Prehistory From The Palaeolithic to The Badarian Culture
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It has become a truism that ancient Egypt was a gift of the Nile because
the river's flooding brought new life into the valley in the late summer
of every year. Egypt was, therefore, essentially a rich oasis amid the
very extensive expanse of the Sahara. This, however, has not always
been the case: the very earliest inhabitants of Egypt lived in a different
kind of environment. First, the climate was not always as arid as it is
now (modern Upper Egypt being one of the most arid regions in the
world), oscillating instead between the present hyperaridity and a dry
sahelian condition. Secondly, the river itself was not always a meandering river in a wide floodplain, with its late summer high floods. During
some periods, the Nile was either reduced to a series of independent
ephemeral wadi basins or had a generally low discharge, choked by its
own huge floodplain deposits. It brought its rich alluvia into Egypt only
when its headwaters reached back to Ethiopia. Finally, although the
river clearly brought life to Egypt, it has also brought about the erosion
of older archaeological deposits we should, therefore, not be surprised to find that only very scarce remains from the earliest occupation have been preserved.
Because of its geographical position, Egypt certainly served as
an important conduit for early humans migrating from East Africa
towards the rest of the Old World. We know that early Homo erectus left Africa and arrived in Israel as early as 1.8 million years ago. There is,
therefore, no reason to doubt that small bands of Homo erectus visited
and probably stayed in the Nile Valley. Unfortunately, only very sparse
evidence of this event is available and, worse still, it cannot be dated,
because circumstantial evidence is also very poor. In some Early and
Middle Pleistocene deposits, isolated choppers, chopping tools, and
flakes, similar to those associated with early hominids in East Africa,
have been recovered in gravel quarries at Abbassiya, as well as in
Theban gravel deposits. However, most of these published 'artefacts'
are probably not of human origin and all of them are from secondary
deposits.
The Lower Palaeolithic
Many Lower Palaeolithic artefacts, including numerous handaxes of
Acheulean type, have been found in and on local gravel deposits. No
human bones have been found in Egypt in association with this
Acheulean phase, but Homo erectus can probably be assumed to have
been the maker of these artefacts. Misunderstanding of the desert geomorphology has led many researchers to believe that the Acheulean
can be correlated with a Nile terrace chronology, but this is unfortunately not the case. We can presume, however, that Homo erectus at
least passed by regularly and left his handaxes at numerous sites.
Pedimentation and fluviatile erosion led to the dispersal of most of the
handaxes and their related artefacts. It is, therefore, not exceptional to
find Acheulean handaxes on the present surface of the desert areas in
the Nile Valley. In the early twentieth century, the hills over which a
path leads from Deir el-Medina to the Valley of the Kings, overlooking
the western side of Luxor, were particularly popular for 'collecting'
handaxes; although these stray finds cannot be dated, they are probably
all that remain, after intensive erosion, of large Acheulean sites. At
some locations, such as Nag Ahmed el-Khalifa, near Abydos, it has
proved possible to observe that artefacts remained grouped together,
even when they were no longer in their original context. There, and in
other parts of the Qena region, such handaxe concentrations occur on
top of the first clay deposits that attest the connection of the river Nile
with its headwaters in Ethiopia. We presume that the age of those concentrations should be set at about 400,000-300,000 BP, but this is
only a guess. In order to document the Acheulean occupation properly, we would need more information about such factors as the
original spatial distribution and the associated faunal remains.
Our knowledge of prehistoric Nubia is comparatively well documented as a result of the rescue excavations carried out in the 19605,
before most of the area was flooded by Lake Nasser. Acheulean handaxe
concentrations occurred mainly on 'inselbergs' (eroded hilltops), where
it was possible to extract a good raw material: ferruginous sandstone.
Since such sites remained exposed on the surface for many hundred
thousands of years, we should not expect any remains to have survived
apart from lithics. Even in the case of the lithics, we have only limited
information and no secure means of dating except by typological
approaches. According to these typologies, the sites can be assigned to
Early, Middle, and Late Acheulean respectively. It is remarkable that
cleavers, so characteristic for the rest of Africa, are lacking in the assemblages, suggesting that, in Acheulean times, Nubia probably constituted
a particular province, an original enclave, in the African interior.
In the Western Desert, several Final Acheulean sites are known,
especially at the oases of Kharga and Dakhla and at Bir Sahara and Bir
Tarfawi. These sites are located on the scarps surrounding the oases,
but the most important finds are associated with fossil springs in the
floor of the oasis depressions or in the playa deposits. All of these sites
are clearly related to wetter conditions, when life as hunter-gatherers
was possible. Most of the known sites are in a bad state of preservation,
but it has been suggested that ancient channels in the Western Desert,
discovered by radar from the space shuttle, are rich in well-preserved
Acheulean sites, none of which has yet been excavated.
The Middle Palaeolithic
The picture that emerges for the Egyptian Middle Palaeolithic is rather
complex. It originated in the Late Acheulean, when handaxes became
associated with bifacial foliates and a typical Nubian knapping method.
Such assemblages may date from before 250,000 BP. The fate of sites
with such assemblages is similar to that of the Acheulean: all over the
desert one can collect scattered artefacts which once belonged together
in a site that is now destroyed. Judging from the high number of such
artefacts, it is tempting to assume that the population density was high.
As in many areas of the Old World, the Egyptian Middle Palaeolithic
is characterized by the introduction of the Levallois method, a special
technique designed to produce flakes and blades of fixed dimensions
from a flint nodule. In addition to the classical Levallois approach, the
Nubian Levallois knapping method was introduced for the production
of pointed flakes. In the Egyptian Middle Palaeolithic, several artefactual 'entities' can be distinguished. The chronology is still unclear, but
research, especially in the Western Desert and in the Qena area, provides some clues.
The Nubian Middle Palaeolithic is characterized by the Nubian
Levallois technique and by bifacial foliates and pedunculates. It is
mainly known from Nubia, where several sites have been discovered.
Although it is certainly also present in Egypt, no well-preserved sites
have yet been found there. Lastly, important information has been disclosed in relation to the mid-Middle Palaeolithic. At Bir Tarfawi and
Bir Sahara in the Western Desert, numerous well-preserved sites from
the Saharan Mousterian were excavated. It is clear that sites in this area
were accessible only during wet phases, which should probably be
regarded as short spells punctuating a mainly dry climate.
