Holocene Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara: Volume 1: The Archaeology of Nabta Playa PDF
Preview Holocene Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara: Volume 1: The Archaeology of Nabta Playa
J-{ofocene Settfement of the 'Egyptian Sahara 1 VOLUME The Archaeology of Nabta Playa Holocene Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara 1 VoLUME The Archaeology of Nabta Playa by Fred Wendorf, Romuald Schild, and Associates Springer Science+Business Media, LLC Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wendorf, Fred. Holocene settlement of the Egyptian Sahara/Fred Wendorf and Romuald Schild. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Contents: v. 1. The archaeology of Nabta Playa- 1. Nabta Playa Sites (Egypt) 2. Neolithic period-Egypt-Westem Desert. 3. Excavations (Archaeology)-Egypt-Western Desert. 4. Plantremains (Archaeology)-Egypt-Western Desert. 5. Anima! remains (Archaeology)-Egypt-Western Desert. 6. Western Desert (Egypt)-Antiquities. I. Schild, Romuald. II. Title. GN776.42.E3 2001 932-dc21 2001041355 Proof Editor, Typesetting, and Layout: Sue E. Linder-Linsley Department of Anthropology Southern Methodist University Dallas, Texas Front cover and frontispiece: Landsat photograph of Nabta area provided by Cordula Robinson and R. Faruk El-Baz, Center for Remote Sensing, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts ISBN 978-1-4613-5178-8 ISBN 978-1-4615-0653-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4615-0653-9 © 2001 Springer Science+B usiness Media N ew York Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers I Plenum Publishers, New York in 2001 Softcoverreprint of the bardeover 1st edition 2001 http://www.wkap.nl/ ro 9 s 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher Associates ELIZABETH M. ALEXANDER, Department of Anthropology, American University, Washington, DC, U.S.A. ALEX APPLEGATE, Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, U.S.A. HALA BARAKAT, Botany Department, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt. ZYGMUNT BOCHENSKI, Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, Poland. LOUTRY BOULOS, Consultant, Dokki, Cairo, Egypt. ANN BUTLER, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London, United Kingdom. ANGELA E. CLOSE, Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. JEFF DAHLBERG, National Grain Sorghum Producers, Lubbock, Texas, U.S.A. STEVEN DUNCAN, Clifton, Virginia, U.S.A. JAN FIEDORCZUK, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. ACHILLES GAUTIER, Institute of Geology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium. JOHN HATHER, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London, United Kingdom. JOEL D. IRISH, Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, U.S.A. HAUNA KR6uK, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. M. UTYNSKA-ZAJAC, Institute of Archaeology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, Poland. ANWAR OSMAN A. MAGID, University of Bergen Strmgaten, Bergen, Norway. J. McKIM MALV ILLE, Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A. JOZEF MITKA, Botanical Garden, Institute of Botany, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland. AMALABU BAKR MOHAMED, Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, U.S.A. KIT NELSON, Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, U.S.A. ROMUALD SCHILD, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. ZOFIA SULGOSTOWSKA, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. LAURIE TAYLOR, Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, U.S.A. TERESA TOMEK, Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, Poland. KRYSTYNA WASYLIKOWA, W. Szafer Institute of Botany, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, Poland. ETHAN C. WATRALL, Department of Anthropology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, U.S.A. FRED WENDORF, Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, U.S.A. MARtA. NIEVES ZEDENO, Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, University of Arizona,Tucson, Arizona, U.S.A. vii Acknowl edgmen ts This is the fun part of doing a book, in which we thank those who made the work at Nabta and the book possible. Our largest, and perhaps most important debt is to the United States National Science Foundation, and the Director of its Anthropology Program, Dr. John Yellen, for nine research grants awarded to Wendorf in support of the research at Nabta between 1990 and 1999. We are enormously grateful to Dr. Yellen for his confidence in the merits of our work and the encouragement that he and the members of his review panels gave to all the members of the Combined Prehistoric Expedition. We also thank the State Committee for Scientific Research, Poland, for the constant financial support awarded to Schild. We hope this book and the data it presents amply reassure them that their confidence was not misplaced. We also wish to acknowledge the support of our two institutions. Without their help, tolerance of our long absences in the field, and financial support the work at Nabta would not have been possible. In particular, we want to thank the late Dr. Kenneth Pye, who was President of Southern Methodist University when much of this research was done, Dr. Gerald Turner, now President of Southern Methodist University, and Professor Miroslaw Mossakowski, President of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The Geological Survey of Egypt and the Egyptian Antiquities Organization have been important participants in our work in Egypt from the beginning, and particularly at Nabta. We want to thank our friends, the Geologists and Antiquities