Romuald Schild

Holocene Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara

by Fred Wendorf and Romuald Schild The Eastern Sahara is a fascinating place to study structures. These larger, more complex sites are almost prehistory. Confronted with the stark reality of a hyperalways in the lower parts of large basins, most of which arid environment that receives no measurable rainfall, were formed by deflation during the Late Pleistocene lacks vegetation, and is seemingly without life, it would hyper-arid interval between about 65,000 and 13,000 seem to be an unlikely place to find a rich and complex years ago. Their location near the floor of these basins mosaic of archaeological remains documenting past was influenced primarily by one factor water. During human presence. Despite this impression of a hostile wet phases, runoff from extensive catchment areas environment, there is widespread and abundant caused the development of large, deep, seasonal lakes, archaeological evidence. or playas, in the lowermost parts of these basins. This It is obvious that this area was not always a lifeless surface water would last for several weeks or months desert. Faunal and plant remains found in the excavations after the seasonal rains, and by digging wells after the at Holocene-age settlements, dating between 9500 and playa became dry, water could still be obtained during 5000 radiocarbon years ago, indicate that rainfall during most, if not all, of the dry season.

Dating lacustrine episodes in the eastern Sahara by the epimerization of isoleucine in ostrich eggshells

The eggshell of the African ostrich, Struthio camelus, closely approximates a closed system for the retention of indigenous proteinaceous residues. Epimerization of the protein amino acid isoleucine follows linear first-order kinetics in laboratory simulations nearly to racemic equilibrium, and the variation in D/L ratio within a single fragment, or between fragments of the same age, is significantly less than in other carbonate systems. These observations suggest that the extent of isoleucine epimerization (aIle/Ile ratio) in ostrich eggshell offers the potential for high-resolution geochronology of Quaternary deposits. From the simulation experiments, and dated early Holocene samples for which we have in situ mean annual sediment temperature measurements, Arrhenius parameters have been calculated; the activation energy is 30.33 kcal mol−1, similar to that of other carbonate systems. We have measured the aIle/Ile ratio in ostrich eggshell associated with lacustrine episodes at Bir Tarfawi and Bir Sahara East, two depressions in what is currently the hyperarid eastern Sahara. The ratios can be used directly to indicate qualitatively the time represented by each series of lake sediment, and to correlate disjunct lacustrine deposits within and between the basins. Uranium-series disequilibrium dating of algal mats contained within some of the lake beds indicate that a major wet interval occurred about 130 ka ago. Using the U-series date for calibration, the amino acid ratios are used to date the most recent lacustrine interval to about 100 ka B.P., and two older intervals, one about 200 ± 25 ka B.P., and an older interval that occurred prior to 250 ka ago.

A last interglacial fauna from the Eastern Sahara

Abstract Recent work on the middle Paleolithic at Bir Tarfawi, in the hyperarid Eastern Sahara (

A Survey of the Egyptian Radar Channels: An Example of Applied Archaeology

Abstract The shuttle imaging radar experiment (SIR-A) in 1981 revealed a complex of previously unknown, channel-like features beneath the sandsheets of the Eastern Sahara. Since the age(s) and significance of these features could not be otherwise determined, a survey was undertaken of the archaeology of the region to provide at least a minimal age for them and to evaluate their potential as reservoirs of Pleistocene and Holocene rainfall. The results of the survey indicate that the features predate all detectable human activity in the area and are likely to be earlier than Pleistocene, and that there is no evidence that they now hold, or have held since at least the Middle Pleistocene, significant quantities of water. The area of the channels may have been no more than marginal to human economic systems, even during the wetter phases of Saharan prehistory.

Late Magdalenian feminine flint plaquettes from Poland

The remains of a hunting site dated to 15000 years ago, captured in an ice wedge, included woolly rhinoceros, horse and arctic fox. Also present were 30 flint plaquettes with curvy feminine outlines. The authors show that these unworn flint profiles can be assigned to a canon of Magdalenian art that extends over much of northern Europe.