During most periods of occupation, there were permanent lakes in
the Western Desert, or, in some intervals, seasonal playas, fed by local
rainfall of up to 500 mm. per annum. In some phases the lakes could
be more than 7 m. deep. The area was abandoned during the periods of
hyperaridity that separated the lacustrine events. Side-scrapers, points,
and denticulates are the best-represented tools. The lake and playa
environments were probably rich in floral resources that could easily
be exploited, but unfortunately there is no archaeological evidence
available. The fauna apparently exploited by people at this date consist
of hare, porcupine, and wild cat, at one end of the size spectrum, and
buffalo, rhinoceros, and giraffe, at the other end. Small gazelles, mainly
the dorcas species, dominate the assemblage. The presence of such
animals suggests that selective perhaps seasonal hunting of small
gazelles was combined with more opportunistic meat procurement
from bigger game.
The apparent differences in content among sites in different settings may reflect variations in activities carried out at the sites. Sites
embedded in fossil hydromorphic soils, characterized by low artefact
densities, indicate limited use, probably comprising several brief
phases and these only during very dry years. Sites embedded in beach
sands were accessible for a greater part of the year, but probably not
during the season of highest water, presumably in summer. Sites associated with dry lake bottoms reflect unusually arid episodes when the
lakes dried up and their beds were exposed.
Excavations in the Sodmein cave near Quseir in the Red Sea
mountains disclosed similar wet conditions during part of the midMiddle Palaeolithic, with the presence of crocodile, elephant, buffalo,
kudu, and other large mammals. The cave was apparently visited over a long period but always for a short time. Sometimes, large hearths
were utilized.
A comparable way of life may have existed in the Nile Valley, but no
sites from the floodplain have yet been disclosed. On the other hand,
the Nile Valley has furnished us with many sites that document the
extraction of raw material. Sites that are contemporaneous with the
Western Desert occupation occur at Nazlet Khater and Taramsa,
where mid-Middle Palaeolithic groups were in search of raw material,
mainly comprising chert cobbles from terrace deposits. These groups
differ in terms of the knapping methods they used: Egyptian group K
utilized the classical Levallois method, in addition to flake production
from single and double platform cores, while Egyptian group N frequently used the Nubian Levallois method. Tools are always rare at
such quarrying sites, because the artefacts produced at such sites were
meant to be exported to the living sites, which were probably situated
on the Nile floodplain. Unfortunately, such floodplain sites have probably been covered by recent alluvia and remain unknown.
Late Middle Palaeolithic material, along with Halfan and Safahan
(Levallois Idfuan) artefacts, has been recovered from extraction sites,
such as Nazlet Safaha, near Qena, as well as from living sites near
Edfu. The Halfan industry, however, was mainly restricted to Nubia.
In comparison with the earlier mid-Middle Palaeolithic, the Nubian
Levallois technique was disappearing, and, in addition to flake and
blade production from single and double platform cores, only an
evolved classical Levallois was utilized for production of thin Levallois
flakes. At living sites, burins, notches, and denticulates were being
used. Meanwhile, the climate had again become arid to hyperarid and
continued to be such. The evolution of the climate changed the living
conditions completely, in that food resources were now almost entirely
restricted to the floodplain. This climatic development must have
obliged people living in the Sahara to leave the area, resulting in a concentration of human population in the Nile Valley.
During the last period of the Middle Palaeolithic (the Taramsan)
there was a clear tendency towards blade production from large cores,
where, instead of obtaining a few Levallois flakes from each individual
core, a virtually continuous process of blade production made it possible to create a large number of blades from each core. At Taramsa-i,
an impressive extraction and production site of this date near Qena, it
can be observed that there was increasing interest in blade production,
a system that was later to be generalized during the Upper Palaeolithic.
Similar assemblages have been identified in the Negev, where the transition from Levallois flaking to blade production has been documented at the site of Boker Tachtit, around 45,000 BP. A burial of an
'anatomically modern' child at Taramsa-i is associated with the late
Middle Palaeolithic. This burial is probably the oldest grave that has so
far been identified in Africa.
The techniques employed at the extraction sites were simple but
well adapted to the natural chert occurrences. The chert cobbles were
removed from the terrace deposits by means of open-trench and pit
systems with a maximum depth of about 1.7 m. Only the uppermost
part of the cobble terrace was mined, and the pits and trenches are
characterized by a very irregular planimetry, with many tentacles and
bulges. They have vertical walls with only minor undercutting, and
their widths vary from about i m. to nearly 2 m. Since the chert cobble
deposit was not consolidated, only simple extraction tools were
required. Depressions in the trenches were often used as workshops
for the fabrication of Levallois products. Extraction was very extensive
and, in the region of Qena, affected areas covered many square kilometres. The search for good-quality chert and the use of specialized
tool production demonstrate the complex organization of the inhabitants of the Nile Valley at that time. It also indicates that Middle Palaeolithic humans were not only capable of tridimensional reasoning but
also had developed a knowledge of geology and geomorphology.
If the 'out-of-Africa' theory of human origins is true (and it is
still contested by some good anthropologists), anatomically modern
Homo sapiens should have passed through the Nile valley on its way out
of East Africa to Asia. However, it remains unclear as to whether
archaeological data can confirm that there were similarities between
the Middle Palaeolithic in Egypt and in south-west Asia. Finally, it is
to be noted that the Aterian industry, which is so important for the
rest of North Africa, is present only in some oases in the Western
Desert.
The Upper Palaeolithic
Upper Palaeolithic sites are rare in Egypt. The oldest site of this date is
Nazlet Khater-4 in Middle Egypt, where chert was extracted not only by
trenches and mining pits (with a maximum depth of 2 m.) but also by
underground galleries starting from the trench walls or from the
bottom of a pit. In this manner, underground galleries covering an
area of more than 10 sq.m. were obtained. Hearths found in the fill of
the trenches where flaking activities took place suggest that mining
activities were spread over a long period extending from about 35,000
to 30,000 BP, which would make Nazlet Khater-4 one of the oldest
examples of underground mining activity in the world. The lithic
assemblage from Nazlet Khater-4 no longer showed any trace of the
Levallois technique. Production aimed at obtaining simple blades from single platform cores. Among tools, some end-scrapers, burins,
and denticulates but also some bifacial foliates and bifacial axes occur.
As no other such sites have been disclosed in Egypt, it is difficult to
establish its importance for the evolution of Egyptian prehistory. Next
to the mine, and obviously in association with it, excavators revealed a
grave in which the deceased was buried lying on his back with a bifacial
axe next to his head.