Inspectors, who joined us in the work at Nabta. We will always be in debt to them. Throughout our time at Nabta we had the good fortune of having Mr. Ali Assad Mazhar, then Director of the Geological Survey, as our surveyor and camp manager. Ali looked after us, kept us fed and out of trouble. We also want to give our special thanks to Mr. Ahmed A. Dardeer, Mr. Gaber M. Nain, and Mr. Mohamed EI Hinnawi, who were Chairmen of the Geological Survey of Egypt during the years we worked at Nabta, and Dr. Gaballa A. Gaballa, General Secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, and their staffs, for their support throughout this project. Several individuals and corporations have also provided financial support and we wish to acknowledge their generosity. Among the organizations are Atlantic Richfield Oil Company (ARCO), Crow Canyon Archaeological Research Center, and Shell Oil Company. Individual donors or their foundations include Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Alexander, Mr. and Mrs. Edward O. Boshell, Jr., Mr. Albert G. Boyce, Jr., Mrs. Sandra Duke Davis, Mr. Lee DeSanders, Dr. and Mrs. MarIan Downey, Dr. and Mrs. Edward Goodman, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Goldblatt, Ms. Midge Hill, the C. Paul Johnson Family Charitable Family Foundation, Mr. Jim Leake, Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Miercort, Mr. R. Lawrence Stevens, and Mr. Garry Weber. All of these benefactors received invitations to join us at our camp at Nabta, several accepted and worked along side us. One of them is an archaeologist and the author of several papers in this volume. Our camp and research endevors were also enriched by several volunteers who joined us for varying periods, often for a specific project. Among these are ix x THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF NABTA PLAYA Elijio Aragon, who came from New Mexico to operate a back-hoe that turned out to be beyond repair; Ms. Anna Christine Bednar, assisted in the excavation of several of the cattle burials; the late Dr. Jack Harlan, world renowned botanist, came to see where we found sorghum; Ms. Maria Gatto, ceramic specialist, came to help us unravel the ceramic sequence in the southern Western Desert of Egypt; Mr. Thomas M. Ryan, helped with the site survey; and Dr. Jon Young of Taos, New Mexico, helped us map and photograph the megalithic alignments. To each and everyone of these friends we offer our sincere thanks for their generous help. Most of the superb line drawings in this book were done by Mr. Marek Puszkarski, of The Institute for Archaeology and Ethnology, Warsaw. Some of the artifact illustrations were drawn by Ms. Gail Wendorf, and a few others by E. Guminska. Credit for the artwork is given in the caption for each figure. We also wish to express our gratitude to those who helped us put this book together. First, we want to acknowledge the assistance of Dr. Diane Holmes, who spent six very difficult months copy editing this volume. She brought to this chore a keen knowledge of North African prehistory, which together with her meticulous checking, rechecking and correcting the manuscript, the tables, and the illustrations, greatly improved the final product. She was ably assisted in this process by Dr. Amber Johnson, Research Associate in Anthropology. We also want to thank Mrs. Marylee Skwirz, who in addition to her regular duties as Wendorf's secretary, managed to type, correct and prepare the 300+ tables in the volume. We owe special thanks to Ms. Sue Linder-Linsley, who prepared the camera-ready copy. Her careful checking also caught errors that had previously eluded us. Despite the best efforts of Dr. Holmes, Mrs. Skwirz and Ms. Linder-Linsley, the reader may find other errors, and for these we accept full responsibility. To facilitate the preparation of the camera-ready copy, all of the text, the maps and line drawings, the photographs, and the tables were prepared in digital format. Five anthropology students at Southern Methodist University assisted in this effort. Three are graduate students, of whom two worked with us at Nabta and authored several chapters in this book. Mr. Alex Applegate assumed responsibility for the illustrations, many of which required minor corrections to fit our format, and Ms. Kit Nelson supervised the organization of the illustrations and assisted Wendorf with the statistics. The third graduate student, Mrs. Tara Bond-Freeman, and one of the undergraduates, Ms. Allison Mittler, assisted Applegate with scanning and correcting the illustrations. Finally, but not least, the other undergraduate, Ms. Laurie Taylor also assisted Dr. Holmes with the copy editing. We owe a great debt to all of these students. There was a lot to be done in the six month period when the book was assembled, and each felt considerable pressure to finish by the deadline. Nevertheless, they did their work carefully and with good humor. To everyone, thank you very much. The research at Nabta was conducted by the Combined Prehistoric Expedition a cooperative effort sponsored by Southern Methodist University, the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology at the Polish Academy of Sciences, and the Geological Survey of Egypt. The Expedition began in 1962 with the support of two key people: Dr. Rushdi Said, then Professor of Geology, University of Cairo and later Chairman of the Geological Survey of Egypt, and Dr. Bahay Issawi, at the beginning Rushdi's graduate student at the University of Cairo who became our geologist and camp manager, and then, until recently, Vice Minister for Mining and Mineral Resources. To Rushdi we want to express our thanks for giving us such a good start. We also want to acknowledge our special debt to Bahay, because none of this would have been possible without his help through all these years. Fred Wendorf and Romuald Schild Contents 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 Fred Wendorf and Romuald Schild 2 Geomorphology, Lithostratigraphy, Geochronology and Taphonomy of Sites ................................................................................................ 