Early African Pastoralism: View from Dakhleh Oasis
(South Central Egypt)
Mary M. A. McDonald

Topdog, why is it that you feel that the complete text is difficult to comprehend?

BTW, I think the yahoo group thing is a great idea.

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Originally posted by Super car:
The very African nature of the ancient Nile Valley cultural complex simply cannot be missed, no matter how hard one tries to convince him/herself or others that it is not so; the facts are just overwhelming and stare you right in the face in almost all directions.

Topdog, why is it that you feel that the complete text is difficult to comprehend?

BTW, I think the yahoo group thing is a great idea.

[This message has been edited by Super car (edited 22 July 2005).]

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Originally posted by Topdog:
I agree with you, but it was hard trying to comprehend the numerous lithic industries, some of which I've never heard of, that the author mentions.

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Please send me the full text if you can. I am curious how all this applies to findings at Nabta Playa in southern Egypt around the Nubian desert. In this area we have evidence of pastoralists attached to what appears a cattle cult. Nabta Playa is the oldest religious monument in Africa dating to about 6,7000 B.C.?

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Originally posted by ausar:

Please send me the full text if you can. I am curious how all this applies to findings at Nabta Playa in southern Egypt around the Nubian desert. In this area we have evidence of pastoralists attached to what appears a cattle cult. Nabta Playa is the oldest religious monument in Africa dating to about 6,7000 B.C.?

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I have the full text study posted in the yahoo group.

I just added you. Go to the files section and you'll see the full text study there.

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Originally posted by ausar:

Please send me the full text if you can. I am curious how all this applies to findings at Nabta Playa in southern Egypt around the Nubian desert. In this area we have evidence of pastoralists attached to what appears a cattle cult. Nabta Playa is the oldest religious monument in Africa dating to about 6,7000 B.C.?

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Yeah, it pretty much silences AMR's claims of West Asian immigrants mixing with native Africans to produce civilization. LOL

A scholar named Angela Close covers the eastern Sahara and early northern African pre-history. You might want to contact her for more details. She might know more about this.

It appears that the Dakhleh Oasis Oasis area is becoming more important to the formation of the pre-dyanstic era.

In antiquity the Oasis areas in Egypt were connected with trade with more southern areas in Africa.

Angela E. Close
Professor, Anthropology; Adjunct Professor, Quaternary Research Center; Editor, Journal of World Prehistory (see below for address)
<http://64.233.161.104/img/spacer.gif>
Email: aeclose@u.washington.edu
Ph.D. Cambridge University, 1975

Angela Close has conducted research in the North African Stone Age, concentrating particularly on southern Egypt and ranging in period from Middle Palaeolithic to Late Neolithic. She has authored, co-authored, and edited numerous articles and book-chapters on subjects related to North African prehistory and to the analysis of lithic artifacts. Her fieldwork has been carried out primarily in the southern part of the Eastern Sahara and in the Nile Valley in southern Egypt. She is now conducting a project in southwestern Sinai. This area of the peninsula has not previously received systematic archaeological exploration, despite its strategic location in terms of contacts between Africa and southwestern Asia.

Selected Publications

? Wendorf, F., R. Schild, A. E. Close and Associates. (1993) Egypt During the Last Interglacial: The Middle Paleolithic of Bir Tarfawi and Bir Sahara East. New York: Plenum Press.

? Close , A. E. and C. G. Sampson. (1998) Backed microlith clusters in Late Holocene rock shelter fills of the Upper Karoo, South Africa. South African Archaeological Bulletin 53: 63-72' '


Mail should be sent to me at: Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle WA 98195-3100, USA (*not* to the QRC).
[Portrait of Angela E. Close]
Angela E. Close 's Research Website.




Use your UWNetID and password to Update this page.
http://depts.washington.edu/qrc/people/bio.cgi?who=Close

Nobody has any comment on this study about African pastoralism?

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Originally posted by ausar:

Interesting. I read the entire article and it mentions that domestic sheep might have came from Southwestern Asia. [b]This is certainly possible but what about the indigenous sheep Barbary sheep in northern Africa. Any possible way the so-called foreign domestics might be the following.

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You have a point about the indigenous Barbary Sheep, and even the author of this article makes a reference to this:

"Recently a cave site in the Acacus, in southwest Libya, has yielded evidence for the penning of a local wild species, Ammotargus lervia or Barbary sheep, in layers dated to the ninth millennium B.P. (Di Lernia and Chremaschi 1996)"

And from a different article...

"On the evidence of excavations in caves such as Uan Afuda, one of the highlights of our visit (Figure 3), these early Holocene foragers collected grasses and wild cereals (sorghum and millet), fished, and hunted riverine animals including crocodile, hippopotamus and turtle and savanna animals such as large and small antelopes, though the main quarry was the Barbary sheep. At Uan Afuda di Lernia and Cremaschi have also found extraordinary evidence for the management of the latter species 1000 years before the appearance of domestic cattle, sheep and goats. Their evidence is very convincing: they found clear structural and micromorphological evidence for stalling, and the Barbary sheep coprolites have partially-ground grass seeds in them. This remarkable evidence for 'pre-herding herding' at Uan Afuda coincides with climatic evidence for a sudden onset of dryness, so the onset of desiccation appears to have been the context for significant shifts in behaviour." - Courtesy of University College London, Institute of Archaeology.

Hunting a Barbary sheep - a typical example of Saharan 'Pastoral Neolithic' rock art in the Wadi Teshuinat. - Courtesy of University College London, Institute of Archaeology.