Neolithic
107_0744PAGE CONTENTS
 

Southern Western Desert Neolithic


Saharan Neolithic (or Ceramic Period)

Early Neolithic

c .8800 – 6800 BC

Middle Neolithic

c. 6600 – 5100 BC

Late Neolithic

c. 5100 – 4700 BC

The Saharan Neolithic is focused in the central and southern Sahara and, in Egypt, in the Western Desert to the south of the southernmost oasis, Kharga.   The Western Desert had been abandoned towards the end of the Middle Palaeolithic due to increasingly dry conditions, but the Holocene wet phase allowed the area to be inhabited again and human presence is detected again for the first time in around 9300BC.  The earliest evidence of a Neolithic in Egypt comes from the Western Desert. Preservation of sites and artefacts has been excellent.

The term “Neolithic” is usually used in connection with the emergence of agriculture.  However, the earliest Neolithic in Egypt is associated with a number of different elements, none of them to do with plant cultivation, and cannot always be compared directly with any other early Neolithic cultures in the Near East or elsewhere.  The appearance of ceramics at the same time has led some authorities to suggest that “Ceramic” would be a better and more appropriate term to apply to this period, although there is also convincing evidence for cattle herding.

The Saharan Neolithic in Egypt began earlier than similar activities in the Nile Valley: “Investigations around seasonal lakes, natural cisterns, evidence so far lacking in the Nile Valley itself, for the development of an indigenous Neolithic (food producing rather than only food gathering) way of life and the independent invention of ceramics” (Wendorf and Schild 2002 p.XIV). Keper emphasises the importance of the Sahara for an understanding of the Neolithic:  “northeastern Africa is a crucial area for understanding the development the Neolithic tradition in general and the spread of domestication in particular.  Regarding the latter, it has been suggested that cattle had already become domesticated locally in the Eastern Sahara more than 10,000 years ago . . . . In contrast, wild species of sheep and goat are not endemic in Africa and therefore must have been introduces from Western Asia.” Similarly, pottery is known in the Sahara from a much earlier date (from the 9th Millennium in the southern Sahara) than in the Near East, and it is of much higher quality, appearing with bone harpoons and the remains of amphibious fauna.  In other words, different elements of the Neolithic appear to have been introduced from the Nile and the Sahara. Although it is important to see different regions on their own merits, it is also important to remain aware of the different impacts that these area may have had on each other as the Neolithic evolved.  The presence of a sophisticated social mechanism in the form of the Nabta Playa megalithic complex suggest that there may have been communication between the Nile and the Western Desert and the Nabta builders “almost certainly had some impact on the Neolithic neighbours living in the adjacent Nile Valley” (Wendorf and Schild 2002, p.19).

 

Early Saharan Neolithic c .8800 – 6800 BC

Based on information derived from the south Western Desert by Schild and Wendorf (2002) the Early Neolithic appears to have seen a number of climatic changes – they suggest a sequence as follows

  • El Adam humid interphase c.9500-88850bp
  • Post El Adam arid phase pre 8560+/-140bp
  • El Ghorab humid interphase c.8400-8200bp
  • Post El Ghorab dry phase
  • El Nabta / Al Jerar humid interphase c.8000 – 7300bp
  • Post Al Jerar Arid phase c.7300-7200 bp

Most Early Saharan Neolithic sites are small and short-term seasonally occupied hunter-gatherer bases. Larger sites, located in play basins, were used for longer periods than the small sites, but these too were occupied on a seasonal basis.

The economy was based on herding, hunting and plant collection.  These early pastoralists “appear to have followed the modern African mode of pastoralism in using their animals as living sources of protein (milk and blood) rather than for meat” (Wendorf and Close 1992, P.156). Meat was acquired by hunting of gazelle and hard.  Plant collection is suggested by grding equipment, but apart from one site, E-75-6, relatively few plant remains have been found from the southern Western Desert. 

Fortunately, at site E-75-6, an assemblage of plant foods was discovered that “that is unparalleled in sites of this age in Africa, and has very few equals anywhere else in the world” (Wendorf and Close 1992, p. 157). The site appears to be part of a planned village, and includes two oval houses and two round houses from which plant remains were recovered.  The oval houses were both relatively large (8.3x4.5m and 7x2.5m), dating to 8850+/-130BP (Gd-6254) and 8600+/-140BP (Gd-6258). One of them has six hearths in one area, and 74 “cooking holes of 10-20cm diameter in another.  The other had four hearths and eighteen cooking holes, but was not completely excavated.  The circular houses were both around 4m in diameter.  One had three hearths, seven cooking holes and one storage pit. The other had one hearth and twenty eight cooking holes. A date of 7920+/-100BP was associated with the first of the two circular houses. It is suggested that cooking took place in the hot ash in the cooking holes, and that the hearths may have been used for something else (Wendorf and Close 1992). There are so many of these cooking holes that they may represent single or minimal use. So few ceramics were found that it is possible that perishable materials like wood, skin or gourds were used to bake food in the ashes. Plant material recovered in 1990 has provided a unique insight into the plants selected for use, and shows that the local environment was rich in vegetation of a “sub-desertic or Saheilian flora” (Wendorf and Close ????, p.160).  Plant species include Zizyphusm, leguminous plant seeds and possible tubers, mustard and caper seeds, Acacia and Tamarix, sedges and grass grains including Sorghum and millets and smaller grained species including Panicum, Digitaria, Brachiaria, Urochloa, Echinocloa, and Setaria.  Wendorf and Close point to pattering in the plant varieties associated with different cooking holes - each cooking hole has a different asemblage corresponding to the composition of different meals or groups of meals. 

Toolkits are characterised by a high volume of backed blade, some rare geometric tools, with some tools produced suing the microburin technique. Stone-grinding equipment was found at most sites, probably for processing wild grasses and other plants.  Faunal remains include cattle bones, hare and gazelle but no hartebeest.  Although the bones themselves have been analysed it is not clear whether they are domesticated or not. However, it is unlikely that the cattle could have survived the still-arid conditions of the Western Desert without human support. All of these sites have produced sherds of pottery.  The pottery vessels were all very simply in shape and profile but were well made and fired.  They were all decorated with lines and points with comb or cord impressions.  There were so few vessels represented that it may be that their value was more ceremonial or symbolic than functional.  Ostrich shells, which were used as water containers, were more common. 

Most information for the Early Neolithic comes from the sites near Nabta Playa and Bir Kiseiba, south of Kharga oasis. The Nabta sites date to all phases of the Neolithic. The earliest has been named by its excavators the El Adam phase which lasted approximately 1300 years from around 9500-8850bp (uncalibrated radiocarbon years). The El Adam phase was a seasonal occupation correlating with seasonal rainfall, the area being abandoned during desert conditions, and is accompanied by the use of ceramics and the earliest signs of pastoralism (cattle herding).  It is not known whether this cattle-herding tradition developed in isolation in Africa, or whether it was related to domestication of species in the Near East - there are mixed views on the subject. Ceramics were not numerous but were represented at ever site, consisting of small open bowls which were well made and decorated with stamped impression applied to the entire exterior surface.  It is much older than any found in the Nile Valley or South West Asia.  The El Adam phase is followed by the El Ghorab, c.8400-8200.  The El Nabta and Al Jerar phase c.8000-7300bp follow the El Ghorab and is again marked by seasonal occupation.  The phase was marked by increased humidity over a long period of time, including increased vegetation. E-75-6 produced trees (acacias radiana, nilotica, ehrensbergiana and Tamarix), bushes, ground cover and grasses, legumes and sedges.  Vegetation was mostly dry condition species but there were also swamp and pond species (Typha, Cypernos rotundus and Nymphea sp.) indicating swamp and pond/lake conditions (Schild and Wendorf 2002). Pottery became abundant and was larger, with different designs from previous phases, and was made locally.

Another site that has produced ceramics dating to this period is Djara, where concentrations of artefacts were found outside the mouth of a stalagmitic cave in the middle of the Libyan/Abu Muhark Plateau between the oases and the Nile, but it is not clear how this fits into the overall Saharan Neolithic as represented at Bir Kiseiba and Napta, or if it does at all - this is discussed further below. 
 

Middle Saharan Neolithic. 6600 – 5100 BC

Friedman points to a dry phase at around 6000bp when there was a break in occupation of the Western Desert “after which time life could only go on in some ecologically favoured places like the Gilf Kebir” (2002, p.5). Wendorf and Schild (2002) see a more complex pattern with the desert being abandoned between 7300-7200, reoccupied by people with a different Middle Neolithic tradition, abandoned again in 6700-6500, reoccupied when the rains returned at 6500bp during the Late Neolithic and Final Neolithic before abandoning it again at 4800bp

Again, Schild and Wendorf have proposed a climatic sequence which they have tied into the prehistoric occupation of the Nabta Play area (Schild and Wendorf 2002) as follows:

  • Middle Neolithic Humid interphase 7200-6600bp
  • Post Neolithic Arid phase ?-6550bp which coincides with the lowest Late Neolithic levels at E-75-8
  • Late Neolithic humid interphase c.6550-5800bp
  • Post Late Neolithic Arid Phase c.5800/5500bp
  • Final Neolithic Humid interphase c.5500bp - ?

The biggest site of the Middle Saharan Neolithic is at Nabta Playa where “Numerous Milddle Plaeolithic Sites were associated with the late spring sediments of this period” (Wendorf and Schild 2002)

The Middle Saharan is also attested to at at a number of sites.  Neolithic is notable for a shift in stone tool technology, with a move away from blade production towards bifacial flaking for the production of foliates and concave-based arrowheads.  Some lunates appear, but few other geometrics have been found.  Middle Saharan Neolithic ceramics are in the so-called “Saharo-Sudanese” (identified by Camps 1974) or “Khartoum” tradition.  The decoration has evolved from Early Neolithic forms - although it is similar the patterns are now more complex, with the surface of globular pots completely covered with an elaborate wavy line style.  Some had burnished interiors and/or exteriors.


Late Saharan Neolithic c. 5100 – 4700 BC

The final phase of the Saharan Neolithic is represented at Nabta.  Dates for the Late Saharan Neolithic suggest that it began before the earliest known Neolithic in the Nile valley (Wendorf and Schild 2002). Characteristic Late Saharan Neolithic sites include a number of examples. 

Characteristic of the Late Saharan Neolithic are basin-type grinding stones (a common feature), ground and polished stone celts, palettes, ornaments and side-blow flakes.  Middle Saharan Neolithic pottery forms vanish from the material record and are replaced by pottery that is burnished, smooth and sometimes black-topped. Examples appear at Nabta Playa and Bir Kiseiba.  “The reason for this sudden transition is by no means obvious, but its occurrence in the Western Desert is of great importance for our understanding of the origin of the Predynastic cultures in the Nile valley” (Vermeersch and Hendrickx 2000, p.34).

