of Niger has over 900 similar carvings of animals and humans. The period of these glyphs (12,000-7,000BCE) was known as the Neolithic Subpluvial, a time when the Sahara was a much wetter savannah that stretched thousands of miles and could sustain animal and human life. The giraffes are carved into a sandstone outcrop and depict a large male and smaller female. Shifting desert sands possibly covered the glyphs for millennia before they were discovered in 1987.