The next oldest phase, after Nazlet Khater-4, was the Shuwikhatian
industry, which is attested at several sites in the neighbourhood of
Qena and Esna. The type site Shuwikhat-i has been dated to around
25,000 BP. The study of the environment and the animal remains
shows that the site, which was located within the floodplain at that
time, functioned as a hunting and fishing camp. It is possible that the
Shuwikhatian is contemporaneous with a short wetter spell, but this
climatic change was not important enough to bring about the repopulating of the Western Desert, which remained devoid of human occupation. The Shuwikhatian is characterized by robust blades obtained
from opposed platform cores. Most common tools are denticulated
blades, end scrapers, and burins.
Within the framework of North Africa and south-west Asia, the
Upper Palaeolithic of Egypt seems to be rather insular, although it is
possible that there were some connections with the Dabban industry
of Cyrenaica and the Ahmarian of southern Israel and Jordan.
The Late Palaeolithic
In contrast to the Upper Palaeolithic Period, many Late Palaeolithic
sites have been found in Upper Egypt, dating between 21,000 and
12,000 BP. The climate remained hyperarid, as it had been during the
Upper Palaeolithic, but the river Nile had begun to contain less water
and more clays because of aridity in its headwaters and because of
important erosion activity due to the late glacial coldness affecting the
highlands of Ethiopia. These clays were deposited in the Nile Valley,
filling it in Upper Egypt with thick alluvia and resulting in a floodplain
that, in Nubia, was 25-30 m. higher than the modern one. No Late
Palaeolithic sites have been recorded in Lower and Middle Egypt,
apparently because this part of the Nile Valley was more deeply cut,
due to a very low water level in the Mediterranean Sea, a little more
than 100 m. below the present level. This resulted in regressive erosion along the Nile, creating a surface that has been covered by more
recent alluvia, concealing the sites from archaeologists.
There is great typological variety among Late Palaeolithic sites, and,
because of our limited knowledge of the Upper Palaeolithic, it is difficult to determine the origins of the Late Palaeolithic. Among the different groups, the Fakhurian (21,000-19,500 BP) and the Kubbaniyan
(19,000-17,000 BP) are the oldest. Although the Kubbaniyan was
defined at Wadi Kubbaniya, near Aswan, sites have also been found
near Esna and Edfu. At Wadi Kubbaniya, the sites occur in three different physiographic settings, all of which are related to a temporary lake
barred yearly after the Nile flood inundation by a dune in the mouth of
the wadi. After the size of the dune became so significant that the
entire wadi was blocked, the lake was fed by the water table, thus creating an extremely favourable environment for hunter-gatherers. Some
of the sites are situated on a dunefield that was occasionally flooded by
the Nile; others are located on a flat silty plain of the wadi floor in front
of the dunes; and finally there are sites on hillocks of fossil dunes in
the flat area near the wadi mouth, which were surrounded by water
during the period of inundation.
Most sites at Wadi Kubbaniya are the result of repeated use by small
groups of people, perhaps several times a year, over a long period. The
floral remains clearly reflect seasonality. Many edible plants, such as
club rush, camomile, and nut grass tubers, must have been part of the
diet. The presence of nut-grass tubers is particularly remarkable, since
these would have had to have been thoroughly ground up in order to
remove the toxins and break up the fibres. This might well explain the
large number of grinding stones found at Wadi Kubbaniya. At Kubbaniyan and other Late Palaeolithic sites, fish were caught seasonally
in large quantities, forming the major source of animal protein. One
annual fishing season is indicated by an overwhelming frequency of
catfish, indicating massive catches of spawning catfish, which appear
with the rising floods of July and August. A second fishing season is
characterized by the high frequency of surviving remains of yearling
and adult Tilapia and numerous catfish. This spectrum suggests that
fish were gathered in October or November in the shallow pools that
remained after the inundation. In addition to fishing, hunting for
hartebeest, wild cattle, and dorcas gazelle was an important aspect of
the subsistence pattern. Lithics mainly consisted of bladelets obtained
from opposed platform cores.
Four major tool classes are well represented in the Fakhurian.
Backed bladelets, some with Ouchtata retouch, are the most frequent,
followed by retouched pieces, perforators, notches, and denticulates.
End-scrapers are present but less frequent, while truncations and burins are rare and generally poorly made. The tool inventory of the
Kubbaniyan is characterized by a predominance of backed bladelets,
often with a non-invasive nibbling retouch, representing up to 80 per
cent of all tools.
The kill-butchery camp site £71X12 near Esna belongs to the
Fakhurian or is closely related to it. This site, which consists of a dune
hollow in which a seasonal pond was fed by the rising groundwater
during the summer floods, attracted animals that were driven from the
floodplain by the rising water. This resulted in ideal hunting circumstances. There were three major prey animals: hartebeest, wild cattle,
and gazelle. This site most probably represents the basic manner of
subsistence during the late flood and the early post-flood period.
A distinctive feature of the Ballanan-Silsilian industry (16,000-
15,000 BP) is debitage from single and opposed platform cores. Tools
comprise backed bladelets and truncated bladelets. There was frequent
use of the microburin technique, an innovation also found in the
Negev and southern Israel and Jordan. While well-made burins are
quite common, Ouchtata-retouch and geometric microliths are rare,
while end-scrapers are never common.
Climatic changes by the end of the last Ice Age resulted in unusually
high Nile water discharges around 13,000-12,000 BP, creating exceptionally high floods. This 'Wild Nile' stage was caused by climatic conditions in sub-Saharan Africa, but in Egypt itself there was no local
rainfall. One site that was out of reach of the catastrophic inundations
of the Wild Nile was Makhadma-4, an example of the Afian industry
(12,900-12,300 BP), located about 6 m. above the modern floodplain, a
little to the north of Qena. It was on the desert fringe, in a flat embayment resulting from the joining of different wadi bottoms, and its rich
array of fish remains includes 68 per cent Tilapia and 30 per cent
Clarias, the rest consisting of Barbus, Synodontis, and Lates. The high
amount of Tilapia and the small size of both Tilapia and Clarias indicate that fishing must have been practised rather late within the postflood season. The fish must have been caught in shallow basins
through which the fishers were able to wade. The small size of the fish
also suggests that sophisticated tackle, such as thrust baskets, nets,
and scoop baskets, were used. The fish that were caught in large quantities were probably not all intended for immediate consumption, and
the fact that the site includes pits containing a large amount of charcoal suggests that fish were being deliberately preserved by drying. The
expansion of the site demonstrates that the locality was repeatedly
used over a long period.