The Late Saharan Neolithic is, however, most dramatically displayed at Nabta Playa.  Nabta boasts a megalithic complex consisting of a stone alignment of three stone alignments, a circle of small sandstone uprights (almost 4m diameter) known as the “calendar circle”, 30 “complex structures” including both surface and subsurface constructions of both shaped and unshaped stone, and a set eight tumuli covered with slabs (Wendorf and Schild 2002, p.15). One of the tumuli bad been roofed with tamarisk and clay contained a clay-lined chamber in which the remains of a young fully articulated long-horned bull were interred. A date of 6470+/-270bp was obtained from the tamarisk, and a date of 6000+/-60bp was obtained from hearths surrounding the stone circle. The complex structures are groups of blocks set upright over deeply buried table rocks – it is not known how or why the quartzitic table rocks were identified and exposed.  Other stone alignments have been noted elsewhere in the Napta basin. While their function is not known, as with other megalithic sites world-wide they are generally considered to have been provided for public ceremonial usage and is seen as an indication that society was becoming more unified, organised and sophisticated, with a value for permanent sites.  “The evidence from Nabta suggests that the desert, more than previously realized, contributed to the intellectual background and the ideas that made the pyramids possible” (Friedman 2002, p.10).

A late Neolithic cemetery, known as the Gelel Ramlah cemetery is also associated with Napta Playa. Few human remains have survived from Napta, and those that survive are mainly fragmentary skeletal remains and teeth.  The cemetery lies 30km northwest of the main Napta Playa settlements, near the Gebel Ramilah, in a deflational basin, and has been dated to 6500-5800BP.  There are three different zones of human burial, including both primary and secondary inhumations. All of the primary inhumations were flexed on their right sides, facing south, with heads to the west, and included both male and female burials. Grave goods included Late Neolithic pottery, ground stone, lithics, personal adornments, pigments and animal horns (Irish 2002, p.282). The human remains of 30 individuals were found, 24 of which were either secondary or disturbed.  Two of the individual burials were treated in a specific and usual way:  “In addition to gathering up bones of each individual for reburial, it appears that the Neolithic occupants of the basin also attempted to replace teeth that had fallen from the alveoli during handling. This action was discerned because several teeth were set in incorrect anatomical positions” (Irish, 2002, p.282). The individuals were concerned were both 12-14 year old females, the first displaced when a middle-aged female was added to a grave, and the second again a disturbed primary burial with arms and skull also repositioned. Not similar cases are known, but some similar examples are known from Neolithic cemeteries of the Sudan, including Kadruka, Adaima and Naqada where burials had bones positioned incorrectly. The interpretation is that “although anatomical knowledge may have been lacking, the Gebel Ramlah grave differs’ reverence for their dead . . may have been a factor in the collection and reinsertion of the teeth” (Irish 2002, p.284).

Friedman concludes that “Before 6000bp – or in calibrated years 5000BC – when the desert started to reclaim its land, at sites like Fayum and somewhat later Merimde, a fully Neolithic way of life developed that included the cultivation of wheat and barley. Meanwhile people in the desert still relied on the collection of wild grasses” (Friedman 2002, p.10).

 

Gilf Kebir Neolithic

Introduction
This is an informal designation, which I have created in order to incorporate Neolithic finds from the Gilf Kebir which have not been tied in their entirety into any other industry.  The Gilf Kebir is located 640km west of the Nile Valley, and is on the same latitude as Lake Nasser. To the north is the Great Sand Sea, and to the south is the Gebel Uweinat, a highland zone at the intersection of Egypt, Libya and the Sudan.  The Gilf Kebir (which means “big plateau”) is crossed by wadis, where human settlement remains have been found. Three of the most well-known of these wadis are the Wadi Sura, the Wadi Bakht and the Wadi el-Akhdar.
Various projects have taken place in the Gilf Kebir area of the far southwestern corner of Egypt.  One of the early visitors was Laszlo Almasy, a rather remarkable individual in many ways, who found the so-called Cave of Swimmers whilst looking for the legendary lost oasis of the Egyptian desert, Zerzura.  His 1936 publication provides details of this find, which has since been visited many times.  In 2002 Mestakani and Foggini found the largest rock art site known in Africa to date, with 100s of paintings and handprints.  However, although the area is famous for its rock art, it has a remarkable record of open air prehistoric occupation sites which, unlike the rock art sites, are the everyday remains of the Middle and Late Neolithic ephemeral occupants of this area.  These have been investigated by professional archaeological expeditions, and some of their findings are summarized below.
The Wadi Bakht and Wadi el-Akhdar were both “blocked at their headwaters by dunes, behind which playas could be formed during climatically favourable periods”. This ephemeral water storage facility attracted both people and animals.  The Wadki Bakht was blocked at 19km beyond its mouth by a dune created from sands from the Great Sand Sea (Linstadter 2003), behind which a playa lake formed: “The lacustrine sediments cover an area of 6600m2. At about 3800BC they playa sediments became so thick that the dam was broken after heavy rainfalls” (Lindstadter 2003, p.130).  At the point of the break, 8m of sediments are visible. It was the main focus of study of the ACACIA project. Based on studies in Wadi Bakht, rainfall never exceeded 150mm per year.  In the case of both wadis, stone artefacts were weathered by wind and sand.
The mapping of sites in the Wadi el-Akhdar has established that “the greater part of them lie in the area of the playa sediments in the lowest part of the valley, where the periodically appearing water could be collected” (Schon 1989, p.215). Sedimentary analysis of one important playa site in the Wadi Akhdar suggests a short duration accumulation of lake sediment, indicating that there were no long-lasting periods of humidity.  Sedimentation from this playa seems to span 4000 years with one layer producing dates of 7700bp with undecorated pottery sherds (Schon. 1989). 64 sites in this wadi were surveyed and 23 were excavated.
There are signs of settlement before 5500BC but they are few and far between, and appear to date to the Epipalaeolithic (see Epipalaeolithic page)
The material from the Gilf Kebir has been divided into two Neolithic phases by Lindstadter 1999 for Wadi Bakht - the Middle and Late Neolithic, which appear to have extended over a 2000 year period lasting from 5500-3500BC. 
Schon (1989) did not attempt to divide stone tools into a phased framework, but two of the sites he looks at in the Wadi el Akhdar are 81/4 and 81/14. 81/4, a hearth in an artefact scatter ranging over an area of 10m by 15m had tools up to 10cm long and larger, a uniquely high ration of borers, some scrapers, many denticulates, a common use of lateral retouch and a 98% use of quartz as the preferred raw material. 81/14 was in the south part of the wadi with a high volume of debitage and a frequent present of microlithic triangles. Pottery from the wadi is fragmented and worn but some that were found fall into two types - a wavy line decorated and well-fired type with thin-walls and apparently pointed bases, and a fine ripple-patterned type.
Gabriel (2003) believes that single boulders on the plains east of Gilf Kebir which are found in a sandy matrix occur near Neolithic remains were present through human intervention:  “No natural force is conceivable for their transport, especially since the isolated and erratic blocks are of angular shape.  Human procurement seems here to have been obvious” (2003, p.25), suggesting that the lack of rocky material on the plains might have been a problem to human occupants of the region.

Gilf Kebir Middle Neolithic
Middle Neolithic sites were generally located on a barrier dune and were large.  At a maximum of 10,000m2 in the Wadi Bakht they are significantly larger than Late Neolithic sites which range between 80 - 100m2.  The large size of the sites is accompanied by a very high density of lithics per m2. At site 82/21-1 lithics blanks were found at a density of 456 blanks per square metre (again, much higher than the Late Neolithic).
Lithics from the Wadi Bakht include well prepared and standardized small bladelets at an average length of 30mm on unipolar cores, most made from quartzite (Lindstadter 2003). Specific tool types included geometric microliths (up to several 100 on some sites), burins, perforators, scrapers, notched flakes and blades.  Quartzite supplies were probably extracted locally from the rims for the plateau - there is no sign that resources were acquired beyond these areas.
Wadki Bakht ceramics were mostly undecorated, with different tempers, and an average thickness of 8mm (Lindstadter 2003).
Subsistence strategies were apparently based exclusively on hunting wild species including oryx, addax, turtle, hare and frog. Occupation was on seasonal basis, with groups inhabiting the Gilf Kebir during the rainy season when ephemeral playa lakes were present. Judging by the number of artefacts settlement was extensive, and from the type of artefacts and faunal remains this was a hunter-gatherer occupation.
The environment at this time was apparently arid, but received rare and heavy rainfall (Lindstadter 2003, p.142).

Gilf Kebir Late Neolithic
Based on studies in Wadi Bakht, it has been suggested that rainfall never exceeded 150mm per year.
Late Neolithic camps in the Wadi Bakht were located on the playa surface.  As already mentioned, Late Neolithic sites in Wadi Bakht, at between 80 - 100m2, are much smaller than their Middle Neolithic predecessors, and the artefact concentrations were greater.  For example, in the Late Neolithic  there were 7 blanks per square metre at 82/24 and 15 blanks per square metre at site 82/15 (Lindstadter 2003).
A poor inventory from Wadi Bakht has caused problems, but the industry appears to have been simple with an emphasis on large retouched flakes.  Unlike the Middle Neolithic, resource extraction seems to have extended further afield, over the plateau (Lindstadter 2003).
The ceramic inventory is again different, at Wadi Bakht, from the Middle Neolithic.  It was thin-walled, well-fired and the upper parts were often decorated with a herringbone motif. Vessels were apparently bowl-shaped (Lindstadter 2003).
Subsistence was based on both hunted and domesticated species. The dominant wild specie is Dorcas gazelle, and domesticates are sheep and/or goat, and resource extraction took place over a much wider area than in the previous Middle Palaeolithic.
Environmental conditions appear to have been more favourable than in the Middle Neolithic with light showers permitting thin but long-lasting vegetation to survive. (Lindstadter 2003, p.142).