11 Romuald Schild and Fred Wendorf 3 Combined Prehistoric Expedition's Radiocarbon Dates Associated with Neolithic Occupations in the Southern Western Desert of Egypt ................... 51 Romuald Schild and Fred Wendorf 4 Site E-77-7 Revisited: The Early Neolithic of El Adam Type at El Gebal El Beid Playa ............................................................................................ 57 Angela E. Close and Fred Wendorf 5 Sites E-91-3 and E-91-4: The Early Neolithic of El Adam Type at Nabta Playa .......................................................................................................... 71 Angela E. Close 6 Site E-75-9: The Excavation of an El Adam (?)Early Neolithic Settlement at Nabta Playa ...................................................................................... 97 Fred Wendorf and Romuald Schild 7 Site E-75-6: An El Nabta and Al Jerar Village .................................................... 111 Halina Kr6lik and Romuald Schild 8 Site E-91-1: An Al Jerar Phase Locality at Nabta Playa ................................... 147 Part I: The 1991 and 1997 Excavations ............................................................... 147 Fred Wendorf, Angela E. Close and Romuald Schild Part II: The 1998 and 1999 Excavations ............................................................. 184 Assembled by Fred Wendorf Areas 1 and 5 ..................................................................................................... 186 Halina Kr6lik Area 2 .................................................................................................................. 211 Kit Nelson Area 3 .................................................................................................................. 229 Laurie Taylor Area 4 .................................................................................................................. 239 Betsy Alexander Area 6 .................................................................................................................. 247 Laurie Taylor Area 8 .................................................................................................................. 257 Ethan C. Watrall xi xii THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF NABTA PLAYA Area 9 .................................................................................................................. 265 Betsy Alexander Area 10 ................................................................................................................ 274 Laurie Taylor Area 11 ................................................................................................................ 280 Zofia Sulgostowska Area 12 ................................................................................................................ 286 Zofia Sulgostowska Area 13 ................................................................................................................ 291 Betsy Alexander Area 14 ................................................................................................................ 299 Zofia Sulgostowska Area 15 ................................................................................................................ 305 Laurie Taylor Area 16 ................................................................................................................ 312 Betsy Alexander Part III: Summary and Discussion ..................................................................... 319 Fred Wendorf and Kit Nelson 9 Site E-92-7: An Al Jerar and Late Neolithic Settlement ................................... 331 Halina Kr6lik and Jan Fiedorczuk 10 Site E-75-8: Additional Excavation of the Seventh Millennium Site at Nabta Playa ............................................................................................................ 352 Angela E. Close 11 Site E-75-8: A Slice Through Time ...................................................................... 386 Kit Nelson 12 Site E-94-2: A Late Neolithic Occupation at Nabta .......................................... 412 Amal Abu Bakr Mohamed 13 Sites E-77-1 and E-94-3: Two Neolithic Sites Near Gebel Nabta ................... 427 Fred Wendorf and Romuald Schild 14 Site E-92-9: A Possible Late Neolithic Solar Calendar ..................................... 463 Alex Applegate and Nieves Zedefio 15 The North Tumuli of the Nabta Late Neolithic Ceremonial Complex ......... 468 Alex Applegate, Achilles Gautier and Steven Duncan 16 The Megalithic Alignments ................................................................................. 489 Fred Wendorf and J. McKim Malville 17 Site E-96-1: The Complex Structures or Shrines ............................................... 503 Fred Wendorf and Halina Kr6lik 18 Human Skeletal Remains from Three Nabta Playa Sites ................................ 521 Joel D. Irish 19 Site E-92-8: A Late Prehistoric C-Group Component at Nabta Playa ........... 529 Alex Applegate and Nieves Zedefio 20 The Pottery of Nabta Playa: A Summary .......................................................... 534 Kit Nelson
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