The Isnan industry has been attested on several sites between Wadi
Kubbaniya and the Dishna plain. The assemblage is characterized by
rough knapping techniques, resulting in thick and wide flakes, and the
tool inventory is largely dominated by end-scrapers on flakes. At the
site of Makhadma-2, fishing for Clarias seems to have been the economic basis. The occupation dates to 12,300 BP and therefore coincides
with the Wild Nile floods.
The Qadan industry, between the second cataract and southern
Egypt, is a microlithic flake assemblage, but its interest lies primarily
in the fact that it is associated with three cemeteries. The most important is the cemetery at Gebel Sahaba, where fifty-nine skeletons were
excavated. Each of them was in a semi-contracted position on the left
side of the body, with the head to the east, facing south. The graves are
simple pits, covered with slabs of sandstone, and the associated lithic
material can be attributed to the final phase of the Qadan, around
12,000 BP. Out of the fifty-nine individuals, twenty-four showed signs
of a violent death attested either by many chert points embedded in the
bones (and even inside the skull) or by the presence of severe cut
marks on the bones. The existence of multiple burials (including a
group of up to eight bodies in one grave) confirms the picture of
violence. Since women and children represent about 50 per cent of this
population, it is most probable that the Gebel Sahaba cemetery represents an exceptionally dramatic event. It has been suggested that this
may have been a consequence of the increasingly difficult conditions
of living caused by the Wild Nile and the subsequent cutting down of
the Nile into its former floodplain. A smaller cemetery, almost opposite Gebel Sahaba on the other side of the Nile, where such 'projectiles'
were entirely absent from the bodies, shows that death was not always
caused by violence at this date.
The chronological position of the Sebilian industry is not clear,
despite the fact that it is the most widespread Late Palaeolithic industry, occurring from the second cataract to the north of the Qena bend.
The Sebilian lithic technology is characterized by the manufacture of
large flakes and a preference for quartzitic sandstones or volcanic
rocks as raw material. This is completely incompatible with the lithic
tradition of the other Late Palaeolithic industries. The Sebilian might,
therefore, represent intrusive groups from the south, moving northwards along the Nile.
Before leaving the Late Palaeolithic it is necessary to mention that
there may already have been rock art in the Nile Valley at this remote
date. At Abka, near the second cataract, in Sudanese Nubia, a possible instance of Late Palaeolithic rock art has been identified at 'site XXXI I'.
In Egypt proper, there are also a few rock-art sites that appear to be preNeolithic in date. Among the most remarkable drawings are the fish
traps represented at el-H6sh, south of Edfu. The plan of these labyrinthine fish fences consists of a complicated layout of curvilinear
shapes leading to mushroom shaped ends, which functioned as the
actual traps. This type of fishing in shallow waters would fit well with
the observations concerning massive fishing at Late Palaeolithic sites,
such as Makhadma-4.
After the Late Palaeolithic, there was a hiatus in the occupation of
the Nile Valley. No human presence has between attested in Egypt
between 11,000 and 8000 BP, apart from a group of very small Arkinian sites (around 9400 BP) in the region of the second cataract. It has
been suggested that the attested down-cutting of the Nile during this
period, with a reduced floodplain as a consequence, had a detrimental
effect on the environmental conditions. Although this environmental
change undoubtedly took place, it seems highly unlikely that the Nile
Valley was entirely deserted at this date. It is more likely that these sites
are simply covered by modern alluvial deposits, considering a narrowing of the floodplain and the normal location of sites on the fringe of
the low desert.
Saharan Neolithic/Ceramic
The Western Desert was abandoned towards the end of the Middle
Palaeolithic, and people returned there only in about 9300 BC, as a
result of the Holocene wet phase. Because there was no human
presence immediately before the Early Neolithic, and because the area
was also unihabited after this period, the conditions of archaeological
preservation are very good. Since the annual rainfall in the early Holocene was still only about 100-200 mm. (all of which probably fell
during a brief summer season), only desert-adapted animals such as
the hare and the gazelle could live there. Nevertheless, this meant an
enormous amelioration of living conditions in comparison with the
Upper and Late Palaeolithic. The amount of rainfall was not continuous and arid intervals are most important for chronological differentiation. The rainfall is a result of the northward shift of the monsoon
belt; therefore human occupation in the Western Desert started from
the south. The settlers came most probably from the Nile Valley, an
idea that is primarily based on the absence of other possibilities, but seems to be confirmed by similarities with the lithic technology of sites
in the Nubian Nile Valley.
In Egypt, the earliest 'Neolithic' cultures emerged in the Western
Desert. It should, however, be made clear from the outset that agriculture has not yet been attested for the Saharan Neolithic. This
culture has been identified as Neolithic purely on the basis of the evidence for cattle herding. The Saharan Neolithic is, therefore, completely different from the Neolithic culture that emerged at about the
same time in Israel, where the phrase 'Neolithic economy' is a synonym for the process whereby agriculture was introduced and later
joined by animal domestication. Most probably, the Neolithization
process that occurred in Egypt was'completely independent from that
in Israel. Because of the absence of agriculture and the presence of
some ceramics, it has been suggested that the term 'Ceramic' should
be applied to this Saharan culture, as opposed to 'Neolithic'.
Two main periods can be distinguished: the Early Neolithic (8800-
6800 BC) and a more recent period consisting of Middle (6500-5100
BC) and Late Neolithic (5100-4700 BC). For the Early Neolithic, the
most complete information comes from sites near Nabta Playa and Bir
Kiseiba. Most sites are small, short-term camps of hunter-gatherers.
Larger sites are always located in the lower parts of playa basins.
Although these sites were apparently used for longer periods, they too
were seasonally abandoned, since the lower parts of the playa basins
were seasonally flooded. Sedentism was not yet known.
Lithics are characterized by numerous backed bladelets (often
pointed) and some rare geometries, as well as tools produced with the
microburin technique. Every faunal collection of any size includes a
few bones of cattle, which, according to the excavators, were domesticated (although this interpretation is not generally accepted), since it
seems unlikely that cattle would have been able to survive without
human aid in an arid environment that otherwise supports only
desert-adapted animals. It is particularly significant that the fauna
includes no remains of hartebeest, an animal that often occurs in the
same ecological niche as wild cattle. It therefore seems most plausible
that pastoralists were keeping wild cattle in an environment where the
cattle would not have been able to survive by themselves. Before 7500
BC, it is possible that people and cattle came into the desert only during
and after the summer rains, which coincide with the period of inundation of the Nile Valley, during which it would have been difficult to
find herding facilities. After 7500 BC, the digging of wells is attested at
Bir Kiseiba and other sites. Some of the wells have a shallow side basin for watering animals. The paucity of cattle bones indicates that the
animals were not used for meat production but mainly for protein in
the form of milk and blood. In this manner, while humans helped
cattle to survive in the Western Desert, the animals permitted people
to live in this difficult environment. As well as keeping cattle, these
people were hunting local wild animals, predominantly hare and
gazelle.
