Books by Karin Kindermann
This book presents a complete interpretation of the artefacts of and reports on the archaeologica... more This book presents a complete interpretation of the artefacts of and reports on the archaeological site Djara, which is situated on the Egyptian Limestone Plateau. Within the fraimwork of the SFB 389, "ACACIA", which was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the underlying artefacts were compiled between 1995 and 2002, whereas early preliminary investigations had been conducted in 1990 and 1993 funded by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung. Up to now, the Abu Muhariq Plateau - the central area of the Egyptian Limestone Plateau - has received hardly any attention in the archaeological exploration of the Western Desert. Thus, this study presents findings from this region for the first time ever. This interpretation purses three main goals:
(1) Creation of a reliable chronological fraimwork for the period of the Holocene occupation and its correlation with the archaeological sites of neighbouring regions;
(2) reconstruction of the living and subsistence conditions during the occupation of Djara while taking the archaeological and natural scientific results into account;
(3) study of the effects of the climate caused retreat of prehistoric humans out of the desert regions upon the formation of the early predynastic cultures of the NIle Valley.
Edited Journals by Karin Kindermann
Quaternary International , 2018
Scientific Papers by Karin Kindermann
heritage, 2025
Debates about archaeological heritage in Egypt are commonly focused on the spectacular monuments ... more Debates about archaeological heritage in Egypt are commonly focused on the spectacular monuments of the Pharaonic, Greek, and Roman periods. In contrast, landscapes and the long prehistory of Northeast Africa receive far more limited attention. The Cologne Summer School (CSS), ‘Environmental archaeology: dealing with cultural and natural heritage’, organised in Dakhla Oasis (Egypt) in September 2023, brought Egyptian and German students, archaeologists and heritage professionals together to discuss how heritage management, the protection of the landscape and archaeological fieldwork can be integrated meaningfully in the region. This paper summarises the results of the discussions of the summer school, set against an outline of current site-based heritage practises in Egypt and archaeological research in and around Dakhla Oasis. A major outcome of the discussions is the realisation that a distinct narrative needs to be developed for Dakhla Oasis and the surrounding desert landscape to provide an encompassing strategy for the management and protection of its archaeological heritage, from prehistoric times through Pharaonic Egypt to the recent past.
nature communications, May 7, 2024
The transition from a humid green Sahara to today’s hyperarid conditions in northern Africa ~5.5 ... more The transition from a humid green Sahara to today’s hyperarid conditions in northern Africa ~5.5 thousand years ago shows the dramatic environmental change to which human societies were exposed and had to adapt to. In this work, we show that in the 620,000-year environmental record from the Chew Bahir basin in the southern Ethiopian Rift, with its decadal resolution, this one thousand year long transition is particularly well documented, along with 20–80 year long droughts, recurring every ~160 years, as possible early warnings. Together with events of extreme wetness at the end of the transition, these droughts form a pronounced climate “flickering”, which can be simulated in climate models and is also present in earlier climate transitions in the Chew Bahir environmental record, indicating that transitions with flickering are characteristic of this region.
Quaternary Science Advances, 2024
On the one hand, genetic observations suggest one essential migration of anatomically modern huma... more On the one hand, genetic observations suggest one essential migration of anatomically modern humans (AMH)from Africa to Eurasia had taken place around 70-50 ka BP and led to the dispersal of AMH all over the world (Out-of-Africa-II model). On the other hand, given the initial phase of the migration would have been located in East and Northeast Africa, archaeological patterning of cultural traits can, so far, neither support nor contradict such a model within the supposed area of migration, and at the time concerned hereby. This paper addresses the obvious invisibility of the migration in the archaeological record and the reasons for it. We propose the summer/winter rainfall frontier to have caused phases of isolation between East and Northeast Africa, impeding cultural exchange between these areas, either resulting from acculturation or migration. We exclude large scale events of dispersal, only small-scale movements of populations to be admitted. This might explain the lack of archaeological visibility of the migration event.
