In the Nile Valley, no other traces have been found of the people that dwelled in the Eastern and Western Desert, except for the Elkabian and Qarunian cultures. There is no indication of any shift towards agriculture, which was already well established in the Levant from about 8500 BC onwards. The Egyptian population seems to have continued their traditional way of life, based on fishing, hunting, and gathering. Unfortunately, we have no information on human population in the Nile Valley for the period between 7000 and 5400 bc.
The Tarifian culture is known from a small site at el-Tarif, in the Theban necropolis, and from another one in the neighbourhood of Armant. It is a ceramic phase of a local Epipalaeolithic culture, which, however, remains unknown. It shows no connection with the later Naqada culture, and its relation with the Badarian culture is also unclear, although apparently the lithic industries show no close links. The Tarifian is characterized by a flake industry, with, on the one hand, a small microlithic component referring to the Epipalaeolithic and on the other hand some bifacial pieces announcing Neolithic technology. Pottery, mainly organic tempered, is restricted to a number of small fragments. Traces of agriculture or animal breeding are lacking. No remains of structures have been found and the settlement at el-Tarif is presumed to have been similar to Final Palaeolithic camps.
The Faiyumian culture, which is identical to Caton-Thompson’s Faiyum A culture, starts in about 5450 bc and disappears around 4400 BC. Technological and typological differences between the Qarunian and the Faiyumian are so significant that there can be no question of the Faiyumian having developed out of the Qarunian. The Faiyumian lithic technology is clearly related to that of the Late Neolithic in the Western Desert. People were living along the ancient beach of lake Faiyum, and the most important remains found so far are groups of storage pits for grain, often lined with matting. For the first time in Egypt, agriculture, most probably introduced from the Levant, is clearly the basis of subsistence. Six-row barley and emmer wheat were grown and probably also flax. Because the storage pits are in groups, it is supposed that agriculture was practised on a community basis. One storage area consists of 109 silos, with diameters between 30 and 150 cm., and a depth between 30 and 90 cm., which obviously represents a major storage capacity. Besides agriculture, animal husbandry was certainly important, with evidence of the presence of sheep/goat, cattle, and pigs. Fishing also remained basic to the economy.
Faiyumian pottery is coarsely made and fashioned into simple shapes. A limited number of pieces were red coated and burnished, but no decorated pottery has been found. The lithic industry is a flake industry with a minor bifacial component. Links with distant places, presumably indirect, have been inferred from seashells of both Mediterranean and Red Sea species, as well as cosmetic palettes of Nubian diorite and beads of green feldspar, but no copper has been found.
The large settlement of Merimda Beni Salama is situated on a low terrace at the edge of the western Nile Delta. The settlement debris has an average depth of 2.5 m. and consists of five levels, corresponding to three main cultural stages. These span a long period between 5000 and 4100 BC. Level I, labelled Urschicht, is clearly different from the more recent stages, and is characterized by ceramics without temper, both polished and unpolished: decoration consisting of a herringbone pattern is typical of this ceramic phase (but neverthless rare). Level I lithics are characterized by a flake technology and the presence of numerous end-scrapers as well as bifacial retouched tools. The settlement remains of this level are restricted to hearths and possible remains of flimsy shelters. The economy was probably a mixture of agriculture, animal husbandry (sheep, cattle, and pig) related to the Levant, but also fishing and hunting. Radiocarbon dates suggest a chronological position at about 4800 BC, although this estimate is considered by the excavator of the site to be too recent. Ceramics with herringbone pattern decorations have also been found in recent excavations at the Sodmein Cave, near Quseir.