Gilf Kebir Conclusions
The full range of the Neolithic occupation of the Gilf Kebir is suggested by radiocarbon dates which “suggest intensive settlement activities between 6000 and 4700bp. The dates for the Wadi Bakht seem to be somewhat younger than those from the wadi el-Akhdar” (Schon 1989, p.222).
There is a marked difference between both the size and artefact density of Middle and Late Neolithic sites in the Wadi Bakht:  “This clearly indicates a different length or intensity of settlement” (Lindstadter 2003, p.137). Subsistence practices were very different as well, with larger Middle Neolithic sites exclusively based on hunting and local resource acquisition and small Late Neolithic sites based on a mixture of hunting and herding with wider area resource acquisition. As Lindstadter says, lithic resource acquisition was very different in the Middle and Late Neolithic phases: “According to this site distribution a concentric system for the Middle Neolithic, with the barrier dune in the centre and workshops at th periphery is proposed here. The Late Neolithic site distribution shows s a more ‘net-like’ feature with several camps and workshops alongside.” (Lindstadter 2003 p.141).
Schon comments that the tools from the Wadi Akhdar are very similar to those in the Wadi Bakht, however occupation was clearly different:  “the situation on the blocking dunes is obviously different, since these are covered with artefacts which evidently do not appear as recognizable concentrations” (Schon 1989, p.220).  A single carbon 14 date of 6600bp was obtained at one location.
Raw materials used for artifact manufacture were not local to the Wadi Bakht sites - nearly all were sourced from the plateau:  “In addition to what we expected, the lithic workshops were accompanied by proper campsites. Evidence of pottery, grindstone implements and house constructions suggests a longer stay at these groups.” (Lindsadter 2003, p.135). Sites are found on the plateau over an area of around 20km2.
The area was obviously used for a number of different purposes:  “One of the most important results of the plateau survey in 1999 was the finding that even the Gilf Kebir plateau was used for various activities” (Lindstadter 2003).
Environmental differences seem to have had a big impact on the type of occupation possible during both Middle and Late Neolithic periods.
 

Dakhleh Neolithic


Introduction

Sheikh Muftah (Late Neolithic/Predynastic/Early Dynastic)
 

 

Bashendi
(Middle Holocene)
7600-5200 bp

Bashendi A
7600-6400bp

Early Bashendi A

7600 -

Late Bashendi A

 - 6400bp

Bashendi B

6500 - 5200 bp

In the Dakhleh Oasis a number of distinct phases have been identified, the earliest of which is contemporary with and similar to the Early Saharan Neolithic represented at Nabta Playa and Bir Kiseiba. Unlike the Early Holocene Masara units, which were largely contemporaneous, the Mid Holocene Bashendi units A and B were sequential through time, and are represented by over 50 radiocarbon dates on ostrich eggshell and charcoal (McDonald 2001, p.26). Sites extend both throughout and beyond the oasis and are at their richest at the eastern end and in the southeast basin.

Dakhleh’s Masara (Epipalaeolithic) began later than elsewhere in the Western Desert, but the Neolithic phases of the Bashendi appear to be far more in tune with other archaeological and environmental data in the area. The gap appears to correspond to occupation hiatus phases in other areas, apparently in association with arid periods. At Napta and Bir Kiseiba radiocarbon dates drop after 7900bc, between the early and mid Neolithic, and gaps were also visible at Abu Ballas, Kharga and Farafra.  In the Faiyum Depression and at Siwa even greater gaps have been observed. McDonald suggests that “this widespread early eighth millennium chronological and cultural hiatus seems to correlate with the 79-7700bp arid episode of the sedimentological record” (McDonald 2001, p.38).

McDonald (2001) suggests that “Dakhleh Oasis played a formative role in the cultural transformations, including the beginnings of sedentism and agriculture, that swept Northeastern Africa just before the rise of Egyptian civilization” (2001, p.26).

 

Bashendi (Middle Neolithic)

The Bashendi units follow the Masara units described in the Epipalaeolithic section (click here). There are two Bashendi units – A and B. Bashendi sites are located just outside Dakhleh Oasis.


Bashendi A

Bashendi A sites fall into two phases, an earlier and a later phase, with clear distinctions between the two but also similarities which argue that they should still be considered as two phases of the same unit.

The Bashendi A sites have a range of seventeen radiocarbon dates associated with them, which place them in a time range from around 7600-6400bp, averaging at around 7250bp (McDonald 2001, p.34). There are two concentrations of dates, clustering at around 7300 and 6900bp (McDonald 2001).

There are three types of site. The first are those on the basin floor associated with playa silts and extensive scatters of hearths and artefacts (for example, sites #228 and #275. The next are less clearly associated with playa deposits (for example, sites #137, #174 and #270). The third type of site are located away from the oasis on the plateau to the east of Dakhleh, and usually associated with hearths and artefact scatters (e.g. site #141).

Botanical remains are quite poorly represented and have not yet been analyzed. Plentiful grinders suggest that plant processing took place throughout Bashendi A. Faunal remains, by contrast, were quite rich from some sites. Stake Hollow produced gazelle, hartebeest, fox, hare, three sizes of bird including ostrich, but no undisputed evidence for domesticates.

Aftefacts in the Bashendi A are fairly homogenous throughout the period, and include numerous arrowheads, many bifacial, in a largely flake-based industry.  Tools are characterized by stone tools (including hollow-based and other arrowheads, tanged, winged and notched points of varying sizes and larger bifacials), ostrich eggshell beads, and lip-plugs (McDonald 1996, p.95). It is interesting to note that hollow based arrowheads and other bifaces appear during the Bashendi A as early as 7500bp - they only appear in the Faiyum at c.6500bp.

Ceramics are rare, but have affinities with Saharan types.

The Bashendi A sites, given the very few signs of domesticated animals, the considerable evidence for wild fauna exploitation and the emphasis on arrowheads, suggest a subsistence strategy based on hunting and plant gathering.

There is a distinction between earlier and later Bashendi A sites. Early Bashendi A sites take the form of hunting  campsites characterized by hearths and artifacts in basin floors. There are no signs that these were anything more than temporary places.  The best example is Stake Hollow.

By contrast, the Late Bashendi A group of sites include groups of around 200 stone circles, probably huts, to the east of the first type, one of which produced a radiocarbon date of c.6900bp which puts it at the end of the Bashendi A unit. They were located on a low sandstone ridge.  Faunal remains include sheep, goat and possibly cattle. Sites representing this phase include #270, #275 and #174.   It seems clear that the Bashendi A is associated with increasing sedentism, and these sites show evidence of reoccupation (McDonald 2001, p.35). Sites include Location #270, where there are 200 remarkable slab-made structures, and Location #269 which consists of a stone ring measuring 48m by 25m (McDonald 2002).


Bashendi B

Two radiocarbon dates put the Bashendi B sites at around 6500-6000bp, meaning that they are around 1000 years more recent than the Bashendi A sites, and are contemporary with the Faiyum Neolithic, Merimden and Badarian occupations but pre-date Naqada I (McDonald 2002).  

Most sites were located on the western lobe of the southeast basin, “not on the basin floor but on its edges, above the current level of the playa silts” (McDonald 2001, p.34). Most take the form of isolated hearth mounts, with some denser clusters at some sites including #271 and #276. another set of sides were located downslope towards the Central Lowlands, and are associated with tabular sand sheets (e.g. sites #101, #104 and #116) or large basins (e.g. sites #77 and #165).

Bashendi B sites share a number of features with the Bashendi A sites, including a flake-based chipped stone industry, bifacial arrowheads and foliate shaped bifaces.  However, Bashendi B sites differ in a number of ways.

Although tools include some arrowheads, there are no hollow-based varieties, points are still represented but with much fewer types, and a greater variety of other types are added: “planes or tranchets, side-blow flakes, often in exotic raw material, crescents, polished axes, amazonite beads, small palettes in ironstone or limestone, and ground-stone toggles” (McDonald 1996, p.95). Other items include flake tools, scrapers on side-blow flakes, lunates and scaled pieces on quartz in the lithic toolkit, a rich inventory of ground stone tools including small polished celts, palettes and axes and small ironstone and limestone palettes, pendants and bracelets of marine shell, beads of carnelian, and limestone, and crystals.

Pottery was made up mostly of small sherds, but is thin-walled reddish-brown fabric, consisting of fabric tempered with fine quartz and shale, occasionally black-topped and decorated only rarely with linear or notched designs. Many were smoothed and undecorated. Vessels were small.

Faunal remains now show a reliance on cattle and goats (for example, at site #271), although hunting of wild species like gazelle and hartebeest still supplemented the diet to a significant extent.   This a key difference between Bashendi A and B.  Bashendi B subsistence relied at least partially on domesticated animals, the economy supplemented with hunting expeditions. However, according to McDonald (2002) sedentism vanishes in the Bashendi B, where the subsistence patterns all appear to be those of nomadic pastoralism (similar to the change that took place in the Gilf Kebir B): “By the early 7th millennium, groups still recognizably Bashendi A had added herding to their subsistence activities and were settling in relatively large numbers in sites now less clearly associated with playa sediments (McDonald 2001, p.35).

Stone-built structures are rare. The sites are usually open-air mounds with hearths on the edges of basins above the level of playa silts, accompanied by large quantities of cultural debris - stone built sites are so unusual that those that exist (e.g. Locality 385) may have been constructed for special purposes (McDonald 1002). The small volume of ceramics dating to this time also suggests a more mobile lifestyle. 


Bashendi A to B Hiatus

The gap between the two units is visible both in the archaeology of the sites concerned and in the dates. McDonald (2001) points to the fact that this gap corresponds ot other gaps in occupation - in the Western Desert, Farafra, the Sand Sea and Kharga, lasting for approximately 300 years and ending at c.6500bp. 

McDonald states that the gap “suggests that the Western Desert may have been the source, certainly the immediate source, of many of these artifact types, and perhaps also of some of the new subsistence practices and dwelling types.  Although at least some of these traits would, as we have seen, already have had a long history in the oasis, it was only around 6000bp or so, if the dates from Upper Egypt and points south are taken at face value, that they penetrated the Nile Valley” (McDonald 1996, p.95). This is an important point, because it begins to get to the heart of how life was consolidated around the Nile (250km east of Dakhleh), and how the first steps were taken towards the development of small states and power bases. 


Dakhleh Neolithic Summary

In summary, Bashendi tool technology is very similar to that of the Saharan Middle and Late Neolithic. From around 5400BC onwards people relied on domesticated animals, supporting their economy with occasional hunting expeditions.

Bashendi tool technology is very similar to that of the Saharan Middle and Late Neolithic, but with the addition of arrowheads of different types (often bifacially retouched).  At around 4900 BC burnished and smoothed pottery appeared, as does some back-topped pottery, similar to those sherds found at Bir Kiseiba and Nabta Playa. 

At the same time, in the south-east corner of Dakhla Oasis stone-built structures appear.  Wenke (1999) sees significance in these sites: “the earliest evidence of forms of subsistence, settlement and technology that differed significantly from those of the late Pleistocene in northeast Africa comes from the desert areas of Bir Kiseiba and Nabta in southwest Egypt” (p.444) where he sees evidence of a semi-permanent village lifestyle.  “These early Egyptian communities also illustrate the nature of culture evolutionary processes: cultural change and transformation is a fitful process of dead-ends, failures, extinctions and only occasionally the kinds of slight changes that result in long-term revolutionary transformation. For example, apparently these early Egyptian communities did not make the transition to a fully agricultural sedentary way of life” (Wenke 1999 p.444). They may have been forced out of this way of life by climatic pressures. 

