  The experimental results on hadron production obtained recently at RHIC offer
a new prospective on the energy dependence of the nuclear collision dynamics.
In particular, it is possible that parton saturation -- the phenomenon likely
providing initial conditions for the multi--particle production at RHIC
energies -- may have started to set in central heavy ion collisions already
around the highest SPS energy. We examine this scenario, and make predictions
based on high density QCD for the forthcoming 22 GeV run at RHIC.