There was probably a break in occupation between levels I and II at Merimda. Level II, known as the Mittleren Merimdekultur and considered by the excavator to be related to Saharo-Sudanese cultures, is marked by a denser occupation of the site, with simple oval dwellings of wood and wickerwork, well-developed hearths, storage jars sunk in the clay floors, and large clay-coated baskets in accessory pits serving as granaries. Contracted burials were also located among the dwellings. Ceramics are radically different from the previous period because they are straw tempered, but the shapes were still simple. Nearly half of the pottery was polished, and none of it appears to have been decorated. The lithic industry is predominantly bifacial. Concave-base arrowheads appear for the first time at Merimda. A large number of artefacts in bone, ivory, and shell have been found, and three-barbed harpoons are typical. Agriculture continues as the basic economic activity, but, judging from the number of bones, cattle become more important, while fishing and hunting are both still well attested. No Radiocarbon dates are available, but a date between 5500 and 4500 BC has been suggested by the excavator.
Levels III-V are called Jungeren Merimdekultur, and correspond to the phase identified as ‘classic’ Merimda culture by the site’s first excavator in the early twentieth century. The settlement at this date consisted of a large village of mud dwellings, huts, and work spaces. Well-made oval houses were laid out densely along narrow streets. ’The buildings are between 1.5 and 3 m. wide, with floors dug into the ground to a depth of about 40 cm., and walls made of straw-tempered mud and mud clods; they were roofed with light materials such as branches and reeds. Within the houses, hearths, grinding stones, sunken water jars, and holes once containing pottery were discovered, indicating a variety of domestic activities carried out indoors. Granaries were associated with individual dwellings, demonstrating that the family units had probably become more or less economically independent. In general, it can be concluded that settlement organization at Merimda certainly represents a ‘formal’ organization of village life. Contracted burials in shallow oval pits are located among the houses. Remarkably, hardly any grave goods were included. Both the absence of grave goods and the location of burials within the settlement are aspects of funerary protocol that appear to contrast sharply with Upper Egyptian burial customs. However, it seems likely—given the limited number of graves (less than 200), the restricted presence of adult males, and the occurrence of stratigraphic confusions—that only children and adolescents were buried within the settlement, which is also well known for Upper Egypt, while the adults were buried in areas that were only later occupied by houses. It is however to be supposed that the majority of the cemeteries remain at present undiscovered.
’The ceramic evolution shows a tendency towards closed shapes. Polishing is used for decorative effects, and during this period polished pottery becomes dark red/black, with half of the repertoire comprising large rough vessels. ’The bifacial chert technology is improved, compared to the previous phase of occupation at Merimda. Implements made from bone, ivory and shell remain frequent. Most remarkable, however, are a small number of figurines, one of which is a roughly cylindrical head of a human figure, covered with small holes that evidently served for the application of hair and a beard. The shape of the holes seems to indicate that feathers were used for the imitation of hair and beard. ’The head must originally have been fixed to a wooden body, which makes it the oldest human representation yet known from Egypt. According to the excavator, this most recent period at Merimda would be equivalent to the Faiyumian. However, this is only partially confirmed by radiocarbon dating, according to which the Jilngeren Merimdekultur is to be assigned to the period between 4600 and 4100 BC, and would therefore be contemporaneous only with the second half of the Faiyumian.
Still in Lower Egypt, several sites in the neighbourhood of Wadi Hof-Helwan consist of separated settlements and cemeteries. They represent a Neolithic culture that has been called the el-Omari culture, after its discoverer, Amin el-Omari. It dates to about 4600-4350 bc and is therefore contemporaneous with the Jungeren Merimdekultur. In the settlements, mainly pits have been found, used for storage or the dumping of refuse. Associated constructions could not be described exactly, but were certainly very light. Cemeteries developed in settlement areas that were no longer in use. All graves are pit burials, with contracted bodies, ideally orientated to the south, lying on their left side.
The el-Omari pottery always has an organic temper; the shapes are very simple and many vessels are polished, often with a red coating. The lithic industry shows the same improvement of the bifacial technique as at Merimda II-V. Agriculture and animal husbandry (goat/ sheep, cattle, pigs) are the base of subsistence, but fishing was particularly important at el-Omari. Desert hunting, on the contrary, was hardly practised at all.
The presence of domesticated goats from about 5900 bc, in both the Western and Eastern deserts, is astonishing when compared to the age of their presence in the Nile Valley, where they did not appear until some five centuries later.
World History
