Paléorient

Supra-regional concepts in Near Eastern Neolithisation from a

viewpoint of Egyptian Neolithic research
N. Shirai

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Shirai N. Supra-regional concepts in Near Eastern Neolithisation from a viewpoint of Egyptian Neolithic research. In:
Paléorient, 2006, vol. 32, n°2. pp. 7-21;

doi : https://doi.org/10.3406/paleo.2006.5188

https://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_2006_num_32_2_5188

Fichier pdf généré le 18/01/2019

Résumé
Résumé: Le processus de néolithisation en Égypte a rarement été discuté dans le cadre plus large
de l’archéologie du Proche-Orient. Si, en Égypte, la néolithisation est caractérisée par
l’introduction, depuis le Levant, de blé et d’orge, de moutons et de chèvres domestiqués,
beaucoup de chercheurs ont toutefois préféré concentrer leurs recherches sur le développement
autochtone du bétail et sur la culture matérielle égyptienne, voilant ainsi le contexte de l’arrivée
des céréales et du bétail levantins. Il est certes important d’étudier les cultures égyptiennes
antérieures au Néolithique, comme leur préadaptation à l’agriculture et à l’élevage, on se doit
cependant de souligner que le processus de néolithisation en Égypte pourrait être mieux compris
en le replaçant dans un contexte proche-oriental plus étendu. Cet article se propose de
développer cette problématique, par l’introduction de concepts supra-régionaux se rapportant à la
néolithisation du Proche-Orient.

Abstract
Abstract : Neolithisation in Egypt has seldom been discussed within the framework of Near
Eastern archaeology. Neolithisation in Egypt was evidently completed by the adoption of a
package of domesticated wheat/ barley and sheep/ goats from the southern Levant, but many
scholars working in Egypt have preferred to emphasise the independent development of cattle
herding and unique material culture in Egypt while obscuring the context of the advent of wheat/
barley and sheep/ goats. No matter how vital it is to understand the pre-existing culture in Egypt
and its pre-adaptation to farming and herding, it must also be stressed that Neolithisation in Egypt
can be better understood by putting it in the wider Near Eastern context. This article will elaborate
on this idea by referring to supra-regional concepts in Near Eastern Neolithisation.
4331_ Page 7 Lundi, 28. mai 2007 11:22 11 > Apogee FrameMaker Noir

SUPRA-REGIONAL CONCEPTS
IN NEAR EASTERN NEOLITHISATION
FROM A VIEWPOINT OF EGYPTIAN
NEOLITHIC RESEARCH

N. SHIRAI

Abstract : Neolithisation in Egypt has seldom been discussed within the framework of Near Eastern archaeology. Neolithisation in
Egypt was evidently completed by the adoption of a package of domesticated wheat/barley and sheep/goats from the southern Levant,
but many scholars working in Egypt have preferred to emphasise the independent development of cattle herding and unique material
culture in Egypt while obscuring the context of the advent of wheat/barley and sheep/goats. No matter how vital it is to understand the
pre-existing culture in Egypt and its pre-adaptation to farming and herding, it must also be stressed that Neolithisation in Egypt can be
better understood by putting it in the wider Near Eastern context. This article will elaborate on this idea by referring to supra-regional
concepts in Near Eastern Neolithisation.

Résumé : Le processus de néolithisation en Égypte a rarement été discuté dans le cadre plus large de l’archéologie du Proche-Orient.
Si, en Égypte, la néolithisation est caractérisée par l’introduction, depuis le Levant, de blé et d’orge, de moutons et de chèvres domesti-
qués, beaucoup de chercheurs ont toutefois préféré concentrer leurs recherches sur le développement autochtone du bétail et sur la
culture matérielle égyptienne, voilant ainsi le contexte de l’arrivée des céréales et du bétail levantins. Il est certes important d’étudier
les cultures égyptiennes antérieures au Néolithique, comme leur préadaptation à l’agriculture et à l’élevage, on se doit cependant de
souligner que le processus de néolithisation en Égypte pourrait être mieux compris en le replaçant dans un contexte proche-oriental plus
étendu. Cet article se propose de développer cette problématique, par l’introduction de concepts supra-régionaux se rapportant à la néo-
lithisation du Proche-Orient.

Key-Words : Neolithisation, Egypt, Supra-regional concepts.

Mots Clefs : Néolithisation, Égypte, Concepts supra-régionaux.

Neolithisation in Egypt has seldom been discussed within
the framework of Near Eastern archaeology. This is first
because Egypt is geographically separated from the Levant by
the Sinai Peninsula, and second because Egyptian archaeol-
ogy as a discipline has been isolated from Near Eastern
archaeology. It seems that many scholars working in Egypt
have not been willing to look beyond Egypt at data obtained
from the Levant, even though Neolithisation in Egypt was
evidently completed by the adoption of a package of domesti-
cated wheat/barley and sheep/goats from the southern Levant.
Instead, scholars have preferred to emphasise the independent
development of food production and material culture in Egypt
while obscuring the context of the advent of wheat/barley and
sheep/goats.

