With warmer weather globally in the early Holocene, glaciers in the northern hemisphere began to melt and sea levels rose worldwide. In the Nile Valley many occupation sites of the last Paleolithic hunter-gatherers are probably deeply buried under alluvium. consequently, little evidence of the Epipaleolithic has been recovered from within the Nile Valley. only two Epipaleolithic cultures have been found, both dating to ca. 7000 bc: the Qarunian culture with sites in the Faiyum region, where a much larger lake existed than the present one, and the Elkabian, in southern upper Egypt.
Investigations have also shown that in the Western Desert changing climatic conditions brought some seasonal rainfall ca. 9000-5000 bc, making human habitation possible in some parts of the desert which are completely dry today. using satellite images and digital elevation models, Olaf Bubenzer and Heiko Riemer have been able to specify areas in the Western Desert which were favorable in relief for surface waters to accumulate during the early Holocene wet phase, and near seasonal sources of water such as ponds there is evidence of large camp sites of hunter-gatherers (and in some cases pastoralists; see 4.7).
At some Epipaleolithic sites in the Middle East, such as Abu Hureyra in Syria and Natufian sites in Israel, there is evidence of transitional cultures which led to the important inventions of the Neolithic (see Box 4-C). But such evidence, especially the transition from harvesting wild cereals to cultivating domesticated ones, is lacking in Egypt because the innovations of a Neolithic economy were introduced into Egypt and not invented there. While Epipaleolithic hunter-gatherers at Natufian sites (ca. 12,300-10,800 bc) were living in permanent villages occupied year round, such evidence is missing in Egypt until much later, in the Predynastic Period, and even then the evidence of permanent villages and towns is ephemeral (see 3.3).
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 are physically difficult for child-b earing 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 (1997). 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 can be spread to humans, especially anthrax and tuberculosis. In dense human populations living in permanent villages infectious diseases also increase: smallpox, cholera, chicken pox, influenza, polio, etc. Insanitary 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, etc. 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.
Working in the Faiyum, Gertrude Caton Thompson (see 1.4) identified two Neolithic cultures, which she termed Faiyum A and Faiyum B. The latter was thought to be a degenerated culture that followed Faiyum A. More recent investigations in the Faiyum in the 1960s, by Fred Wendorf and Romuald Schild (of the combined Prehistoric Expedition), have identified Faiyum B as the Epipaleolithic Qarunian culture, ca. 1,000 years before the Neolithic Faiyum A. The Qarunian people were hunter-gatherer-fishers who lived near the shore of the lake. There is no evidence to suggest that they were experimenting with the domestication of plants and animals. They hunted large mammals such as gazelle, hartebeest, and hippopotamus, and fishing of catfish and other species provided a major source of protein. The tool kit was microlithic, with many small chert blades.
Fishing was also important for the Epipaleolithic peoples at Elkab, and they may have used (reed?) boats for deep-water fishing in the main Nile. originally these sites were located next to a channel of the Nile. The evidence has been relatively well preserved because the sites were later accidentally protected by a huge enclosure built at Elkab in the Late Period, long after the Nile channel had silted up.
Like the Qarunian, the tools at these Elkab sites are microlithic, with many small burins (chisel-like stone tools). Grinding stones are also present. These were probably used to grind pigment, still evident on the stone, rather than to process cereals or other wild plants for consumption. Mammals, such as dorcas gazelle and barbary sheep, were also hunted. The sites were camps with no evidence of permanent occupation, and the hunters may have gone out of the Valley for seasonal hunting in the desert, which in the early Holocene had become a less arid environment.
World History