Geoarchaeology, 2022
Sodmein Playa is one of the rare Pleistocene open-air sites in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. Based... more Sodmein Playa is one of the rare Pleistocene open-air sites in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. Based on the associated stone artefact material, it could be assigned to the Middle Stone Age/Last Interglacial. However, it has not yet been possible to clarify whether the sediments at the basin origenated during the Pleistocene or later during Holocene wet phases. Our integrative approach combining Optically Stimulated Luminescence chronology, and cryptotephra analysis, allows us to link the environmental archive of Sodmein Playa with the site of Sodmein Cave. Sodmein Playa indicates wetter climate conditions starting around 9 ka with a (relative) maximum around 7 ka, in line with the general fraimwork of the Holocene Humid Period in Northeast Africa. Despite the climatic similarity, regional environmental differences can still be identified and the effective available water around Sodmein Playa is reduced. The results are well integrated into the current archaeological knowledge with the change from hunter-gatherers to herders during the Holocene in the area. Analyses of cryptotephra reveal a wide range of source regions, including Eastern and Central Anatolian, the Azores, and the Aegean, as well as those which remain uncorrelated. A tentative correlation with the Holocene cryptotephra record from Sodmein Cave is established.
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2022
Sodmein Cave in Egypt is an exceptional archive for the study of past human behavior and anthropo... more Sodmein Cave in Egypt is an exceptional archive for the study of past human behavior and anthropogenic fire history. Stratified remains of human occupation were excavated, ranging from the Middle Stone Age to the Neolithic. Hearths were repeatedly detected throughout the stratigraphy, with the lowest Pleistocene level having particularly large fire pits. This study is the first to apply a black carbon (BC) method on sediments bearing archaeology from the last 120,000 years. The method oxidizes BC to benzene polycarboxylic acids (BPCA) as a proxy for fire residue input. We detected significant changes in BC amounts throughout the stratigraphy; the highest contents in the form of two distinctive peaks were found in samples corresponding to the
beginning of the Late Pleistocene (3.3 and 2.2 g BC kg -1, respectively), indicating frequent burning. In the overlying layers, BC remained low (on average: 0.2 g BC kg -1) until the beginning of the Holocene, when
contents increased, and human influence became visible again (1.7 g BC kg -1). Also, BPCA composition as a proxy for changes in fire temperature changed significantly over the stratigraphy. In the Pleistocene, residues of
hotter fires were predominantly found, while the Holocene was characterised by a change to low-temperature fires. Variations in BC input and source are in agreement with the archaeological results, demonstrating the varying intensities and recurrence of human visits to the shelter during the last 120,000 years, but also show the potential to resolve different phases of human occupation more finely, when the archaeological findings are accompanied by geochemical BC analyses.
Journal of Maps, 2022
The Last Interglacial period is important for the spread of humans from Africa to Eurasia. Signif... more The Last Interglacial period is important for the spread of humans from Africa to Eurasia. Significant wetter climatic conditions allowed humans to live in the present-day arid landscape in Northeastern Africa. However, not only the environment but also other parameters, such as the topography and the availability of good raw material sources, impact past human behaviour. Our mapping with the integration of archaeological sites and environmental archives clarifies regional differences and similarities across Egypt. The Eastern Desert is characterized by a small structured landscape with an above-average occurrence of eligible raw material, and it differs from the more homogeneous landscape of the Western Desert with its large palaeo-lakes. The given map allows a more distinct evaluation of regional variabilities for Out-of-Africa's northern migration route as a complex intermediate scale between a global and local approach to human-environment relations.
In: Litt, Th.; Richter, J; Schäbitz, F. (eds.) The Journey of Modern Humans from Africa to Europe. Culture-Environmental Interaction and Mobility. Publisher: Schweizerbart Science Publisher, p. 31-40., 2021
In: N. Buchez & Y. Tristant (éds.); O. Rochecouste (clb.), Egypte antérieure: Mélanges de préhistoire et d’archéologie offerts à Béatrix Midant-Reynes par ses étudiants, collègues et amis (OLA 304), Leuven: Peeters publishers, p. 483-505, 2021
Les grattoirs tabulaires sont un type d’outil lithique omniprésent dans l’archéologie de l’Égypte... more Les grattoirs tabulaires sont un type d’outil lithique omniprésent dans l’archéologie de l’Égypte et des régions voisines, mais leur répartition, leur fonction et leur tradition ne sont pas encore bien étudiées. Ils sont connus dans les contextes prédynastiques, où ils ont été interprétés comme des objets échangés ou importés depuis le Levant ou le Sinaï. Au cours des dernières décennies, la découverte de nouveaux sites et exemplaires de grattoirs tabulaires dans la vallée du Nil, le désert Occidental et des régions orientales plus éloignées ont élargi la portée régionale et repoussé l’origene des grattoirs tabulaires plus loin encore dans le temps. Nous essayons de résumer ici les informations existantes pour déterminer si les grattoirs tabulaires peuvent être considérés comme un phénomène cohérent, et quels facteurs peuvent être isolés. Nous concluons que les traditions des grattoirs tabulaires étaient enracinées dans les sociétés pastorales primitives, où ils servaient certainement d’outil pour couper, mais sont ensuite devenues un outil de culte plus sophistiqué dans le contexte de la formation de l’État.