Paléorient, vol. 32.2, p. 7-21 © CNRS ÉDITIONS 2006 Manuscrit reçu le 11 juillet 2006, accepté le 20 décembre 2006
4331_ Page 8 Lundi, 28. mai 2007 11:22 11
8 N. SHIRAI
Although the claim for possible incipient barley farming
in the Nile Valley in the Late Palaeolithic period was dis-
missed in the 1980s, research in the Western Desert of Egypt
during the last decades has revealed that pottery had emerged,
and incipient attempts at cattle domestication might have
begun no later than the 8th millennium cal. BC. For this rea-
son, this Saharan culture has been designated as a Neolithic
culture, while contemporary cultures in the Nile Valley,
which shared a similar microlithic tradition with the Saharan
culture but lacked pottery and domesticates, has been called
an Epipalaeolithic culture and thus regarded as inferior. On
the other hand, some scholars have advocated that this Saha-
ran culture should be called a “Ceramic” culture through
focusing on technological development rather than subsist-
ence economy1, and the use of different terms has caused
some confusion among archaeologists. The significance of
this Saharan culture in the prehistoric development of Egypt
has sometimes been exaggerated so much that there has
appeared sharp criticism of this tendency and scepticism
about the very early date for the beginning of cattle domesti-
cation2. According to morphological and genetic studies,
there is little doubt about the independent domestication of
indigenous wild cattle in Africa, but the time and place of its
beginning are still controversial3.
It was not until the 6th millennium cal. BC that a “typical”
Neolithic culture, which is defined by the existence of wheat/
barley farming and sheep/goat herding, first appeared in
Egypt. Egyptian civilisation emerged on the basis of this
Levantine agro-pastoral economy, and not solely on the basis
of cattle herding. Therefore, although very late in date, Levan-
tine influence on Egypt should not be underestimated. No
matter how vital it is to understand the pre-existing culture in
Egypt and its pre-adaptation to farming and herding, it must
also be stressed that Neolithisation in Egypt can be better
understood by putting it in the wider Near Eastern context as
well as the North African context. In the following, I will
elaborate on this idea by referring to supra-regional concepts
in Near Eastern Neolithisation.
1. HENDRICKX and VERMEERSCH, 2000 : 32 ; KUPER, 1995 : 125.
2. WENGLOW, 2003.
3. GAUTIER, 2002 : 198-201 ; HASSAN, 2002a : 12f ; 2002b : 62f,
MARSHALL and HILDEBRAND, 2002 : 109.
> Apogee FrameMaker Noir
THE RELEVANCE OF SUPRA-REGIONAL
CONCEPTS FOR EGYPTIAN NEOLITHIC
RESEARCH
Currently, supra-regional concepts in Near Eastern Neoli-
thisation are enthusiastically advocated, and a large workshop
was recently held in order to discuss the relevance of these con-
cepts for Near Eastern Neolithic research4. Although it has
been believed that most innovations in the Pre-Pottery Neo-
lithic would have been generated in the southern Levant,
unique socioeconomic and cultural developments in the north-
ern Levant have also been recognised, and this recognition is
being increased as a result of recent amazing discoveries of
PPN sites in southeastern Turkey/northern Syria and Cyprus. It
is certain that these new discoveries cannot be explained by
relying solely on the traditional concepts of the dispersal of
people, or the diffusion of ideas, technology and items from one
specific region. As a consequence, the idea of “a polycentric
evolution of different environmentally conditioned socioeco-
nomic developments that show a general tendency over several
millennia” in the Near Eastern Neolithic was proposed5. This is
a reasonable consequence of research, and an encouragement to
understand regional developments thoroughly before discuss-
ing polycentric evolution should be welcome. Although the
idea of polycentric evolution itself is obviously not a universal
and comprehensive model or theory to explain diverse develop-
ments of Neolithisation in the Near East, this is significant in
terms of reminding scholars to abandon the thoughts of their
own regional “centrism” or “primacy”.
Regrettably, Egypt seems to be completely ignored or
excluded from the idea of polycentric evolution. From the
viewpoint of archaeologists working in Egypt, this is probably
because Near Eastern archaeologists are still not freed from
Near Eastern centrism. I believe that the understanding of the
Neolithisation process in Egypt and related socioeconomic
connections with the southern Levant, Negev and Sinai, can
enrich, strengthen and diversify the idea of polycentric evolu-
tion in Near Eastern Neolithisation.
Although the dispersal of some types of Levantine PPNB
and Late Neolithic projectile points into Lower Egypt has
been mentioned by several Near Eastern archaeologists6, their
reference to Egyptian materials has been geographically very
limited, and they have overlooked the Fayum Epipalaeolithic
4. ROLLEFSON and GEBEL, 2004 ; WARBURTON, 2004.
5. GEBEL, 2002 : 314f, 2004.
6. E.g. GOPHER, 1994 ; SCHMIDT, 1996.
Paléorient, vol. 32.2, p. 7-21 © CNRS ÉDITIONS 2006
4331_ Page 9 Lundi, 28. mai 2007 11:22 11
Supra-regional concepts in Near Eastern Neolithisation from a viewpoint of Egyptian Neolithic research
and Neolithic lithic assemblages, which suggest some rela-
tionships with contemporaneous Levantine ones. The cultural
connection between the Levant and North Africa during the
Early-Middle Holocene has been argued briefly by an Afri-
canist archaeologist7, but his argument has failed to attract the
attention of either archaeologists working in Egypt or Near
Eastern archaeologists. Consequently, it has been concluded
by Near Eastern archaeologists that there were no extensive
and regular socioeconomic connections between the southern
Levant and the Nile Valley until the Pottery Neolithic or
somewhat later8.
Bar-Yosef is one of the exceptional Near Eastern archaeol-
ogists who have shown a keen interest in Neolithisation in
Egypt. His ambitious attempt at reconstructing the “tribal”
boundaries in the Eastern Mediterranean in the transitional
period from hunting-gathering to farming-herding, based on a
thorough analysis of lithic artefacts and other archaeological
features, should be highly appreciated9. But his understanding
of the transition to food production in Egypt seems to be insuf-
ficient, partly because he mentions the Merimde Neolithic in
the Nile Delta but does not refer at all to the Fayum Neolithic,
the earliest farming and herding culture in Egypt10.
However, these omissions are understandable, because
one problem is that information about the Egyptian Palaeo-
lithic and Neolithic is not always accessible to Near Eastern
archaeologists. It may be that the archaeologists working in
Egypt should be criticised for not having provided informa-
tion in relevant interdisciplinary meetings and publications,
and for not having reacted to the ideas published by Near
Eastern archaeologists. Therefore, I feel that archaeologists in
Egypt now stand at a fork in the road : whether they should
keep walking along their own road in splendid isolation, or
they should pursue common interests in Near Eastern Neo-
lithic research in cooperation with scholars working in the
Near East, thereby eliminating neighbourly ignorance.
Except for a few synthetic studies11, previous research in
Egypt had a tendency to neglect to argue how Levantine
domesticates became available to the inhabitants of Egypt and
why the diffusion of the Levantine domesticates into Egypt
did not occur earlier than the 6th millennium cal. BC. From the
standpoint of archaeologists working in Egypt, the question as
7. SMITH, 1989, 1996.
8. KUIJT and GORING-MORRIS, 2002 : 428.
9. BAR-YOSEF, 2001, 2003, 2004 ; BAR-YOSEF and BAR-YOSEF
MAYER, 2002.
10. BAR-YOSEF, 2002a.
11. E.g. BARKER, 2003 ; HASSAN, 2002b ; MIDANT-REYNES, 2000.
Paléorient, vol. 32.2, p. 7-21 © CNRS ÉDITIONS 2006
> Apogee FrameMaker Noir
9
to what climatic and environmental conditions in North
Africa made the inhabitants of the Nile Valley and the West-
ern Desert reject or adopt Levantine domesticates is an impor-
tant research subject. Indeed, some scholars have argued that
Egypt was so rich in wild food resources that the inhabitants
of Egypt did not need foreign domesticates for a long time12.
Other scholars have argued that despite the overall richness in
wild food resources, inhabitants of Egypt must have occasion-
ally suffered from food shortages, especially around the mid-
dle of the 6th millennium cal. BC, and thus they must have
needed to introduce domesticates as backup food from the
Levant13. On the other hand, whether Egypt was actually out-
side “the PPNB interaction sphere”14, and who could become
the agents of the diffusion of Levantine domesticates into
Egypt, and under what conditions, are intriguing research top-
ics not only for archaeologists working in Egypt but also for
Near Eastern archaeologists.
It is also worth considering how the “PPNB collapse” in
the southern Levant around 6,900 cal. BC15, which is
presumed to have been caused not only by human-induced
environmental degradation but also by steady climatic deteri-
oration related to the southward retreat of the monsoonal rain
belt16, affected Neolithisation in neighbouring regions includ-
ing Egypt. Although a dramatic “collapse” of local communi-
ties is not known in Egypt at the same time, it is evident that
Egypt did experience frequent climatic fluctuations after
7,600 cal. BC, and that settlements in the Western Desert were
temporarily abandoned several times. Therefore, it is proba-
ble that the climatic deterioration in North Africa and the
Levant in the 7th millennium cal. BC, known as “the 8.6-7.9
kyr cal. BP cooling event” or simply “the 8 ka cal. BP
event”17, caused the reorganisation of human mobility strat-
egy and territories, and that the inhabitants of Egypt encoun-
tered refugees from arid regions of the southern Levant,
Negev and Sinai during this period. Furthermore, the idea of
the expansion and intensification of a sociocultural interac-
tion sphere with more and more communities being attracted
by novel items and “buying into” the networks regardless of
the language barrier or other obstacles18 also deserves consid-
eration in the Neolithisation of Egypt.
12. E.g. WENKE, 1990 : 377.
13. E.g. WETTERSTROM , 1993 : 225.
14. BAR-YOSEF and BELFER-COHEN, 1989.
15. ROLLEFSON and KÖHLER-ROLLEFSON, 1989.
16. SIMMONS, 1997, 2000.
17. ROHLING et al., 2002 : 42f.
18. WATKINS, 2003 : 37.
4331_ Page 10 Lundi, 28. mai 2007 11:22 11 > Apogee FrameMaker Noir

10 N. SHIRAI

Inevitably, research into these topics encourages scholars

working in Egypt to reflect on factors which caused the Neo-
lithisation of Egypt in a more organised way, as has been pro-
posed by Hole19, and to recognise on what timescale the
factors appeared and affected each other. What must be done
is not merely to highlight the uniqueness or distinctiveness of
the pathway which North Africa, including Egypt, followed
towards food production and then to express negative opin-
ions about the applicability of Near Eastern models to North
Africa20, but to describe how and why such uniqueness or dis-
tinctiveness appeared in Africa21, and moreover to consider
how archaeologists in Egypt and the Near East can work on
common ground.

FACTORS CAUSING NEOLITHISATION

IN EGYPT (fig. 1 and 2)

CLIMATE AND VEGETATION

As far as the Early Holocene is concerned, Egypt was not

necessarily a gift of the Nile. It has been confirmed by well-
dated data that the Holocene climate of Egypt was character-
ised by the advent of generally wetter conditions, but with
recurrent and abrupt arid intervals after a Terminal Pleis-
tocene aridity known as the Younger Dryas22. The major
Fig. 1 : General map of Egypt indicating sites
determinants of the Early-Middle Holocene climatic condi-
mentioned in the text.
tion in Northeastern Africa were the Mediterranean polar
front that came from the north and spread winter rain, the
African monsoonal rain belt that came from the south and
At present, the southern limit of Mediterranean flora is
deposited summer rain, and the palaeowesterlies that brought
around the latitude of Cairo, while the northern limit of
moisture from the northwest. Therefore, the amount of rain-
Sudano-Sahelian steppe shrubs is around the latitude of the
fall in Northeastern Africa has definitely been subject to the
Fifth Cataract of the Nile, and the vast area between these two
seasonal and long-term northward-southward shifts of the
distinct vegetation zones is absolute desert24. It has been
Mediterranean polar front and particularly the African mon-
revealed through botanical and sedimentological studies that
soonal rain belt23. This has affected the vegetation in this part
the Mediterranean polar front shifted southward to around the
of the continent.
latitude of Dakhleh-Kharga Oases, and the African mon-
soonal rain belt also shifted northward to around the latitude
of Dakhleh-Kharga Oases during the Holocene pluvial maxi-
mum dated to around 5,800-5,300 cal. BC25. Recent discover-
19.HOLE, 2003. ies of both Mediterranean and Saharo-Arabic/Sahelian plants
20.E.g. GARCEA, 2004. at the Early-Middle Holocene sites in Farafra Oasis and
21.E.g. MARSHALL and HILDEBRAND, 2002.
22.HASSAN, 1996, 1997 ; MCDONALD, 2001 ; NICOLL, 2001, 2004 ;
SCHILD and WENDORF, 2002.
23. BROOKES, 2003 ; CLOSE, 1996 ; HASSAN, 1997 ; HAYNES, 1987 ; 24. NEUMANN, 1989a, 1989b ; NICOLL, 2004.
SAID, 1993. 25. HAYNES, 1987, 2001 ; NEUMANN, 1989a, 1989b.

