A brief history of Palaeolithic research in the Nile Valley

1Palaeolithic research in the Egyptian Nile Valley is almost as old as the term itself (Lubbock 1865). Adrien Arcelin was the first to identify prehistoric flint tools in Egypt at the end of the 1860s, only a few years after the scientific community recognised the existence of an ‘Ante-diluvian Man’, as argued by J. Boucher de Perthes in his 1847 publication (Boucher de Perthes 1847; Tristant 2017). However, it was the publication of the first volume on the origins of Egypt by J. de Morgan in 1896 that truly marked the beginning of the study of Egyptian Palaeolithic (Morgan 1896, 1897). Morgan’s work was not unanimously accepted at the time of the publication, resulting in sometimes heated debates (Maspéro 1897: 128). Some scholars, mainly Egyptologists, considered the evidence to be insufficient because of the absence of stratified sites clearly demonstrating the antiquity of the flint tools since flint-working persisted until very late in Ancient Egypt. In 1921, an article published by C.G. Seligman (Seligman 1921) compared the finds from Abydos and Thebes to those of the eastern desert. Using European terminology, he assigned the artefacts to the Chellean, Acheulean, Mousterian and Capsian. It was only in 1926 that P. Bovier-Lapierre’s investigations in the plain of the Abbassieh near Cairo brought stratified evidence for a succession of stone tool industries: ‘Pre-chellean’ at the base, Chellean and then Mousterian tools in the overlying strata (Bovier-Lapierre 1925, 1926). This discovery is not only important because it provided the evidence that Morgan lacked to demonstrate the antiquity of stone tools in Egypt, but also because it remains even now one of the only possible examples of the presence of pre-Acheulean industries in Egypt (Vermeersch 2001; Lahr 2010).

2After this early phase of research which recognised a Palaeolithic existence in Egypt, between the two World Wars, the Nile Valley was subject to more systematic Palaeolithic surveys and excavations, as well as geological work. These research expeditions were mostly organised by British and French scholars, often affiliated with universities or prehistoric societies. Notable work includes that of E. Vignard in the Kom Ombo plain (Vignard 1923; 1955a), G. Caton-Tompson and E.W. Gardner at Kharga (Caton-Thompson 1952), and the extensive geological and archaeological surveys in the Egyptian and Sudanese Nile Valley by K.S. Sandford and A.J. Arkell (Sandford & Arkell 1929, 1933; Sandford 1936). Also noteworthy are the 1925 and 1926 expeditions conducted by Prince Kamal el-Din Hussein, funded by King Farouk 1st, that included geological and prehistoric surveys and allowed the identification of prehistoric human occupations in the desert area outside of the Nile Valley (Bovier-Lapierre 1929). Many of these early 20th century works serve as the foundation for more recent fieldwork projects.

3The peak of Palaeolithic research in the region took place in the 1960s during the Nubian Campaign, which aimed to save monuments and archaeological sites threatened by the construction of the Aswan High Dam (1960‑1971), in which UNESCO held a prominent role (Hassan 2007). In particular, the Combined Prehistoric Expedition (CPE) (Schild & Wendorf 2002), directed by Prof. F. Wendorf, was key in salvaging prehistoric sites in Nubia, the Kurkur and Dungul Oases in the Western Desert of Egypt, along with smaller-scale research projects such as the Yale Prehistoric Nubia Expedition, the National Museum of Canada-University of Toronto project in the Kom Ombo area, and the University of Colorado Nubia Expedition in Wadi Halfa. These works resulted in an enormous amount of data and many monographs that considerably increased knowledge of the geology and prehistoric human occupations in the region (e.g. Smith 1966; Butzer & Hansen 1968; Wendorf 1968a; Hobler & Hester 1969; Wendorf & Marks 1975; Wendorf & Schild 1976). After the Nubian Campaign, the CPE continued their work in north-eastern Africa (Wendorf et al. 1989; 1993b), triggering the establishment of other research projects such as the Dakhleh Oasis Project, the Kharga Oasis Prehistory Project, the Belgium Middle Egypt Prehistoric Project, and the Southern Dongola Reach Survey. This period is also rich in geological syntheses on the Nile Basin (Williams & Faure 1980; Said 1981; Adamson & Williams 1982; Wendorf & Schild 1989). Since the 1990s, there have been few ongoing research projects focusing on Palaeolithic archaeology or Pleistocene geology in north-eastern Africa. Recent research projects in the western Nile Delta in the region of Merimde Beni Salama in Egypt (Rowland & Tassie 2014), and in Sudan, in the Middle Nile Valley, in the Eastern Desert or in the Red Sea Coastal region (e.g. Spinapolice et al. 2018; Beyin et al. 2019b; Masojć et al. 2019; Garcea this volume, Osypiński this volume), will likely bring new information on the Palaeolithic archaeology of this region in the near future.

Main issues in the Palaeolithic archaeological record of the Nile Valley

4This short review of the history of research in the Nile Valley, which does not claim to be exhaustive, shows that despite a rich history of research, what we know about Palaeolithic human occupation in north-eastern Africa today is hampered by several limitations.

