First human occupations of the Nile valley : anthropological and cultural data.

The Nile Valley is of particular interest for the study of the first anatomically modern humans. This valley constitutes an inevitable passageway between East Africa and the Mediterranean. Some rnembers of the first Homo left Africa 1.8 million years ago to migrate towards Asia and Europe. Thus, it is likely that srnall groups of archaic humans crossed or even settled in this natural corridor. Zndeed, after the Middle East, famous for its old sites from 120 to 100 ka and South Africa where the sites are perhaps slightly more recent, it is one of the rare areas where anatomically modern humans were discovered. Although we can deplore the lack of human remains found in the Nile Valley, the Singa Calvaria and the skeletons of Taramsa and Nazlet Khater are essential to the understanding of the morphological variability of the first occupants of this region. The phylogenetic afinity of Singa is still debated due to its pathological form, but the two other skeletons are clearly anatomically modern humans. They belong respectively to the Late Middle and Early Upper Palaeolithic, period for which very few other human remains were discovered in Africa. Furthermore, several sites have delivered stratigraphic sequences that allow us to approach the evolution of cultures in this part of the world and raise the question of who were ut their origin. Transitional ESAIMSA industries seem to be related to the appearance of new behaviour that might be the result of cultural activities related to anatomically modern humans. By the onset of the Upper Pleistocene, the Nubian Cornplex begins to spread in the Nile Valley. It is characterised by complex socio-economic settlements systems. Finally, let us recall that the scientzjïc potential of the Nile Valley had been underlined long before by the research teams of F. Wendorf and P. Vermeersch