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Abstract

This study presents the results of integrated mineralogical, petrographic and chemical analyses of different ceramic assemblages and local sediments from Sai Island, northern Sudan, dating to between the seventh and the third millennium BC, and highlights a significant variability in the raw materials and technology of these productions. Although archaeometric analyses of ceramics are widely employed in many parts of the world, a lamentable scientific gap exists for African pottery, which this paper aims to bridge with new and compelling results.

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The site of Sphinx (SBK.W-60) is located about 3.5 km from the present Nile in the western part of Jebel Sabaloka, upstream of the Sixth Nile Cataract, in Sudan. This site uniquely includes Early Khartoum (Mesolithic) artifacts with no intrusive elements and has been dated from the ninth to the end of the sixth millennium cal BC. Excavations at Trench 7, in particular, brought to light a 1.2-m thick deposit with the quantitatively and qualitatively richest artifactual materials. Analysis and classification of the pottery assemblage from this site have been conducted with the aim of observing manufacturing techniques from a broad perspective correlating pottery production to cultural change and chronological variability. Analyses of the ceramic assemblage regarded visual examinations of the manufacturing techniques combined with petrographic (optical microscopy, OM) and chemical analyses (instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis, iNAA), observations of manufacturing and decorative techniques, and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and gas chromatography-combustion-isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC-C-IRMS) on absorbed organic residues. The vertical distribution of the ceramic assemblage reveals consistent technological variability through the timespan of occupation of the site.