• The nature and geographical location of the sites: few sites are well dated and have good chronostratigraphic contexts. Most sites, particularly in the desert, are surface sites. In addition, the Nubia Campaign may have led to an over-representation of sites in Nubia and Upper Egypt, compared to other areas.
• Difficulties in correlating geological section descriptions along the Nile Valley basin. Each team working along the Nile Valley conducted extensive geological surveys and described the geological sequences using their own lithostratigraphic terminology (e.g. Paulissen & Vermeersch 1987; Butzer 1997 for a review). This, combined with the complexity of the Nile River system and its evolution through time, often hampered any kind of systematic correlation. While recent work in the Nile Valley basin (particularly in the White Nile, Atbara and Delta basins) has contributed to clarifying some of these issues, much remains to be known on the behaviour of the Nile and its associated palaeoenvironments at the end of the Pleistocene (Vermeersch & Van Neer 2015; Williams 2019).
• Difficulties in comparing the archaeological record from north-eastern Africa with that of neighbouring regions (e.g. north-western Africa, the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula and eastern Africa). The place of north-eastern Africa in prehistory has been a pre-eminent issue, particularly since the 1960s (Smith 1966; Wendorf & Marks 1975), but the lack of well-dated sites —especially compared to the high-resolution data produced from recent excavations in north-western Africa and the Levant— makes it difficult to undertake systematic comparisons of the archaeological record (Vermeersch 2001; Van Peer & Vermeersch 2007). In addition, the nomenclature currently in use in north-eastern Africa is specific to this area. While most scholars in recent years have adopted the African Stone Age system for the early phases of the Palaeolithic in north-eastern Africa (i.e., Middle Stone Age in place of Middle Palaeolithic and Mousterian terminologies), for the later part of the Palaeolithic, the terms Upper and Late Palaeolithic as well as Mesolithic are still in use and the term Later Stone Age was never adopted in the studies of this region. Furthermore, numerous local terminologies are also used. Thus, one of the challenges of large-scale comparisons that include the north-eastern African record is the re-evaluation of some of these terminologies and their justification.

5The Nile Valley is commonly seen as an environmental ‘refugium’ in northern Africa and given its geographical location, it represents one of the main routes considered for Out of Africa dispersals of modern humans since it leads to the only land-crossing from Africa to Eurasia. A recent increased interest in understanding modern human dispersals is mostly linked to new data generated by genetic studies, some of which suggest that dispersals via the Nile Valley may have occurred during the Pleistocene (Pagani et al. 2015). However, the number, routes and timing of these dispersals out of Africa remain controversial (Nielsen et al. 2017). One of the problems encountered when discussing Out of Africa dispersals is how to define the African/non-African boundary from an ecological, palaeoanthropological and genetic point of view (Pagani & Crevecoeur 2019). This is especially important when ancient DNA studies suggest contact between North Africa and the Middle East at c. 15 ka, while excluding contact with European populations (Loosdrecht et al. 2018).

6Looking at the fossil evidence, the Nile Valley is relatively rich in Upper Pleistocene modern human remains (e.g. the MIS 4 child burial of Taramsa (Van Peer et al. 2010); two MIS 3 burials at Nazlet Khater 2 (Vermeersch 2002b; Crevecoeur 2008, 2012); the isolated MIS 2 human burial of Wadi Kubbaniya (Wendorf & Schild 1986); the cemeteries of Jebel Sahaba, site 117 (> 60 burials) (Wendorf 1968b) and Wadi Halfa, site 6-B-36, (> 35 burials) (Armelagos 1964; Hewes et al. 1964; Greene & Armelagos 1972), dating from the end of MIS 2 to the beginning of MIS 1). The analysis and comparison of these individuals highlight patterns of variation reflecting complex population dynamics with deep population substructure, which may be related to complex social interactions which took place in the Nile Valley at the end of the Pleistocene (Shackelford 2007; Crevecoeur 2008, 2012).

7The question prevails: at the end of the Pleistocene was the Nile Valley a corridor for dispersals favouring contacts between eastern Africa, northern Africa and the Levant, or an environmental refugium isolated from neighbouring regions? Recent genetic and palaeoanthropological studies suggest that during the Pleistocene, it may have alternated between both roles at different times. However, the current resolution of palaeoenvironmental and archaeological data is often too limited to further test these models.

Introduction of the monograph themes

8The aim of this collaborative volume is to propose an updated synthesis of what is known from the Nile Valley on the one hand, and from adjacent regions on the other. We chose to focus on the end of the Pleistocene (c. 75‑15 ka) as it broadly corresponds to the Last Glacial period, during which climatic variability and the global trend towards greater aridity may have had important consequences for the behaviour of the Nile, its role as an ecological refugium, and for human populations living in its vicinity. In addition, focusing on both the Nile Valley and its neighbouring regions facilitates discussion regarding the possible role played by the Nile Valley in a macro-regional context during a fundamental period for which several major modern human dispersal events, both out of and back into Africa, are documented.