Paléorient, vol. 32.2, p. 7-21 © CNRS ÉDITIONS 2006

4331_ Page 11 Lundi, 28. mai 2007 11:22 11 > Apogee FrameMaker Noir

Supra-regional concepts in Near Eastern Neolithisation from a viewpoint of Egyptian Neolithic research 11

Western Desert Dakhleh Oasis Fayum Nile Valley Negev & Sinai Southern Levant

Merimde
Ru'at El Baqar Fayumian Ghassulian
Bashendi B (Neolithic) Shunera,
(Late Ceramic) (Neolithic)
5 000 cal. BC (Ceramic) Kvish Harif
Qatifian

Ru'at El Ghanam
Late Bashendi A Lodian (Jericho IX)
(Middle Ceramic)
(Ceramic) Nahal Issaron,
6 000 cal. BC Qadesh Barnea Yarmukian
Early Bashendi A (Pottery/ Late
(Ceramic) Neolithic)
Qarunian
El Nabta/Al Jerar (Epipalaeolithic)
(Early Ceremic) Nahal Issaron, FPPNB (PPNC)
Ujrat el-Mehed,
7 000 cal. BC Wadi Jibba
Elkabian LPPNB
(Epipalaeolithic)
El Ghorab
(Early Ceramic) Nahal Reuel,
MPPNB
Masara Wadi Tbeik
8 000 cal. BC (Epipalaeolithic)

El Adam EPPNB
(Early Ceramic) Arkinian
(Epipalaeolithic)
PPNA
9 000 cal. BC

Fig. 2 : Chronological table.

Djara26 also suggest the convergence of the African mon-
soonal rain belt and the Mediterranean polar front around this
latitude in that period. For an understanding of the rise and fall
of Levantine Neolithic cultures, the importance of both the
northward shift of the African monsoonal rain belt, which
may have reached the southernmost part of the Levant, and
the southward shift of the Mediterranean polar front, which
surely reached Sinai, has already been recognised by Near
Eastern archaeologists27, but the southward retreat of the
African monsoonal rain belt in the Middle Holocene is
becoming stressed as a key event in the beginning of the
southward diffusion of Levantine winter crops in Sinai, Ara-
bia and Northeastern Africa28.
Wet phases of the Early Holocene created grasslands in
the present-day Western Desert of Egypt, where water sources
were nevertheless limited to oases and ephemeral playa lakes
fed by rainfall. This facilitated hunter-gatherers exploiting the
“green desert” as well as the Nile Valley. This is the first fac-
tor that should be considered in the context of Neolithisation
in Egypt, because innovations such as pottery production and
alleged cattle domestication seem to have been achieved first
at Bir Kiseiba and Nabta Playa in the Western Desert between
9,000 cal. BC and 7,600 cal. BC during one of the Early
Holocene wet phases known as the El Adam humid inter-
phase29. In contrast, the situation in the contemporaneous Nile
Valley is not clear, except for the Epipalaeolithic Arkinian
culture near the Second Cataract of the Nile Valley30 and the
alleged earliest pottery production around the Sudanese cen-
tral Nile31.

26. HASSAN et al., 2001 ; KINDERMANN et al., 2006. 29. SCHILD and WENDORF, 2002 ; WENDORF and SCHILD, 1998, 2001.
27. HENRY, 1989 : 65ff ; SIMMONS, 1997 : 313-314. 30. SCHILD et al., 1968.
28. MCCORRISTON, 2006. 31. CLOSE, 1995.