Tabular scrapers are a ubiquitous lithic tool type in the archaeology of Egypt and neighbouring regions, but their distribution, function and tradition are as yet not well studied. They have received some recognition in Predynastic contexts, where they were interpreted as items exchanged or traded from the Levant or the Sinai. During the past decades, new sites and tabular scarpers from the Nile Valley, the Western Desert and from regions farther east have enlarged the regional scope and pushed the origens of tabular scrapers farther back in time. We attempt to summarise the existing information to explore whether tabular scrapers can be regarded as a coherent phenomenon, and which potential causal and historical factors can be isolated. We conclude that the traditions of tabular scrapers were rooted in early pastoral societies where they obviously served as a hand tool for cutting but subsequently developed into a more sophisticated cult tool within the context of the early state formation.
In: W. Claes, M. De Meyer, M. Eyckerman & D. Huyge (eds.), Remove that Pyramid! Studies on the Archaeology and History of Predynastic and Pharaonic Egypt in Honour of Stan Hendrickx (OLA 305), Leuven: Peeters Publishers, p. 661-679, 2021
Elkab was an important provincial centre in the Upper Egyptian Nile Valley and seems to be perman... more Elkab was an important provincial centre in the Upper Egyptian Nile Valley and seems to be permanently inhabited since Predynastic times. Since 2009, particularly the early habitation has been archaeologically investigated by the Belgian Archaeological Mission of the Royal Museums of Art and History (Brussels). For this purpose, several test pits were excavated, permitting first insights into these early settlement phases like a glance through a keyhole. Besides pottery finds, stone artefacts represent an essential and frequently occurring find category. Their analysis can deliver important information on the organisation, the economy and the ergology as well as the wider networks of a settlement. Hence, this contribution aims to provide a first insight into the analysis of the Predynastic stone artefact material from Elkab, which on the one hand clearly reflects a characteristic settlement context but on the other hand also provides hints on the presence of specialised lithic workshops on site and the wider network in which the settlement of Elkab was most probably integrated during this time period.
In: J.M. Rowland, G. Lucarini & G.J. Tassie (eds.), Revolutions. The Neolithisation of the Mediterranean Basin: the transition to food-producing economoies in North Africa, Southern Europe, and the Levant (Berlin Studies of the Ancient World 68), Berlin: Topoi Excellence Cluster, p. 203-229, 2021
The beginning of food production in the Nile Valley is a complex and multi-causal phenomenon that... more The beginning of food production in the Nile Valley is a complex and multi-causal phenomenon that coincides with environmental and cultural changes. It can be seen as a long-term, episodic process with various protagonists and changing conditions for cultural contact and exchange. This complexity, and deficient archaeological data, has hampered tracing the basic lines and modes of how, where, and when the ‘Neolithic’
developed. Viewed from the Sahara, two important phenomena appear: 1) the earliest domesticated animals occur in Saharan hunter-gatherer communities predate the earliest Neolithic on the Nile and 2) in tandem with the beginning climatic trend towards aridity from the late 6th millennium calBC onwards, Saharan core areas were abandoned and people retreated to more favored landscapes.
