In the Egyptian Nile Valley farming and herding were just beginning to be established in the later 6th millennium bc. Since this major cultural transition had occurred much earlier in southwest Asia, with permanent villages in existence in the Epipaleolithic, it seems strange that the Neolithic economy (see Box 4-C) appeared much later in Egypt, and of a very different type there - without permanent villages. Several explanations for the late development of the Neolithic in the Egyptian Nile Valley have been suggested:
(1) None of the species of wild plants or animals that later became domesticated, with the possible exception of cattle, were present in Egypt.
(2) Some of these species (6-row barley, sheep) did not appear in the southern Levant until close to 6000 bc, so they could not have appeared in Egypt until after that time. In addition, the Sinai Peninsula, which was too dry for farming, provided an effective barrier for the flow of farming technology between Egypt and the southern Levant.
(3) The Nile Valley was such a resource-rich environment for hunter-gatherer-fishers that the need to supplement this subsistence with farming and herding did not develop until much later than in southwest Asia.
(4) Much archaeological information from the Epipaleolithic, when technological developments were taking place which led to the invention of agriculture and herding of domesticated animals in some parts of the Old World, is missing for geological reasons in the Egyptian Nile Valley - especially if such settlements were located next to the river.
Although none of these is a satisfactory explanation by itself, in combination they help to clarify some of the problems surrounding the lack of evidence for the transition to a Neolithic economy in Egypt.
In the Faiyum region there is a gap of about 1,000 years between the Epipaleolithic Qarunian culture and the Faiyum A Neolithic sites first excavated by Caton Thompson. These sites are the earliest known Neolithic ones in (or near) the Nile Valley, dating to ca. 5500-4500 bc. The sites contain evidence of domesticated cereals (emmer wheat and 6-row barley) and domesticated sheep/goat, all of which were first domesticated in different parts of southwest Asia. Cattle bones were also found, only some of which are domesticated. But there is no evidence of houses or permanent villages, and the Faiyum A sites resemble camps of hunter-gatherers with scatters of lithics and potsherds. The only permanent features are a great number of hearths and granaries - ca. 350 hearths at the site of Kom W, and 56 granaries, some lined with baskets, at nearby Kom K. Another 109 granaries were also excavated near Kom W, one of which contained a wooden sickle (for harvesting cereals) with chert blades still hafted to it.
Although the domesticated cereals and sheep/goat at the Faiyum A sites were not indigenous to Egypt, the stone tools there argue for an Egyptian origin of this culture.
Lithics include grinding stones for processing cereals, but also concave-base arrowheads for hunting, which are found earlier in the Western Desert. Faiyum A ceramics are simple open pots of a crude, chaff-tempered clay. But there is also evidence of woven linen cloth (made from domesticated flax), and imported materials for jewelry, including seashells and beads of green feldspar (from the Eastern Desert), obtained by longdistance trade or exchange.
As elsewhere at early Neolithic sites in the ancient Near East, farming and herding in the Faiyum were in addition to hunting, gathering, and fishing, and cereals were probably stored for consumption in the drier months, when wild resources became scarce. Unlike Neolithic evidence in the Nile Valley, the Fayium A culture did not become transformed into a society with full-time farming villages. In the 4*h millennium bc when social complexity was developing in the Nile Valley, the Faiyum remained a cultural backwater. From around 4000 bc there are the remains of a few fishing/hunting camps in the Faiyum, but the region was probably deserted by farmers who took advantage of the much greater potential of floodplain agriculture in the Nile Valley.
Somewhat later Neolithic sites have been excavated in Lower Egypt, at Merimde Beni-Salame near the apex of the Delta, and at el-Omari, a suburb south of Cairo. Radiocarbon dates for Merimde range from ca. 4750-4250 bc. The site was excavated from 1929-37 by Hermann Junker, but many of the field notes were lost in Berlin during World War II. Junker thought that the large area covered by the site (ca. 24 ha) represented a large village/town. It has since been demonstrated that the village was never that large at any one time, but that occupation shifted horizontally through time.
Beginning in 1977, new excavations were conducted at Merimde by Josef Eiwanger, who identified five strata of occupation. In the earliest stratum (I) there was evidence of postholes for small round houses, with shallow pits and hearths, and pottery without temper. In the middle phase (stratum II) a new type of chaff-tempered ceramics appeared, which is also found at the site of el-Omari. Concave-based arrowheads were also new. In the later Merimde strata (III-V) a new and more substantial type of structure appeared that was semi-subterranean, about 1.5-3.0 meters in diameter, with mud walls (pise) above. The later ceramics occur in a variety of shapes, many with applied, impressed, or engraved decorations, and a dark, black burnished pottery is first seen. Granaries from this phase were associated with individual houses, suggesting less communal control of stored cereals, as was probably the case at the Faiyum A sites with granaries.
Merimde represents a fully developed Neolithic economy. From the beginning there is evidence of ceramics, as well as farming and the herding of domesticated species, supplemented by hunting, gathering, and especially fishing. While Merimde subsistence practices are similar to the Faiyum A Neolithic, the Merimde remains also include the earliest house structures.
The Neolithic site at el-Omari, which was occupied ca. 4600-4400 bc, is contemporaneous with the latest phase at Merimde. el-Omari was excavated for only two weeks in 1925 and then briefly in 1943 by Fernand Debono. It is now covered by a highway. Although re-excavation of the site is impossible, more recent interpretation of the earlier evidence points to a Neolithic economy similar to that at Merimde, except that storage pits and postholes for wattle-and-daub houses are the only evidence of structures. In addition to tools that were used for farming and fishing (but very little hunting), there is evidence of stone and bone tools for craft activities, including the production of animal skins, textiles, baskets, beads, and simple stone vessels.
Although contracted burials (in a fetal position) are known at both Merimde and el-Omari, they were within the settlements. Burials at Merimde were usually without grave goods; at el-Omari they frequently included only a small pot. Specific cemetery areas for these sites may not have been found (or recognized) in the earlier excavations, but a lack of symbolic behavior concerning disposal of the dead is in great contrast to the type of burial symbolism that began to develop in the Neolithic Badarian culture in Middle Egypt, and which became much more elaborate in the later Predynastic Naqada culture of Upper Egypt.
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