Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T01:52:52.117Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Living on the edge: Neolithic herders in the eastern Sahara

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Angela E. Close
Angela E. Close*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas TX 75275, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Eastern Sahara – an arid waste since Neolithic times – is one of the very few regions where one can find, by simple surface survey, little clusters of stone artefacts lying just where they fell 5000 and more years ago. They offer rather direct and specific information about how stone was moved, used and left behind by mobile pastoralists in a marginal environment.

Type
Papers
Information
Antiquity , Volume 64 , Issue 242 , March 1990 , pp. 79 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Coetzee, J.A. (ed.). 1987. Palaeoecology of Africa vol. 18. Rotterdam: Balkema.Google Scholar
Connor, D.R. 1984. The Kiseiba Plateau and Bir Murr Playa, in Wendorf, et al. (1984): 350–403.Google Scholar
Gabriel, B. 1977. Zum ökologischen Wandel im NeoJithikum der östlichen Zentralsahara. Berlin: Institut für Physische Geographie der Freien Universitat Berlin. Berliner geographische Abhandlungen 27.Google Scholar
Gabriel, B. 1986. Palaeoecological evidence from neolithic fireplaces in the Sahara, African Archaeological Review 5: 93–103.Google Scholar
Gabriel, B. 1987. Die östliche Libysche Wüste im Jungquartär. Berlin: Institut für Geographie der Technischen Universitat Berlin. Berliner geographische Studien 19.Google Scholar
Gautier, A. 1982. Neolithic faunal remains in the Gilf Kebir and the Abu Hussein dunefield, Western Desert, Egypt, in El-Baz, F. & Maxwell, T.A. (ed.), Desert landforms of Southwest Egypt: a basis for comparison with Mars: 335–9. Washington (DC): National Aeronautics and Space Administration.Google Scholar
Gautier, A. 1987. Prehistoric men and cattle in North Africa: a dearth of data and a surfeit of models, in Close, A.E. (ed.), Prehistory of arid North Africa: essays in honor of Fred Wendorf: 163–87. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press.Google Scholar
Kobusiewicz, M. 1984. Report on Site E-79-4: the archaeology of El Ghorab Playa, in Wendorf, et al. (1984): 135–64.Google Scholar
Kröpelin, S.K. 1987. Palaeoclimatic evidence from Early to Mid-Holocene playas in the Gilf Kebir (Southwest Egypt), in Coetzee, (ed.): 189–208.Google Scholar
Kuper, R. 1981. Untersuchungen zur Besiedlungsge-schichte der östlichen Sahara, Beiträge zur Aigemeinen und Vergfeichenden Archäologie 3: 215–75.Google Scholar
Kuper, R. 1988. Neuere Forschungen zur Besiedlungsge-schichte der öst-Sahara, Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt 18: 127–42.Google Scholar
McCauley, J.F., Schaber, G.G., Breed, C.S., Grolier, M.J., Haynes, C.V., Issawi, B., Elachi, C. & Blom, R.. 1982. Subsurface valleys and geoarchaeology of the Eastern Sahara revealed by Shuttle radar, Science 218: 1004–20.Google Scholar
McHugh, W.P., Schaber, G.G., Breed, C.S., & McCauley, J.F.. 1989. Neolithic adaptation and Holocene functioning of Tertiary palaeodrainages in southern Egypt and northern Sudan, Antiquity 63: 320–36.Google Scholar
Neumann, K. 1987. Middle Holocene vegetation of the Gilf Kebir (SW Egypt) — a reconstruction, in Coetzee, (ed.): 179–188.Google Scholar
Neumann, K. 1989. Holocene vegetation of the Eastern Sahara: charcoal from prehistoric sites, The African Archaeological Review 7: 97–116.Google Scholar
Wendorf, F., Close, A.E. & Schild, R.. 1985. Prehistoric settlements in the Nubian Desert, American Scientist 73: 132–41.Google Scholar
Wendorf, F., 1987a. A survey of the Egyptian radar channels: an example of applied archaeology, Journal of Field Archaeology 14: 43–63.Google Scholar
Wendorf, F., 1987b. Early domestic cattle in the Eastern Sahara, in Coetzee, (ed.): 441–48.Google Scholar
Wendorf, F., Close, A.E., Schild, R., Gautier, A., Schwarcz, H.P., Miller, G.H., Kowalski, K., Królik, H., Bluszcz,, A. Robins, D., Grün, R. & McKinney, C.. In press. Chronology and stratigraphy of the Middle Paleolithic at Bir Tarfawi, Egypt, in Clark, J.D. (ed.), Cultural beginnings: approaches to understanding early hominid life-ways in the African savanna mosaic. Mainz: Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum.Google Scholar
Wendorf, F. & Schild, R.. 1980. Prehistory of the Eastern Sahara. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Wendorf, F., Schild, R. (assemblers) & Close, A.E. (ed.). 1984. Cattle-keepers of the Eastern Sahara: the Neolithic of Bir Kiseiba. Dallas: Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University.Google Scholar