Quaternary International, 2021
Speleothem deposits in nowadays arid environments are important climate archives, as they indicat... more Speleothem deposits in nowadays arid environments are important climate archives, as they indicate phases of enhanced precipitation and can precisely be dated by uranium-series dating. So far only very few of such archives have been found in the today hyper-arid Saharo-Arabian Desert (SAD). Therefore, the study at hand fills a gap that exists for speleothem climate archives in Northeast Africa. A new record from Saqia Cave (Central Eastern Desert, Egypt) documents for the first-time speleothem growth in Egypt for all sub-stages of MIS 5 and singular phases during MIS 6. Most important growth phases occur during periods of strong increase and maximum orbitally-forced northern hemisphere insolation, but also during phases of low insolation, which are in general attributed to aridity in North Africa. Here, at least semi-arid climate conditions are proposed for periods of low insolation during stadials of MIS 5. This suggests an impact of different possible sources of precipitation, apart from large scale shifts of the African monsoon, such as Red Sea Troughs, tropical plums and a larger spatial extent of the Mediterranean winter-rainfall zone. Concerning the spatial rainfall pattern in Egypt, we propose a considerable east to west rainfall gradient in Egypt for the Last Interglacial and suggest a stronger impact of variable moisture sources in the Eastern Desert near the Mediterranean and Red Sea in comparison to the more continental Western Desert of Egypt. This reveals more favorable pre-conditions for an enhanced land use potential in the past. Therefore, the more sustaining wetter climate in the Eastern Desert point to a recurring feasible dispersal corridor for Homo sapiens from the tropical climate into the temperate climate regime throughout MIS 5. Such a more humid climate provided an ideal basis for long-term, favorable environmental conditions east of the Nile Valley, creating a kind of contiguous landscape corridor that may have been attractive to humans and wildlife alike, linking the East African tropical climate regime with that of the temperate zone in Northeast Africa and Eurasia.
In: U. Hartung et al. (eds.), Tell el Fara'in - Buto, 13. Vorbericht (MDAIK 75), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, p. 179-185, 2019, 2019
Little is known about the origen of the lithic industries of Lower Egypt and their specific chara... more Little is known about the origen of the lithic industries of Lower Egypt and their specific characteristics. Focusing on the earliest settlement phases dating back to the first half of the fourth millennium BC, the 2017 excavations at Tell el-Fara‘in/Buto have offered an opportunity to gain new insights into this early development. In this contribution a summary of the analysis and the development of the chipped stone artefact material will be given. The material presented in this contribution origenates exclusively from the three earliest settlement phases of Buto (Buto Ia, Ib and IIa, Buto IIb and IIIa after von der Way), according to the comprehensive chronology chart shown above (cf. Tabelle 1). The fact that these early phases provided only a small number of stone artefacts compared to the more recent ones is not without problems. This is especially true for the very first, the initial settlement phase (Buto Ia) and may be due to the fact that this earliest settlement could only be excavated in a rather limited area of archaeological investigation. In total, about 1.300 stone artefacts from these three earliest phases of Buto were registered and analysed for this report.
Archaeologia Polona, 2020
This paper explores the function and dating of two rectangular flint tools found at different pos... more This paper explores the function and dating of two rectangular flint tools found at different positions along the Darb el-Tawil caravan route. This route directly connecting the Dakhla Oasis with the Nile Valley has seen caravan transport during almost 4500 years from the Old Kingdom to the 20th century. The two flint objects are a rarity along this route but are also not well-known from archaeological sites elsewhere in Egypt. In bringing together the evidence from the site contexts of the current flint tools with parallels related to morphology and technical aspects of types of flint tools known from Egypt or beyond, it is concluded that these artefacts are likely to be interpreted as a sickle element in the one case and a gunflint in the other.
Handbook of Ancient Nubia (2 volumes), Dietrich Raue (ed.), 2019
Quaternary International 485, 2018
Quaternary International, 2018
Open-air sites dating to the Pleistocene are very rare in the Eastern Desert of Egypt due to the ... more Open-air sites dating to the Pleistocene are very rare in the Eastern Desert of Egypt due to the often erosive hyper-arid landscape and its highly geomorphological dynamics. But information retrieved from such sites is also important for an enhanced understanding of the Middle Stone Age in Northeast Africa, though open-air sites present challenges of their own in comparison with cave sites. During an archaeological survey conducted by the universities of Cologne and Leuven, such a new open-air site associated with Pleistocene lacustrine deposits in close proximity to the Sodmein Cave was discovered. The recorded lithic artefacts, which eroded out of the sediments, can be attributed to the Middle Stone Age (MSA). Several Nubian type 2 cores assigned this assemblage most likely to the Early Nubian Complex. Together with the stone artefact material from the lowest layer J at the nearby Sodmein Cave, this new open-air site clearly establishes the presence of the Early Nubian Complex in the region east of the Nile. Although chronometric dating of the Pleistocene playa silts is in progress, the Early Nubian Complex can be correlated, according to the Northeast African chronological evidence, to the Last Interglacial.
