Early Egypt

[djoser-xyyman]

Burial practices of the Final Neolithic pastoralists at Gebel Ramlah, Western Desert of Egypt


Michał Kobusiewicz, Jacek Kabaciński, Romuald Schild, Joel D. Irish and Fred Wendorf

During three seasons of research (in 2000, 2001 and 2003) carried out by the Combined Prehistoric Expedition at Gebel Ramlah in the southern part of the Egyptian Western Desert, three separate Final Neolithic cemeteries were discovered and excavated. Skeletal remains of 67 individuals, comprising both primary and secondary interments, were recovered from 32 discrete burial pits. Numerous grave goods were found, including lithics, pottery and ground stone objects, as well as items of personal adornment, pigments, shells and sheets of mica. Imports from distant areas prove far-reaching contacts. Analysis of the finds sheds important light on the burial rituals and social conditions of the Final Neolithic cattle keepers inhabiting Ramlah Playa. This community, dated to the mid-fifth millennium B.C. (calibrated), was composed of a phenotypically diverse population derived from both North and sub-Saharan Africa. *****There were no indications of social differentiation.***** The deteriorating climatic conditions probably forced these people to migrate toward the Nile Valley where they undoubtedly contributed to the birth of ancient Egyptian civilization.

[djoser-xyyman]

too large

[sundiata]

Of special interest are finds that may testify to the beliefs of the population discussed here. Namely, in two cases from cemetery E-01-2, skulls were found that indicated tooth replacement in antiquity. In both cases, the teeth were apparently collected and repositioned by Neolithic people after being disturbed by later burials. In the first case, a young female’s maxillary anterior alveoli contained a combination of mandibular and misplaced maxillary teeth (Irish et al. 2005). In the second case, another young female’s maxilla and mandible contained two incorrectly placed teeth. Also in the same cemetery, four bracelets were found encircling a right humerus (Fig. 38), which had been moved from its original anatomical position during the deposition of a later burial. However, the bracelets were maintained in place by the insertion of the individual’s own right ulna and radius that had been fractured post-mortem.
Such manipulation suggests that the intention was to repair the damage caused during the insertion of later interments. These intentions are supported by the discoveries, from cemetery E-03-2, of two other skulls with mis-positioned teeth. In one case, the right orbit contained eighteen of the individual’s teeth (Fig. 39); in the other, the nasal aperture contained one tooth. All of these examples suggest a deep conviction about the importance of body preservation, i.e., keeping it together, ideally in an undisturbed state. Perhaps this was necessary to secure eternal life––similar to the belief that is so popular throughout all of ancient Egyptian civilization.

[/b]...[/quote]

www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/Kobusiewicz.pdf

Nice post...

[djoser-xyyman]

Egypt and Nubia in the 5th – 4th millennia BC:
a view from the First Cataract and surroundings.



Maria Carmela Gatto

Yale University, USA
Archaeological Project in the Aswan-Kom Ombo Region
[e-mail], [e-mail]






According to common knowledge, it has generally been held that there was a geographical, cultural and political boundary between Egypt and Nubia in the Predynastic/Early Dynastic period, and it was located between Gebel es Silsila and Aswan. Any Egyptian evidence in Nubia was seen as an import or cultural influence, while any Nubian evidence in Upper Egypt was viewed as the sporadic presence of foreign people within Egyptian territory. As a consequence, the cemeteries located from Kubbaniya southwards were assigned to the A-Group culture.
In recent years, new research on the subject shows that the interaction between the two cultures was much more complex than previously thought, affecting the time, space and nature of the interaction. As a result, the Aswan area probably never was a real borderline.
The two regions, and so their cultural entities, are not antithetical to one another, but in prehistoric times are still the expression of the same cultural tradition, with strong regional variations, particularly in the last part of the 4th millennium BC.

[zarahan]

Jun 8, 2010 13:18:42 GMT -5 djoser-xyyman said:

Burial practices of the Final Neolithic pastoralists at Gebel Ramlah, Western Desert of Egypt


Michał Kobusiewicz, Jacek Kabaciński, Romuald Schild, Joel D. Irish and Fred Wendorf

During three seasons of research (in 2000, 2001 and 2003) carried out by the Combined Prehistoric Expedition at Gebel Ramlah in the southern part of the Egyptian Western Desert, three separate Final Neolithic cemeteries were discovered and excavated. Skeletal remains of 67 individuals, comprising both primary and secondary interments, were recovered from 32 discrete burial pits. Numerous grave goods were found, including lithics, pottery and ground stone objects, as well as items of personal adornment, pigments, shells and sheets of mica. Imports from distant areas prove far-reaching contacts. Analysis of the finds sheds important light on the burial rituals and social conditions of the Final Neolithic cattle keepers inhabiting Ramlah Playa. This community, dated to the mid-fifth millennium B.C. (calibrated), was composed of a phenotypically diverse population derived from both North and sub-Saharan Africa. *****There were no indications of social differentiation.***** The deteriorating climatic conditions probably forced these people to migrate toward the Nile Valley where they undoubtedly contributed to the birth of ancient Egyptian civilization.

Good find, although I am skeptical of the authors when they say: "From a physical anthropological viewpoint, the population sample exhibits evidence of North African and sub-Saharan admixture."

