Although there is evidence in southwest Asia of early Neolithic villages practicing some agriculture and herding of domesticated animals by ca. 9700 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. 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 associated pottery and the possible domestication of cattle, which may have been herded.
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 kilometers west of the Nile in Lower Nubia) and Nabta Playa (ca. 90 kilometers 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 them. 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 cattle pastoralists in East Africa.
The microlithic tools of the Early Neolithic are similar to those of the Epipaleolithic Qarunian and Elkabian cultures. Stone 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 - as well as farther west into the central Sahara. Since potsherds are few in number at Early Neolithic sites, water was probably 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; occasionally some of this pottery has rippled surfaces. There is also some black-topped pottery, 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 Middle and Upper Egypt (see 4.9), may be evidence for seasonal movements of people, but other forms of contact and exchange (of pottery, technology, ideas, etc.) are also possible. After ca. 5000 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
Map 4.2 Neolithic sites in Egypt.
Figure 4.6 Late Neolithic stone alignment at Nabta Playa. Source: Fred Wendorf/Copyright © The Trustees of The British Museum.
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, and a circular arrangement of smaller stone slabs, ca. 4 meters in diameter (Figure 4.6). 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.
World History