McDonald points to the fact that the Bashendi sequence has a wide geographical range which extends from the Khartoum to the Delta, and that sites with important characteristics shared by both Dakhleh and Nile sites are separated by a 1000 years in some cases – with the Dakhleh sites features appearing earlier than those on the Nile.  McDonald suggests, in keeping with a number of other writers, most notably Hassan (1986) that this may have been the result of increasing climatic aridity.

McDonald’s 2002 paper considers some of the issues of the relationship between the Nile Valley and the oasis in more detail, using new radiocarbon dates and new data.

Bashendi B sites are not limited to Dakhleh oasis alone - others appear on a plateau to the north, and similar industries feature in Farafra, Napta and desert areas (see the conclusion of this section). This unit is followed in Dakhleh by the Sheikh Muftah unit.

 

Djara and Abu Gerara


Introduction

Djara is the name of a cave site first identified in the early 1870s by Gerhard Rholfs, and re-located in 1989 by Dr Carlo Bergmann, who described not only the location of the site but also the beauty of the natural features and the discovery of rock paintings. It is also the name used to describe the immediately surrounding area, most of which lie in a 400m diameter depression surrounded by limestone hills. It is on the edge of a plateau stretching from the Nile Valley to the Western Desert oases, called the Abu Muhariq or Libyan plateau - it is a rocky hamada environment divided by a 600km dune, 15km of which is Djara which lies in limestone hills surrounded by desert wadis and depressions (Kindermann, K. 2003, p.51). The cave lies 150m south east of a Playa depression.  The Neolithic environment was probably one of sparse vegetation around former ephemeral lakes: “During the early and mid Holocene the Abu Muhariq Plateau . . . was not an easy environment to live in” (Kindermann 2003, p.63).

Due to potential damage caused by tourists following publication of the site’s rediscovery, an archaeological expedition was led by Rudolph Kuper (Kuper 1996), and then again in 1993 and 1996.  In 1998 an archaeological survey and excavation team was formed by the University of Cologne as part fo their ACACIA project in 1990. Kuper (1996, p. 83) describes rock carvings depicting ostriches, addax, antelope, bovids and goats, and numerous artefacts.  Excavations helped to clarify the picture of the dating and character of the settlement at Djara, both within and outside the cave.

Abu Gerara is the hilly region of the Abu Muhariq Plateau between the Hamada plains in the north and the Abu Gerara scarp in the south. Although sites have been found on the hamada plains, the hilly land of Abu Gerara was far more attractive for temporary camps: “During the Holocene wet phase the relief country provided a moderate fun-off of surface water concentrated in shallow basins after the episodic rains” (Riemer 2003, p.74).

As part of the ACACIA project, work was carried out here over four seasons from 1999 to 2002 (reported by Riemer in a 2003 paper). The team surveyed a large area, excavating some sites, with a view to determining the location of prehistoric artefacts and understanding human land use between the oases.  As well as human artefacts, they assessed vegetation, drainage systems, soils and other relevant environmental factors.


Djara Cave (90/1)

Kindermann (2003) describes the geology of the cave itself, now named 90/1 for archaeological purposes, as a leaching dripstoone cave and “a geomorphological peculiarity for desert regions” (2003 p.54) with stalagmites and stalactites themselves formed by water draining and minerals. 

Kuper (1996) found that within the cave the surface of the cave floor is littered with thousands of flint tools, as well as cores, to the north of the entrance, in association with hearths but no structures. The most dominant tools are large and often very fine bifacials made a highly developed pressure-flaking technique, and are accompanied by arrowheads, including leaf-shaped points, as well as perforators, knives and scrapers.  There are no mill-stones, geometric microliths or backed elements. Pottery is very plain.

The first visible rock art beyond the entrance is on a stalagmite, and is also all over the cave walls (Kindermann 2003). Nearly all cave depictions are in clear view of daylight and show a number of different themes.  The most dominant of the themes are wild animals, but four human figures and a number of symbols are also represented. Of the wild animals, most are very idealized and cannot be identified with any confidence. However, ostrich can be picked out, together with some species that can be identified from their antlers: oryx, addax, gazelle, and ibex.  Ibex are the only of the former species not found during excavation (Kindermann 2003). One domesticated animal bone was found in the cave (domesticated sheep), and all other species remains are of wild species - mainly gazelle.

Following the initial exploratory expedition, Kuper returned in 1993 and 1996, to excavate and survey respectively.  The 1993 excavation over a 6-day period was able to establish that the cave floor was not stratified archaeologically, and that there were no earlier levels to be found.

In 1993 and 1996 two test excavations by Kuper’s team outside the cave entrance, sites 90/1-1 and 90/1-2 produced some interesting results. Around the cave entrance and to the north there were seven different lithic surface scatters which produced over 550 flaked tools (Kindermann 2003). Lithic artefacts were primarily made on local flint of differing colours (90%), with some quartzite and limestone used as well. A dominant technique was facial retouch of tools, using skilled pressure flaking techniques.  Tools include knives, projectile points, side-blow flakes, scrapers, borers and planes (Kindermann 2003). A number of point types are represented including stemmed, winged and leaf-shaped, but there were no examples of the larger hollow-shaped variety that occur in the Faiyum and Dakhleh, which may indicate differences in subsistence strategy.


Djara - Beyond the Cave

As well as the tool scatters in the immediate vicinity of the cave, 69 settlement sites were found and surveyed (as of 2003, when Kindermann was writing) over an area of 10km by 15km, some of which were atelier sites upto 15km away from Djara, and were probably established to exploit the weathered raw materials that were most frequently employed in tool manufacture.  They were located near to ephemeral play lakes, in an environment which apparently included Acacia and Tamarix.  Most sites represent a short stay.

In her 2003 paper Kindermann was able to use the data from these sites to form a chronology for the area, beginning in the Epipalaeolithic.  The Neolithic has been divided into two phases: Djara A and Djara B (Kindermann 2003, p.59).

Djara A is characterized by grinding implements, facially retouched arrowheads, retouched borers, endscrapers on flakes, side scrapers, and laterally retouched arrowheads mainly made on weathered flint.

More is known about the Djara B phase.  It is characterized by side-blow flakes, bifacially retouched knives, facially retouched planes, and a broader range of facially retouched points. A variety of arrowhead types were facially retouched and are represented at at least four sites. Many of the tools were made using a distinctive very regular knapping technique which produced clear parallel retouch scars over the surface of artefacts. The preferred raw material for lithics was again weathered flint.  Side-blow flakes with their distinctive convex profile, with edge retouch were used as knives and side-scrapers. At one site, 90/1-6, one of them was completely refitted to reconstruct the reduction sequence, demonstrating the high skill required, even thought it was still apparently quite roughly made. Pottery was very rare, with a maximum number of 10 sherds coming from the site Djara 00/65 (Kindermann 2003).  This was thin-walled, grey-coloured and had a fine texture. At least one vessel probably had a pointed base.  It is very similar to the nearby Abu Gerara ceramic Fabric 1A and to that found at Eastpans 95/2, the latter site suggesting a date of around 6000BP.  Sites include 00/65 and 90/1-1.
 

Djara Cave and Area Dates

Dating evidence is available from these sites. 90/1-2 produced a bladelet technology associated with a date of c. 7500pb (6400BC) and a hearth nearby dating to c.8600bp (7600BC). 90/1-1 produced two fireplaces both of which contained flint artefacts including three arrowheads and one side scraper, and associated with dates of 6500-6800bp (c.5600BC).  More precise timing may be indicated by Djara 90/1-3, where carbon 14 dates were obtained from charcoal samples:  7303+/-109BP (6172+/-119BC - Erl-2863) and 8045+/-89BP (7049+/-186BC - KIA-12422). Site 90/1-1 dated to 6800-6400BP (four dates were obtained on charcoal). Finally, “the drying up of the desert and the end fo the mid-Holocene occupation unit around 6000BP delivers a terminus ante quem for the Djara occupation and cave art” (Kindermann 2003, p.56).  Although artefact affinities for the Djara B phase indicate a possible date of around 5900BP, “affiliated charcoal samples from the excavation of site Djara 90/1-6 produced an earlier age, between 6900 and 6700BP”. No dates appear after 5900BP, and it is clear that dates start to fall off from 6400BP.
 

Abu Gerara

There are three principal types of site. Most of the sites, particularly those on the hamada, fall into the first category - they are small and consist of hearth mounds and a few tools, and may have been occupied for as short a times as a single night. The second group are identified as atelier sites on flint outcrops to the north in the plains area, where a greyish and brownish flint was exploited, and to the southern scarp area where a cream or caramel flint was extracted. Finally, there are sites interpreted by Riemer as base camps, like site 98/5, which consist of quite large artefact scatters with a variety of debris associated.  Items found include stone tools, pottery, hearths, ostrich eggshell, and bone, but no structures or indications of structures (Riemer 2003).

Site 99/15, one of the hamada atelier sites, is fairly typical.  Located near a small limestone rock which was surrounded by flint nodules and scatter, the site consisted of large flake blanks, evidence of platform preparation but, as at other atelier sites, no completed stone tools.

Site 98/5 was the biggest of the base camp sites to be excavated by Riemer’s team and has been the most productive in terms of the information it has provided both about the inhabitants of the area, and for comparison with other areas. 

Lithics at Abu Gerara are best represented by site 98/5 which produced 75 knapped tools, a number of cores and 21 grinding pieces.  Of the chipped stone tools, 21% were arrowheads of a number of different types, but mainly leaf-shaped and tanged, nearly all bifacially worked and with an average length of 30mm. Perforators, side-blow flakes, seven adzes, and side-scrapers, denticulates and knives made on weathered flint sherds or tabular flint make up the bulk of the site’s tool kit. A single bifacial drill was similar to that found at Abu Minqar site 81/55 (Lobo) and two bifacial sickle fragments were also found, for which there are no equivalents at Djara. All but one tool were made on flint, the exception being a side scraper made on local limestone. 30% of the flint tools were made on cream-coloured fabric and 50% were made on a greyish or brownish flint. Of the grinding stones, 14 were handstones and 7 were grinders.  Other sites produced similar results wiwth some differences.  At 99/28 a small celt and a large winged point (nearly 6cm long) were found. At 00/59 another small celt was found, as well as a polished flat artefact with a borehole, described as a “toggle” (Riemer 1983, p.83), both made of a green stone. At 00/70 a macehead made of sinter was found, showing some similarity to the one found by Caton-Thompson and Gardner (1934, pl 20.2) in the Faiyum Depression.