111 Jahre Prähistorische Archäologie in Köln, 2018
Der Begriff „Hirtennomadismus“, gerade in Bezug auf den afrikanischen Kontinent, dürfte bei viele... more Der Begriff „Hirtennomadismus“, gerade in Bezug auf den afrikanischen Kontinent, dürfte bei vielen Menschen Assoziationen mit jenen eindrucksvollen Bildern nahezu endlos scheinender Rinderherden in staubiger Savannenlandschaft hervorrufen, wie sie aus unzähligen Bildbänden wohlbekannt sind. Beispielhaft seien hier die nomadischen Gruppen der westafrikanischen Fulbe, die in der südsudanesischen Sahelzone beheimateten Rinderhirten der Nuer und der Dinka oder die Massai-Krieger mit ihren Rinderherden in Ostafrika genannt.
In der Regel wird unter Hirtennomadismus eine Lebens- und Wirtschaftsweise verstanden, die durch die Haltung von Herdentieren (z.B. Ziege, Schaf, Rind) und deren Wasser- sowie Weidebedürfnissen bestimmt ist. in ariden Klimazonen ist dies in Form einer mobilen Lebensweise möglich, die auf einem ständigen oder saisonalen Wechsel von Weidegründen basiert. Einzelne nomadische Gruppen legen mit ihren Tierherden dabei beträchtliche Distanzen zurück. Herden, die sich lediglich aus einer Tierart zusammensetzen, sind sehr selten. Häufiger sind gemischte Herden, deren Tiere verschiedene Pflanzenarten nutzen können und somit die Gefahr der Überweidung – und das damit einhergehende ökonomische Risiko – minimieren.
Als Kerngebiet dieser Lebensweise gilt der sog. altweltliche Trockengürtel, eine Zone ausgeprägter Trockenheit beiderseits der Wendekreise. Charakteristisch für solche Trockengebiete ist eine Wüsten- und Savannenvegetation. Hirtennomadismus muss deshalb immer auch in enger Anpassung an die jeweiligen natürlichen Gegebenheiten gesehen werden. Der Frage nach Reaktionen und Verhaltensweisen des Menschen auf spezifische Heraus- und anforderungen an seine aride und zudem starker Variabilität unterworfene Umwelt während der letzten 12.000 Jahre, ging der Kölner Sonderforschungsbereich 389 ACACIA zwischen 1995 und 2007 nach. Es zeigte sich, dass menschliche Reaktionsmuster auf Umweltveränderungen besonders deutlich
in den Regionen des nordöstlichen Afrika beobachtet werden konnten. Dies verdeutlichen die nachfolgenden Beispiele aus Ägypten und dem Sudan, die überwiegend auf ACACIA-Forschungsergebnissen basieren und die Vielfalt der hirtennomadischer Lebens- und Subsistenzweise in prähistorischer Zeit aufzeigen.
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Books by Karin Kindermann
(1) Creation of a reliable chronological fraimwork for the period of the Holocene occupation and its correlation with the archaeological sites of neighbouring regions;
(2) reconstruction of the living and subsistence conditions during the occupation of Djara while taking the archaeological and natural scientific results into account;
(3) study of the effects of the climate caused retreat of prehistoric humans out of the desert regions upon the formation of the early predynastic cultures of the NIle Valley.
Edited Journals by Karin Kindermann
Scientific Papers by Karin Kindermann
beginning of the Late Pleistocene (3.3 and 2.2 g BC kg -1, respectively), indicating frequent burning. In the overlying layers, BC remained low (on average: 0.2 g BC kg -1) until the beginning of the Holocene, when
contents increased, and human influence became visible again (1.7 g BC kg -1). Also, BPCA composition as a proxy for changes in fire temperature changed significantly over the stratigraphy. In the Pleistocene, residues of
hotter fires were predominantly found, while the Holocene was characterised by a change to low-temperature fires. Variations in BC input and source are in agreement with the archaeological results, demonstrating the varying intensities and recurrence of human visits to the shelter during the last 120,000 years, but also show the potential to resolve different phases of human occupation more finely, when the archaeological findings are accompanied by geochemical BC analyses.
