Caprine Herding

The origin of caprine domestication in North Africa is different from that of cattle. Domestic caprines were introduced from the Near East as no wild forms of sheep or goat existed in North Africa. Domestic sheep (Ovis aries) is descendant from the Asiatic mouflon (Ovis orientalis), and domestic goat (Capra hircus) originates from the scimitar-horned Capra aegagrus of western Asia. They were brought into North Africa as domesticates around 7000-6700 years ago. Although some zooarchaeologists question the early chronology of cattle domestication in the Western Desert and consider the first uncontroversial dates for domestic cattle in the Nabta Playa and Bir Kiseiba area at 7700 BP, caprine herding was still later than cattle herding. Even if we take the later date for cattle domestication, it was still earlier in the Western Desert than in the Nile Valley.

The earliest domestic caprines appeared in Mediterranean North Africa between 7000 and 6400 years BP, at Haua Fteah (Cyrenaica, Libya), and in the Fayum at the end of the sixth millennium BP. In the Western Desert, they were dated, at Dakhleh Oasis, from 6900 to 6500 BP, and at Sodmein cave, in the Red Sea hills, between 7000 and 6300 BP.

At Nabta Playa, they appear during the El Ghanam variant, which is dated from 7100 to 6600 BP, although they do not seem to be present from the beginning of this phase. It has been suggested that they were introduced into the Eastern Sahara either directly from the Near East or from coastal North Africa where they arrived from the Levant and from there spread into the Eastern Sahara.

Caprines have different herding necessities than cattle: they can survive in drier environments and are better adapted to cope with reduced grazing lands. As a matter of fact, an impoverished environment in the Eastern Sahara is reflected in the significant reduction of living sites dating to the El Ghanam variant and in the increase of dug-out water wells that indicates a lowering of the water table in the region. Herders were forced to develop a highly mobile nomadic settlement pattern, supplementing their diet with the gathering of tubers and fruits. At the same time medium and large size herbivores decreased and gazelle-hunting was reduced and could no longer be the major source of meat.