It is presumed that the stone-grinding equipment found at nearly all
sites from the beginning of the Early Neolithic was used for processing
harvested wild plant foods, but the plants themselves have only been
recovered at site £-75-6 at Nabta Playa. Among them are wild grasses,
Ziziphus fruits, and wild sorghum.
All Early Neolithic sites, even the earliest, have yielded potsherds,
albeit in very small numbers. The vessels had very simple shapes, but
they were carefully made and fired, and all of them were decorated.
Usually the entire surface of the vessel was filled with lines and points,
often created by comb or cord impressions, and the general appearance of the vessels was probably imitating basketry. Ostrich eggshells,
used as containers for water, were far more common than pottery
vessels. The relative dearth of potsherds suggests that pottery was not
being used regularly in daily life. It is not possible to determine the
exact function of the pottery, but it obviously must have had great
social significance and—because of the decoration—probably also
symbolic meanings. It seems beyond doubt that these ceramics were
an independent, African invention.
Site £-75-6 (around 7000 BC) is one of the most interesting Early
Neolithic localities at Nabta Playa. This drainage basin received enough
water to store large quantities of subsurface water, which could be
reached with wells during the dry season. The site consists of three or
four rows of huts, probably each representing different shore lines of
the lake, accompanied by bell-shaped storage pits and wells. It is not
possible to estimate the number of huts that were contemporaneously
in use. Despite its size, this was not a permanent settlement.
It was during the Middle and Late Neolithic periods (6600-5100
and 5100-4700 BC respectively) that the human occupation of the
Western Desert reached its peak. Sites of this date are very numerous,
and, although most of them are small, there are also some very large
ones. Structures are more common than before, including wells, slablined houses, and evidence for wattle-and-daub constructions. The
large settlements, near the playa lakes, probably represent permanent
settlements, while the smaller ones are more likely to derive from task forces of herdsmen who set out from the large sites to drive their
animals across the grassland after the summer rains. The presence of
shells proves that there was contact with both the Nile Valley and the
Red Sea, but it is likely that the people themselves remained in the
desert all year round. As in the Early Neolithic, domestic cattle were
kept as living sources of protein, but, despite the fact that sheep and
goat also appear for the first time during this period (about 5600 BC),
most meat was still obtained from wild animals. Again it is usually
assumed that a large variety of wild plants was consumed at this date.
In the Middle Neolithic there was a dramatic shift in lithic technology. Blade production was no longer so prevalent, and instead there
was a gradual introduction of bifacial flaking for foliates and concavebased arrowheads. Geometries, except lunates, were rare. At Late Neolithic sites, basin-type grinding stones are common. Ground and
polished stone celts, palettes, and ornaments are also present in
assemblages of this date: together with side-blow flakes, they are
considered characteristic of the period. Ceramics before 5100 BC fall
within the 'Saharo-Sudanese' or 'Khartoum' tradition, similar to the
Early Neolithic ceramics, although the decoration tends to consist of
more complicated patterns. Somewhat before 4900 BC, this type of
pottery disappeared somewhat abruptly and was replaced by burnished and smoothed (occasionally black-topped) pottery 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.
At Nabta Playa, a remarkable megalithic complex has been discovered adjacent to an exceptionally large Late Neolithic site. It consists of three parts: an alignment of 10 large (2 x 3 m.) stones, a circle of
small upright slabs (almost 4 m. in diameter), and two slab-covered
tumuli, one of which had an underlying chamber containing the
remains of a long-horned bull. Small alignments of megaliths have
also been observed elsewhere in the Nabta Basin. Although their function is not obvious, these megalithic constructions clearly represent
public 'architecture' and therefore refer to increasing social complexity.
In the Dakhla Oasis, several archaeological units have been distinguished, and the main phases are known as Masara, Bashendi,
and Sheikh Muftah. The Masara phase is contemporaneous with
(and similar to) the Early Neolithic of Nabta Playa and Bir Kiseiba.
The Middle and Late Neolithic Bashendi and Sheikh Muftah cultures continued into dynastic times. These two Neolithic cultures are
characterized by contrasting types of settlement, with Sheikh Muftah
sites situated in close correlation with lake sediments and Bashendi
sites being located just outside the oasis proper. It has been suggested
that two different types of occupation may be represented. Thus the
Sheikh Muftah sites might represent full-time oasis-dwellers, while
the Bashendi sites might have belonged to periodic visitors, probably
nomadic pastoralists. Starting in about 5400 BC, people relied heavily
on their flocks and herds of domesticated animals (imported from the
Levant and mainly consisting of goats), while still undertaking some
hunting.
The lithic technology of the Bashendi culture is similar to that of the
Middle and Late Neolithic, with the addition of a variety of arrowheads,
often bifacially retouched. From a little before 4900 BC, burnished and
smoothed pottery, somewhat similar to fragments of vessels found at
Nabta Playa and Bir Kiseiba, was produced at Bashendi sites, while
black-topped pottery occurs occasionally at sites in the Dakhla Oasis.
In the south-east corner of Dakhla, various stone-built structures are
present; it remains unclear how typical this oasis was for the whole of
the Western Desert, but it obviously contains the strongest cultural
parallels with the Nile Valley.
After 4900 BC and especially from 4400 BC onwards, the desert
became less and less inhabitable because of the onset of the arid
climate that continues up to the present day. However, a few select
areas were still occupied in historic times.
The Nile Valley Epipalaeolithic
From 7000 BC onwards, human groups are again present in the Nile
Valley, but the number of Epipalaeolithic sites is very limited, and they
have only been discovered in exceptional circumstances. Thus, only
two cultures—the Elkabian and the Qarunian—can be distinguished.
During the Epipalaeolithic, there was a continuation of the Palaeolithic
style of subsistence, based on hunting, fishing, and gathering.
