The Western Desert was abandoned towards the end of the Middle Palaeolithic, and people returned there only in about 9300 bc, as a result of the Holocene wet phase. Because there was no human presence immediately before the Early Neolithic, and because the area was also unihabited after this period, the conditions of archaeological preservation are very good. Since the annual rainfall in the early Holocene was still only about 100-200 mm. (all of which probably fell during a brief summer season), only desert-adapted animals such as the hare and the gazelle could live there. Nevertheless, this meant an enormous amelioration of living conditions in comparison with the Upper and Late Palaeolithic. The amount of rainfall was not continuous and arid intervals are most important for chronological differentiation. The rainfall is a result of the northward shift of the monsoon belt; therefore human occupation in the Western Desert started from the south. The settlers came most probably from the Nile Valley, an idea that is primarily based on the absence of other possibilities, but seems to be confirmed by similarities with the lithic technology of sites in the Nubian Nile Valley.
In Egypt, the earliest ‘Neolithic’ cultures emerged in the Western Desert. It should, however, be made clear from the outset that agriculture has not yet been attested for the Saharan Neolithic. This culture has been identified as Neolithic purely on the basis of the evidence for cattle herding. The Saharan Neolithic is, therefore, completely different from the Neolithic culture that emerged at about the same time in Israel, where the phrase ‘Neolithic economy’ is a synonym for the process whereby agriculture was introduced and later joined by animal domestication. Most probably, the Neolithization process that occurred in Egypt was completely independent from that in Israel. Because of the absence of agriculture and the presence of some ceramics, it has been suggested that the term ‘Ceramic’ should be applied to this Saharan culture, as opposed to ‘Neolithic’.
Two main periods can be distinguished: the Early Neolithic (88006800 BC) and a more recent period consisting of Middle (6500-5100 BC) and Late Neolithic (5100-4700 BC). For the Early Neolithic, the most complete information comes from sites near Nabta Playa and Bir Kiseiba. Most sites are small, short-term camps of hunter-gatherers. Larger sites are always located in the lower parts of playa basins. Although these sites were apparently used for longer periods, they too were seasonally abandoned, since the lower parts of the playa basins were seasonally flooded. Sedentism was not yet known.
Lithics are characterized by numerous backed bladelets (often pointed) and some rare geometries, as well as tools produced with the microburin technique. Every faunal collection of any size includes a few bones of cattle, which, according to the excavators, were domesticated (although this interpretation is not generally accepted), since it seems unlikely that cattle would have been able to survive without human aid in an arid environment that otherwise supports only desert-adapted animals. It is particularly significant that the fauna includes no remains of hartebeest, an animal that often occurs in the same ecological niche as wild cattle. It therefore seems most plausible that pastoralists were keeping wild cattle in an environment where the cattle would not have been able to survive by themselves. Before 7500 BC, it is possible that people and cattle came into the desert only during and after the summer rains, which coincide with the period of inundation of the Nile Valley, during which it would have been difficult to find herding facilities. After 7500 bc, the digging of wells is attested at Bir Kiseiba and other sites. Some of the wells have a shallow side basin For watering animals. The paucity of cattle bones indicates that the animals were not used for meat production but mainly for protein in the form of milk and blood. In this manner, while humans helped cattle to survive in the Western Desert, the animals permitted people to live in this difficult environment. As well as keeping cattle, these people were hunting local wild animals, predominantly hare and gazelle.
It is presumed that the stone-grinding equipment found at nearly all sites from the beginning of the Early Neolithic was used for processing harvested wild plant foods, but the plants themselves have only been recovered at site E-75-6 at Nabta Playa. Among them are wild grasses, Ziziphus fruits, and wild sorghum.
All Early Neolithic sites, even the earliest, have yielded potsherds, albeit in very small numbers. The vessels had very simple shapes, but they were carefully made and fired, and all of them were decorated. Usually the entire surface of the vessel was filled with lines and points, often created by comb or cord impressions, and the general appearance of the vessels was probably imitating basketry. Ostrich eggshells, used as containers for water, were far more common than pottery vessels. The relative dearth of potsherds suggests that pottery was not being used regularly in daily life. It is not possible to determine the exact function of the pottery, but it obviously must have had great social significance and—because of the decoration—probably also symbolic meanings. It seems beyond doubt that these ceramics were an independent, African invention.
