A Stone Age burial ground in the Sahara Desert, known as Gobero, has been found to contain the remains of humans, fish, and crocodiles who lived in the area when the desert was temporarily green. The site, dating back 10,000 years, was discovered in Niger in 2000 but has only now been fully studied and reported on by a team led by University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno. The discovery was made while the team was searching for dinosaur fossils and stumbled upon the remains of both humans and animals, indicating two different settlements about 1,000 years apart. A woman and two children, their arms intertwined, were buried on a bed of flowers approximately 5,000 years ago, which is considered one of the most dramatic discoveries. The older group, known as Kiffians, were tall and robust hunter-gatherers who left the area during a drought about 8,000 years ago. The research team led by Sereno reported this in the journal PLoS ONE. Another group, the Tenerians, settled in the area between 7,000 and 4,500 years ago. They were smaller in stature and engaged in hunting, herding, and fishing. Both groups left behind various artifacts such as tool kits, fishhooks, ceramics, and jewelry. Chris Stojanowski, a bioarchaeologist from Arizona State University, commented that it is difficult to believe that two very different groups of people would bury their dead in the same location. The Sahara, the world's largest desert for thousands of years, experienced changes in the Earth's orbit 12,000 years ago which brought monsoons further north temporarily. The researchers conducted various tests on tooth enamel, pollen, bones, soil, and tools to determine the age of the site, artifacts, and remains. The researchers concluded that data from Gobero, along with other sites in North Africa, suggest that we are just starting to comprehend the intricate history of biosocial evolution in response to significant climate changes in the Sahara.