Although there is evidence in southwest Asia of early Neolithic villages practicing some agriculture and herding of domesticated animals by ca. 8000 bc, contemporary Neolithic sites in Egypt are found only in the Western Desert, where the evidence for subsistence practices is quite different from that in southwest Asia. Occupation of the Western Desert sites was only possible during periods when there was rain, as a result of northward shifts in the monsoon belt. In the early Holocene there was not enough rainfall in the desert for agriculture, which in any event had not yet been invented or introduced into Egypt. Permanent villages are unknown in the earliest phase and the sites are like the seasonal camps of hunter-gatherers. While there may have been permanent settlements later, these were not villages increasing in size and population, and after about 5000 bc they were gradually abandoned, as the Western Desert became more and more arid. The Saharan Neolithic sites do not represent a true Neolithic economy (see Box 4-C). They have been classified as Neolithic because of the possible domestication of cattle, which seem to have been herded, and the presence of pottery.
Three periods of the Saharan Neolithic have been identified in the Western Desert: Early (ca. 8800-6800 bc), Middle (ca. 6500-5100 bc), and Late (ca. 5100-4700 bc). Excavated by Fred Wendorf, Neolithic sites in the Western Desert have been found in a number of localities, especially Bir Kiseiba (more than 250 km west of the Nile in Lower Nubia) and Nabta Playa (ca. 90 km southeast of Bir Kiseiba). Neolithic sites are also found farther north in Dakhla and Kharga Oases.
At Early Neolithic sites Wendorf has evidence of small amounts of cattle bones and argues that cattle could not have survived in the desert without human intervention, that is, herding and watering. Whether these herded cattle were fully domesticated, or were still morphologically wild, is problematic. By ca. 7500 bc there is evidence of excavated wells, which may have provided water for people and cattle, thus making longer stays in the desert possible. But hare and gazelle were also hunted, and cattle may have been kept for milk and blood, rather than primarily for meat, as is still practiced by many cattle pastoralists in East Africa.
Early Neolithic tools include backed bladelets (with one side intentionally blunted), some of which are pointed and were probably used for hunting. Grinding stones were used to process wild grass seeds and wild sorghum, which have been preserved at one Nabta Playa site. Later evidence at the same site includes the remains of several rows of stone huts, probably associated with temporary lake levels, as well as underground storage pits and wells.
Early Neolithic pottery is decorated with patterns of lines and points, often made by impressing combs or cords. The pottery (and that of the following Middle Neolithic) is related to ceramics of the “Khartoum” or “Saharo-Sudanese” tradition farther south in northern Sudan. Since potsherds are few at Early Neolithic sites, water was probably
MEDITERRANEAN SEA
Map 4.2 Neolithic sites in Egypt
Also stored in ostrich egg shells, of which more have been found (or possibly also in animal skins that have not been preserved).
Middle and Late Neolithic occupation sites in the Western Desert are more numerous. There are more living structures and wells, as well as the earliest evidence of wattle-and-daub houses, made of plants plastered with mud. Some of these sites may have been occupied year round, while the smaller ones may still represent temporary camps of pastoralists. Sheep and goat, originally domesticated in southwest Asia, are found for the first time in the Western Desert, but hunting wild animals still provided most of the animal protein.
Bifacially worked stone tools called foliates and points (arrowheads) with concave bases become more frequent. There are also grinding stones, smaller ground stone tools (palettes and ungrooved ax-like tools called celts), and beads.
In the Late Neolithic at Nabta Playa and Bir Kiseiba a new ceramic ware appears that is smoothed on the surface. Some of this pottery is black-topped, which becomes a characteristic ware of the early Predynastic in the Nile Valley. The appearance of this new pottery in the Western Desert, and later in Upper Egypt, may be evidence for movements of people, but other forms of contact and exchange (of pottery, technology, ideas, etc.) are also possible. After ca. 4900 bc more arid conditions prevailed in the Western Desert, making life for pastoralists there increasingly difficult except in the oases, where Neolithic cultures continued into Dynastic times.
Some very unusual Late Neolithic evidence has been excavated by Wendorf at Nabta Playa, including two tumuli covered by stone slabs, one of which had a pit containing the burial of a bull. Also found there were an alignment of ten large stones, ca. 2 meters X 3 meters, which had been brought from 1.5 kilometers or more away,
Figure 4.5 Late Neolithic stone alignment at Nabta Playa. Photo: Fred Wendorf. Copyright © The Trustees of The British Museum
And a circular arrangement of smaller stone slabs, ca. 4 meters in diameter (see Figure 4.5). It has been suggested that the stone alignments had calendrical significance based on astronomical/celestial movements (as is known for more complex stone alignments, the most famous of which is Stonehenge in southern England). Such a specific explanation for the Nabta Playa stone alignments is difficult to demonstrate, but they appear to have had no utilitarian purpose. They should probably be understood as related to the belief system of these Neolithic pastoralists.
Box 4-C Neolithic economy
Although the term “Neolithic” means “New Stone Age,” the technological and social changes that occurred during the Neolithic were some of the most fundamental ones in the evolution of human culture and society. Archaeologist V. Gordon Childe termed this development the “Neolithic revolution.” The technological changes included many more tools used by farmers, which had originally developed in late Paleolithic cultures to collect and process wild plants, including sickle blades as well as axes, to clear areas for farming. More importantly, the Neolithic was the period of transition from a subsistence based on hunting, gathering, and fishing, with people living in small temporary camps, to an economy based on farming and herding domesticated plants and animals, as well as the beginning of village life, which could properly be called the “Neolithic economy.” Pottery, which was useful for cooking and storage of cultivated cereals, was invented in the Neolithic, although it is also associated with sedentary villages of some earlier (Mesolithic) cultures that did not practice agriculture. Village life would forever change human societies, laying the social and economic foundations for the subsequent rise of towns and cities, which Childe termed the “urban revolution.”
Some of the changes the Neolithic brought were beneficial: the potential for a permanent supply of food provided by farming and herding, and permanent shelter. Hunting and gathering is physically difficult for child-bearing women, and there was a rise in population associated with the Neolithic. More women of child-bearing years survived to bear more children, and more children were useful for farming activities, especially harvesting.
But with the Neolithic came new problems - many of which have been discussed by Jared Diamond in his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel. As agriculture and herding spread, large numbers of wild species (and their environments) were replaced by domesticated ones. With a decrease in biodiversity, there was a greater possibility of crop failure and famine, as a result of low floods (in Egypt) and droughts, as well as insect pests and diseases that prey on cultivated plants. Domesticated animals carry diseases that are contagious to humans, especially anthrax and tuberculosis. In dense human populations living in permanent villages infectious diseases also increase: smallpox, cholera, chicken pox, influenza, polio, et cetera. Unsanitary conditions of more people living together can also create an environment that encourages parasites (bacilli and streptococci). Human waste and animals that are attracted to villages (rodents, cockroaches, etc.) can carry the bacteria of bubonic plague, leprosy, dysentery, et cetera. Without socially acceptable outlets, the psychological effect of more people living together in permanent settlements can also lead to increased tension and violence.
The advantages of the Neolithic economy and village life in Egypt laid the foundations for pharaonic civilization. The Egyptian Nile Valley was an almost ideal environment for cereal agriculture, with the potential of large surpluses, which were the economic base of pharaonic society. The population increased greatly during pharaonic times.
Fishing remained an important source of protein in the pharaonic diet, while fowling and hunting also continued, mainly as an elite pastime. As the habitats of wild birds and mammals decreased through time, older subsistence strategies acquired new meanings.
World History