Pottery is best represented by sites 98/5 and 99/28 but was also found at the other base-camp type sites.  As well as vessels, perforated ceramic disks were found at the edge of 98/5, made in a variety of different fabric types, and labeled “clayton rings” (Riemer 2003, p.86).  Vessel fragments are mostly undecorated and fragmentary so it has been grouped on the basis of temper analysis, with other variables used to refine the groupings. At 98/5 there were 97 sherds drawn from the surface and another 16 from a test excavation. Five fabric types have been defined:

  • Fabric 1
    • Standardized
    • Thin-walled
    • Reddish brown to grey with grey cores
    • Two types of temper
      • 1a with a light organic temper
      • 1b with a sand temper
    • Similarities with Eastpans site 95/2 (c.100km south of Dakhleh) are suggested, where they correspond to dates of c.6000BP
  • Fabric 2
    • Medium-walled
    • Light yellowing-brown
    • Tempered with sand and fine shale with red grains
    • One bowl has been refitted (<15cm diameter) which has a hole bored in the top edge.
    • Another bowl’s rim has a blackened rim with at least one hole bored near the rim
  • Fabric 3
    • Similar to fabric 2 but with an exclusively sand temper
  • Fabric 4
    • Brown or pale brown sherds, some partially blackened
    • Coarse grey shale temper
  • Fabric 5
    • Sand and straw-like temper
    • Blackened cores

An analysis of the distribution of artefacts made out of these fabrics at site 98/5 indicates that the rings and Fabric 4 sherds were not associated with the other artefacts on hearths or playa mounds, but were instead found mainly in wadi channels or the surrounding limestone hills.  Fabric types 1, 2, and 3, however, were clearly distributed in the same areas as the lithics.

Regarding subsistence behaviour there is very little data with which to create viable reconstructions. The occupation of the Abu Gerara area corresponds with a period of humidity and seasonal rainfall. At 99/28 bone of Gazella letpoceros was found, and the environment would have supported gazelle and hare, which are the staples of many other desert sites in Egypt. Riemer looks to the toolkit for more information, seeing the exclusively small arrowhead forms as an indication that hare and small gazelle would have been favoured.

Dating of the Abu Gerara sites has been done both on the basis of radiocarbon dates and similarities with lithics from other sites.  Two radiocarbon dates were obtained - 6597+/-42BP (5547+/-50BC [UtC-9459]) and 6605+/-74BP (5549+/-60BC [Erl-2858]).  Affinities and radiocarbon dates confirm a Mid-Holocene date, a range of between c.7000 and 6000BP with a fall-off at around 6500BP when conditions begin to become drier, and a final abandonment at around 5900BP as the conditions became too arid to support human and animal life. This corresponds well with both Djara B and Late Bashendi A and Bashendi B.
 

Djara and Abu Gerara - Conclusions

The occupation at Djara and Abu Gerara were clearly only a seasonal, taking advantage of a good supply of easily available flint during favourable conditions at temporary campsites (Kindermann 2003).  Materials were obtained locally and at greater distance - possibly from Kharga or Dakhleh oases (e.g. quartzite). There is no indication that either were engaged in activities other than hunting with perhaps some sheep herding at Djara.

There are both similarities and differences between Djara and Abu Gerara.  Lithic toolkits are very similar in many ways. However, the pottery component is one of the differences between Abu Gerara and Djara: “Although there is a high grade of parallelism between the assemblages of Abu Gerara and Djara, they clearly differ in the presence or absence of pottery” (Riemer 2003, p.83). Djara produced virtually no ceramics. 

Kuper (1996, p.89) suggests parallels for the Djara cave site to other areas in Egypt. The dates for 90/1-1 are around 100 years earlier than the earliest levels of Merimde and sites of the Faiyum Neolithic, and site 901-2 is considerably older. However, Kuper highlights that the ceramics found are similar to those of the Faiyum Neolithic. He sees similarities between Djara lithics and those in a number of areas, including the Badarian, which is only 200km away.  However, it is now known that the Badarian dated to around 1000 years after the Faiyum, and therefore to at least 1000 years after the radiocarbon dates obtained for the most recent level at Djara. Similar lithics appear in Sitra and the eastern area of the Great Sand Sea – with particular affinities to the site of Lobo near Abu Minqar in the great Sand Sea.  Kuper suggests that comparable material comes from the above-mentioned Bashendi A and B levels of the Dakhleh Neolithic.  Kuper concludes (1996, p.89) that “with this specific composition of its artefact spectrum and its geographical position between the oases and the Nile, the site of Djara appears to be able to make an essential contribution to the cultural and chronological relationship between the Sahara and the Nile Valley”.

Kindermann (2003) sees similarities for the Djara area sites with ceramic fragments to both Abu Gerara and Eastpans 95/2, and with stone  arrowhead types to sites in Kharga, Dakhleh (Bashendi A and B), Lobo (in the Abu Minquar area) and the Faiyum Depression (Faiyum Neolithic) Distinctive side-blow flakes show affinities to the Faiyum and many other Late Neolithic industries, including Napta Playa’s E-75-8 and Makhadma 4, both dating to around 5900BP.

Looking at affinities with other areas for the Abu Gerara sites, Riemer has seen similarities with a range of sites including the Djara B phase: Haua Fteah, Faiyum, Siwa, Bahariya, Farafra, Abu Minqar, Kharga, Abu Tartur and Dakhleh Bashendi A and B.  He sees fewer parallels with Bir Kiseiba, Nabta and Lower Nubian sites. He suggests that “Abu Gerara may have had closer contacts to the southern Dakhleh-Kharga region while Djara could have served as a stepping stone between the Nile Valley and the Oases” (2003, p.89).  Riemer highlights differences between the Faiyum and Abu Gerara and Djara assemblages “As to the hunting of wild animals, there are notable differences between the arrowheads of the Faiyum and the oases on the one hand, and the desert sites of Djara and Abu Gerara on the other hand” (2003, p.88). The Faiyum Neolithic arrowheads were often much larger, with hollow-based examples, none of which were found at either Djara or Abu Gerara.  However, he considers the parallels between Djara and Faiyum, in paticular the bifacial technology and tool classes imply similarities that imply that the area was “part of a norhtern cultural province chararacterized by this technology tradition” (2003, p.90).


Farafra Neolithic

The term Farafra Neolithic is one of several unofficial designations that I have adopted for the convenience of describing different episodes in Egypt that haven’t yet been given official names.

A high number of sites dating to the Middle and Late Holocene (c.7000-6500bp) are found in the Wadi el-Obeyid Valley which separates the Northern Plateau from the Quss Abu Said. From 1995 research focused in one area of the Wadi El-Obeyid, the Hidden Valley, which is 60km northwest of Qasr Farafra. Yardangs and the remains of ephemeral pools throughout the area are evidence of abundant precipitation during some phases of the Holocene (Barich and Lucarini 2003).

The main feature of the Hidden Valley is a settlement system is a Mid Holocene settlement system “made up of a ‘village’ and a complementary supply area for the raw materials used in stone manufacturing” (Barich and Lucarini 2003, p.103). A decorated cave also makes up an element of this system.  The village is located on a shore of an ancient playa and is made up of dwellings with circular stone foundations, some with several hearths and occupied over a long period. Hearths yielded both plant and animal remains. Arboreal remains include Acacia and Tamarix, and burnt cereal remains include Echinochloa colona, Panicum, Cenchrus, Brachiaria, Setalia and Sorghum.  Game includes dorcas gazelle and ostrich, while domesticated animal species are sheep/goat which have been dated to the end of the 8th millennium bp (7251+/-67bp [R-2456] and 7100+/-50bp [GdS-271]).  Ostrich eggshells are numerous. Although there are no ceramic vessels (ostrich eggshell containers may have been used instead), one little clay figurine, 4.8cm tall, indicates that ceramic technology may not have been unknown. It was found in a hearth dated to 6750+/-50bp (Gd-7823) (Barich and Lucarini 2003). A hut excavated in 2001, in Sector 4, was 2m in diameter, contained numerous stone-lined hearths containing burnt cereal and represents different occupations.  Tools show highly skilled use of local shiny brown chert, including sickles, saws, arrowheads, denticulates, and scrapers. There were also grinding stones.

The Hidden Valley cave is described as a karstic solution cave 13m long, with a 2m by 2m opening, its height varying from 1.5m to 6m. The artistic motifs include engraved images of goat, gazelle, giraffe and a boat, and negative images of hands.  There are also patterns of cavities which were apparently chiseled into the stone (Barich and Lucarini 2003). 

15km from Hidden Valley, near Sheik el-Obeyid is a little valley within the slopes of the Northern Plateau containing numerous concentrations of lithics and other artefacts including ostrich eggshell fragments, pottery, hearths and grinding stones. One of the sites, SK-OB/01/1, dating to the Mid Holocene, contains microliths and ostrich shells and dates to 7755+/-60bp (Gd-11648). 

Other lithics from Sheik el-Obeyid date to the Late Neolithic, with bifacial knives, spearheads, gouges, Ounan-Arif points, and ceramic sherds which bear some similarities tot eh Faiyum Neolithic.

In still another area, the Rajih region was surveyed (80km east of Qasr Farafra on the east of the oasis) and more lithic concentrations were found in relation to three playas labeled Play I, II and III. Those associated with Playa I consisted of lithics and thin-walled engraved ceramic sherds, and are in some ways similar to Bashendi artefacts from Dakhleh.  Playa II and III sites produced flint tools, including bifacial knives, ceramics and ostrich eggshell sherds dating to the last Holocene moist phase. The economy seems to have been mainly pastoral and nomadic, with sheep/goat herding being the principal basis of subsistence. Barich and Lucarini suggest that these herders were in contact with the Napta Playa area (p.107), but that attracted to the richer resources of the Nile Valley, they could have “brought about the transmission of cultural elements” (p.107), perhaps visible in lithics and Badarian ceramics. This phase is dated to 5650+/-50bp (Gd-11647), and represents a different occupation pattern from earlier settlements.

In so far as impacts on the Nile valley care concerned, Barich and Lucarini conclude that: “the Nile valley was at first influenced by the Eastern Saharan regions, and only later was affected by influences from the Near East” (2003, p.101).


Siwa, Garra and Sitra

There is no sign of occupation in the 8th millennium bp, and the bulk of evidence falls between 6800 and 6700, bp in the 7th millennium. (TBC).