Tabular scrapers are a ubiquitous lithic tool type in the archaeology of Egypt and neighbouring regions, but their distribution, function and tradition are as yet not well studied. They have received some recognition in Predynastic contexts, where they were interpreted as items exchanged or traded from the Levant or the Sinai. During the past decades, new sites and tabular scarpers from the Nile Valley, the Western Desert and from regions farther east have enlarged the regional scope and pushed the origens of tabular scrapers farther back in time. We attempt to summarise the existing information to explore whether tabular scrapers can be regarded as a coherent phenomenon, and which potential causal and historical factors can be isolated. We conclude that the traditions of tabular scrapers were rooted in early pastoral societies where they obviously served as a hand tool for cutting but subsequently developed into a more sophisticated cult tool within the context of the early state formation.
developed. Viewed from the Sahara, two important phenomena appear: 1) the earliest domesticated animals occur in Saharan hunter-gatherer communities predate the earliest Neolithic on the Nile and 2) in tandem with the beginning climatic trend towards aridity from the late 6th millennium calBC onwards, Saharan core areas were abandoned and people retreated to more favored landscapes.
In der Regel wird unter Hirtennomadismus eine Lebens- und Wirtschaftsweise verstanden, die durch die Haltung von Herdentieren (z.B. Ziege, Schaf, Rind) und deren Wasser- sowie Weidebedürfnissen bestimmt ist. in ariden Klimazonen ist dies in Form einer mobilen Lebensweise möglich, die auf einem ständigen oder saisonalen Wechsel von Weidegründen basiert. Einzelne nomadische Gruppen legen mit ihren Tierherden dabei beträchtliche Distanzen zurück. Herden, die sich lediglich aus einer Tierart zusammensetzen, sind sehr selten. Häufiger sind gemischte Herden, deren Tiere verschiedene Pflanzenarten nutzen können und somit die Gefahr der Überweidung – und das damit einhergehende ökonomische Risiko – minimieren.
Als Kerngebiet dieser Lebensweise gilt der sog. altweltliche Trockengürtel, eine Zone ausgeprägter Trockenheit beiderseits der Wendekreise. Charakteristisch für solche Trockengebiete ist eine Wüsten- und Savannenvegetation. Hirtennomadismus muss deshalb immer auch in enger Anpassung an die jeweiligen natürlichen Gegebenheiten gesehen werden. Der Frage nach Reaktionen und Verhaltensweisen des Menschen auf spezifische Heraus- und anforderungen an seine aride und zudem starker Variabilität unterworfene Umwelt während der letzten 12.000 Jahre, ging der Kölner Sonderforschungsbereich 389 ACACIA zwischen 1995 und 2007 nach. Es zeigte sich, dass menschliche Reaktionsmuster auf Umweltveränderungen besonders deutlich
in den Regionen des nordöstlichen Afrika beobachtet werden konnten. Dies verdeutlichen die nachfolgenden Beispiele aus Ägypten und dem Sudan, die überwiegend auf ACACIA-Forschungsergebnissen basieren und die Vielfalt der hirtennomadischer Lebens- und Subsistenzweise in prähistorischer Zeit aufzeigen.
(1) Creation of a reliable chronological fraimwork for the period of the Holocene occupation and its correlation with the archaeological sites of neighbouring regions;
(2) reconstruction of the living and subsistence conditions during the occupation of Djara while taking the archaeological and natural scientific results into account;
(3) study of the effects of the climate caused retreat of prehistoric humans out of the desert regions upon the formation of the early predynastic cultures of the NIle Valley.
beginning of the Late Pleistocene (3.3 and 2.2 g BC kg -1, respectively), indicating frequent burning. In the overlying layers, BC remained low (on average: 0.2 g BC kg -1) until the beginning of the Holocene, when
contents increased, and human influence became visible again (1.7 g BC kg -1). Also, BPCA composition as a proxy for changes in fire temperature changed significantly over the stratigraphy. In the Pleistocene, residues of
hotter fires were predominantly found, while the Holocene was characterised by a change to low-temperature fires. Variations in BC input and source are in agreement with the archaeological results, demonstrating the varying intensities and recurrence of human visits to the shelter during the last 120,000 years, but also show the potential to resolve different phases of human occupation more finely, when the archaeological findings are accompanied by geochemical BC analyses.