Paléorient, vol. 32.2, p. 7-21 © CNRS ÉDITIONS 2006

4331_ Page 12 Lundi, 28. mai 2007 11:22 11
12
One question is why the alleged early cattle domestication
did not begin in the Pleistocene wet phases but rather in the
Early Holocene. Hence, it is assumed that amelioration of
desert environments in terms of humidity may not have been
the sufficient precondition for the development of cattle
domestication. Recent palaeoclimatological studies have
revealed that Pleistocene wet phases were completely differ-
ent from Holocene wet phases in terms of temperature, den-
sity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and degree of
fluctuations, all of which greatly affected the growth and
spread of plants, and it has been argued that agriculture was
impossible under Pleistocene conditions32. Therefore, it may
be presumed that the beginning of intensive exploitation of
wild grasses such as sorghum by hunter-gatherers in Nabta
Playa around 7,000 cal. BC33 was related to the spread of new
vegetation caused by the advent of the Early Holocene cli-
matic optimum called the El Nabta/Al Jerar humid inter-
phase34, and would not have been realised in the Pleistocene.
In addition, relatively invulnerable wild grasses in the West-
ern Desert must not only have attracted wild game animals but
also have become good pasture plants for livestock35. This is
an important environmental reason why cattle domestication
became possible in the Early Holocene. It must be stressed
that wheat/barley and sheep/goats could not be domesticated
independently in Egypt despite the favourable climatic condi-
tions because there were no wild ancestors of these species in
North Africa.
The second question here is why domesticated wheat/bar-
ley and sheep/goats did not diffuse from the southern Levant
to Egypt under favourable Early Holocene climatic condi-
tions. The Middle PPNB period in the Levant was the time of
great agricultural dispersal under Early Holocene wet condi-
tions, and domesticated wheat/barley did diffuse beyond the
fertile Levantine Corridor to arid regions. However, it was not
until the Middle Holocene arid intervals around 5,800 cal. BC
and 5,200 cal. BC that domesticated sheep/goats and wheat/
barley reached the Red Sea coast and the Fayum in Egypt
respectively. Therefore, the direct reason for the delay of the
diffusion of Levantine domesticates to Egypt may be some-
thing other than wet climatic conditions, though it seems
probable that the desiccation at the onset of the Middle
Holocene was the initial driving force behind the diffusion.
This question will be discussed in more detail below.
32. RICHERSON et al., 2001.
33. BARAKAT and FAHMY, 1999.
34. SCHILD and WENDORF, 2002 ; WENDORF and SCHILD, 1998, 2001.
35. WASYLIKOWA et al., 1997 : 940.
> Apogee FrameMaker Noir
N. SHIRAI
POPULATION AGGREGATION AND SEDENTISM
Although the Western Desert of Egypt became inhabitable
in the Early Holocene wet phases, there is no doubt that people
had to aggregate around water sources like oases and ephem-
eral lakes fed by rainfall while adopting a logistical mobility
strategy, or a circulating mobility strategy on a seasonal basis.
Even though they could dig wells, and indeed they did36,
groundwater could not always be found everywhere. Therefore,
a degree of sedentism must have been a necessary solution to
maintain a close link to water sources, and the necessity of sed-
entism must have been recognised more seriously by the inhab-
itants of the Western Desert than it had been by those who
inhabited the Nile Valley, because the number of water sources
was limited in the Western Desert.
As more people aggregated around a limited number of
water sources perennially or seasonally, the rights to the water
sources and accompanying food resources may have become
more specific and rigid, and the notion of territoriality may
have been generated. In such circumstances, freedom of
movement for food quests must have become gradually ham-
pered, even though the rights to visit each other’s territory
were ensured by socioeconomic ties like reciprocity. Conse-
quently, stressful situations within and between territories
must have occasionally occurred. In the case of the Western
Desert, recurrent arid intervals could be another cause of such
stressful situations. It has been argued that in such circum-
stances much labour may have become increasingly invested
to ensure sufficient yield from one’s own territory because it
was burdensome to visit and exploit another’s territory, and
that such an intensification of food procurement in circum-
scribed habitats had the potential to lead to the beginning of
food production, especially if predictable, relocatable and
tameable food resources were available, and if technological
innovations which would permit efficient utilisation of the
resources occurred37.
A tendency toward a certain degree of sedentism has been
inferred in Dakhleh Oasis and Nabta Playa as early as the
Early Holocene on the basis of lithic assemblages, site distri-
bution and the existence of storage facilities38, and it would be
no surprise that such moderately stressful situations over food
procurement took place in these regions. It has been argued
36. KOBUSIEWICZ, 2003.
37. ROSENBERG, 1990, 1998.
38. MCDONALD, 1991b, 1998 ; WENDORF and SCHILD, 1998, 2001,
2002.
Paléorient, vol. 32.2, p. 7-21 © CNRS ÉDITIONS 2006
4331_ Page 13 Lundi, 28. mai 2007 11:22 11
Supra-regional concepts in Near Eastern Neolithisation from a viewpoint of Egyptian Neolithic research
that the beginning of intensive exploitation of wild sorghum
in Nabta Playa would probably be an indication that the
inhabitants attempted to augment the amount of food
resources in circumscribed habitats by harvesting previously
less-exploited plants39. Although Nabta had been completely
abandoned around 6,000 cal. BC due to a short hyper-arid
interval known as the Post-Al Jerar arid phase40, when people
returned there to settle down again after 5,900 cal. BC, they
brought domesticated goats. Domesticated goats were rapidly
diffused to other oases such as Dakhleh Oasis and Farafra
Oasis, and the exploitation of wild sorghum also became com-
mon, as evidenced by botanical remains and grinding imple-
ments in Farafra Oasis and Abu Ballas41. There appears
evidence for increasingly sedentary occupation as well as
exploitation of sorghum and goats in Farafra Oasis in the early
6th millennium cal. BC42. It can be suggested that domesti-
cated goats were another solution to augment the amount of
food resources in circumscribed habitats.
POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND EXPANSION
OF SOCIOCULTURAL/SOCIOECONOMIC
NETWORKS
Long distance population movements between the West-
ern Desert and the Nile Valley, and between the southern
Levant and the Nile Valley via the Negev and Sinai, should
not be ignored as a factor that enabled access to domesticates,
even though a certain degree of sedentism in circumscribed
habitats seems to have been one reason why domesticates
were introduced.
As evidenced by recurrent abandonment and reoccupation
of sites in the Western Desert in the Early-Middle Holocene,
population movements were not uncommon. Since the
appearance and disappearance of settlements were not always
coincident between oases and other occasionally well-
watered regions such as the Fayum, Siwa Oasis, Farafra
Oasis, Djara, Kharga Oasis, Dakhleh Oasis, Abu Ballas,
Nabta Playa, and the Gilf Kebir43, it is reasonable to think that
an entire population sometimes moved long distances from
water source to water source within the Western Desert, prob-
39.
WENDORF and SCHILD, 2002.
40.
SCHILD and WENDORF, 2002 ; WENDORF and SCHILD, 1998, 2001.
41.
BARAKAT and FAHMY, 1999 ; GEHLEN et al., 2002.
42.
BARICH and LUCARINI, 2002 ; HASSAN et al., 2001.
43.
GEHLEN et al., 2002 ; KUPER, 1995, 2002 ; MCDONALD, 2001 ;
NICOLL, 2001.
Paléorient, vol. 32.2, p. 7-21 © CNRS ÉDITIONS 2006
> Apogee FrameMaker Noir
13
ably following the northward-southward shifts of the mon-
soonal rain belt of North Africa or the polar front of the
Eastern Mediterranean. It has been pointed out that lithic arte-
facts of the Fayum Neolithic culture were very similar to
those of the Bashendi A and B cultures in Dakhleh Oasis and
those of the Djara B culture in Djara, and thus one of the ori-
gins of the Fayum Neolithic culture must have been located
far to the south of the Fayum44. The coincidence of the reoc-
cupation of the Fayum after a long hiatus with the temporary
abandonment and subsequent reoccupation of Dakhleh Oasis
and with the final abandonment of Djara around the middle of
the 6th millennium cal. BC may suggest that a certain number
of people moved from this region to the Fayum.
In contrast to the north-south population movements, the
east-west population movements are not clear. Especially at
the time of unexpected, long-lasting aridity, movements of an
entire population toward permanent water sources like the
Nile must have been the ultimate solution. However, it is dif-
ficult to trace precisely the immigration of people into the
Nile Valley from different directions and the outflow of peo-
ple from the Nile Valley, because there is little information
about the situation in the Nile Valley in the Early-Middle
Holocene due to the problems of site preservation45.
Only two Epipalaeolithic cultures of the Early Holocene
are known in the Nile Valley. What seems certain is that peo-
ple of the El Adam Early Ceramic culture in the Nabta region
around 9,000-7,600 cal. BC had contacts with the Nile Valley
as evidenced by the presence of Nilotic freshwater bivalves in
El Adam sites and the similarity in lithic assemblages to the
Epipalaeolithic Arkinian culture near the Second Cataract of
the Nile Valley46. It has also been argued that people of the
Epipalaeolithic Elkabian culture in the Nile Valley around
7,500-6,500 cal. BC were moving seasonally between the
Nile Valley and the Red Sea coast and between the Nile Val-
ley and the Western Desert on the basis of many similarities
in lithic assemblages between the El Ghorab Early Ceramic
culture in the Nabta region and the Elkabian culture in the
Nile Valley, and between the Elkabian culture in the Nile Val-
ley and its variant on the Red Sea coast47.
As for the cultures of the Middle Holocene, no archaeo-
logical site is known in the Nile Valley, and only some mate-
rial items like Nilotic freshwater bivalves found at sites in the
44. KINDERMANN, 2003, 2004 ; MCDONALD, 1991a, 1996 ; WARFE,
2003.
45. CLOSE, 1996 ; VERMEERSCH, 2002.
46. WENDORF and SCHILD, 2001.
47. VERMEERSCH, 1984, 2002 ; VERMEERSCH et al., 2002.
4331_ Page 14 Lundi, 28. mai 2007 11:22 11
14
Western Desert have been argued as evidence for contacts
between the Nile Valley and the Western Desert48. The earli-
est domesticated sheep/goats in Egypt were found in Sodmein
Cave on the Red Sea coast and were dated to 5,800 cal. BC,
and the second earliest domesticated sheep/goats were found
in Nabta Playa and Dakhleh Oasis and dated to around
5,700 cal. BC49. Therefore, it is logical to think that domesti-
cated sheep/goats were diffused to the Western Desert imme-
diately after their first arrival at Sodmein Cave, and that there
were constant movements of people between the Red Sea
coast and the Western Desert behind the diffusion of domes-
ticated sheep/goats.
In addition to population movements, the expansion of
exchange/trade networks within Egypt must have been a crit-
ical factor for the Neolithisation in Egypt. Some similarities in
material culture across different parts of the Western Desert
can probably be explained by the expansion of exchange/trade
networks as well. Since exotic materials like Red Sea shells,
Mediterranean shells and Nubian diorite began to come into
the Fayum in the second half of the 6th millennium cal. BC50,