At Elkab, a few small Epipalaeolithic sites, dating to about 7000-
6700 BC, have been found in an exceptionally good state of preservation because they are located within the far more recent DynasticPeriod enclosure wall. The sites were located on the beach of a
silting-up Nile branch, the occupations having taken place after the
floodplain inundations. The Epipalaeolithic fishing practices were
more highly developed than those of the Late Palaeolithic. Indeed, fishing took place not only in the receding high waters but also in the
main channel of the Nile, which suggests that by this date the people
must have been using boats with a reasonable degree of stability.
Because of the more humid climate, hunting for aurochs, dorcas
gazelle, and barbary sheep was possible in the wadi area. The Elkabian
industry is microlithic, including a large number of microburins. It is
readily comparable with the Early Neolithic of the Western Desert. The
presence of numerous grinding stones cannot be used as evidence for
plant processing, because red pigment was still visible on a number of
them. The presence of an Elkabian occupation in the Tree Shelter site
at Wadi Sodmein, near Quseir in the Eastern Desert, suggests that the
Elkabians should be viewed as nomadic hunters, following east-west
routes with wintertime fishing and hunting in the Nile Valley and
exploitation of the desert during the wet summer.
The Qarunian is a renaming of the Faiyum B culture (attributed by
Caton-Thompson to the Mesolithic). Qarunian sites, originally located
on high ground overlooking the Proto-Moeris Lake (which dates to
about 7050 BC), have been identified in the area north and west of the
present Faiyum lake. The Holocene history of the lake is characterized
by a number of fluctuations, which are of the utmost importance for
the understanding of the history of occupation around the lake. There
were three transgressions (that is, submergences of land caused by
rises in sea level) preceding the Neolithic. In the Qarunian phase, fishing conditions were exceptionally good in the shallow waters of the
lake and it comes as no surprise that fish provided the basis of subsistence. In addition, hunting and food gathering were practised. The
Qarunian industry is also microlithic and fits in with the general technological context of the Elkabian and the Early Neolithic of the
Western Desert. A single burial is known for the Qarunian. The body
of a woman aged about 40 was buried in a slightly contracted position,
on the left side, head to the east, facing south. Her physical characteristics are far more modern than the Late Palaeolithic Mechtoids.
The presence of microlithic industries in the neighbourhood of
Helwan has been known since the nineteenth century, showing similarities with the Pre-Pottery Neolithic from the Levant, but the real
significance of these industries cannot be determined because of the
poor information available. Also in the Eastern Desert, in the Red
Sea mountains, there are Neolithic settlements. According to the evidence from Sodmein Cave near Quseir, these settlers would have
introduced domesticated sheep/goat during the first half of the sixth
millennium BC.
The Nile Valley Neolithic
In the Nile Valley, no other traces have been found of the people that
dwelled in the Eastern and Western Desert, except for the Elkabian and
Qarunian cultures. There is no indication of any shift towards agriculture, which was already well established in the Levant from about
8500 BC onwards. The Egyptian population seems to have continued
their traditional way of life, based on fishing, hunting, and gathering.
Unfortunately, we have no information on human population in the
Nile Valley for the period between 7000 and 5400 BC.
The Tarifian culture is known from a small site at el-Tarif, in the
Theban necropolis, and from another one in the neighbourhood of
Armant. It is a ceramic phase of a local Epipalaeolithic culture, which,
however, remains unknown. It shows no connection with the later
Naqada culture, and its relation with the Badarian culture is also
unclear, although apparently the lithic industries show no close links.
The Tarifian is characterized by a flake industry, with, on the one hand,
a small microlithic component referring to the Epipalaeolithic and on
the other hand some bifacial pieces announcing Neolithic technology.
Pottery, mainly organic tempered, is restricted to a number of small
fragments. Traces of agriculture or animal breeding are lacking. No
remains of structures have been found and the settlement at el-Tarif is
presumed to have been similar to Final Palaeolithic camps.
The Faiyumian culture, which is identical to Caton-Thompson's
Faiyum A culture, starts in about 5450 BC and disappears around 4400
BC. 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. The Faiyumian
lithic technology is clearly related to that of the Late Neolithic in the
Western Desert. People were living along the ancient beach of lake
Faiyum, and the most important remains found so far are groups of
storage pits for grain, often lined with matting. For the first time in
Egypt, agriculture, most probably introduced from the Levant, is clearly
the basis of subsistence. Six-row barley and emmer wheat were grown
and probably also flax. Because the storage pits are in groups, it is supposed that agriculture was practised on a community basis. One storage area consists of 109 silos, with diameters between 30 and 150 cm.,
and a depth between 30 and 90 cm., which obviously represents a
major storage capacity. Besides agriculture, animal husbandry was
certainly important, with evidence of the presence of sheep/goat,
cattle, and pigs. Fishing also remained basic to the economy.
Faiyumian pottery is coarsely made and fashioned into simple
shapes. A limited number of pieces were red coated and burnished,
but no decorated pottery has been found. The lithic industry is a flake
industry with a minor bifacial component. Links with distant places,
presumably indirect, have been inferred from seashells of both Mediterranean and Red Sea species, as well as cosmetic palettes of Nubian
diorite and beads of green feldspar, but no copper has been found.
The large settlement of Merimda Beni Salama is situated on a low
terrace at the edge of the western Nile Delta. The settlement debris has
an average depth of 2.5 m. and consists of five levels, corresponding to
three main cultural stages. These span a long period between 5000
and 4100 BC. Level I, labelled Urschicht, is clearly different from the
more recent stages, and is characterized by ceramics without temper,
both polished and unpolished; decoration consisting of a herringbone
pattern is typical of this ceramic phase (but neverthless rare). Level I
lithics are characterized by a flake technology and the presence of
numerous end-scrapers as well as bifacial retouched tools. The settlement remains of this level are restricted to hearths and possible
remains of flimsy shelters. The economy was probably a mixture of
agriculture, animal husbandry (sheep, cattle, and pig) related to the
Levant, but also fishing and hunting. Radiocarbon dates suggest a
chronological position at about 4800 BC, although this estimate is considered by the excavator of the site to be too recent. Ceramics with
herringbone pattern decorations have also been found in recent excavations at the Sodmein Cave, near Quseir.