Conclusions re southern Western Desert Neolithic

The radiocarbon dates derived from Kharga put the Neolithic occupation at the end of the early Holocene and beginning of the mid Holocene, with dates at around 7500bp and others contemporaneous with the Bashendi B of Dakhleh Oasis.

Nabta and Bir Kiseiba have the most clearly defined environmental and archaeological sequence. A fine database of radiocarbon dates has helped to clarify these sequences and time them in to events taking palce in other areas. At its height, Napta in particular produced some remarkable and impressive achievements in terms of both subsistence and apparently ceremonial activities.  More humid conditions of the early and mid Holocene provided water which gathered in the form of playa lakes, some more ephemeral than others. Decades of work by the Combine Prehistoric Expedition have provided a benchmark of settlement and subsistence activity against which other desert sites can be compared.  McDonald (2001,) suggests that Dakheh’s Bashendi  A corresponds to the Napta Middle Neolithic (the early sequence of E-75-8 showing similarities to site #270 at Dakhleh and 85/50 at Abu Ballas), while the Bashendi B may correspond to the Late Neolithic.

Abu Ballas has produced dates clustering around c.8200bp, c.7500bp (e.g. site 85/56) and dates to the same period as the Dakhleh Oasis Bashendi A with assemblages comparable to Stake Hollow.  Another set of dates are gathered in the first half of the 7th millennium bp clustering at c.6750bp, exemplified by site 85/50, which compares remarkably well with Dakhleh’s Bashendi B site #270, in terms of the structural remains, chipped stone, and undecorated pottery.  However, there were no domesticated animals (McDonald 2001, p.36).

In Farafra most of the sites are located close to playa lakes, and exhibit features shared with other Western Desert sites in terms of circular structural remains and herding, which it shares most particularly with Dakhleh.  Site 81/55-5 equates well with Bashendi A sites, and 81/55-2&3 sits equate well with Dakhleh’s Bashendi B.

McDonald (2001, p.37) says that the characteristics of the Gilf Kebir “show no close affinity to material elsewhere in the Western Desert”.  However, it shares with Dakhleh a change in subsistence strategy. Lindstadter and Kropelin (2004) describe how in the earlier phase of Neolithic occupation in the Gilf Kebir, hunting was the only subsistence strategy, but that in the later phase, sheep/goat herding became the dominant form of subsistence.  This parallels the situation with the Bashendi A and B of Dakhleh. Distinctive grooved hand-stones show no similarities with northern sites but have clear affinities with sites at Gebel Kamil and the Selima Sandsheet to the south.

 

Nile Neolithic


Introduction

The Neolithic is characterised by the first elements of mixed agriculture.   The entire 6th Millennium BC of Nile valley occupation has so far remained undiscovered:  “The lack of geological deposits in the Nile Valley north of Aswan which can be dated to between 8000 and 5000BC hinders and understanding of the beginnings of a food-producing economy in this area” (Trigger 1983, p.15). Seidlmayer (1998) suggests that even though the artefactual evidence is missing, “the originally heterogeneous character of the Egyptian Neolithic can be accounted for only if it arose in this way” (p.10).

The earliest evidence for agriculture comes from the work of Gertrude Caton-Thompson in the Faiyum in the 1930s (Caton-Thompson and Garnder 1934), which was followed up by modern excavation and survey projects which have considerably filled out the picture (including Wendorf and Schild 1976; Wenke 1983; Kozlowski 1983; Hassan 1986, 1988, 1996).

Animal husbandry and domestication was followed by planting and maintenance of grains and other plant foods, both of which were supplemented until quite late by hunting. Fishing continued to supplement agricultural activities until even later (although fazed out eventually because in Dynastic times it was considered to be unclean).

Its introduction coincided with an increasing humidity of the climate at around 5000 BC, which was still only a series of pulses in a sub-arid climate.  In parts of the Sahara the levels of lakes and the water table rose but elsewhere in Africa streams were drying up (Midant-Reynes 1992/2000 p.100). 

When compared with the near East, where farming began at around 8000 BC, farming in Egypt was a relatively late phenomenon. Domestication of cattle had occurred around 10,000 BP and there are signs that around 7500 BP (c. 5000 BC) they became fulltime farmers: “Agriculture has such great inertia because once people begin making and using large grinding stones, big grain storage silos, sickles, and all the rest of the primitive farmer’s tool kit, there is a strong incentive not to move” (Wenke 1999, p.445).

The economy was based on emmer wheat, barley, cattle, sheep, goat and pig. Pottery was a standard feature and the lithic toolkit changed.  These elements were not indigenous to Egypt and were introduced from Africa, the Levant or southwest Asia, where in some places they had been established for at least 3000 years. However, although these elements were certainly introduced from outside Egypt, they were incorporated into existing systems: “While the Neolithic economy of Egypt appears to be an extension of that found in the Near East, an older indigenous pattern of hunting, fishing and utilising wild plants appears to have played an important role in the subsistence economy of Egypt until the late Predynastic period” (Trigger 1983, p.20).

The earliest evidence for plant cultivation comes from the Faiyum and Merimde Beni Salama

Tarifian

?

Faiyumian (formerly Faiyum A)

c. 5400 – 4400BC

[Moerian

LYU BC: c. 5400 – 4800 BP]*

Merimda

c. 5000 – 4100BC

El-Omari

c. 4600 – 4350BC

* Vermeersch and Hendrickx (200x) do not include the Moerian so this is included on the basis of Midant-Reynes 1992/2000.

 

Faiyum Neolithic

The Faiyumian was first identified in the Faiyum depression in the early 1930s by Caton-Thompson and Gardner (1934), to the north of Lake Qarun (formerly Lake Moeris) and corresponds to their Faiyum A.   A 1989 review of the Faiyumian evidence (both from publications and by field survey the area) has resulted in a revision of previous analyses of the data. Previously it was thought, for example, that the lithic technology focused mainly on bifaces.  However, it is now clear that flake tools make up by far the majority of the toolkit (up to 90%). Other significant differences have also been identified, including the division of The Faiyum A (identified by Caton-Thompson and Gardner 1934) into the Faiyumian (earlier) and the Moerian (later). 

This revision of the Faiyumian has “significantly modified our research questions concerning the origins of these first Neolithic cultures in Egypt” (Midant-Reynes 1992/2000 p.102). Vermeersch and Hendrickx (2000 p.37) say that “Technological and typological differences between the Qarunian and the Faiyumian are so significant that there can be no question of the Faiyumian having developed out of the Qarunian.” They add that the stone tool working is clearly related to the Late Neolithic technologies of the Western Desert. Midant-Reynes comments in more depth:  “It seems possible that the Nile Valley Neolithic might have emerged from the eastern Sahara; the Faiyum could therefore have been one of the first occupied areas at the time of the displacement of populations towards the river, under the pressure of the arid conditions that prevailed in the 6th millennium BC.  It is for this reason that Kozlowski and Ginter (1989) interpret the Moerian (the second phase of the Faiyum Neolithic) as a late echo of these Saharan traditions, given its blade/bladelet technology reminiscent of the lithics found at Siwa Oasis. The Faiyumian (the first phase of the Faiyum Neolithic) on the other hand, might have had its origins in the Near East” (Midant-Reynes 1992/2000 p.106).  Relevant African sites include Tagalagal in North Africa, the Natufian sites of the Near East and the Yamukian sites of Palestine.

Pottery is also a component of the Faiyumian, coarse and simple with no decoration.  It was occasionally red-coated.

Other artefacts include pestles and mortars of sandstone, cosmetic palettes of Nubian diorite and limestone, polished bone (needles, pins, borers and harpoons in association with sea shells), ostrich egg shells, stone disks and and green feldspar beads.

The toolkit consisted mainly of flake tools which were “struck from cores with unprepared platforms and opposed platforms, or discoids and subdiscoids made from terrace pebbles” (Midant-Reynes 1992/2000 p.101). Predominant forms were notches, denticulates, sidescrapers and retouched flakes with occasional bifacial tools. 

The Faiyumian has produced the earliest evidence for agricultural activity in Egypt. As well as animal herding (sheep or goat, cattle and pigs) and fishing, six-row barley and emmer wheat were grown and were stored in groups of depressions for containing sunken storage vessels and large storage pits (diameters between 30 and 150cm, depths of between 30 and 90cm) on the beaches of Lake Qarun.  The pits were sometimes lined with matting. Plant remains from these storage pits included Triticum dicoccum, Hordeum vulgare, Hordeum distictium and Linum usitatissimum.

Faunal remains should probably be revised using modern analytical techniques but include a large range of wild animals (including elephant, hippopotamus, crocodile, and fish) but also of domesticated breeds: (goats, sheep, cattle and pigs) which pay a secondary role in the economy.  Midant-Reynes (1992, p.104) suggests that wherever the plants were sourced from, the domesticated animals must have originated from the Near East rather than Africa because there is no evidence so far of any sheep or goat from Africa, apart from one form of sheep which could not have been ancestral to or connected with domesticated species.

The Faiyumian is the first proper evidence of Neolithic settlement in Egypt. However, in spite of clear evidence of plant and animal domestication, there is no sign of full-scale sedentary behaviour – the Faiyum appears to have been inhabited throughout the year but on a seasonal basis.

For full details about the Faiyum Neolithic, click here to go to the correct page on my sister site where this is covered in depth.

 

Moerian

Work carried out by Kozlowski and Ginter in the Qasr el-Sagha area (1989) has led to the discovery in the northwest of the Faiyum zone of several sites dating to between around 5400 and 4800 have been found.  Their material is characterized by a distinctive homogeneity that distinguishes them from the Faiyumain sites. It is thought that about 100 years separated the Faiyumian and Moerian assemblages. 

Lithic tools were based on blades made from small flint pebbles. Tools were manufactured from blades and bladelets with retouch, and perforators. There were some retouched flakes and rare finds of endscrapers, burins and truncations.  Pottery sherds are made entirely from local Tertiary clay, and form blows and pots. There is no sign of the footed vessels or bases that characterize the previous Faiyum A.

For full details about the Faiyum Moerian, click here to go to the correct page on my sister site where this is covered in depth.

 

Merimda Beni Salama

Merimda Beni Salama has given its name to the Merimda phase but is exclusive to Lower Egypt, and is located in the western Nile Delta on a low river terrace. There are five levels at Merimda, each known by one of two names (according to two different naming strategies) which span a period of around 1100 years between 5000 and 4100 BC.

The original work carried out at Merimda Beni Salama was carried out by Hermann Junker between 1929 to 1939 but full reports were never published due to the loss of most of the information during the Second World War, and the subsequent spread of the material across several countries. However, more recent work has helped to answer some of the outstanding questions including that of the complex stratigraphical composition.  The following naming for different levels come from Josef Eiwanger’s “Merimda Benisalame” volumes one to three, 1984-92.