there is no doubt that long distance exchange/trade networks
appeared in this period. But what seems more important for
the Neolithisation of Egypt is a further expansion of the
exchange/trade networks beyond Egypt with the Near East.
Remarkably wide distributions of particular types of projec-
tile points in the Near East in the PPN are well known, and
they are presumed to be the results of extensive exchange/
sharing of finished items as well as the expansion of local pro-
duction facilitated by the diffusion of manufacturing technol-
ogy. As mentioned above, some types of Levantine PPNB and
Late Neolithic projectile points actually appeared in Lower
Egypt, though they were small in number and very late in
date, and their raw materials are not certain. Thus the reasons
for and the context of the late appearance of these projectile
points must be explained. Since large scale migration of
Levantine people has not been attested archaeologically and
linguistically51, it is more probable that the Levantine projec-
tile points were accepted and thereafter imitated as novel and
prestigious items in Egypt through socioeconomic networks.
This manner of acceptance may also be the case with Levan-
tine wheat/barley and sheep/goats52.
48. KINDERMANN et al., 2006.
49. CLOSE, 2002 ; VERMEERSCH et al., 1994, 1996.
50. CATON-THOMPSON and GARDNER, 1934 : 87f.
51. BARKER, 2003 ; BAR-YOSEF, 2003 ; HASSAN, 2003.
52. SHIRAI, 2002.
> Apogee FrameMaker Noir
N. SHIRAI
Moreover, the expansion of minor items must not be over-
looked. The expansion of stone bead making has a curious
coincidence with the beginning of food production and seden-
tary life in the southern Levant53, and is worth examining in
the Egyptian context in terms of the development of social
identities and boundaries on the one hand and the develop-
ment of exchange/trade networks regarding the demand and
supply of raw materials and finished items on the other,
because similar stone beads are known in Egypt as well. The
late diffusion of Levantine domesticates to Egypt must have
something to do with the development of such socioeconomic
networks.
AVAILABILITY OF DOMESTICATED WHEAT/
BARLEY AND SHEEP/GOATS
In addition to the development of extensive socioeco-
nomic networks across the Near East and Egypt, another rea-
son for the late diffusion of farming and herding to Egypt may
possibly be the late advent of domesticated sheep and goats in
the southern Levant. Since the first wheat/barley farming cul-
ture in the Fayum was accompanied by sheep/goat herding
from the beginning, it is reasonable to presume that the diffu-
sion of farming to Egypt was closely tied to the advent of
sheep/goat herding. While the domestication of goats seems
to have been attempted in the northern and southern Levant,
the domestication of sheep was evidently achieved at a rela-
tively earlier date in the northern Levant, and then domesti-
cated sheep were introduced into the southern Levant no
earlier than the Late PPNB period54. As exemplified by the
emergence of an agro-pastoral way of life in Transjordan after
the Late PPNB period, farming in arid regions outside the fer-
tile Levantine Corridor had to be complemented by hunting
and sheep/goat herding as a buffer against the risks of bad har-
vests55. One reason why farming did not diffuse to Egypt
across the Negev and Sinai in the Middle PPNB period may
be because domesticated sheep and goats were not yet availa-
ble in the Negev and Sinai, and thus the exploitation of wild
plants and animals remained the major subsistence in the
Negev and Sinai.
The possibility that wheat/barley farming diffused to the
Negev and Sinai well in advance of sheep/goat herding cannot
53. WRIGHT and GARRARD, 2003.
54. HORWITZ et al., 2000 ; HORWITZ, 2003.
55. GARRARD et al., 1996.
Paléorient, vol. 32.2, p. 7-21 © CNRS ÉDITIONS 2006
4331_ Page 15 Lundi, 28. mai 2007 11:22 11
Supra-regional concepts in Near Eastern Neolithisation from a viewpoint of Egyptian Neolithic research
be ruled out, but there is no evidence for farming in the Negev
and Sinai in the Middle PPNB period56. If wheat/barley farm-
ing actually did not diffuse to the Negev and Sinai in the Mid-
dle PPNB period, this may be because the Negev and Sinai
were included in the Intertropical Convergence Zone in this
period, and thus Levantine wheat and barley that grew with
winter rainfall and relied on long daylight hours through
spring-summer could not grow under the climatic regime of
high summer humidity and temperature57.
Secure establishment of sheep/goat herding in combina-
tion with wheat/barley farming in the southern Levant in the
Late Neolithic period could have made possible a more inten-
sive exploitation of the Negev and Sinai. It is in this context
that the diffusion of domesticated wheat/barley and sheep/
goats to Egypt occurred. As mentioned above, the first domes-
ticated sheep/goats in Egypt were found at Sodmein Cave on
the Red Sea coast, and there is little doubt that they came from
Sinai across the Red Sea. The reason why the southward dif-
fusion of sheep/goats to Egypt was slightly earlier than that of
wheat/barley is because sheep/goats were not affected by the
difference in the climatic regime. Although the first domesti-
cated sheep/goats were not accompanied by domesticated
wheat/barley, the role of sheep/goat herders as the possible
agents of the diffusion of domesticated wheat/barley to Egypt
at a later date must be considered58.
HUMAN COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
AND HUMAN AGENCY
While external reasons such as climatic and environmen-
tal changes for the beginning and development of Neolithisa-
tion have long been argued in Near Eastern archaeology,
internal reasons such as human motivations for the Neoli-
thisation have recently been emphasised. Cauvin has focused
on the symbolic aspects of Near Eastern Neolithic cultures
and concluded that Neolithisation in the Near East was essen-
tially a restructuring of human mentality rather than of sub-
sistence economy59. From a more general point of view,
Mithen has elaborated the argument that the development of
human cognitive ability as demonstrated by artistic and sym-
bolic objects in the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene
56. ROSEN, 1988, 2002.
57. MCCORRISTON, 2006.
58. SHIRAI, 2005b.
59. CAUVIN, 2000a, 2000b.
Paléorient, vol. 32.2, p. 7-21 © CNRS ÉDITIONS 2006
> Apogee FrameMaker Noir
15
played a significant role in the beginning of food production,
and concluded that food production must have been impossi-
ble before the development of the complex cognitive ability of
behaviourally modern humans, who were able to use food
resources not merely for the survival of the entire groups of
people, but also for socioeconomic competition between
ambitious individuals60.
Since symbolic items are very poor in the material culture
of Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic Egypt, it is hard to imagine
the mentality or cognition in general, and the ambition or
greediness in particular, of the people who first attempted
food production in Egypt. However, it seems that this should
be the factor that deserves the utmost consideration in future
Neolithic research in Egypt, as has been demonstrated by the
author61. Ongoing arguments concerning symbolic aspects of
Near Eastern Neolithisation would be of great help for such a
consideration.
Human agency should also be considered in the socioeco-
nomic networks between the southern Levant, Negev, Sinai,
and Egypt. The reasons why a very limited number of Levan-
tine Neolithic items, such as specific projectile points,
reached Egypt and why nothing seems to have gone out of
Egypt in return, must be related to intentional choices of the
people involved, and may probably be explained by a sort of
prestige economy in which ambitious individuals enthusiasti-
cally obtained novel items for status display. The introduction
of domesticated wheat/barley and sheep/goats into Egypt may
also be in part attributed to such ambitious individuals’ eager-
ness for raising their status through the distribution of novel
food.
AREAS OF COOPERATIVE RESEARCH
An overview of factors causing Neolithisation in Egypt
reveals more differences than similarities between the Near
East and Egypt. Nevertheless, I insist that cooperative
research between archaeologists working in Egypt and Near
Eastern archaeologists is essential.
As for the similarities in cultural, economic, and social
development in the Levantine PPNB interaction sphere, if
Near Eastern archaeologists agree that more attention should
be paid to such topics as the colonisation of the isolated island
60. MITHEN, 1996.
61. SHIRAI, 2005a.
4331_ Page 16 Lundi, 28. mai 2007 11:22 11
16
of Cyprus for a better understanding of unprecedented human
territorial behaviours that may have caused the similarities in
different regions62, there seems to be no reason to ignore
Egypt which is connected to the Levant by the land bridge of
Sinai and must have been more easily accessible. Given that
Neolithic people had fewer physical difficulties in moving
across seas and deserts than previously believed, demo-
graphic trends across the Near East in the Early-Middle
Holocene should be reconsidered not only by Near Eastern
archaeologists63 but also by archaeologists in Egypt, and spe-
cial attention must be paid to the population expansion into
arid regions like the Negev and Sinai, where sedentary agro-
pastoral adaptation did not become prevalent despite a certain
degree of similarity in material culture. What seems more
interesting is that the Negev and Sinai can be studied not only
in terms of the heartland-hinterland or heartland-periphery
relationship with the Levant64, but also in terms of the medi-
ator of cultural transmission between the Levant and Egypt,
though there is another possibility that the cultural transmis-
sion was realised not only via Sinai but also through seafaring
off the coast of northern Sinai and the Nile Delta65. In addi-
tion, the expansion of exchange/trade networks between the
Near East and Egypt over time can also be re-examined
through exchanges of information between archaeologists
working in the Near East and Egypt.
As for the differences in cultural, economic, and social
development, Egypt definitely provides extreme examples. In
order to develop a new explanatory framework that is applica-
ble to the entire Near East including Egypt, it is worth taking
into account the fact that cattle herding and pottery making
were quite normal before crop farming in the Egyptian West-
ern Desert. Archaeologists working in Egypt are responsible
for explaining these contrasting phenomena in terms not only
of the distribution of resources, but also of the medium-term
developments of technology and demographic changes that
are unique to North Africa. Compared with the core area of
the Near East, more frequent population expansion/contrac-
tion and more sparsely distributed resources were characteris-
tics of North Africa except for the Nile Valley, and these
characteristics are obviously related to the tempos of the
62. E.g. KUIJT, 2004 ; PELTENBURG, 2004.
63. E.g. BAR-YOSEF, 2003 ; BAR-YOSEF and BAR-YOSEF MAYER,
2002.
64. ROSEN, 1988 : 503, 2002 : 24.
65. BAR-YOSEF, 2003 : fig. 10,3 and 4 ; BAR-YOSEF and BAR-YOSEF
MAYER, 2002 : fig. 8.
> Apogee FrameMaker Noir
N. SHIRAI
developments of different technologies, subsistence practices
and social organisation in the Western Desert.
STRUCTURAL HISTORY
OF NEOLITHISATION
Finally, the argument so far can also be considered in
terms of Structural History, an Annaliste thought that explic-
itly focuses on multiple processes of events that mutually
interact on different timescale66. There is no doubt that the
Neolithisation process in the Near East and Egypt went on