Site E-75-6 (around 7000 bc) is one of the most interesting Early Neolithic localities at Nabta Playa. This drainage basin received enough water to store large quantities of subsurface water, which could be reached with wells during the dry season. The site consists of three or four rows of huts, probably each representing different shore lines of the lake, accompanied by bell-shaped storage pits and wells. It is not possible to estimate the number of huts that were contemporaneously in use. Despite its size, this was not a permanent settlement.
It was during the Middle and Late Neolithic periods (6600-5100 and 5100-4700 BC respectively) that the human occupation of the Western Desert reached its peak. Sites of this date are very numerous, and, although most of them are small, there are also some very large ones. Structures are more common than before, including wells, slab-lined houses, and evidence for wattle-and-daub constructions. The large settlements, near the playa lakes, probably represent permanent settlements, while the smaller ones are more likely to derive from task forces of herdsmen who set out from the large sites to drive their animals across the grassland after the summer rains. The presence of shells proves that there was contact with both the Nile Valley and the Red Sea, but it is likely that the people themselves remained in the desert all year round. As in the Early Neolithic, domestic cattle were kept as living sources of protein, but, despite the fact that sheep and goat also appear for the first time during this period (about 5600 bc), most meat was still obtained from wild animals. Again it is usually assiuned that a large variety of wild plants was consmned at this date.
In the Middle Neolithic there was a dramatic shift in lithic technology. Blade production was no longer so prevalent, and instead there was a gradual introduction of bifacial flaking for foliates and concave-based arrowheads. Geometries, except lunates, were rare. At Late Neolithic sites, basin-type grinding stones are common. Ground and polished stone celts, palettes, and ornaments are also present in assemblages of this date: together with side-blow flakes, they are considered characteristic of the period. Ceramics before 5100 BC fall within the ‘Saharo-Sudanese’ or ‘Khartoum’ tradition, similar to the Early Neolithic ceramics, although the decoration tends to consist of more complicated patterns. Somewhat before 4900 bc, this type of pottery disappeared somewhat abruptly and was replaced by burnished and smoothed (occasionally black-topped) pottery at Nabta Playa and Bir Kiseiba. The reason for this sudden transition is by no means obvious, but its occurrence in the Western Desert is of great importance for our understanding of the origin of the Predynastic cultures in the Nile Valley.
At Nabta Playa, a remarkable megalithic complex has been discovered adjacent to an exceptionally large Late Neolithic site. It consists of three parts: an alignment of 10 large (2x3 m.) stones, a circle of small upright slabs (almost 4 m. in diameter), and two slab-covered tumuli, one of which had an imderlying chamber containing the remains of a long-homed bull. Small alignments of megaliths have also been observed elsewhere in the Nabta Basin. Although their function is not obvious, these megalithic constmetions clearly represent public ‘architecture’ and therefore refer to increasing social complexity.
In the Dakhla Oasis, several archaeological units have been distinguished, and the main phases are known as Masara, Bashendi, and Sheikh Muftah. The Masara phase is contemporaneous with (and similar to) the Early Neolithic of Nabta Playa and Bir Kiseiba. The Middle and Late Neolithic Bashendi and Sheikh Muftah cultures Continued into dynastic times. These two Neolithic cultures are characterized by contrasting types of settlement, with Sheikh Muftah sites situated in close correlation with lake sediments and Bashendi sites being located just outside the oasis proper. It has been suggested that two different types of occupation may be represented. Thus the Sheikh Muftah sites might represent full-time oasis-dwellers, while the Bashendi sites might have belonged to periodic visitors, probably nomadic pastoralists. Starting in about 5400 bc, people relied heavily on their flocks and herds of domesticated animals (imported from the Levant and mainly consisting of goats), while still undertaking some hunting.
The lithic technology of the Bashendi culture is similar to that of the Middle and Late Neolithic, with the addition of a variety of arrowheads, often bifacially retouched. From a little before 4900 bc, burnished and smoothed pottery, somewhat similar to fragments of vessels found at Nabta Playa and Bir Kiseiba, was produced at Bashendi sites, while black-topped pottery occurs occasionally at sites in the Dakhla Oasis. In the south-east comer of Dakhla, various stone-built stmctures are present; it remains unclear how typical this oasis was for the whole of the Western Desert, but it obviously contains the strongest cultural parallels with the Nile Valley.
After 4900 BC and especially from 4400 bc onwards, the desert became less and less inhabitable because of the onset of the arid climate that continues up to the present day. However, a few select areas were still occupied in historic times.
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