9This monograph presents the proceedings of a three-day workshop held in Paris at the National Museum of Natural History, 31 May-2 June 2018, that brought together researchers from related fields (archaeology, geology, palaeoenvironment, zooarchaeology, genetics, palaeoanthropology) to discuss the prehistory of north-eastern Africa and neighbouring regions. The workshop was sponsored by a Wenner-Gren Foundation Workshop Grant (Gr. Conf. 764), the ANR Project ‘Big Dry’ (ANR-14-CE31‑0023) and the CNRS-MOST project ‘Horn’.

10The monograph is divided into two main parts:

• The Nile Valley and adjacent deserts.
• North Africa, the Levant and eastern Africa.

11This division is important to us as it allows us to, firstly, focus on one area, the Nile Valley and adjacent deserts, for which no recent synthesis exists, and secondly, to draw potential links between the Nile Valley and neighbouring regions. This will provide a general overview on the archaeological, environmental and palaeoanthropological record for the end of the Pleistocene, as well as highlight the main research questions in each of these regions.

The Nile Valley and adjacent deserts

12Understanding the environment in which human populations lived throughout the Late Pleistocene is fundamental to evaluating hypotheses of population interactions within the Nile Valley, between the Nile Valley and adjacent deserts, and between north-eastern Africa and neighbouring regions. To date, there is little consensus on the behaviour of the Late Pleistocene Nile, particularly for the Main Nile and during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) (e.g. Schild & Wendorf 2010a; Vermeersch & Van Neer 2015). The first contribution to this volume is a synthetic overview by M. Williams of what we know of the geology and palaeoenvironments of the Nile Valley during the Late Pleistocene, providing a useful framework for the archaeological contributions that follow. The question of the occupation potential of the Western Desert of Egypt during different phases of the Pleistocene is discussed by M. Kleindienst et al. relying on the evidence gathered at Kharga and Dakhleh Oases in the course of the Kharga Oasis Prehistory Project. One of the major problems relating to the prehistoric record of the Nile Valley and adjacent deserts is the often low chronological resolution. R. Schild et al. present a synthesis of the geological work conducted in the frame of the CPE in Wadi Kubbaniya and the Western Desert, combining available data from both regions to propose a new chronological framework for the Late Middle Palaeolithic Alluviation and the Khormusan industry.

13The three following contributions focus mainly on the archaeology of the Nile Valley. E.A.A. Garcea reviews current evidence for the presence of the Aterian techno-complex in the Sudanese Nile Valley and brings new elements of discussion concerning the place of the Sudanese archaeological record in modern human dispersals. P. Osypiński presents an overview of the sites of Affad in Sudan and a new chronological framework of the site of Affad 23 in particular. P. Osypiński goes on to present some new perspectives on how to interpret cultural change in lithic technology in the context of the north-eastern African record. P.M. Vermeersch closes this part of the monograph by summarising the available data on human occupation of the Egyptian Nile Valley during the end of the Pleistocene and discusses the possible interactions with neighbouring regions that they may reflect.

North Africa, the Levant and eastern Africa

14The second part of the monograph groups together chapters that view the record from the Nile Valley in a regional perspective and proposes some areas for future comparison. A. Bouzouggar et al. provide an up-to-date overview of the Late Pleistocene Moroccan cultural record from a multidisciplinary perspective and discuss gaps, continuity and changes in the archaeological and palaeoanthropological record in the Middle to the Later Stone Age transition. E. Ben Arous et al. summarise and critically discuss the available chronological data for human occupations of Morocco during the Late Pleistocene while highlighting some methodological research avenues to acquire better resolution for the timing of human occupation in North Africa. L. Farr et al. adopt a geoarchaeological perspective on the record from Haua Fteah in Libya in order to discuss the possible impact of environmental changes on human occupations during the Late Pleistocene.

15The two following chapters present recent data from the Levantine area, specifically from the Negev Desert in Israel. Relying on the data from two recently re-excavated sites, Boker Tachtit and Far'ah II, M. Goder-Goldberger discusses the mechanisms behind the transition from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic in the Levant and, although noting the scarcity of data for that period in the Nile Valley, points to the differences that can be observed between the two regions. O. Marder and A.N. Goring-Morris present an overview of the technological systems that can be reconstructed for the Epipalaeolithic in the Negev, based on an extensive refitting programme. They show that the rate of typological change during this time is much higher than the rate of technological change.

16Since the headwaters of the Nile are located in eastern Africa, it appears logical to turn to this region to investigate potential interactions between populations living within the Nile basin, from the eastern African lakes in the south to the Nile Delta in the north. In addition, eastern Africa is often mentioned in the literature as a possible point of ‘departure’ for out of Africa dispersals although this hypothesis still requires validation (Molinaro & Pagani 2018). A. Leplongeon et al. present the current state of knowledge on human occupations in the Horn of Africa at the end of the Pleistocene. A limited number of dated sites from that period are documented and their cultural record neither shows obvious similarities with the Nile Valley, nor with the rest of eastern Africa.