during the long-term climatic trend of reaction to and recov-
ery from the Younger Dryas cooling and desiccation event
and subsequent increasing aridity between 10,000 cal. BC and
5,000 cal. BC67. This climatic trend gave possibilities and
constraints for the Neolithisation process in terms of the selec-
tion of human habitats, the timing of domestication, and the
selection of potential domesticates. In addition, the develop-
ment of the complex cognitive ability of behaviourally mod-
ern humans, which can also be regarded as a part of long-term
human evolution since the emergence of anatomically mod-
ern humans around 100,000 years ago, must also have given
great possibilities for the Neolithisation process elsewhere.
From an evolutionary point of view, it can be said that people
had already exhibited complex symbolising abilities as exem-
plified by sculptures and rock art in the Late Pleistocene, but
it was not until the Terminal Pleistocene that people acquired
the cognitive ability to think about controlling nature by
domesticating wild plants and animals, and not necessarily for
subsistence, as evidenced by the domestication of dog in the
Natufian. Therefore, it seems quite reasonable to conclude
from the long-term perspective that the beginning of food pro-
duction in the Early Holocene is a contingent event at the con-
juncture of rare climatic changes and steady evolution of
human cognition68, even though the exact timing of climatic
changes varied by latitude and elevation.
The above-mentioned idea of “polycentric evolution” in
Near Eastern Neolithisation seems to focus solely on the
medium-term developments of culture, economy, and society
in different environments and to argue the reasons for regional
differences as well as similarities, without making clear the
66. BINTLIFF, 1991, 2004.
67. BAR-YOSEF, 2002b ; BAR-YOSEF and BELFER-COHEN, 2002.
68. LAYTON, 1999 ; SHERRATT, 1997.
Paléorient, vol. 32.2, p. 7-21 © CNRS ÉDITIONS 2006
4331_ Page 17 Lundi, 28. mai 2007 11:22 11
Supra-regional concepts in Near Eastern Neolithisation from a viewpoint of Egyptian Neolithic research
long-term events behind the developments and short-term
events that are constrained and enabled by these medium-term
developments. It is necessary to distinguish long-term events
from medium-term events and to recognise on what timescale
the events under consideration occurred and how they con-
verged or diverged at a certain point of time for a more com-
prehensive understanding of the Neolithisation in the entire
Near East including Egypt.
The emergence of knowledgeable and ambitious individu-
als who had the potential to change things on the short times-
cale within the medium-term developments of societies or
sociocultural networks is the most unpredictable factor in the
Neolithisation process. According to structuration theory and
complexity theory, while individuals cannot be freed from the
existing cultural, economic, and social structure that is unique
to each region and constrains individual behaviour, they can
create subtle changes in the structure. Although the role of
active individuals should not be overestimated69, such a series
of subtle changes may radically alter the trajectory of the
developments of entire cultural, economic and social structure
in the end70. Therefore, archaeologists must be careful when
looking at subtle changes in material culture that do not nec-
essarily seem to be adaptive or functional while exploring the
socioeconomic context in which such changes appeared. Sub-
tle changes in material culture may be clues to recognise the
emergence of socially-prominent individuals. In the case of
Egypt, the late emergence of bifacial technology within the
traditional lithic technology in the 6th millennium cal. BC may
be interpreted as a sign of the appearance of such individuals,
who eventually adopted foreign domesticates71.
In summary, the Neolithisation process can probably be
explained as the convergence of 1) long-term Holocene climatic
changes and human cognitive development, 2) medium-term
demographic changes and the accompanying unprecedented
expansion and intensification of sociocultural/socioeconomic
networks, and 3) the unpredictable emergence of socially-
prominent individuals on a short-term basis.
69. BINTLIFF, 2003.
70. LAYTON, 2003.
71. SHIRAI, 2005a.
Paléorient, vol. 32.2, p. 7-21 © CNRS ÉDITIONS 2006
> Apogee FrameMaker Noir
17
CONCLUSION
As demonstrated above, the theoretical framework con-
cerning the Neolithisation process remains under construction
while many critical elements including the timescale are
under the research focus. But what seems clear is that archae-
ologists in Egypt and Near Eastern archaeologists can work
on a common ground and provide information to each other
for mutual benefit. It is hoped that further discussions about
supra-regional concepts in Near Eastern Neolithisation will
trigger a change in relations between Egyptian archaeology
and Near Eastern archaeology, thereby eliminating neigh-
bourly ignorance.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to Dr. Hans Georg Gebel for allowing me to attend
the 2004 Berlin workshop, which inspired me to write this paper and
for giving me comments on the earliest version of this paper. I would
like to thank Professor Peter Akkermans, Professor John Bintliff,
Dr. Bleda Düring, Dr. Benoît Lurson, Professor Avraham Ronen,
Professor Steven Rosen, and Professor Pierre Vermeersch for their
encouragement and critical comments on an earlier version of this
paper. I would also like to thank anonymous referees of Paléorient
for their invaluable comments. Although I tried to consider all of
their comments carefully, I could not fully discuss them, and I may
perhaps have misrepresented them. I stress that I am solely respon-
sible for any errors and misunderstandings found in this paper.
Lastly, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Éric Coqueu-
gniot and Ms. Armelle Lorcy of Paléorient for their editorial assis-
tance to improve this paper.
Noriyuki SHIRAI
Faculty of Archaeology
Leiden University
2300 RA Leiden
The Netherlands
n.shirai@arch.leidenuniv.nl
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BARAKAT H.N. and FAHMY A.G.
1999 Wild grasses as “Neolithic” Food Resources in the Eastern
Sahara : A Review of Evidence from Egypt. In : VAN DER
VEEN M. (ed.), The Exploitation of Plant Resources in
Ancient Africa : 33-46. New York : Kluwer Academic/Ple-
num Publishers.
BARICH B.E. and LUCARINI G.
2002 Archaeology of Farafra Oasis (Western Desert, Egypt) : A
Survey of the most recent research. Archéo-Nil 12 : 101-108.
4331_ Page 18 Lundi, 28. mai 2007 11:22 11
18
BARKER G.
2003 Transition to Farming and Pastoralism in North Africa. In :
BELLWOOD P. and RENFREW C. (eds), Examining the far-
ming/language dispersal hypothesis : 151-162. Cambridge :
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
BAR-YOSEF O.
2001 Lithics and the social geographic configurations identifying
Neolithic tribes in the Levant. In : CANEVA I., LEMORINI C.,
ZAMPETTI D. and BIAGI P. (eds), Beyond Tools : Redefining
the PPN Lithic Assemblages of the Levant : 437-448. Berlin :
ex oriente.
2002a Early Egypt and the Agricultural Dispersals. In : GEBEL H.G.,
HERMANSEN B.D. and JENSEN C.H. (eds), Magic Practices
and Ritual in the Near Eastern Neolithic : 49-65. Berlin : ex
oriente.
2002b The Role of the Younger Dryas in the Origin of Agriculture
in West Asia. In : YASUDA Y. (ed.), The Origins of Pottery
and Agriculture : 39-54. New Delhi : Roli Books.
2003 The Natufian Culture and the Early Neolithic : Social and
Economic Trends in Southwestern Asia. In : BELLWOOD P.
and RENFREW C. (eds), Examining the farming/language
dispersal hypothesis : 113-126. Cambridge : McDonald Ins-
titute for Archaeological Research.
2004 Targets of Current Neolithic Research in Southwestern Asia.
Neo-Lithics 1/04 : 24-27.
BAR-YOSEF O. and BAR-YOSEF MAYER D.E.
2002 Early Neolithic Tribes in the Levant. In : PARKINSON W.A.
(ed.), The Archaeology of Tribal Societies : 340-371. Ann
Arbor : International Monographs in Prehistory.
BAR-YOSEF O. and BELFER-COHEN A.
1989 The Levantine PPNB Interaction Sphere. In : HERSHKOVITZ I.
(ed.), People and Culture in Change : Symposium on Upper
Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic Populations of Europe
and the Mediterranean Basin : 59-72. Oxford (BAR Int.
Ser. 508).
2002 Facing environmental crisis : Societal and cultural changes at
the transition from the Younger Dryas to the Holocene in the
Levant. In : CAPPERS R.T.J. and BOTTEMA S. (eds), The
Dawn of Farming in the Near East : 55-66. Berlin : ex
oriente.
BINTLIFF J.
1991 The contribution of an Annalist/structural history approach to
archaeology. In : BINTLIFF J. (ed.), The Annales School and
Archaeology : 1-33. London : Leicester University Press.
2003 Searching for Structure in the Past – or Was it “One Damn
Thing after Another” ? In : BENTLEY R.A. and MASCHNER
H.D.G. (eds), Complex Systems and Archaeology : Empiri-
cal and Theoretical Applications : 79-83. Salt Lake City :
The University of Utah Press.
2004 Time, Structure and Agency : The Annales, Emergent
Complexity and Archaeology. In : BINTLIFF J. (ed.), A Compa-
nion to Archaeology : 174-194. Oxford : Blackwell Publishing.
BROOKES I.A.
2003 Geomorphic indicators of Holocene winds in Egypt’s Wes-
tern Desert. Geomorphology 56 : 155-166.
CATON-THOMPSON G. and GARDNER E.
1934 The Desert Fayum. London : The Royal Anthropological
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
> Apogee FrameMaker Noir
N. SHIRAI
CAUVIN J.
2000a The Birth of the Gods and the Origins of Agriculture.
Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.
2000b The Symbolic Foundations of the Neolithic Revolution in
the Near East. In : KUIJT I. (ed.), Life in Neolithic Farming
Communities : Social Organization, Identity, and Differenti-
ation : 235-251. New York : Kluwer Academic/Plenum
Publishers.
CLOSE A.E.
1995 Few and far between : early ceramics in North Africa. In :
BARNETT W.K. and HOOPES J.W. (eds), The Emergence of
Pottery : Technology and Innovation in Ancient Societies :
23-37. Washington DC : Smithsonian Institution Press.
1996 Plus ça change : The Pleistocene-Holocene Transition in
Northeast Africa. In : STRAUS L.G., ERIKSEN B.V., ERLAN-
DSON J.M. and YESNER D.R. (eds), Humans at the End of the
Ice Age : The Archaeology of the Pleistocene-Holocene
Transition : 43-60. New York : Plenum Press (Interdiscipli-
nary Contributions to Archaeology).
2002 Sinai, Sahara, Sahel : The introduction of domestic caprines
to Africa. In : LENSSEN-ERZ T., TEGTMEIER U. and
KRÖPELIN S. (eds), Tides of the Desert : Contributions to the
Archaeology and Environmental History of Africa in Honour
of Rudolph Kuper : 459-469. Köln : Heinrich Barth Institut
(Africa Praehistorica 14, Monographs on African Archaeo-
logy and Environment).
GARCEA E.A.A.
2004 An Alternative Way towards Food Production : The Perspec-
tive from the Libyan Sahara. Journal of World Prehistory
18,2 : 107-154.
GARRARD A., COLLEDGE S. and MARTIN L.
1996 The emergence of crop cultivation and caprine herding in the
Marginal Zone of the southern Levant. In : HARRIS D.R.
(ed.), The origins and spread of agriculture and pastoralism
in Eurasia : 204-226. London : UCL Press.
GAUTIER A.
2002 The Evidence for the Earliest Livestock in North Africa : Or
adventures with large bovids, ovicaprids, dogs and pigs. In :
HASSAN F.A. (ed.), Droughts, Food and Culture : Ecologi-
cal change and food security in Africa’s later prehistory :
195-207. New York : Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.
GEBEL H.G.K.
2002 The Neolithic of the Near East : An essay on a “Polycentric
Evolution” and other current research problems. In : HAUS-
LEITER A., KERNER S. and MÜLLER-NEUHOF B. (eds),
