Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T23:01:33.811Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Desert Fayum at 80: revisiting a Neolithic farming community in Egypt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2016

Noriyuki Shirai
Noriyuki Shirai*
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, UK (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Since the seminal research by Caton-Thompson and Gardner over 80 years ago, the archaeology of the Desert Fayum has attracted significant interest as the earliest known centre of agriculture in Egypt. Traditional interpretations of subsistence behaviour and residential mobility have drawn heavily on the studies of lithic assemblages and faunal remains. These interpretations must now be reconsidered in light of lithic material, both from the original excavations and from more recent fieldwork. It emerges that Kom W, the type site for the Neolithic Fayum, was probably a permanent settlement occupied by a community cultivating cereals, in addition to having long-standing practices of hunting and fishing.

Keywords

EgyptDesert FayumKom WNeolithicformal stone toolslogistical mobility
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 90 , Issue 353 , October 2016 , pp. 1181 - 1195
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2016 

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

Brewer, D.J. 1989. Fishermen, hunters and herders: zooarchaeology in the Fayum, Egypt (ca. 8200–5000 BP). Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Caton-Thompson, G. & Gardner, E.W.. 1934. The Desert Fayum. London: The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.Google Scholar
Hassan, F.A. 1986. Holocene lakes and prehistoric settlements of the western Faiyum, Egypt. Journal of Archaeological Science 13: 483–501. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0305-4403(86)90018-X Google Scholar
Hassan, F.A. 1988. The Predynastic of Egypt. Journal of World Prehistory 2: 135–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00975416 Google Scholar
Holdaway, S., Wendrich, W. & Phillipps, R.. 2010. Identifying low-level food producers: detecting mobility from lithics. Antiquity 84: 185–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00099853 Google Scholar
Kozlowski, J.K. 1983. Qasr el-Sagha 1980: contribution to the Holocene geology, the Predynastic and Dynastic settlements in the northern Fayum desert. Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe.Google Scholar
Kozlowski, J.K. & Ginter, B.. 1989. The Fayum Neolithic in the light of new discoveries, in Krzyzaniak, L. & Kobusiewicz, M. (ed.) Late prehistory of the Nile Basin and the Sahara: 157–79. Poznań: Poznań Archaeological Museum.Google Scholar
Kozlowski, J.K. & Ginter, B.. 1993. Holocene changes in the Fayum: Lake Moeris and the evolution of climate in northeastern Africa, in Krzyzaniak, L., Kobusiewicz, M. & Alexander, J. (ed.) Environmental change and human culture in the Nile Basin and northern Africa until the second millennium B.C.: 327–36. Poznań: Poznań Archaeological Museum.Google Scholar
Linseele, V., Van Neer, W., Thys, S., Phillipps, R., Cappers, R., Wendrich, W. & Holdaway, S.. 2014. New archaeozoological data from the Fayum Neolithic with a critical assessment of the evidence for early stock keeping in Egypt. PLoS ONE 9 (10): e108517. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0108517 Google Scholar
Quintero, L.A., Wilke, P.J. & Waines, J.G.. 1997. Pragmatic studies of Near Eastern Neolithic sickle blades, in Gebel, H.G.K., Kafafi, Z. & Rollefson, G.O. (ed.) The prehistory of Jordan II: 263–86. Berlin: ex oriente.Google Scholar
Shirai, N. 2010. The archaeology of the first farmer-herders in Egypt: new insights into the Fayum Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic. Leiden: Leiden University Press.Google Scholar
Shirai, N. 2013. Was Neolithisation a struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest, or merely the survival of the luckiest? A case study of socioeconomic and cultural changes in Egypt in the Early–Middle Holocene, in Shirai, N. (ed.) Neolithisation of northeastern Africa: 213–35. Berlin: ex oriente.Google Scholar
Vermeersch, P.M., Paulissen, E. & Huyge, D.. 2000. Makhadma 4: a Late Palaeolithic fishing site, in Vermeersch, P.M. (ed.) Palaeolithic living sites in Upper and Middle Egypt: 227–70. Leuven: Leuven University Press.Google Scholar
Wendorf, F. & Schild, R.. 1976. Prehistory of the Nile Valley. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Wendrich, W., Taylor, R.E. & Southon, J.R.. 2010. Dating stratified settlement sites at Kom K and Kom W: fifth-millennium BCE radiocarbon ages for the Fayum Neolithic. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 268: 999–1002. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2009.10.083 Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Shirai supplementary material

Shirai supplementary material 1

Download Shirai supplementary material(File)
File 185.7 KB
Supplementary material: File

Shirai supplementary material

Shirai supplementary material 2

Download Shirai supplementary material(File)
File 173.6 KB
Supplementary material: File

Shirai supplementary material

Shirai supplementary material 3

Download Shirai supplementary material(File)
File 10.8 KB