Explain how the lecturer’s claims give a concrete example of climate change’s effect on culture.

limate change hasn't always been seen as such a major factor in how we've progressed, how culture has developed. But more and more, we're finding that it does play a major role.

Let’s… uhh, let’s take the example of Egypt. The country today is harshly divided between the Sahara DESERT, where basically nothing grows, and the area around the Nile River Valley, which is still one of the… uh, one of the most fertile places on the whole planet.

But the thing is, we're now discovering that the landscape of Egypt was not always divided in that way.

Instead, until the fourth millennium BCE, the desert of Egypt was actually a rich, prosperous area of fields and… and farmable meadows. There were societies living away from the Nile, successfully farming... er... getting by. Um, in a place that would later be completely uninhabitable.

But then of course the climate changed, and the Sahara Desert formed. That meant people were FORCED TO MOVE to the Nile Valley to survive, because there were no more fields to cultivate or, or… uhh, animals to hunt.

So, right. You can imagine that their culture HAD to adapt, as they moved to a new area, a new climate. But it doesn't stop there. The Nile Valley was already settled.

So these newcomers FLEEING the desert, they evidently fought the people already living in the valley, and we see from that the construction of these giant…defensive WALLS for the first time in history.

So, right, people JOINED TOGETHER behind those walls and formed cities to protect themselves. This was a large interaction between communities, deeply affecting the local culture. The changing landscape was at the heart of that change.