B. From Hunting to Gathering to Self-Subsistence: the New Stone Age (Neolithic): 6000-4000 B.C.

1. Retracing the Ancient Nile and Discovering Nubia's Earliest Towns

By the end of the Old Stone Age, Nubian peoples, like those in the Near East and elsewhere, had begun utilizing sickle-like tools made of wood inset with small razor-sharp stone flakes. The purpose of such tools was for cutting grain, and it is the harvesting of grains and the learning of methods of food production - how to plant crops and how to domesticate animals - that marked the transition from the Old Stone Age (Paleolithic) to the New (Neolithic).

During the 1980's and 90's intensive exploration of the northern Sudan was undertaken by a number of prehistorians. These archaeologists discovered that from about 8000-4000 BC, people learned how to live in large permanent communities, where they produced an increasing proportion of their own food and acquired enough leisure time to create artistic utilitarian objects. Many of these ancient settlements were found in areas that are today absolute deserts. This has not only revealed that the climate was dramatically different in Neolithic times but also that the Nile itself once flowed through entirely different channels than it does today.

Recent surveys of the Bayuda Desert, north of modern Khartoum, Sudan, and the Sahara Desert, west of the Nile at Dongola, Sudan, and the Nubian Desert, east of Kerma, Sudan, have resulted not only in the discovery of major ancient settlement areas but also to a new understanding of the ancient course and tributaries of the Nile.

When a paved road was to be laid across the Bayuda Desert, connecting Omdurman (western Khartoum) with ed-Debba 210 miles (350 km) to the north, a team of the Sudan Archaeological Research Society (SARS) of London, collaborating with the Sudan Antiquities Dept., undertook an archaeological survey of the route. Their work revealed that this Ohio-sized territory, embraced by the Great Bend of the Nile, was once cut by a branch of the White Nile that flowed due north through the dry depression now known as the Wadi Muqaddam. This area, they found, was once well-watered, as revealed by the presence of many fish bones and fresh-water shells, and it supported many prehistoric settlements along its banks. Future excavations here will no doubt lead to important discoveries.

Another major Nile tributary, which has been dry for perhaps three thousand years, once flowed from Chad through the Sahara and intersected the Nile near modern Dongola, Sudan. This ancient river system, called the Wadi Howar, once kept the western desert of Sudan well watered, and from about 8000.to 1000 B.C. it nurtured extensive population groups along its banks. Recent surface surveys in this now lifeless region by Dr. Bergit Keding and a team from the Heinrich Barth Institute of the Univesity of Cologne, Germany, have revealed traces of many complex, previously unknown ancient cultures. Since there is no water or other means of supplying an archaeological expedition here, only very limited excavations have taken place, but future finds here will surely expand dramatically our knowledge of the Nubian Neolithic and the history of cultural evolution in Africa.

Among the most important recent archaeological discoveries in Sudan are those that have been made just south of the Third Cataract by a combined French and Sudanese team, under the direction of Dr. Jacques Reinold, working for the Sudan Antiquities Department. Here, in a 30 mile (50 km) long depression east of the Nile known as the Wadi el-Khowi, just east of Kerma, Sudan, they found evidence of numerous ancient parallel river beds in what is now absolute desert. They discovered that the Nile had once flowed 6 miles (10 km) farther east than it does today. It was clear from a study of this district - a section called Kadruka - that over the millennia the Nile had slowly migrated westward, until about 2000 BC, when it reached the bed it now occupies. A survey of the ancient sites in the Kadruka area has revealed that the most ancient are the farthest east, when the Nile itself was farthest east. As the Nile slowly changed course westward, the old villages were abandoned and new ones were built further west following the new course of the river. The result was that from east to west, the archaeologists could identify increasingly younger settlements and cemetery sites, ranging in date from about 5000 to 3500 BC.

2. The Evidence for Nubia's First Rulers: 6000-3500 BC

Although the settlement sites along the ancient Nile beds of the Wadi el-Khowi, east of Kerma, were all badly damaged by wind and water erosion, the cemeteries often survived because the graves were dug into low mounds. The joint French-Sudanese team has identified over thirty cemeteries, and three or four possess over a thousand burials each. Their major discovery was that a grave's position in the cemterey seemed to indicate the social standing of the owner within the community. The most important individuals, they found, were men, who were buried at the highest point of each cemetery mound. Their graves contained the most important objects - elaborately decorated pottery, fine tools and weapons - especially mace heads - made with with exotic stones, multiple armbands of ivory, grinding stones for eye cosmetics, and strange stone female figurines. Horns of domesticated cattle were sometimes laid on top of the bodies. These "chieftan's graves" were surrounded by lesser graves, predominantly female. Such data reveals that Nubian society, from at least 5000 BC, had become highly stratified.

Another major Neolithic site is Kadero, about 20 km north of Khartoum on the east bank of the Nile, which has been excavated by a team from the Archaeological Museum of Poznan, Poland, headed by Dr. Lech Krzyzaniak. Traces of houses and animal pens were found on a large mound, and trash heaps contained the bones of both wild and domesticated animals (goats and sheep) and fragments of grindstones, stone tools, and pottery vessels. The grindstones suggested knowledge of cereals, but whether the people actually cultivated them remains unclear. The inhabitants apparently supplemented their diet by hunting, fishing, and gathering edible plants. The Kadero cemetery contained several hundred burials, of which one hundred and sixty were excavated - a fraction of the whole. Again, the notable feature of the cemetery was the social stratification of the population. A few people obviously had elite status since they were buried in deep pits with exceptionally fine funeral offerings: ivory jewelry, shells brought from the Red Sea (over 180 miles [300 km] away to the east), amazonite from Chad, fine decorated pottery, and well made stone tools and weapons.

About 90 mi further north, near modern Shendi, Sudan, a large settlement site of the period 4000-3500 BC was found accidentally near the Nile by road builders and excavated by the Sudan Antiquities Dept. It is presently called Kadada. Occupation debris was over a meter thick in some areas, although intact house foundations and cultural deposits were not preserved due to the disturbance of the site. The cemeteries contained several thousand people, of which several hundred graves were excavated and recorded. Individuals were laid in a fetal position at the bottom of a pit 3 to 7 ft (1 and 2 m) in diameter, but there was no particular orientation. The dead had stone or bone tools in the hands, and their heads rested on ox skulls. Other goods were arranged around the body. Again, the tombs were arranged apparently so as to reflect one's social position within the community, and some rich tombs even appear to include secondary burials, which were possibly human sacrifices. Some tombs were surrounded closely by up to a dozen other graves, some nearly on top of the original, suggesting that these were the burial sites of whole families and extended families. No graves of children were found in the cemeteries, but children were found buried in pots in the settlement area, revealing that young children were probably normally buried under the floors of houses.