Egypt: History - The Epipaleolithic Period of Egypt

Epipaleolithic: 10,000 - c. 5,500 BC

The Epipaleolithic years are largely a transition between the Paleolithic and the Predynastic time periods in ancient Egypt, a time between the hunter-gatherers of before and the appearance of the true farming of the village-dwelling cultures after 5500 BC !ost of the information from this era comes from the site of El "ab, nestled between the eastern ban# of the $ile and the %ed &ea 'ills Before the discoveries at El "ab, it was thought that Paleolithic artifacts, even those dating to the Epipaleolithic, would not be found on the floodplain of the $ile, simply because of the action of the inundation 'owever, in the case of many of the artifact sites, it was the inundation that preserved them, as the $ile deposited layer upon layer of soil each year without washing the artifacts away Three ma(or )camps) of Epipaleolithic peoples were discovered, the oldest dating to around *+00 BC, the one above it to *0+0 BC, and the uppermost to 5,-0 BC The importance of this site can easily be seen in the fact that the ma(or archaeologist of the site, .r Paul /ermeersch, classified over +,000 artifacts !ost of these were artfully made and minutely detailed microblades Beads made of ostrich shell were also discovered, showing that even then the ancient Egyptians had a love for ornamentation Burins, scrapers, and points of all si0es and description rounded out the inventory The camps at El "ab were most li#ely occupied only during spring and summer The annual inundation of the $ile, especially given how massive it was then, would ma#e it ne1t to impossible to live in those locations year round 2t is apparent that these tribes were still largely nomadic .espite this, the camps 3for such we should label them4 en(oyed many times of prosperity, living near the cool $ile and benefiting from its supply of fish, supplemented by the traditional hunting of savanna wildlife such as wild cattle and ga0elles The two most prominent industries at this time, as discovered near 5adi 'alfa in the northern &udan, were the 6r#inian and the &harmar#ian &o far, 6r#inian artifacts have only been found at one site and have been dated to around 7++0 BC The site is a small settlement, with possibly around thirteen dwellings, given the concentration of debris in a clustered location 8i#e many of the settlements at this time near the $ile, this was most li#ely a seasonal camp of some #ind, though we will have to wait until other 6r#inian sites are discovered 6r#inian was largely a microlithic industry, ma#ing use of very small, s#illfully crafted stone tools, but large blades and a new method of e1tracting more material from a stone, the double-platform core, have been found 5e #now more about the &harmar#ian industry than the 6r#inian 6 newer industry, but one that spans a much larger time period, &harmar#ian artifacts have been dated from 5750 BC to 9:70 BC, if not even more recent 6lthough more prolific, the &harmar#ian artifacts actually show a decline in the ;uality of toolcraft toward the end of the &harmar#ian &ettlements of these people have been found on the beaches of soil left by the inundation These seasonal camps merged together and grew into large concentrations of dwellings over time There is evidence in these later Epipaleolithic sites of a population e1plosion around 5500 BC, possibly due to the development of true agriculture as well as animal domestication 2n a very short time, geologically spea#ing, the people had gone from savanna nomads to riverdwellers, ma#ing a very efficient adaptation to the new environment <nfortunately, we still do not #now e1actly when agriculture and animal domestication were discovered 3or introduced by another people4 in Egypt There is an odd gap of around a thousand years between these riverine settlements of the late Epipaleolithic and the true farming villages of the Predynastic cultures during which great strides in Egyptian #nowledge were made 2t is even surmised that it was during this time that they began to develop the writing systems that would evolve into the hieroglyphs There are sites in $ubia that possess possible remains of domesticated animals that date to around 5==0 BC 5hether

domestication was brought into Egypt or was discovered within her borders is still a debated topic 6ll things aside, this final time period before the Predynastic age remains a very important problem for researchers Each new discovery, though, sheds more light on the history of the first Egyptians