Holocene Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara: Volume 1: The Archaeology of Nabta Playa

707 Pages·2001·16.87 MB·English

by  Fred Wendorf

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