There was probably a break in occupation between levels I and II at
Merimda. Level II, known as the Mittleren Merimdekultur and considered by the excavator to be related to Saharo-Sudanese cultures, is
marked by a denser occupation of the site, with simple oval dwellings
of wood and wickerwork, well developed hearths, storage jars sunk in
the clay floors, and large clay-coated baskets in accessory pits serving
as granaries. Contracted burials were also located among the dwellings. Ceramics are radically different from the previous period because
they are straw tempered, but the shapes were still simple. Nearly half
of the pottery was polished, and none of it appears to have been decorated. The lithic industry is predominantly bifacial. Concave-base
arrowheads appear for the first time at Merimda. A large number of
artefacts in bone, ivory, and shell have been found, and three-barbed
harpoons are typical. Agriculture continues as the basic economic
activity, but, judging from the number of bones, cattle become more
important, while fishing and hunting are both still well attested. No radiocarbon dates are available, but a date between 5500 and 4500 BC
has been suggested by the excavator.
Levels III-V are called Jungeren Merimdekultur, and correspond to
the phase identified as 'classic' Merimda culture by the site's first excavator in the early twentieth century. The settlement at this date consisted of a large village of mud dwellings, huts, and work spaces.
Well-made oval houses were laid out densely along narrow streets. The
buildings are between 1.5 and 3 m. wide, with floors dug into the
ground to a depth of about 40 cm., and walls made of straw-tempered
mud and mud clods; they were roofed with light materials such as
branches and reeds. Within the houses, hearths, grinding stones,
sunken water jars, and holes once containing pottery were discovered,
indicating a variety of domestic activities carried out indoors. Granaries were associated with individual dwellings, demonstrating that
the family units had probably become more or less economically
independent. In general, it can be concluded that settlement organization at Merimda certainly represents a 'formal' organization of village
life. Contracted burials in shallow oval pits are located among the
houses. Remarkably, hardly any grave goods were included. Both the
absence of grave goods and the location of burials within the settlement are aspects of funerary protocol that appear to contrast sharply
with Upper Egyptian burial customs. However, it seems likely given
the limited number of graves (less than 200), the restricted presence of
adult males, and the occurrence of stratigraphic confusions that only
children and adolescents were buried within the settlement, which is
also well known for Upper Egypt, while the adults were buried in areas
that were only later occupied by houses. It is however to be supposed
that the majority of the cemeteries remain at present undiscovered.
The ceramic evolution shows a tendency towards closed shapes.
Polishing is used for decorative effects, and during this period polished
pottery becomes dark red/black, with half of the repertoire comprising
large rough vessels. The bifacial chert technology is improved, compared to the previous phase of occupation at Merimda. Implements
made from bone, ivory and shell remain frequent. Most remarkable,
however, are a small number of figurines, one of which is a roughly
cylindrical head of a human figure, covered with small holes that evidently served for the application of hair and a beard. The shape of the
holes seems to indicate that feathers were used for the imitation of hair
and beard. The head must originally have been fixed to a wooden body,
which makes it the oldest human representation yet known from
Egypt. According to the excavator, this most recent period at Merimda would be equivalent to the Faiyumian. However, this is only partially
confirmed by radiocarbon dating, according to which the Jungeren
Merimdekultur is to be assigned to the period between 4600 and
4100 BC, and would therefore be contemporaneous only with the
second half of the Faiyumian.
Still in Lower Egypt, several sites in the neighbourhood of Wadi
Hof-Helwan consist of separated settlements and cemeteries. They
represent a Neolithic culture that has been called the el-Omari culture,
after its discoverer, Amin el-Omari. It dates to about 4600-4350 BC
and is therefore contemporaneous with the Jungeren Merimdekultur. In
the settlements, mainly pits have been found, used for storage or the
dumping of refuse. Associated constructions could not be described
exactly, but were certainly very light. Cemeteries developed in settlement areas that were no longer in use. All graves are pit burials, with
contracted bodies, ideally orientated to the south, lying on their left side.
The el-Omari pottery always has an organic temper; the shapes are
very simple and many vessels are polished, often with a red coating.
The lithic industry shows the same improvement of the bifacial technique as at Merimda II-V. Agriculture and animal husbandry (goat/
sheep, cattle, pigs) are the base of subsistence, but fishing was particularly important at el-Omari. Desert hunting, on the contrary, was
hardly practised at all.
The presence of domesticated goats from about 5900 BC, in both the
Western and Eastern deserts, is astonishing when compared to the age
of their presence in the Nile Valley, where they did not appear until
some five centuries later.
The Badarian Culture
The Badarian culture, which is the earliest attestation of agriculture in
Upper Egypt, was first identified in the region el-Badari, near Sohag. A
large number of mainly small sites near the villages of Qau el-Kebir,
Hammamiya, Mostagedda, and Matmar yielded a total of about 600
graves and forty poorly documented settlements.
The chronological position of the Badarian culture is still the subject
of some debate. Its relative chronological position in relation to the
more recent Naqada culture was established some time ago through
excavation at the stratified site of North Spur Hammamiya, and, according to a number of thermoluminescence dates, the culture might
already have existed by about 5000 BC. However, it can only be definitely confirmed to have spanned the period around 4400-4000 BC.
The existence of a still earlier culture, called the Tasian, has been
claimed. This culture would have been characterized by the presence
of round-based caliciform beakers with incised designs filled with
white pigment, which are also known from contexts of similar date in
Neolithic Sudan. However, the existence of the Tasian as a chronologically or culturally separated unit has never been demonstrated
beyond doubt. Although most scholars consider the Tasian to be
simply part of the Badarian culture, it has also been argued that the
Tasian represents the continuation of a Lower Egyptian tradition,
which would be the immediate predecessor of the Naqada I culture.
This, however, seems rather implausible, first because similarities
with the Lower Egyptian Neolithic cultures are not convincing, and,
secondly, because of the Tasian's obvious ceramic links with the
Sudan. If the Tasian must be considered as a separate cultural entity,
then it might represent a nomadic culture with a Sudanese background, which interacted with the Badarian culture.
Despite the existence of some excavated settlement sites, the Badarian culture is mainly known from cemeteries in the low desert. All
graves are simple pit burials, often incorporating a mat on which the
body was placed. Bodies are normally in a loosely contracted position,
on the left side, head to the south, looking west. Graves of very young
children are lacking. There is sufficient evidence to show that these
were buried within the settlement, or rather within parts of the settlements that were no longer used. Analysis of Badarian grave goods
demonstrates an unequal distribution of wealth. In addition, the
wealthier graves tend to be separated in one part of the cemetery. This
clearly indicates social stratification, which still seems limited at this
point in Egyptian prehistory, but which became increasingly important throughout the subsequent Naqada Period.