Material Culture and Mental Spheres : 313-324. Münster :
Ugarit Verlag.
2004 There was no center : The polycentric evolution of the Near
Eastern Neolithic. Neo-Lithics 1/04 : 28-32.
GEHLEN B., KINDERMANN K., LINSTÄDTER J. and RIEMER H.
2002 The Holocene Occupation of the Eastern Sahara : Regional
Chronologies and Supra-regional Developments in Four
Areas of the Absolute Desert. In : LENSSEN-ERZ T.,
TEGTMEIER U. and KRÖPELIN S. (eds), Tides of the Desert :
Contributions to the Archaeology and Environmental
History of Africa in Honour of Rudolph Kuper : 85-116.
Köln : Heinrich Barth Institut (Africa Praehistorica 14,
Monographs on African Archaeology and Environment).
Paléorient, vol. 32.2, p. 7-21 © CNRS ÉDITIONS 2006
4331_ Page 19 Lundi, 28. mai 2007 11:22 11
Supra-regional concepts in Near Eastern Neolithisation from a viewpoint of Egyptian Neolithic research
GOPHER A.
1994 Arrowheads of the Neolithic Levant : A seriation analysis.
Winona Lake : Eisenbrauns.
HASSAN F.A.
1996 Abrupt Holocene climatic events in Africa. In : PWITI G. and
SOPER R. (eds), Aspects of African Archaeology : Papers
from the 10th Congress of the Pan African Association for
Prehistory and Related Studies : 83-89. Harare : University
of Zimbabwe Publications.
1997 Holocene Palaeoclimates of Africa. The African Archaeolo-
gical Review 14 : 213-230.
2002a Palaeoclimate, Food and Culture Change in Africa : An over-
view. In : HASSAN F.A. (ed.), Droughts, Food and Culture :
Ecological change and food security in Africa’s later
prehistory : 11-26. New York : Kluwer Academic/Plenum
Publishers.
2002b Holocene Environmental Change and the Transition to Agri-
culture in South-West Asia and North-East Africa. In :
YASUDA Y. (ed.), The Origins of Pottery and Agriculture :
55-68. New Delhi : Roli Books.
2003 Archaeology and Linguistic Diversity in North Africa. In :
BELLWOOD P. and RENFREW C. (eds), Examining the far-
ming/language dispersal hypothesis : 127-133. Cambridge :
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
HASSAN F.A., BARICH B., MAHMOUD M. and HEMDAN M.A.
2001 Holocene Playa Deposits of Farafra Oasis, Egypt, and Their
Palaeoclimatic and Geoarchaeological Significance. Geoar-
chaeology 16,1 : 29-46.
HAYNES C.V.
1987 Holocene Migration Rates of the Sudano-Sahelian Wetting
Front, Arba’in Desert, Eastern Sahara. In : CLOSE A.E. (ed.),
Prehistory of Arid North Africa : Essays in Honor of Fred
Wendorf : 69-84. Dallas : Southern Methodist University
Press.
2001 Geochronology and Climate Change of the Pleistocene-
Holocene Transition in the Darb el Arba’in Desert, Eastern
Sahara. Geoarchaeology 16,1 : 119-141.
HENDRICKX S. and VERMEERSCH P.M.
2000 Prehistory from the Palaeolithic to the Badarian Culture
(c. 700 000-4 000 BC). In : SHAW I. (ed.), The Oxford History
of Ancient Egypt : 17-43. Oxford : Oxford University Press.
HENRY D.O.
1989 From Foraging to Agriculture : The Levant at the End of the
Ice Age. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press.
HOLE F.
2003 Centers in the Neolithic ? Neo-Lithics 2/03 : 33-35.
HORWITZ L.K.
2003 Temporal and spatial variation in Neolithic caprine exploita-
tion strategies : A case study of fauna from the site of
Yiftah’el (Israel). Paléorient 29,1 : 19-58.
HORWITZ L.K., TCHERNOV E., DUCOS P., BECKER C., VON DEN DRIESCH A.,
MARTIN L. and GARRARD A.
2000 Animal domestication in the southern Levant. Paléorient
25,2 : 63-80.
KINDERMANN K.
2003 Investigations of the Mid-Holocene settlement of Djara
(Abu Muhariq Plateau, Western Desert of Egypt). In :
Paléorient, vol. 32.2, p. 7-21 © CNRS ÉDITIONS 2006
> Apogee FrameMaker Noir
19
KRZYZANIAK L., KROEPER K. and KOBUSIEWICZ M. (eds),
Cultural Markers in the Later Prehistory of Northeastern
Africa and Recent Research : 51-72. Poznan : Poznan
Archaeological Museum.
2004 Djara : Excavations and surveys of the 1998-2002 seasons.
Archéo-Nil 14 : 31-50.
KINDERMANN K., BUBENZER O., NUSSBAUM S., RIEMER H., DARIUS F.,
PÖLLATH N. and SMETTAN U.
2006 Palaeoenvironment and Holocene land use of Djara, Western
Desert of Egypt. Quaternary Science Reviews 25 : 1619-1637.
KOBUSIEWICZ M.
2003 Neolithic wells of the Western Desert of Egypt. In :
KRZYZANIAK L., KROEPER K. and KOBUSIEWICZ M. (eds),
Cultural Markers in the Later Prehistory of Northeastern
Africa and Recent Research : 95-104. Poznan : Poznan
Archaeological Museum.
KUIJT I.
2004 Cyprus as a regional Neolithic entity : Do researchers need to
revisit the concept of the Levantine PPNB interaction
sphere ? Neo-Lithics 1/04 : 8-9.
KUIJT I. and GORING-MORRIS N.
2002 Foraging, Farming, and Social Complexity in the Pre-Pottery
Neolithic of the Southern Levant : A Review and Synthesis.
Journal of World Prehistory 16,4 : 361-440.
KUPER R.
1995 Prehistoric Research in the Southern Libyan Desert : A Brief
Account of the B.O.S. Project. Cahier de Recherches de l’Ins-
titut de Papyrologie et d’Égyptologie de Lille 17 : 123-140.
2002 Routes and Roots in Egypt’s Western Desert : The Early
Holocene Resettlement of the Eastern Sahara. In :
FRIEDMAN R. (ed.), Egypt and Nubia : Gifts of the Desert :
1-12. London : The British Museum Press.
LAYTON R.
1999 The human evolutionary time-scale and the transition
between hunting and gathering, and farming. In : BINTLIFF J.
(ed.), Structure and Contingency : Evolutionary Processes in
Life and Human Society : 102-117. London : Leicester Uni-
versity Press.
2003 Agency, Structuration, and Complexity. In : BENTLEY R.A.
and MASCHNER H.D.G. (eds), Complex Systems and
Archaeology : Empirical and Theoretical Applications : 103-
109. Salt Lake City : The University of Utah Press.
MARSHALL F. and HILDEBRAND E.
2002 Cattle before Crops : The Beginnings of Food Production in
Africa. Journal of World Prehistory 16,2 : 99-143.
MCCORRISTON J.
2006 Breaking the Rain Barrier and the Tropical Spread of Near
Eastern Agriculture into Southern Arabia. In : KENNETT D.J.
and WINTERHALDER B. (eds), Behavioral Ecology and the
Transition to Agriculture : 217-236. Berkeley : University of
California Press.
MCDONALD M.M.A.
1991a Origins of the Neolithic in the Nile Valley as seen from
Dakhleh Oasis in the Egyptian Western Desert. Sahara 4 :
41-52.
1991b Technological organization and sedentism in the Epipalaeo-
lithic of Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt. The African Archaeological
Review 9 : 81-109.
4331_ Page 20 Lundi, 28. mai 2007 11:22 11
20
1996 Relations between Dakhleh Oasis and the Nile Valley in
the Mid-Holocene : a discussion. In : KRZYZANIAK L.,
KROEPER K. and KOBUSIEWICZ M. (eds), Interregional
Contacts in the Later Prehistory of Northeastern Africa : 93-
99. Poznan : Poznan Archaeological Museum.
1998 Early African Pastoralism : View from Dakhleh Oasis (South
Central Egypt). Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 17 :
124-142.
2001 The Late Prehistoric Radiocarbon Chronology for Dakhleh
Oasis within the Wider Environmental and Cultural Setting
of the Egyptian Western Desert. In : MARLOW C. and
MILLS A. (eds), The Oasis Papers I : The Proceedings of the
First Conference of the Dakhleh Oasis Project : 26-42.
Oxford : Oxbow Books (Oxbow Monograph 97).
MIDANT-REYNES B.
2000 The Prehistory of Egypt : From the First Egyptians to the
First Pharaohs. Oxford : Blackwell.
MITHEN S.
1996 The Prehistory of Mind : A search for the origins of art, reli-
gion and science. London : Thames and Hudson.
NEUMANN K.
1989a Zur Vegetationsgeschichte der Ostsahara im Holozän :
Holzkohlen aus prähistorischen Fundstellen. In : KUPER R.
(ed.), Forschungen zur Umweltgeschichte der Ostsahara :
13-181. Köln : Heinrich Barth Institut.
1989b Holocene vegetation of the Eastern Sahara : charcoal from
prehistoric sites. The African Archaeological Review 7 : 97-
116.
NICOLL K.
2001 Radiocarbon Chronologies for Prehistoric Human Occupa-
tion and Hydroclimatic Change in Egypt and Northern
Sudan. Geoarchaeology 16 : 47-64.
2004 Recent environmental change and prehistoric human
activity in Egypt and Northern Sudan. Quaternary Science
Review 23 : 561-580.
PELTENBURG E.
2004 Cyprus : A regional component of the Levantine PPN. Neo-
Lithics 1/04 : 3-7.
RICHERSON P., BOYD R. and BETTINGER R.
2001 Was agriculture impossible during the Pleistocene but man-
datory during the Holocene ? A climate change hypothesis.
American Antiquity 66 : 387-411.
ROHLING E., CASFORD J., ABU-ZIED R., COOKE S., MERCONE D.,
THOMPSON J., CROUDACE I., JORISSEN F.J., BRINKHUIS H.,
KALLMEYER J. and WEFER G.
2002 Rapid Holocene Climate Changes in the Eastern Mediterra-
nean. In : HASSAN F.A. (ed.), Droughts, Food and Culture :
Ecological change and food security in Africa’s later
prehistory : 35-46. New York : Kluwer Academic/Plenum
Publishers.
ROLLEFSON G.O. and GEBEL H.G.K.
2004 Short note on a 4 ICAANE workshop held in Berlin, 1-2 April
2004. Neo-Lithics 1/04 : 21-22.
ROLLEFSON G.O. and KÖHLER-ROLLEFSON I.
1989 The Collapse of the Early Neolithic Settlements in the
Southern Levant. In : HERSHKOVITZ I. (ed.), People and
Culture in Change : Symposium on Upper Palaeolithic,
> Apogee FrameMaker Noir
N. SHIRAI
Mesolithic and Neolithic Populations of Europe and the
Mediterranean Basin : 73-89. Oxford (BAR Int. Ser. 508).
ROSEN S.A.
1988 Notes on the Origins of Pastoral Nomadism : A Case Study
from the Negev and Sinai. Current Anthropology 29 : 498-
506.
2002 The Evolution of Pastoral Nomadic Systems in the Southern
Levantine Periphery. In : VAN DEN BRINK E. and YANNAI E.
(eds), In Quest of Ancient Settlements and Landscapes :
Archaeological Studies in honour of Ram Gophna : 23-44.
Tel Aviv : Ramot Publishing.
ROSENBERG M.
1990 The Mother of Invention : Evolutionary Theory, Territoria-
lity, and the Origins of Agriculture. American Anthropologist
92 : 399-415.
1998 Cheating at Musical Chairs : Territoriality and Sedentism in
an Evolutionary Context. Current Anthropology 39 : 653-
681.
SAID R.
1993 The River Nile : Geology, Hydrology and Utilization.
Oxford : Pergamon Press.
SCHILD R., CHEMIELEWSKA M. and WIECKOWSKA H.
1968 The Arkinian and Shamarkian Industries. In : WENDORF F.
(ed.), The Prehistory of Nubia, Volume II : 651-767. Dallas :
South Methodist University Press.
SCHILD R. and WENDORF F.
2002 Palaeo-ecologic and Palaeo-climatic Background to Socio-
economic Changes in the South Western Desert of Egypt. In :
FRIEDMAN R. (ed.), Egypt and Nubia : Gifts of the Desert :
21-27. London : The British Museum Press.
SCHMIDT K.
1996 Helwan in Egypt – a PPN site ? In : KOZLOWSKI S.K. and
GEBEL H.G. (eds), Neolithic Chipped Stone Industries of the
Fertile Crescent, and Their Contemporaries in Adjacent
Regions : 127-135. Berlin : ex oriente.
SHERRATT A.
1997 Climatic cycles and behavioural revolutions : the emergence
of modern humans and the beginning of farming. Antiquity
71 : 271-287.
SHIRAI N.
2002 Helwan Points in the Egyptian Neolithic. Orient 37 : 121-135.
2005a Bifacial Technology, Socioeconomic Competition, and Early
Farming and Herding in the Fayum. In : PIQUETTE K. and
LOVE S. (eds), Current Research in Egyptology 2003 : 135-
147. Oxford : Oxbow Books.
2005b Walking with herdsmen : In search of the material evidence
for the diffusion of agriculture from the Levant to Egypt.
Neo-Lithics 1/05 : 12-17.
SIMMONS A.H.
1997 Ecological Changes during the Late Neolithic in Jordan : A
Case Study. In : GEBEL H.G.K., KAFAFI Z. and ROLLEFSON
G.O. (eds), The Prehistory of Jordan II : Perspectives from
1997 : 309-318. Berlin : ex oriente.
2000 Villages on the Edge : Regional Settlement Change and the
End of the Levantine Pre-Pottery Neolithic. In : KUIJT I.
(ed.), Life in Neolithic Farming Communities : Social Orga-
nization, Identity, and Differentiation : 211-230. New York :
Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.
Paléorient, vol. 32.2, p. 7-21 © CNRS ÉDITIONS 2006
4331_ Page 21 Lundi, 28. mai 2007 11:22 11 > Apogee FrameMaker Noir

