Animal Exploitation and Behaviour of the Latest Middle Stone Age Societies in the Middle Nile Valley: Archaeozoological and Taphonomic Analysis of Late Pleistocene Fauna from the Affad Basin, Sudan

Abstract

With the research on the issue in its initial phases, the behaviour and hunting strategies of MSA communities inhabiting the Nile Valley in the Late and Terminal Pleistocene have been fragmentarily recognised thus far. Osteological materials from the area of the Affad Basin in the Middle Nile Valley, recorded in archaeological contexts and dated to the sixteenth millennium BP using OSL methods, have significantly enhanced our knowledge in this regard. It is the first time that an opportunity has occurred to construct a reliable model of the environment exploitation and the behaviour of human groups producing lithic tools using Levallois methods in the Terminal Pleistocene. Archaeozoological analyses have allowed the identification of taxa, species and anatomical origin of remains and enabled the establishment of a database of osteometric measurements. The animals hunted in the Sudanese Nile Valley during the Terminal Pleistocene have been classified with a view to refer the data to the results of analogous studies on MSA in South Africa. The behaviour of the communities occupying the Affad Basin 15,000 years ago was connected to the environment of the tree-covered, swampy savannah and extensive backwaters. Medium-sized antelope (kobus) was hunted most often. People hunted also, albeit less frequently, for large ruminants (buffalo), guenons and large rodents. Remains of fish and mega-fauna (hippopotamus and elephant) have been found in isolated concentrations, away from the camp sites. Remains of molluscs or ostrich eggs have not been registered. The condition of the osteological materials, notably their anatomical distribution, is shown to have been largely affected by wetland environment, rich in iron and manganese.

International workshop on human occupations of the Nile Valley and neighboring regions between 75,000 and 15,000 years ago

“…The LP lithic assemblages portray great variability, and some even retain several MP/MSA characteristics, such as the Levallois method . Further south, a recently excavated site in Sudan, Affad 23, has yielded an occupation level dated to ~15–16 ka, associated with a faunal assemblage dominated by medium to large‐size mammals and a lithic assemblage with MSA characteristics . These recent finds raise further questions as to the complexity of population dynamics and nature of technological variability in the Nile Valley during this time frame.…”

“…2 Further south, a recently excavated site in Sudan, Affad 23, has yielded an occupation level dated to~15-16 ka, associated with a faunal assemblage dominated by medium to large-size mammals and a lithic assemblage with MSA characteristics. 13,14 These recent finds raise further questions as to the complexity of population dynamics and nature of technological variability in the Nile Valley during this time frame. Aspects of interactions vs. isolation of huntergatherer groups and the Nile's influence on subsistence patterns and mobility ranges lie at the center of these debates.…”

“…One main discussion point of the workshop was how to reconcile results from different fields. Most evidence for modern human Affiliations of participants: 1 University of Toronto (Canada), 2 University of Adelaide (Australia), 3 KU Leuven (Belgium), 4 University of Cassino (Italy), 5 Estonian Biocentre, Tartu (Estonia) and University of Padova (Italy), 6 Ronin Institute, 7 Ben-Gurion University, Beer Sheva (Israel) and University of Oxford (UK), 8 UMR CNRS 7194, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris (France), 9 Institut National des Sciences de l'Archéologie et du Patrimoine (INSAP), Rabat (Morocco), 10 UMR 5199 PACEA, University of Bordeaux (France), 11 Polish Academy of Science (Poland), 12 University of Cambridge (UK), 13 The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel), and 14 In particular, three main research avenues to enable new insights regarding population connectivity and dispersal within the region were pointed out, and these include the necessity to continue and organize new fieldwork in the Nile Valley and adjacent deserts, to refine the chronological resolution of human occupation and paleoenvironmental data in this area, and to conduct systematic comparisons of the archeological record between the different regions.…”

Pastoralism, hunting, and coexistence: Domesticated and wild bovids in Neolithic Sudan

“…The faunal assemblage from El Ginefab was generally fragmented and in poor surface condition, a condition typical of fauna from most sites of this age in the Middle Nile Valley reflecting a consistent taphonomic history (Gautier & Van Neer, 2011; Osypińska & Osypiński, 2016; Peters & Pöllath, 2004). As more complete elements are more likely to be identified to species, comparing the NISP to the overall assemblage total provides a measure of fragmentation.…”