  • Level I, Urschicht 4800BC? (translation - First Layer) has simple thick-walled pottery, tempered and untempered with infrequent herringbone decoration, with forms limited to cups, basins and bowls. Lithics included bifacial retouched stone tools, and settlement evidence in the form of hearths.
  • Level II, Mittel Merimdekultur (5500-4500 BC? translation – Middle Merimda Culture) was probably separated from the first level by a period of time.  It may be related to Saharo-Sudanese (defined by Camp 1974) occupations.  Simple wood and wickerwork structures with hearths and storage jars sunk into clay floors and baskets in storage pits acted as granaries. Ceramics were straw-tempered, simple in shape and often polished but without decoration. Burials were found in the dwellings.  Stone tools were bifacial and for concave-based arrowheads appear.  Bone, ivory and shell artefacts were found. Agriculture was the basic form of subsistence, possibly with an emphasis on cattle, supplemented by fishing and hunting.
  • Levels III-V Classic or Jungeren Mermdekultur (4600-4100BC? translation Later Mermida Culture).  A large number of mud-and-straw built structures, with branches and reeds for roofing and laid out along narrow streets. Hearths, water jars sunk into lowered floors, grinding stones were found inside the huts, with granaries outside. Child and burials were located within the village, while adults appear to have been buried elsewhere.  Pottery consisted of a number of rough large vessels. Some pots were polished and some had black-and-red colouring.  Tools were bifacial, made of chert, and more efficiently made.  Bone, ivory, and shell were also used to make tools. A number of figurines were also found.

“The oldest cultural level at Merimda clearly shows independent features.  In the excavator’s opinion, the fishbone patterns incised into plates, dishes and deep bowls of beautiful, fine, polished or burnished pottery indicate contact with the Near East, as do the arrowheads. On the second cultural level, however, there is also evidence of contact with the south in the shape of bone harpoons and axes of Nubian stone: a warning that the background of the Delta’s prehistoric origins should not be sought exclusively in the Near East” (Seidlmayer 1998, p.10-11).

For full details about Merimda, click here to go to the correct page on my sister site where this is covered in depth.

 

El-Omari

Instead of being named after a particular site or area, the El-Omari phase was named after its discoverer Amin el-Omari.  The sites that make up the El-Omari phase, settlements and cemeteries, are located in Lower Egypt around Wadi Hof near Helwan, and are contemporary with the Jungeren Merimdekultur phase at Merimda.

The settlements have produced storage or refuse pits.  No clear structural evidence has been found.  Associated cemeteries were pit burials with bodies deposited in a contracted position.

Pottery is always tempered with organic material.  Shapes are simple and some are polished, often coated in red. Stone tools are similar to those at Merimda II-V.  As well as agriculture and animal husbandry with goat or sheep, pigs and cattle, fishing was very important.

For full details about El Omari, click here to go to the correct page on my sister site where this is covered in depth.

 

The Tasian

The Tasian was identified by Guy Brunton in 1934 based on finds of artefacts, particularly pottery decorated with incised geometric patterns, in the Badari region.  He suggested that it was the earliest Predynastic evidence of ceramic usage, predating the Badarian and that the phase was characterised by round-based pottery made of calciform material decorated with incisions which were picked out with white pigment (also known from contemporary sites in Neolithic Sudan).  However, ever since Brunton’s work, there has been debate as to whether the Tasian actually existed or not.  Brunton proposed that it predated the Badarian, but some writers believe that it might have been a component part of the Badarian itself: “from the start the existence and chronological placement of the Tasian has been a subject of controversy” (Friedman and Hobbs 2002, p.178).

Recent work in the Eastern Desert and elsewhere has suggested that the Tasian is more than a figment of the imagination: “The Tasian-related material in the Eastern Desert and now a site near Nabta Playa in the Western Desert . . . suggest that this culture may be the ‘missing link’ in the picture of interaction between desert dwellers ant he Nile valley cultures, which led ultimately to the development of Egyptian civilization (Friedman and Hobbs 2002 p.178)

Friedman and Hobbs (2002) working in the Eastern Desert at a site in Wadi Atulla (perpendicular to the Qift-Quseir road) have provided new insights into this period. The Eastern Desert has been conspicuous by its absence in accounts of prehistory and early Predynastic contexts.  This is being rebalanced by recent and current work at Wadi Sodmein, Wadi Gash and Wadi Hammamat. The excavation of the Wadi Atulla tomb, a site bult into soft sandstone, was a salvage operation because it had been plundered and damaged, and because the lack of information from Eastern Desert sites meant that salvage was a high priority. The excavators say that the tomb and its artefacts “give some indication of the original wealth and cultural milieu of its multiple occupants” (Friedman and Hobbs 2002, p.178).  The site was visited briefly in 1983, when many of the plundered items which had no financial value were left to the side of the tomb entrance, and photographed by one of the Wadi Atulla excavators. These abandoned finds were almost totally depleted when it came to excavation, but the photographs provide additional information to that provided by the excavation. Calibration radiocarbon dates obtained from the site suggest that it dates to between 4940 and 4455 BC.  Although the site’s use as a tomb could well have been secondary (it may well have been a quarry site or a water gathering device) it was certainly used to deposit human remains. Although there were only a few undisturbed contexts, and bone remains were fragmentary and poorly preserved, the human remains of at least 14 individuals were found, varying in age from young (18 months) to middle aged.  It appears that these remains were deposited over a period of time, rather than as one mass burial at one time.

The ceramic forms with their incised decorations and clay compositions from Wadi Atulla appear to be made of local rather than Nilotic clays and are most similar to Guy Brunton’s Tasian designations. Further analysis of ceramics suggests that they were made locally. Similar material to that of Wadi Atulla is found in the western desert and may indicate connection between the Eastern and Western Deserts, and related pottery is found in the Nile Valley, which may also indicate evidence for interaction between different distinct areas of Egypt. Friedman and Hobbs believe that there are enough parallels between the Tasian identified by Guy Brunton and the Wadi Atulla remains to make the Tasian a valid phase:  “A number of shared trains certainly indicated a relationship between the desert and the valley and strongly suggests that the Tasian is distinct culturally, if not temporally, from the Badarian, as Brunton first maintained” (Friedman and Hobbs 2002, p.184).  The beakers are the characteristic feature that suggest a link between the Nile Tasian and the Eastern Desert examples, although there are many differences which are important and indicate that the desert and Nile groups, while possibly in contact, were significantly different.
 

Tarifian

Although this is not a universally agreed upon categorization, it appears in discussion and may be one of the earliest Neolithic occupations in Egypt. It may also fit more easily into the final stages of the Palaeolithic. The Tarifian is known from two sites: a small site at el-Tarif situated within the much later New Kingdom Theban Necropolis and another near Armant called MA2/83, and there is therefore not a good sample with which to come to definitive conclusions.  However, the Tarifian has been defined in a very worthy attempt to investigate the wide gap in Upper Egyptian archaeological occupation between the Elkabian, which dates to the 7th millennium BC and the Badarian of the 5th millennium BC - in cultural as well  as chronological terms.

The El Tarif site has three main archaeological levels, the lowest of which (layer 2) is the Tarifian, the only layer not to be associated with any radiocarbon dates. Stratigraphic data ties itr into palaeoenvironmental data which indicates that it probably dates to the first half of the 5th Millennium BC, which puts it into the same time range as Catfish Cave in Nubia and the Protomoeris phase of the Birket Faiyum in the Faiyum Depression.

The lithics are made up of 5400 items in total, from both the Arnold (1974) and Ginter and Kozlowski (1979) excavations. They include 110 cores and 561 retouched tools, with a high percentage of flakes to blades.  80% of them were made on local flint with very few raw material imports. Scrapers made up 20% of all tools, and ther were also a small number of notches, denticulates, truncations, side-scrapers and burins, with a tiny microlithic component. Only 12 items were worked bifacially (Ginter and Kozlowski 1984). Ginter et al (1996) carried out a further analysis of raw material procurement in the early Neolithic of the Upper Egyptian Nile Valley and concluded that raw materials in the Tarifian were imported and worked into the required tool form on-site. They suggest that the raw materials were acquired in the course of seasonal migrations, a model that would actually fit in quite well with some modern ethnographic studies of raw material procurement.

Ceramics are represented in small numbers, representing only a few undecorated forms, in four types, and are fragmentary. They are generally thin- or medium-walled with temper in greater or lesser quantities, of straw, fibre, sand or crushed stone.  Although many were hand-made, some of them apper to have been formed on a rotating base (Ginter and Kozlowski 1984).

The Tarifian looks like an evolved form of an earlier Epipalaeolithic phase, but no such phase has so far been identified, because it contains certain elements which would normally be associated with the Epipalaeolithic (microlithic tools) whilst at the same time containing Neolithic type elements in the form of Neolithic bifacial stone tools and pottery fragments.

No traces of sedentary practices, including farming have been found, and the lithic kit reveals “a lack of fundamental links with the later industries of the Predynastic cultures, particularly of the Naqadian” (Ginter and Kozlowski 2004, p.259).

Looking for affinities elsewhere in Egypt, Ginter and Kozlowski (1984, p.252) conclude that “If we compare the flint inventory of the Tarifian with the flint industries of hte relatively close geographical areas of North-Eastern Africa, we do not find any exact equivalents”. Differences include, most conspicuously, the absence of Levallois elements, the lack of Ouchtata retouch, minimal microliths and a high percentage of flakes.  they do see similarities with the final phase of the Shamarkian, which is sometimes known as the Post-Shamarkian, including: a shortage of microliths, and a greater presence of flakes. A key difference is that bifacials appear at El-Tarif, and the authors conclude that the Tarifian is “the northern, late ceramic variant of the Shamarkian” (p.253).


The Badarian 4400-4000 BC

The Badarian is named after the site where it was first identified by Guy Brunton and Gertrude Caton-Thompson at el-Badari (near Sohag) and is represented by a number of small sites near the villages of Qau el-Kebir, Hammamiya, Mostagedda, Deir Tasa and Matmar as well as further a field at Mahgar Dendera, Armant, Elkab and Hieraknpolis and even in the Eastern Desert at Wadi Hammamat, with regional differences showing in different assemblages. At Hammamiya Caton-Thompson was able to identify a sequence of stratified levels that extended from the Badarian through to the Late Dynastic period.

The Badarian phase describes the earliest agriculture in Upper (southern) Egypt. It represents considerable change:  “With this culture we unexpectedly plunge straight into a symbolic universe of incredible richness, reflecting an increasingly structured and complex society, and this process was to accelerate enormously throughout the fourth millennium BC, eventually significantly contributing to the emergence of ‘Egyptian civilization’” (Midant-Reynes 1992/2000 p.152).

