In the Nile catchment, a growing number of site-and reach-based studies employ radiocarbon and, more recently, OSL dating to reconstruct Holocene river histories, but there has been no attempt to critically evaluate and synthesise these data at the catchment scale. We present the first meta-analysis of published and publically available radiocarbon and OSL dated Holocene fluvial units in the Nile catchment, including the delta region, and relate this to changing climate and river dynamics. Dated fluvial units are separated both geographically (into the Nile Delta and White, Blue, and Desert Nile sub-regions) and into depositional environment (floodplain and palaeochannel fills). Cumulative probability density frequency 3 (CPDF) plots of floodplain and palaeochannel units show a striking inverse relationship during the Holocene, reflecting abrupt (< 100 years) climate-related changes in flooding regime. The CPDF plot of dated floodplain units is interpreted as a record of over-bank river flows, whilst the CPDF plot of palaeochannel units reflect periods of major flooding associated with channel abandonment and contraction, as well as transitions to multicentennial length episodes of greater aridity and low river flow. This analysis has identified major changes in river flow and dynamics in the Nile catchment with phases of channel and floodplain contraction at c.6150-5750, 4400-4150, 3700-3450, 2700-2250, 1350-900, 800-550 cal. BC and cal. AD 1600,timeframes that mark shifts to new hydrological and geomorphological regimes. We discuss the impacts of these changing hydromorphological regimes upon riverine civilizations in the Nile Valley.
Cancer, one of the world’s leading causes of death today, remains almost absent relative to other pathological conditions, in the archaeological record, giving rise to the conclusion that the disease is mainly a product of modern living and increased longevity. This paper presents a male, young-adult individual from the archaeological site of Amara West in northern Sudan (c. 1200BC) displaying multiple, mainly osteolytic, lesions on the vertebrae, ribs, sternum, clavicles, scapulae, pelvis, and humeral and femoral heads. Following radiographic, microscopic and scanning electron microscopic (SEM) imaging of the lesions, and a consideration of differential diagnoses, a diagnosis of metastatic carcinoma secondary to an unknown soft tissue cancer is suggested. This represents the earliest complete example in the world of a human who suffered metastatic cancer to date. The study further draws its strength from modern analytical techniques applied to differential diagnoses and the fact that it is firmly rooted within a well-documented archaeological and historical context, thus providing new insights into the history and antiquity of the disease as well as its underlying causes and progression.
Bitumen has been identified for the first time in Egyptian occupied Nubia, from within the town of Amara West, occupied from around 1300 to 1050 BC. The bitumen can be sourced to the Dead Sea using biomarkers, evidencing a trade in this material from the eastern Mediterranean to Nubia in the New Kingdom or its immediate aftermath. Two different end uses for bitumen were determined at the site. Ground bitumen was identified in several paint palettes, and in one case can be shown to have been mixed with plant gum, which indicates the use of bitumen as a ground pigment. Bitumen was also identified as a component of a friable black solid excavated from a tomb, and a black substance applied to the surface of a painted and plastered coffin fragment. Both contained plant resin, indicating that this substance was probably applied as a ritual funerary liquid, a practice identified from this time period in Egypt. The use of this ritual, at a far remove from the royal Egyptian burial sites at Thebes, indicates the importance of this ritual as a component of the funeral, and the value attributed to the material components of the black liquid. Black materials were excavated from different contexts in the pharaonic town of Amara West in Upper Nubia, dating from around 1300 to 1050 BC (19th-20th dynasties), and its cemeteries (1250-800 BC). The materials were of three types: black paints on ceramic sherds used as palettes; a black coating on a coffin plaster fragment; and a black friable material excavated from a tomb. Considering a group of contextually different black materials from a single site together offers an opportunity to understand the cultural and practical preferences for the choice of materials used to make black substances, and in which contexts they might be applied. Molecular analysis using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was used to identify the components of the different materials using three separate methods. Identifying the components allows the ingredients of the black substances to be connected to their end uses both in practical and symbolic terms. Amara West. Amara West lies between the Second and Third Nile Cataracts, in the heart of Nubia, a region that stretched from Aswan in southern Egypt southwards to the Sixth Nile Cataract 1 (Fig. 1). This region was intermittently occupied by pharaonic Egypt in the third and second millennium BC; during the New Kingdom (c. 1548-1086 BC), pharaonic towns were founded to control and administer resource extraction 2. First excavated by the Egypt Exploration Society between 1939 and 1950 3 , fieldwork was then undertaken at Amara West by the British Museum from 2008 to 2019 4-6. The town, founded around 1300BC (on the basis of inscriptional evidence), comprised a sandstone temple, a governor's residence, storage facilities, and housing, set within a 108 m square enclosure wall 2 (Fig. 1). From the late 19th Dynasty residents of the town began to build larger and more spacious houses outside the town wall, an area designated by the excavators as the "w...
Agricultural practices in northern Sudan have been changing rapidly but remain little documented. In this paper we aim to investigate changes to crops grown in living memory and their uses through interviews with Nubian farmers on the island of Ernetta. By exploring cultivation and crop processing practices, together with associated material culture and foodstuffs, we also seek to explore how agricultural and food heritage are connected, and to better understand reasons for crop changes. Several cereals and pulses that were previously important subsistence crops are now grown as comparatively minor crops. The replacement of the sagia (waterwheel) by diesel pump irrigation, the introduction of commercial crops, and the reduction of the annual flood have led to fundamentally new cropping patterns within household farms. At the same time, each species has its own narrative and timing of change. Shifts in crops grown are paralleled by transitions in foodways, associated material culture, and land use. The project is timely, as much of the information about past crop uses resides in the memories of elderly farmers. The findings highlight the broader global need to document endangered memories of cropping patterns, traditional ecological and food knowledge, including local terms for foods and crops.
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