Geoarchaeology of the Holocene climatic optimum at Nabta Playa, Southwestern Desert, Egypt

Except for the Kharga–Dakhla Depression in the north, Nabta Playa is probably the largest internally drained basin in the Southwestern Desert of Egypt. The center of the basin is filled with clastic materials, deposited from suspension during inundations. These finer-grained clastics interfinger with sandy beach deposits associated with early Holocene phytogenic dunes. The shores contain embedded Early Neolithic occupations ranging in age from ca. 9400 to 7250 14C yr B.P. (all radiocarbon ages reported in this article are uncalibrated). There was a phase of reduced sedimentation in the playa between 8100 and 7300 14C yr B.P. During this period, at least 130 species of plants, including 10 varieties of trees and bushes, were growing in the area. These plants may have formed a dense cover over the uplands surrounding the basin and greatly reduced the sediment load in the seasonal runoff. This was the Holocene climatic optimum at Nabta Playa. It was also the time of maximal development of human settlement in the Nubia–Sheb Pediplain.

Exploitation of wild plants by the early Neolithic hunter–gatherers of the Western Desert, Egypt: Nabta Playa as a case-study

The role of plants in the subsistence economy of pre-agricultural societies of the eastern Sahara is poorly known because vegetal remains, except for wood charcoal, are seldom found in archaeological sites. Site E-75-6 at Nabta Playa, with rich assemblages of charred seeds and fruits, is exceptional. Around 8000 b.p. the inhabitants of this site collected a wide spectrum of wild food plants. Wild sorghum was of special interest and its occasional cultivation cannot be excluded.

Discovery of the first Neolithic cemetery in Egypt's western desert

The authors report the discovery of a cemetery of richly furnished graves in the western desert of south Egypt. Artefacts, burial rites and radiocarbon dates relate the cemetery to pastoralists practising transhumance in the later Neolithic period. The first such cemetery to be investigated, its cultural affiliations offer a pre-echo of what would become the Egyptian civilisation.

The North European Plain and Eastern Sub-Balticum between 12, 700 and 8,000 bp

More than a decade has passed since I published an overview of the Terminal Paleolithic of the North European Plain (Schild 1984). During this time, several new prehistoric sites appeared, but my early statement that the North European Plain was not the promised land for archaeologists, particularly those interested in the Terminal Paleolithic, seems to be still valid. Stratified sites with good organic preservation remain rare commodities. Only the pace of destruction of sites increased exponentially Indeed, during this period, there was no major breakthrough in prehistoric research in the North European Plain that would dramatically alter our ideas about the past. On the other hand, it would not be right to say that nothing has happened. The necessary rethinking of old ideas, however, has come from paleoclimatology, dendrochronology, isotope dating, and paleobiology, rather than from archaeology.

Chapter 6 – Middle Holocene environments of north and east Africa, with special emphasis on the African Sahara

Publisher Summary This chapter reviews the climatic and cultural dynamics in the African region, focusing on the Saharan region. It discusses climatic fluctuations in northern and eastern Africa during the Holocene and in particular the middle Holocene. The climatic changes in the Sahara and the mountains of eastern Africa were very dramatic, and the evidence for those changes is the most visible. In addition, for the Sahara there are numerous radiocarbon age determinations tied to the climatic events in that area. Paleoclimatic research suggests that the early Holocene in most areas of Africa north of the equator was characterized by high permanent lake levels or, in drier areas such as Nabta, by seasonal lakes or playas. The end of the early Holocene seems to coincide with an abrupt reduction of rainfall around 7000 14C yr BP (7790 cal yr BP). The middle Holocene is generally regarded as a period of higher temperatures, particularly summer temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere that were at a maximum (winter temperatures continued to rise until recently). These long-range climatic records are based on the interpretation of proxy data, which only yield indirect information about climate such as vegetation, lake level, or glacial response to changes in several parameters of the climate. Ongoing research is likely to provide more information in this regard.