Documenting socio-economic variability in the Egyptian Neolithic through stone artefact analysis

Abstract

Models of socio-economic change in Neolithic Egypt are thought to relate to a complex relationship between environment, economy and social context. The development of the Egyptian Nile Valley Neolithic in particular is believed to have been influenced by a combination of the early Holocene pastoral adaptation of the eastern Sahara or the Neolithic of southwest Asia. These influences include plant and animal species and artefact types forming a Neolithic package of sorts. This package either diffused or was moved into the Egyptian Nile Valley by migrants during the mid-Holocene. The Neolithic package was believed to also include either Saharan frequent human movement related to pastoralism like that associated with the Sahara or lack of movement and village-based settlement like that associated with southwest Asia. Previous research has made general statements regarding likely levels of mobility; however, very few studies have tested this model with empirical data that documents actual human movement. My thesis tests this model using a method of stone artefact analysis dependent on all elements of an assemblage, particularly flakes and cores to document human movement. The original hypothesis suggested that an examination of three assemblages would show results consistent with this model where either Saharan or southwest Asian socio-economy predominates. Following traditional settlement reconstruction, an assemblage in the eastern Sahara would suggest movement and an assemblage in the Nile Delta, in closer geographic proximity to southwest Asia would suggest less movement. The Fayum Depression, which is situated west of the Nile Valley on the edge the eastern Sahara, but close to the Delta, might be expected to fall somewhere in between. This model of settlement is closely tied to climatic reconstructions for the Sahara, Nile Valley and Delta where environmental variables may have constrained human movement. Results contradictory to this hypothesis suggest human movement, settlement pattern, or use of landscape is very much dependent on highly localized environmental and socio-economic context, and a wide range of variability in adaption can be expected during the mid- Holocene in Egypt.