This volume addresses the Out-of-Africa dispersals of the earliest hominins and early anatomically modern humans, the last semi-sedentary, pottery-bearing hunters-fishers-gatherers, the early food producers and users of domestic plants and animals either local or imported from the Near East, and the presuppositions of the rise of the kingdoms of Kerma, Pharaonic Egypt, and Axum on the basis of the latest available data.

Sudan played a crucial role in the development of ancient human behavior and societies and was part of an extensive network encompassing faraway areas of Africa, such as Chad, the Sahara, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Kenya, as well as Asia, namely the Levant, the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, and India. The archaeology of this country has been explored and appreciated since the 1700s and more than 30 national and international research teams are currently active. New remarkable discoveries are unearthed every year, which are analyzed with the most up-to-date scientific techniques, and offer a prominent contribution to the general theoretical and methodological panorama of world archaeology. Beside the Nile Valley, the various geographical regions of Sudan the deserts, savannas, and other watercourses to the west and east of the main river are attentively taken into consideration as they formed a regional synergy that equally contributed to the far-reaching influence of Sudan's inhabitants.

This book is particularly addressed to Africanist archaeologists who study other parts of Africa; to prehistorians investigating other parts of the world; to archaeology students and teachers interested in having a global view on human adaptation and behavior in ancient Sudan; to science journalists, and to antiquity admirers and learned tourists who travel to Sudan and Nubia.

Focuses on the Out-of-Africa dispersals of early hominins and anatomically modern humans, the last hunter-fishers-gatherers, early food producers and users of domestic plants and animals, and presuppositions of the rise of the kingdoms of Kerma and Pharaonic Egypt Offers interpretations according to the most recent theoretical perspectives, including optimal foraging theory, technical knowledge accumulation, and storage strategies Combines thirty years of field experience, analyses in laboratories of various fields, conference presentations, and publications to develop a wide perspective and deep knowledge on the prehistory of Sudan

Autorentext
Elena A.A. Garcea is Associate Professor in Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Cassino and Southern Latium, Italy. She has undertaken fieldwork and has coordinated archaeological research in Sudan since 1986, investigating different parts of the country: Khartoum province and Jebel Sabaloka (central Sudan), Karima and Multaga-Abu Dom areas, Sai Island and Amara West district (northern Sudan). She also conducted research projects in Libya for twenty years, and was field director of the Gobero Archaeological Project in Niger in 2005 and 2006. She is author and editor of 7 books (Cultural Dynamics in the Saharo-Sudanese Prehistory, 1993; Uan Tabu in the Settlement History of the Libyan Sahara, 2001; South-Eastern Mediterranean Peoples Between 130,000 and 10,000 Years Ago, 2010; Gobero: The No-Return Frontier. Archaeology and Landscape at the Saharo-Sahelian Borderland, 2013, among others) and over 240 journal articles and book chapters on African prehistoric archaeology.

Inhalt

1. Introduction.- 2. Man the Migrant.- 3. The Last Hunter-Gatherers and Settlement Strategies.- 4. The Last Hunter-Gatherers and Technical Knowledge Accumulation.- 5. The Revolution of Food Production and the Trade of Domestic Animals and Plants.- 6. Cultural Hallmarks of Pastoralism.- 7. Epilogue or Premise? Later Developments in the Prehistory of the Sudan.