In Upper Egypt there is evidence of a transitional culture contemporaneous with the Faiyum A. In western Thebes scatters of lithics with some organic-tempered ceramics have been found by Polish archaeologists at the site of el-Tarif, hence the name Tarifian culture. Another Tarifian site has been excavated at Armant to the south. The lithics, which are mainly flake tools with a few microliths, seem to be intermediate in typology between Epipaleolithic and Neolithic ones. There is no evidence of food production or domesticated animals. In the New Kingdom this region of western Thebes was greatly disturbed by excavation of tombs for high status officials, so most of the evidence of this prehistoric culture has probably been destroyed. What is known about the Tarifian culture suggests that a Neolithic economy was to be found farther north in the Faiyum at this time, and not yet fully developed in the Nile Valley of Upper Egypt, where hunter-gatherers were making very small numbers of ceramics.
South of the Faiyum, clear evidence of a Neolithic culture is first found at sites in the el-Badari district, located on desert spurs on the east bank in Middle Egypt. Over 50 sites were excavated in the 1920s and 1930s by Guy Brunton, who identified a previously unknown type of pottery associated with these sites, which he thought was typologically earlier than the ceramics from Predynastic sites farther south. Made of red Nile clay, frequently with a blackened rim and thin walls in bowl and cup shapes, these vessels had a rippled surface achieved by combing and then polishing. Brunton’s hypothesis was demonstrated to be correct by Gertrude Caton Thompson’s stratigraphic excavations at another el-Badari district site, Hammamiya, where she found rippled Badarian potsherds in the lowest stratum, beneath strata with Predynastic wares. Later investigations of el-Badari district sites were conducted in the 1980s and 1990s by Diane Holmes (Institute of Archaeology, University College London). Holmes obtained radiocarbon dates of ca. 4500-4000 bc, also verifying the early date of the Badarian.
Aside from cemeteries, Brunton excavated mainly storage pits and associated artifacts, which were the only remains of Badarian settlements. At one site he found post-holes of some kind of light organic structure, but evidence of permanent houses and sedentism was lacking. Possibly the sites that Brunton excavated were outlying camps, once associated with larger and more permanent villages being sited within the floodplain and now destroyed.
Near Deir Tasa, Brunton identified some artifacts as coming from an earlier culture that he called Tasian. It is now thought that the black beakers with incised decoration that Brunton classified as Tasian are imports, probably from northern Sudan - hundreds of kilometers to the south. Thus there was no Tasian culture, but the so-called Tasian sites are Badarian ones, with imported beakers and mainly Badarian artifacts.
Badarian peoples practiced farming and animal husbandry, of cattle, sheep, and goat. They cultivated emmer wheat, 6-row barley, lentils, and flax, and collected tubers. Fishing was definitely important, but hunting much less so. Bifacially worked tools include axes and sickle blades, which would have been used by farmers, but also concave-based arrowheads for hunting. The stone tools made from side-blow flakes suggest origins in the Western Desert, and the rippled pottery may have developed from the burnished Neolithic pottery known in the Western Desert and Nile Valley, from Merimde to northern Sudan.
True Badarian sites are not found in southern Egypt, where the subsequent Naqada culture began after ca. 4000 bc, i. e., at the end of the known dates for the Badarian in Middle Egypt. According to Holmes’ investigations, there is a lack of Naqada I type artifacts at Badari district sites, although later Naqada II artifacts (beginning ca. 3500 bc) are definitely found there. Possibly in Middle Egypt after ca. 4000 bc there was a transitional Badarian/Naqada I phase. Since Badarian artifacts are also found in Upper Egypt, but in small numbers, these artifacts could represent Badarian trade with Upper Egypt. Another possible interpretation is that the Badarian culture stretched from Middle to Upper Egypt, but the artifacts farther south represent regional variation.
What may be seen at the Badarian sites is the earliest evidence in Egypt of pronounced ceremonialism surrounding burials, which become much more elaborate in the 4th-millennium bc Naqada culture. Brunton excavated about 750 Badarian burials, most of which were contracted ones in shallow oval pits. Most burials were placed on the left side, facing west with the head to the south. This later became the standard orientation of Naqada culture burials. Although the Badarian burials had few grave goods, there was usually one pot in a grave. Some burials also had jewelry, made of beads of seashell, stone, bone, and ivory. A few burials contained stone cosmetic palettes or chert tools.
Burials such as the Badarian ones represent the material expression of important beliefs and practices in a society concerning the transition from life to death (see Box 5-B). Burial evidence may symbolize roles and social status of the dead and commemoration of this by the living, expressions of grief by the living, and possibly also concepts of an afterlife. The elaborate process of burial, which would become profoundly important in pharaonic society for 3,000 years, is much more pronounced in the Neolithic Badarian culture of Middle Egypt than in the earlier Saharan Neolithic or the Neolithic in northern Egypt.
World History