The Badarian definitely occurs before the Naqada culture, and may have been in existence by 5000 BC but “it can only be definitely confirmed to have spanned the period around 4400-4000 BC” (Vermeersch and Hendrickx 2000, p.40). It may have survived longer in the el Badari area than in other areas where the Badarian is visible, where it was probably contemporary with Naqada I.

The origins of the Badarian are something of a mystery.  Although the Levant is probably a likely origin for the appearance of agriculture there is nothing in the toolkit to suggest that there is any more of a connection. Stone tools are similar to those from the Late Neolithic in the Western Desert, and these seem strong enough to imply close links. The rippled pottery suggests connections with either the Late Sahara Neolithic or the Merimda or Khartoum Neolithic sites.  It is most likely that the Badarian was influenced by a number of different areas and concepts.

Most work has been carried out on the better preserved burial sites but some settlement sites have been excavated and although the information is poorer by comparison it is useful. In the Badari region occupation patterns appear to consist of small villages, which were abandoned in favour of other sites after relatively short periods. Some of the settlements appear to have been so temporary in nature that Vermeersch and Hendrickx suggest that “it is quite possible that the settlements on low desert spurs that are attested in the Badari region are only marginal outliers or seasonal encampments.  On that basis, the larger, permanent settlements would have been closer to the floodplain and would have long ago either been washed away by the Nile or covered with alluvium, thus remaining unknown” (2000, p.43). The seasonal site of Mahgar Dendera was for herding and fishing but appears to have been abandoned when it was time for planting out, the Mahgar Dendera floodplain being too small to support subsistence-level agriculture. The sites themselves consist of shallow layers of organic materials, often eroded and often buried beneath later settlement sites. The sites often contain mud- or basketry-lined circular pits which are thought to be grain silos.  Vessels found on settlement sites were usually quite crude and functional, but finer vessels were also found.

The economy indicated by the village settlement sites was apparently based on agriculture and animal husbandry.  Storage facilities were present and some circular structures at Hammamiya (some of which had thick layers of sheep/goat droppings) are probably animal enclosures.  The storage facilities revealed the remains of wheat, barley, lentils and tubers.  Fishing was important but hunting appears to have been a minor activity.  The faunal assemblage has not been reviewed using modern techniques

Funerary sites are generally much better documented than settlement sites. Located away outside the cultivated fertile areas in the desert fringes, the cemeteries appear to lie in areas of settlements that were no longer used.  The graves consist of simple pits, sometimes containing a mat underneath the body and a pillow of straw or animal skin. They were often covered or wrapped in woven matting or gazelle hide. The bodies were placed in the pits, normally contracted on their left hand side with the head placed to the south, face looking west, apparently at least sometimes dressed with a loin cloth. Grave goods were deposited with the deceased. These include pottery, some very fine flint tools and animal skulls. Analysis of the grave goods suggests social stratification with wealthier graves separated out into a different area of the cemetery. Selection is also implied in the absence of child burials.

Pottery deposited in the graves is very characteristic of the Badarian.  It was hand-made with Nile silts to form simple attractive shapes.  Some of the pottery was very fine – the clay was refined and the walls of pots were very thin, the surface given a combed texture (done before firing) and polished for decoration (after firing) producing an appearance conventionally called “rippling”.  Even the less perfect wares were made of a very fine organic temper (chaff).  Shapes include cups and bowls with rounded bases.   Many are black-topped but normally they have a brown surface and occasionally have the red slip which became characteristic of the Naqada period. Interiors are usually black.

Three main types have been identified from grave and settlement sites

  • Type 1, highly polished vessels. Red-polished and black-topped  (seen in later times) with rippling effect (unique to the Badarian) which are occasionally they are decorated with a simply floral design around the base.  Other black-topped vessels are brown polished.  The blackened rims could have been applied either by the pots being enveloped “in a reducing atmosphere during part of the firing process, perhaps by inverting them in the carbon-rich ash of the fire” (Hope 1997, p.46) or “by burying the pots in the ground up to a level just below the rim and then burning chaff over them in order to blacken the top and interior” (Hope 1997, p.46).
  • Type 2, brown burnished pottery and rough ware.  Identified usually from settlement sites, these sometimes have undulating surfaces.  Some were burnt on the inside suggesting that they were cooling vessels. Some large sun-dried vessels were used as storage silos for grain. The rough ware was produced in volume and was made of poorly fired Nile silt clay, sometimes tempered with sand and straw.
  • Type 3, anything that does not fit into the above categories. Some were more highly decorated than standard types, and a unique form of bottle-shaped vessel with four handles comes into this category.

Colin Hope considers that pottery was highly valuable to its owners at this time:  “The value of pottery at this time is shown by the fact that many of the better class of Badarian vessels show evidence of having been repaired after accidental breakage” (1997, p.46).

Stone tools, although occasionally found in burials are characteristic of the settlement sites.  Those items found in burials at el-Badari are of exceptional quality – beautifully worked bifacials in the forms of winged arrowheads/pendunculates, sickle parts and etiolated leaf-shaped varieties.  Hammamiya revealed tools which were more domestic in character. They were based on pebbles which were probably available from the land surface rather than having to be quarried. Holmes (1989) re-examined the lithics in the Petrie Museum from both burial and settlement sites and concludes that the Badarian lithic industry is based on flakes and blades, with end-scrapers, circular-shaped side-scrapers, notches, denticulates and burins accompanying the more specialised finely worked bifacials.

Clay was also used to make statuettes (which were also made of ivory).

Unlike the pottery, which is mainly known from burial sites, stone tools are mainly known from settlement sites with only the finest examples accompanying burials.  The industry is a flake and blade tool industry although some very fine bifacial worked tools are also present. Preferred tools are end-scrapers and perforators with bifacial axes, sickles and arrowheads.

Bone tools include needles, pins and awls which were probably used for the processing of animal skins and creation of textiles.

Other items include wooden pointed sticks, ostrich egg vessels, sea shell beads, attractive stones (like carnelian, alabaster, jasper, breccia and patterned limestone) carved into discs and items of copper and steatite.  Copper was used for pins and beads but the traces of copper oxidization remaining suggest that there were other items as well, which have been lost. Steatite is used extensively for beads in necklaces and at Mostagedda thousands were made into belts for the dead.

Ivory was an important element and was used for making personal items and craftwork including items of jewellery, beads, decorated spoons, combs and statuettes. 

Other characteristic artefacts are the rectangular or oval cosmetic palettes made of greywacke.  There were a few statuettes made of clay and ivory, in various styles.  Significantly there was some hammered copper present.

Long distance contacts were obviously made.  Not only did agriculture almost certainly have to come from the Levant, but nearer to home, shells from the Red Sea were found in graves, while the copper ore used to xxxxx must have come from the Eastern Desert or from the Sinai.

Artwork is represented not only in the jewellery (mainly beads of steatite and occasionally copper), but by animal figurines and statuettes in female form, in a similar tradition to those found at Merimda Beni Salama. The animal carvings are made of tooth and ivory and depictions include hippopotami.  Three female statuettes come from tombs 5107, 5227 and 5769, one made of red-polished baked clay (British Museum EA59679), another of unbaked clay (Petrie Museum UC 9080) and one of ivory (British Museum EA58648).  There are also three baked clay models of boats.

For the first time, the occasional animal burial was found.  Species given burials include one antelope, one dog an one sheep which were wrapped in skin and deposited with grave-goods. 

The Badarian was probably contemporary with the earliest phase of the Naqada period. It was originally thought that the Badarian evolved into the Naqada I period, but Naqada I is not well represented in the Badari area. The El Hammamiya stratigraphic sequence indicates that the Badarian ended before the end of the Amratian, but there may have been contemporaneity between the two to a greater or lesser extent (Kaiser 1956 96-7) but others believe that El Hammamiya represents a mixing of two layers and that the Badarian predates the Amratian (Kantor 1965 3-4).

In summary, the Badarian shows the first elements and characteristics that became very locally defined in the Naqada I phase.  Those creating and using the Badarian materials were semi-nomadic, cultivating grain and domesticating animals, supplementing this form of subsistence by fishing and some farming.


Eastern Desert Neolithic

As already described in the section on the Elkabian, the Tree Shelter in the Eastern Desert is a small rock overhang at the southern side of a small wadi tributary of the Wadi Sodmein. It is defined by numerous hearths, and a number of occupation levels which have provided a date range from 4930+/-30BP to 6770+/-60BP.

The lithic technology was quite crude with somewhat poor quality debitage and cores. Eighty tools (Vermeersch et al 2002) make up an apparently early Neolithic assemblage which includes:

  • 40 denticulates
  • 27 retouched flakes
  • 4 bifacial tools
  • 3 notched pieces
  • 3 miscellaneous
  • 2 arrowheads
  • 1 side-blow flake

Faunal remains are in general poorly preserved but include (Vermeersch et al 2002) Dorcas gazelle, four domestic ovicaprines of which two were certainly goat, marine fish including Parrot fish (scaridae) and Red Sea molluscs.  The goat remains at the Tree Shelter represent the oldest evidence for goat in Egypt and, associated with Feature 12, date to 6630+/-45BP (GrN-12560).

According to Vermeersch et al (2002) there is no detectable hiatus in human occupation in the area of Wadi Sodmein from 8120BP until 6300BP.  Over this period there were 15 hearths at the Tree Shelter and over 20 at Sodmein Cave.  Sodmein Cave was occupied until a dry phase and then ended at about 6100BP, but the Tree Shelter site was still visited until around 5000BP.  Although there were clearly a number of arid phases, there were at least two periods during which the Tree Shelter site could be occupied usefully - during the Epipalaeolithic and during the early Neolithic (Vermeersch et al 2002).

Affinities between the Tree Shelter site and other Egyptian industries have been discussed in the Vermeersch et al paper (2002). They suggest that there is a similarity in knapping techniques to the Tarifian, and to a lesser extent the Badarian site of Maghar Dendra 2 which has been dated to between 5110 to 5480BP.  Side-blow flakes are rare in Upper Egypt - more are known from the Faiyum and Kharga where they are represented mainly as unstratified surface finds, in the Dakhleh Bashendi unit which dates to around 6000BP, and at the late Neolithic Napta Play site of E-75-8. Vermeersch et al (2002, p.135) conclude that “During this period, people or ideas seem to move over a very large area from the Western Desert over the Nile Valley into the Red Sea Mountains”.

 

 

All text and images on this site are the copyright of Andrea Byrnes andie@easynet.co.uk 2003, 2004, 2005 unless otherwise stated