1 Cultural Convergence in the Neolithic of the Nile Valley: A Prehistoric Perspective on Egypt’s Place in Africa

This paper clarifies the nature and extent of an important cultural horizon in the later prehistory of the Nile Valley. A synthesis of radiometric dates from Neolithic sites in both the Egyptian and Sudanese parts of the valley locates this horizon (here termed the ‘primary pastoral community’) broadly within the fifth millennium BC. We also present new AMS determinations from Neolithic sites in Middle Egypt, almost doubling the number of published radiocarbon dates for the ‘Badarian ’ culture and extending its likely chronological range into the early centuries of the fourth millennium. This new chronometric synthesis is presented in the context of a broader review of economy and society in the Neolithic of the Nile Valley, including a re-evaluation of evidence from older fieldwork that leads us to reassess the early development of cereal farming in this region. The resulting picture of the Middle Holocene differs in several respects from those advanced in recent studies that emphasise climate change and environmental stress as drivers of cultural adaptation in North East Africa. ‘Systematic mapping of empirical networks and interconnections, without prejudging the demarcation of units, could well lead to substantial discoveries of traditional as well as contemporary systems, and a re-drawing of our picture of African forms of social organisation’. (Fredrik Barth 1978: 258