It is located on the bank of the Wadi Teshuinat, sitting on a plateau in the Tadrart Acacus at almost 3000 feet above sea level.
[3] Uan Muhuggiag was inhabited during the early- to mid-Holocene in what has been termed as the African Aqualithic culture complex, or "Green Sahara" period.
[4] Extensive samples from a number of sites indicate that tropical humid plants began to expand northward around 12,000 years ago after a lengthy dry period, eventually reaching deep into what is today the Sahara Desert.
[5] NASA satellites have been able to detect a vast network of ancient river beds and paleolakes underneath the sand dunes around Uan Muhuggiag.
[6] Rock art findings depicting elephants, giraffes, and crocodiles were discovered at sites surrounding Uan Muhuggiag.
[13] In 1958-1959, an archaeological expedition led by Antonio Ascenzi conducted anthropological, radiological, histological, and chemical analyses on the Uan Muhuggiag mummy.
[14] Among other significant finds at Uan Muhuggiag are elaborate rock paintings, mostly attributed to the later occupation period of around 5000 BP.
[15] Domestic cattle bones were also found in the lowest layers and perhaps date from the eighth millennium BP, providing some of the earliest known evidence of pastoralism in the Sahara.
[15] Other finds at Uan Muhuggiag include two hemispherical hollows dug out of the rock, measuring approximately 30 to 40 centimeters, called "kettles".
[7] The lower levels also uncovered backed and microlithic tools, while lithics such as flakes and arrowheads were found in the upper layers.
[9] Antonio Ascenzi, a pathologist, believes that Uan Muhuggiag and the surrounding area became inhabited around 10,000 BP by Negroid peoples, who followed the monsoon north.
The cultural practice of drinking cow blood on special occasions is still shared to this day by many Nilotic cattle herding groups in Africa, such as the Maasai and Dinka.
[20] One of the earliest burials of cattle can be found at the site of Nabta Playa, which had inhabitants that were of the same Nilo-Saharan traditions of Sudan and the broader Nile Valley.
[21] These people were responsible for sacrificial cattle burials in clay-lined and roofed chambers covered by rough stone tumuli.
[22] At one of the sites from the beginning of the Holocene (~10,000 BP), among the bones of wild fauna, remains of domesticated cattle with 'auroch-like' features were found.
[6] Some scholars argue that the sub-Saharan African population living there could have had an influence on the process of mummification used in Ancient Egypt a thousand years later.
[23][24][25] Considerable debate also exists about whether the rock art found at Uan Muhuggiag along with the two mummies, signify that the shelter was a burial place or otherwise sacred.