Exactly what is this "admixture" they claim? They provide no data and no detail. Since "North Africa" includes huge parts of Chad, Mali, Niger and Sudan, and some of these countries like the Sudan are both ABOVE AND BELOW the Sahara, the "North African" claim is a mystery. "North African" compared to what? And from whence this claimed "mix"?

Dental studies put the weight of data with tropical Afircan types if anything:

"Despite the difference, Gebel Ramlah [the Western Desert- Saharan region] is closest to predynastic and early dynastic samples from Abydos, Hierakonpolis, and Badari.." [the Badarians ]are a "good representative of what the common ancestor to all later predynastic and dynastic Egyptian peoples would be like."

--(Joel D. Irish (2006). Who Were the Ancient Egyptians? Dental Affinities Among Neolithic Through Postdynastic Peoples. Am J Phys Anthropol. 2006 Apr;129(4):529-43.)

[djoser-xyyman]

It is pretty clear that the Sub-saharan are the stereotypical Negro and the North Africans are so called black Caucasians ie Taureg, Beja etc. You know, those black people with curly, straight hair, thin noses.

Looking pass the ignorance of the excavators. The paper re-emphasizes the point AEians were made up of black people of various phenotypes.

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

To keep this thread relevant to Egyptology I hope we can look into the
cemetery setting and contents and draw comparisons with pre-early
predynastic Egyptian cemetery finds.

But for the tangent we're currently on, has anybody bothered to
reference the three other reports in this study's bibliography by
this same team on this same site to see what physical anthropology
data is given to justify either any discrete North African presence or
North African admixture and just what they mean by North African?

The authors may suffer from typological thinking rather than applying
in biological affinty and recognizing in situ population variabilty. In
either event North Africans are African and Nile Valley inhabitants
had no Herrenvolk theory or immigration policies against any peoples
at this stage in history though at various times in the dynastic era
fortresses were built to control entry by Levantines, Libyans, and
Sudanese alike.

[djoser-xyyman]

What is revealing to me, a newbie, is, looking at fig1, how close Gebel Ramlah is to the Sudan border and how deep within Africa the AEians ancestors migrated from. The AEian ancestral land truly is in Sudan.

And really the modern borders have no relevance when discussing AE. Even calling them Egyptians is geographically incorrect.

[djoser-xyyman]

These careful efforts to “repair” human remains attest to an exceptional concern for keeping bodies whole, in as undamaged a condition as possible. And so, the idea of preserving the body so that the spirit could rest in peace in the afterworld - a notion so typical of the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians - may indeed have originated with the Neolithic peoples inhabiting the ever-drier savanna in what is today the Western Desert, only centuries prior to the emergence of ancient Egypt.

They range in weight from tens of kilograms up to many tons. They were all originally sunk into the ground facing northwards, towards the area of the sky where the stars never die, i.e. where they never disappear from the firmament. This is where the oldest known Egyptian beliefs, as preserved in the Pyramid Texts, maintained that people went after their death. Each group of Nabta Playa stelae most likely symbolized the souls of the deceased from an individual herdsman clan, with the smaller clusters representing specific extended families, just like at the Gebel Ramlah cemeteries.


Its small burial pit was found to contain the head of a child 2.5 to 3 years old, undoubtedly the offspring of a power¬ful ruler of the Nubian Desert about 3,500 years BC, just prior to the establishment of the first Egyptian state.

We already know that soon after this date, drought forced the herders to abandon these lands. Digging deeper and deeper wells proved insufficient, and people had go elsewhere in search of water. And so where might they have gone, if not to the relatively close Nile Valley? They brought with them the various achievements of their culture and their belief system.

Perhaps it was indeed these people who provided the crucial stimulus towards the emergence of state organization in ancient Egypt.

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

Don't forget the Early Khartoum and its down Nile implications in
regards to the earliest migrants and cultures of Sudan and Egypt.

Jun 14, 2010 12:35:00 GMT -5 djoser-xyyman said:

What is revealing to me, a newbie, is, looking at fig1, how close Gebel Ramlah is to the Sudan border and how deep within Africa the AEians ancestors migrated from. The AEian ancestral land truly is in Sudan.

[djoser-xyyman]

Holocene Climatic Fluctuations
During the Early and Mid-Holocene, the
African climate changed on both 10- and
100-year scale intervals (Grove 1993). On a
global scale, the greatest quantity of rainfall
between the tropics is recorded between the
end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of
the Holocene, to never have been equaled
again. Presently, the causes of these variations
are not completely clear: orbital
movements and other processes, such as
the temperature of the sea surface, patterns
of oceanic circulation, but also volcanic
phenomena, may have produced worldscale
changes (e.g., Grove 1993; but see also
Hassan 1997). Variations in the earth’s axis
affected solar radiation, which was much
stronger in the Northern Hemisphere during
the summer and much weaker during
the winter. As a consequence, monsoons
were more accentuated and brought much
more rain during the summer, especially to
the north of Africa (Grove 1993; Hassan
1997).


www.acacus.it/ita/pdf/JAA%20dilernia%202002.pdf

[egyptianplanet]

North African admixture and just what they mean by North African?

North Africa to me is merely a geographic moniker, nothing more nothing less.