The pottery that accompanies the dead in their graves is the most
characteristic element of the Badarian culture. All pottery is made by
hand, from Nile silts, which, except for the very fine wares, always has
a very fine organic temper. This very characteristic temper is always
finer than that used for the so called rough ware during the Naqada
Period. For their best products, the Badarian potters spared no efforts
in refining the clay and obtaining very thin walls, which have never
been equalled in any subsequent period of the Egyptian past. Pottery
shapes are simple, mainly comprising cups and bowls with direct rims
and rounded base. A significant proportion of the vessels are black
topped, but they generally have a more brownish surface than the
Naqada I black-topped pottery. Red slip, with which the Naqada I black-topped pottery is covered, is far more exceptional for the Badarian. The most characteristic element of the Badarian pottery is the
'rippled surface' that is present on the finest pottery, meaning that the
surface has been combed with an instrument and afterwards polished,
resulting in a very decorative effect. Carinated vessels are also considered highly characteristic of the culture, but decorated pottery is
rare: occasionally, incised, white-filled, geometrical motifs have been
applied, perhaps imitating basketry.
The lithic industry is mainly known from settlement sites, although
the finest examples have been found in graves. It is principally a flake
and blade industry, to which a limited number of remarkable bifacial
worked tools are added. Predominant tools are end-scrapers, perforators, and retouched pieces. Bifacial tools consist mainly of axes,
bifacial sickles, and concave-base arrowheads. It should also be noted
that the characteristic side-blow flakes were also present in the
Western Desert.
Other products of the Badarian culture include such personal items
as hairpins, combs, bracelets, and beads in bone and ivory. The repertoire of greywacke cosmetic palettes was at this date limited to long
rectangular or oval shapes, but they would later become very characteristic aspects of the Naqada culture, when they were produced in a
great variety of shapes. A few clay and ivory female statuettes have
been found, varying immensely in style from fairly realistic examples
to others that are highly stylized. It should also be noted that hammered copper was present in limited quantities.
For a long time it was thought that the Badarian culture remained
restricted to the Badari region. However, characteristic Badarian finds
have also been made much further to the south, at Mahgar Dendera,
Armant, Elkab, and Hierakonpolis, and also to the east, in the Wadi
Hammamat.
Originally, the Badarian culture was considered a chronologically
separate unit, out of which the Naqada culture developed. However,
the situation is certainly far more complex. For instance, the Naqada I
period seems to be poorly represented in the Badari region; therefore,
it has been suggested that the Badarian was largely contemporary with
the Naqada I culture in the area to the south of the Badari region. However, since a limited number of Badarian or Badarian-related artefacts
have also been discovered south of Badari, it might instead be argued
that the Badarian culture was present between at least the Badari
region and Hierakonpolis. Unfortunately most of these finds are very
limited in number, and a comparison with the lithic industry or the settlement ceramics from the Badari area is in most cases impossible
or has not yet been published. The Badarian culture may, therefore,
have been characterized by regional differences, the unit in the Badari
region itself being the only one that has so far been properly investigated or attested. On the other hand, a more or less 'uniform' Badarian
culture may have been represented over the whole area between Badari
and Hierakonpolis, but, since the development of the Naqada culture
took place more to the south, it seems quite possible that the Badarian
survived for a longer time in the Badari region itself.
The origins of the Badarian are equally problematic, having been
sought in all directions. For a long time the Badarian was considered to
have emerged from the south, because it was thought that the Badarians had 'poor knowledge' of chert, which would show that they came
from the non calcareous part of Egypt to the south; on the other hand,
the origins of agriculture and animal husbandry were assumed to lie in
the Near East. The theory that the Badarian originated in the south is,
however, no longer accepted. The selection of chert is perfectly logical
for the Badarian lithic technology, which seems to show links with the
Late Neolithic from the Western Desert. Rippled pottery, one of the
most characteristic features of the Badarian, probably developed from
burnished and smudged pottery, which is present both in late Sahara
Neolithic sites and from Merimda in the north down to the Khartoum
Neolithic sites in the south. Rippled pottery may thus have been a local
development of a Saharan tradition.
It seems obvious that the Badarian culture did not appear from a
single source, although the Western Desert was probably the predominant one. On the other hand, the provenance of domesticated
plants remains controversial: an origin in the Levant, via the Lower
Egyptian Faiyum and Merimda cultures, might be possible.
Evidence from Badarian settlements shows that the economy of the
culture was primarily based on agriculture and husbandry. Among the
contents of storage facilities, wheat, barley, lentils, and tubers have
been found. A number of circular constructions at Hammamiya,
previously identified as houses, most probably represent small animal
enclosures. In some of them, 20-30 cm. thick layers of sheep or goat
droppings have been found. Furthermore, fishing was certainly very
important, and may have been the principal economic activity during
certain periods of the year. Hunting, on the other hand, was apparently
only of marginal importance.
Settlement sites in the Badari region show a pattern of small villages
or hamlets, which seem to have moved horizontally after fairly short periods of occupation. Storage pits and vessels are the most obvious
features in these sites, which is, of course, partially due to their preferential preservation. The constructions are all very light and seem in
most cases to have been temporary. Indeed, 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.
The temporary character of Badarian settlements is confirmed at
Mahgar Dendera, about 150 km. to the south of Badari. The site was
seasonally used from the end of the low-water season onwards, at the
moment when the harvest was finished and when areas of land suitable for herding had to be looked for along the Nile, within the alluvial
plain. Besides herding, the second economic activity at Mahgar Dendera was fishing, which was practised in the main channel of the Nile,
while it was at its lowest level. At Mahgar Dendera, the alluvial plain is
very small; therefore, the site is both close to the Nile and out of reach
of the inundation, allowing people to stay at the same place when the
inundation started and even at its highest point. During this period,
when the living conditions reached an annual low, a part of the flock,
mainly young males, seems to have been butchered. People had left
Mahgar Dendera before the alluvial plain became fordable, because at
that time they had to start working the fields, which cannot have been
situated at Mahgar Dendera because of the limited floodplain.
Only limited information is available concerning the foreign contacts of the Badarian culture. Relations with the Red Sea are attested
through the presence of Red Sea shells in graves, while copper ore may
have come from the Eastern Desert or the Sinai. The latter may also
have already been the source of turquoise but recently the identification of turquoise from Badarian contexts was shown to be erroneous. If there were contacts between the Badari region and the Sinai,
they most probably passed through the Eastern Desert rather than
Lower Egypt, where there appear to be no indications of the Badarian
culture. This possibility of Badari-Sinai links through the Eastern
Desert may eventually be confirmed by reported finds from the Wadi
Hammamat, which unfortunately are still not fully published.
