The Neolithic pottery of Egypt: investigating settlement pattern in middle Holocene northeast Africa with ceramics

Abstract

In the past the settlement pattern of middle Holocene Egypt was based on the presence or absence of material correlates including structures, stone tools, pottery, and domesticated plants and animals. Together these formed the traits of a Neolithic package that were thought to spread from southwest Asia to Egypt during the middle Holocene. Modern research now shows that the traits attributed to the Neolithic package did not develop uniformly over time and space, so the package concept is less useful. Contemporary approaches focus on processes such as mobility, occupation duration, and use-of-place to draw inferences about settlement pattern. These are measured through analysis of material culture such as stone artefacts and the placement of features on a landscape. However, more examples are required that use material culture types that are abundant and preserve well, such as pottery. Past research has focused on the analysis of a small proportion of pottery assemblages, typically whole vessels and decorated sherds, both used to form typologies and identify cultural groupings. Similarities in decorative styles or vessel forms are used to infer movement between different cultural groups. However, these culture-historical interpretations mean that large volumes of un-diagnostic sherds are often disregarded. This research uses non-destructive methods, such as x-ray fluorescence (XRF) and fragmentation ratios, to analyse all artefacts in pottery assemblages to understand the impact of the previously noted processes. XRF analysis is used to identify the geochemical signatures of the materials used in pottery manufacture. This analysis enables the identification of pottery that is not likely made locally and so provides a proxy for movement. The differential fragmentation of pottery is used in estimates of how many vessels the sherds in an assemblage represent and so provides a means for assessing occupation duration. Pottery from several places in Egypt that date to the middle Holocene are compared. Results suggest movement between locations beyond what was previously inferred based on culture-historical interpretations. These results are interpreted in the wider North African context.