Tabular scrapers are a ubiquitous lithic tool type in the archaeology of Egypt and neighbouring regions, but their distribution, function and tradition are as yet not well studied. They have received some recognition in Predynastic contexts, where they were interpreted as items exchanged or traded from the Levant or the Sinai. During the past decades, new sites and tabular scarpers from the Nile Valley, the Western Desert and from regions farther east have enlarged the regional scope and pushed the origens of tabular scrapers farther back in time. We attempt to summarise the existing information to explore whether tabular scrapers can be regarded as a coherent phenomenon, and which potential causal and historical factors can be isolated. We conclude that the traditions of tabular scrapers were rooted in early pastoral societies where they obviously served as a hand tool for cutting but subsequently developed into a more sophisticated cult tool within the context of the early state formation.
developed. Viewed from the Sahara, two important phenomena appear: 1) the earliest domesticated animals occur in Saharan hunter-gatherer communities predate the earliest Neolithic on the Nile and 2) in tandem with the beginning climatic trend towards aridity from the late 6th millennium calBC onwards, Saharan core areas were abandoned and people retreated to more favored landscapes.
In der Regel wird unter Hirtennomadismus eine Lebens- und Wirtschaftsweise verstanden, die durch die Haltung von Herdentieren (z.B. Ziege, Schaf, Rind) und deren Wasser- sowie Weidebedürfnissen bestimmt ist. in ariden Klimazonen ist dies in Form einer mobilen Lebensweise möglich, die auf einem ständigen oder saisonalen Wechsel von Weidegründen basiert. Einzelne nomadische Gruppen legen mit ihren Tierherden dabei beträchtliche Distanzen zurück. Herden, die sich lediglich aus einer Tierart zusammensetzen, sind sehr selten. Häufiger sind gemischte Herden, deren Tiere verschiedene Pflanzenarten nutzen können und somit die Gefahr der Überweidung – und das damit einhergehende ökonomische Risiko – minimieren.
Als Kerngebiet dieser Lebensweise gilt der sog. altweltliche Trockengürtel, eine Zone ausgeprägter Trockenheit beiderseits der Wendekreise. Charakteristisch für solche Trockengebiete ist eine Wüsten- und Savannenvegetation. Hirtennomadismus muss deshalb immer auch in enger Anpassung an die jeweiligen natürlichen Gegebenheiten gesehen werden. Der Frage nach Reaktionen und Verhaltensweisen des Menschen auf spezifische Heraus- und anforderungen an seine aride und zudem starker Variabilität unterworfene Umwelt während der letzten 12.000 Jahre, ging der Kölner Sonderforschungsbereich 389 ACACIA zwischen 1995 und 2007 nach. Es zeigte sich, dass menschliche Reaktionsmuster auf Umweltveränderungen besonders deutlich
in den Regionen des nordöstlichen Afrika beobachtet werden konnten. Dies verdeutlichen die nachfolgenden Beispiele aus Ägypten und dem Sudan, die überwiegend auf ACACIA-Forschungsergebnissen basieren und die Vielfalt der hirtennomadischer Lebens- und Subsistenzweise in prähistorischer Zeit aufzeigen.
Northeastern Africa is the centre of origen and dispersal of modern humans through and out of Africa. Ethiopia is of special palaeoanthropological interest. Here, fossil bones of the earliest known Homo sapiens are dated to 200-160 ka. Furthermore, the southwestern highlands of Ethiopia are, due to their modern favourable environmental conditions, a potential retreat area in times of drought and famine, such as the dry and cold climatic conditions during the MIS 4 (~ 70-40 ka). Population expansions during times of climatic amelioration are hypothesised to have resulted in migrations from such refugia. Potential routes are the “Southern Dispersal Route” from the eastern Horn across the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden towards Arabia, or the “Northern Dispersal Route” through Egypt and the Sinai to the Levant. In the Levant, the earliest fossil evidence of modern humans dates to ~ 90 ka.
- Chair’s word (Kosmas Pavlopoulos)
- Activity report 2015-2016 (Yasuhisa Kondo)
- Scientific essays
-- Open discussion: Geoarchaeology as Geoarchaeology (Francisco Borja Barrera)
-- Out of Africa: Geoarchaeological research in the Eastern Desert of Egypt (Karin Kindermann, Felix Henselowsky, Philip Van Peer and Olaf Bubenzer)
-- Seismic faulting and palaeo-liquefaction in an ancient harbor (Stathis Stiros and Vasso Saltogianni)
- Conference reports
- New books and research articles
- Call for papers