Cultural convergence in the Neolithic of the Nile Valley: a prehistoric perspective on Egypt's place in Africa

Abstract

The African origins of Egyptian civilisation lie in an important cultural horizon, the ‘primary pastoral community’, which emerged in both the Egyptian and Sudanese parts of the Nile Valley in the fifth millennium BC. A re-examination of the chronology, assisted by new AMS determinations from Neolithic sites in Middle Egypt, has charted the detailed development of these new kinds of society. The resulting picture challenges recent studies that emphasise climate change and environmental stress as drivers of cultural adaptation in north-east Africa. It also emphasises the crucial role of funerary practices and body decoration.

Human occupations and environmental changes in the Nile valley during the Holocene: The case of Kerma in Upper Nubia (northern Sudan)

“…This millennium of prosperity precedes that in Upper Egypt by several centuries, where the first cemeteries dating from the Neolithic are no earlier than 6.5 kyr BP, becoming more frequent ca. 6.2 kyr BP with the development of the Badarian (Wengrow et al, 2014). These cemeteries are similar to those known elsewhere in Sudan, whether in terms of the material culture or of the funerary rites.…”

“…It would appear essential to be able to compare the different sectors of the valley one with another, and to compare these with the data from the desert, to understand the social evolutionary processes in North-East Africa (cf. Wengrow et al, 2014).…”

The flint artefacts from two workshops at Wadi el-Sheikh, Eastern Desert, Egypt

“…9.7), reinforcing the view that Egyptian flint artisans inherited and adapted a very old technical tradition of superbly mastered craftsmanship. This also validates our understanding that the Egyptian civilization emerged from African roots with some technical and cultural preconditions embedded in a long human history, bridged via the Neolithic progress (Kobusiewicz, 2006:449;Briois et al, 2012:188-189;Wengrow et al, 2014;Stevenson, 2016;Lucarini, 2016:96).…”

Reinterpreting chronology and society at the mortuary complex of Jebel Moya (Sudan)

“…Given the above issues, it is reassuring that more recent Nilotic archaeological models have often managed to retained a recognition of the importance of ecological conditions while (a) examining when and how the emergence of specialist pastoral activity occurred (Linseele 2010;Sadr 1991), and (b) revealing the shifting emphasis in the ways in which social identities were constructed, reinforced and actively displayed through the material culture associated with ritual practice (Wengrow 2006;Wengrow et al 2014). Wengrow and colleagues' model incorporates concepts of bounded territoriality, for example stating that: "enduring attachments between people and place appear to have been established primarily through elaborate funerary rites, collective feasting and repeated use of burial grounds, while habitation sites -on current evidence -remained for the most part fluid and ephemeral in nature" (Wengrow et al 2014: 104).…”