early farming societies along the nile (original) (raw)
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The paper explores the evolution of early farming societies along the Nile, highlighting the interaction between ecological, political, and economic factors. It discusses the significance of the Nile River for food security and how various cultural groups engaged in different farming practices influenced by environmental changes. The work outlines the development of social structures from initial farming activities to the establishment of complex political units, emphasizing the continuity of cultural expressions in identity construction.
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Herding then farming in the Nile Delta
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The Nile Delta in Egypt represents a valuable location to study the history of human societal development and agricultural advancement. However, the livelihood patterns of the earliest settlers – whether they were farmers or herders – remains poorly understood. Here we use non-pollen palynomorphs and pollen grains from a sediment core taken at Sais, one of the earliest archaeological sites in the west-central Nile Delta, to investigate the livelihood patterns and transition of early settlers there. We find that animal microfossils (dung and hair) occur in substantial quantities from around 7,000 years ago in our high-resolution-dated non-pollen palynomorphs spectrum, while domesticated cereals emerge in the spectrum around 300 years later. We also identify evidence of fire-enhanced land exploitation after this time. We interpret our microfossil evidence to indicate that the earliest settlers in the Nile Delta were herders and that this then developed into a combination of herding an...
The Neolithic and ‘Pastoralism’ Along the Nile: A Dissenting View
Journal of World Prehistory, 2019
A largely accepted paradigm in African recent prehistory considers pastoralism to be the main subsistence source of food-producing communities along the Sudanese Nile valley from the 6th millennium cal BC onwards. This paradigm is constraining the development of a wider theoretical perspective that assumes, instead, a regionally differentiated picture of the economic and social organisation of local communities in northeastern Africa. This paradigm is thus the strongest impediment to achieving reliable and convincing syntheses of the transition from food collection to food production in this area. New data from Upper Nubia and central Sudan open the way for different and more complex scenarios and a new understanding of the local transition from agro-pastoral to agricultural practices. A more systematic data-based approach helps to change radically our perception of different Neolithic trajectories. Moreover, it helps to place in a different perspective-based on various levels of identity formation processes-change and continuity along the chronocultural sequence, as well as the different meanings that each local group confers on apparently similar acts in the context of the funerary ideology.
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Although there are problems with the archaeology of the region, relatively few sites are known to the Lower (Egyptian) Nile Valley from 8500 to 5300 Before Christ (B.C.). Sites instead are mostly located further west in the Sahara during the Holocene "wet" phase, which made the area habitable until its gradual desiccation beginning around 5300 B.C. with the final desiccation took hold around 3500 B.C. Archaeologically visible finds reappear in large numbers along the Valley after 5300 B.C., showing a vast cultural continuity, seen in the form of similar funerary complexes from Middle Egypt to Khartoum in the Sudan and limited ceramic parallels beginning around 4800 B.C. Commonalities include matching burial practices and inclusions, including adornments, tools, black-topped/black-mouthed and tulip-shaped ceramics. Also, this particular set of practices and inclusions is markedly different from that of cultures found north of Middle Egypt. Thus, this similarity is significant in that it provides evidence of Egypt's cultural connections with the Sudan during what may be the earliest phases of the Predynastic -the Tasian and Badarian, which eventually lead into the Naqada culture. This paper will outline the extent of these similarities. Regional patterns are evident in the distribution of these features. More work needs to be done on the implications of this; however, a common belief system may be a possible interpretation.
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Related papers
Malcolm Choat, Jitse Dijkstra, Christopher Haas, and William Tabbernee. "The World of the NIle," in William Tabbernee, ed., Early Christianity in Contexts: An Exploration across Cultures and Continents (Grand Rapids, MI:Baker Academic, 2014), 181-222.