Supra-regional concepts in Near Eastern Neolithisation from a viewpoint of Egyptian Neolithic research 21

SMITH A.B. (South Central Egypt). The African Archaeological Review

1989 The Near Eastern connection : Early to Mid-Holocene
relations between North Africa and the Levant. In :
KRZYZANIAK L. and KOBUSIEWICZ M. (eds), Late Prehis-
tory of the Nile Basin and the Sahara : 69-77. Poznan :
Poznan Archaeological Museum.
1996 The Near Eastern connection II : cultural contacts with the
Nile Delta and the Sahara. In : KRZYZANIAK L., KROEPER K.
and KOBUSIEWICZ M. (eds), Interregional Contacts in the
Later Prehistory of Northeastern Africa : 29-35. Poznan :
Poznan Archaeological Museum.
VERMEERSCH P.M.
1984 Subsistence Activities on the Late Palaeolithic Sites of Elkab
(Upper Egypt). In : KRZYZANIAK L. and KOBUSIEWICZ M.
(eds), Origin and Early Development of Food-Producing
Cultures in North-Eastern Africa : 137-142. Poznan : Poznan
Archaeological Museum.
2002 The Egyptian Nile Valley during the Early Holocene. In :
LENSSEN-ERZ T., TEGTMEIER U. and KRÖPELIN S. (eds),
Tides of the Desert : Contributions to the Archaeology and
Environmental History of Africa in Honour of Rudolph
Kuper : 27-40. Köln : Heinrich Barth Institut (Africa Prae-
historica 14, Monographs on African Archaeology and Envi-
ronment).
VERMEERSCH P.M., VAN PEER P., MOEYERSONS J. and VAN NEER W.
1994 Sodmein cave site, Red Sea Mountains (Egypt). Sahara 6 :
31-40.
1996 Neolithic occupation of the Sodmein area, Red Sea Moun-
tains, Egypt. In : PWITI G. and SOPER R. (eds), Aspects of
African Archaeology : Papers from the 10th Congress of the
Pan African Association for Prehistory and Related Studies :
411-419. Harare : University of Zimbabwe Publications.
2002 The Tree Shelter, a Holocene Site in the Red Sea Mountains.
Archéo-Nil 12 : 123-137.
WARBURTON D.A.
2004 Towards new frameworks : Supra-regional concepts in Near
Eastern Neolithization. Paléorient 30,1 : 183-188.
WARFE A.R.
2003 Cultural Origins of the Egyptian Neolithic and Predynastic :
An Evaluation of the Evidence from the Dakhleh Oasis
20,4 : 175-202.
WASYLIKOWA K., MITKA J., WENDORF F. and SCHILD R.
1997 Exploitation of wild plants by the early Neolithic hunter-
gatherers of the Western Desert, Egypt : Nabta Playa as a
case-study. Antiquity 71 : 932-941.
WATKINS T.
2003 Developing socio-cultural networks. Neo-Lithics 2/03 : 36-
37.
WENDORF F. and SCHILD R.
1998 Nabta Playa and Its Role in Northeastern African Prehistory.
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 17 : 97-123.
2002 The Role of Storage in the Neolithic of the Egyptian Sahara.
In : LENSSEN-ERZ T., TEGTMEIER U. and KRÖPELIN S.
(eds), Tides of the Desert : Contributions to the Archaeology
and Environmental History of Africa in Honour of Rudolph
Kuper : 41-49. Köln : Heinrich Barth Institut (Africa Prae-
historica 14, Monographs on African Archaeology and Envi-
ronment).
WENDORF F. and SCHILD R. (eds)
2001 Holocene Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara 1 : The
Archaeology of Nabta Playa. New York : Kluwer Academic/
Plenum Publishers.
WENGROW D.
2003 On desert origins for the ancient Egyptians. Antiquity 77 :
597-601.
WENKE R.J.
1990 Patterns in Prehistory : Humankind’s First Three Million
Years (3rd ed.). Oxford : Oxford University Press.
WETTERSTROM W.
1993 Foraging and farming in Egypt : the transition from hunting
and gathering to horticulture in the Nile Valley. In :
SHAW T., SINCLAIR P., ANDAH B. and OKPOKO A. (eds),
The Archaeology of Africa : Food, Metals and Towns : 165-
226. London : Routledge.
WRIGHT K. and GARRARD A.
2003 Social identities and the expansion of stone bead-making in
Neolithic Western Asia : new evidence from Jordan. Anti-
quity 77 : 267-284.

Paléorient, vol. 32.2, p. 7-21 © CNRS ÉDITIONS 2006