Prehistoric Egypt and Predynastic Egypt span the period from the earliest human settlement to the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period around 3100 BC, starting with the first Pharaoh, Narmer for some Egyptologists, Hor-Aha for others, with the name Menes also possibly used for one of these kings.
At the end of prehistory, “Predynastic Egypt” is traditionally defined as the period from the final part of the Neolithic period beginning c. 6000 BC to the end of the Naqada III period c. 3000 BC. The dates of the Predynastic period were first defined before widespread archaeological excavation of Egypt took place, and recent finds indicating very gradual Predynastic development had led to controversy over when exactly the Predynastic period ended. Thus, various terms such as “Protodynastic period“, “Zero Dynasty“, or “Dynasty 0” are used to name the part of the period which might be characterized as Predynastic by some and Early Dynastic by others.
The Predynastic period is generally divided into cultural eras, each named after where a particular type of Egyptian settlement was first discovered. However, the same gradual development that characterized the Protodynastic period was present throughout the entire Predynastic period. Individual “cultures” must not be interpreted as separate entities but as largely subjective divisions used to study the whole period.
The vast majority of Predynastic archaeological finds have been in Upper Egypt because the silt of the Nile River was more heavily deposited in the Delta region, completely burying most Delta sites long before modern times.
Paleolithic
Excavation of the Nile has exposed early stone tools from the last million or so years. The earliest of these lithic industries were located within a 30-metre (100 ft) terrace and were rudimentary Acheulean, Abbevillian (Chellean) (c. 600,000 years ago), and an Egyptian form of the Clactonian (c. 400,000 years ago). Acheulean was developed within the 15-metre (50 ft) terrace. Reported initially as early Mousterian (c. 160,000 years ago) but since changed to Levalloisean, other implements were located on the 10-metre (30 ft) terrace. The 4.5- and 3-metre (15–10 ft) terraces saw a more advanced version of the Levalloisean, also initially reported as an Egyptian version of Mousterian. An Egyptian version of the Aterian technology was also located.
Wadi Halfa
Archaeologist Waldemar Chmielewski discovered some of the oldest known structures in Egypt along the southern border near Wadi Halfa, Sudan, in the Arkin 8 site. Chmielewski dated the forms to 100,000 BC. The remains of the structures are oval depressions about 30 cm deep and two × one meters across. Many are lined with flat sandstone slabs, which serve as tent rings supporting a dome-like shelter of skins or brush. They were mobile structures—easily disassembled, moved, and reassembled—providing hunter-gatherers with semi-permanent habitation. This type of dwelling supplied a place to live, but it could be taken down quickly and moved if necessary.
Aterian industry
Aterian tool-making reached Egypt c. 40,000 BC.
Khormusan industry
The Khormusan industry in Egypt began between 42,000 and 32,000 BP.[4] Khormusans developed tools from stone, animal bones, and hematite. They also set small arrowheads resembling Native Americans, but no bows have been found. The end of the Khormusan industry came around 16,000 BC with the appearance of other cultures in the region, including the Gemaian.
Late Paleolithic
The Late Paleolithic in Egypt started around 30,000 BC. The Nazlet Khater skeleton was found in 1980 and given an age of 33,000 in 1982, based on nine samples ranging between 35,100 and 30,360 years old. This specimen is the only complete modern human skeleton from the earliest Late Stone Age in Africa.
Mesolithic
Halfan and Kubbaniyan culture
The Halfan and Kubbaniyan, two closely related industries, flourished along the Upper Nile Valley. Halfan sites are in the far north of Sudan, whereas Kubbaniyan sites are in Upper Egypt. For the Halfan, only four radiocarbon dates have been produced. Schild and Wendorf (2014) discard the earliest and latest as erratic and conclude that the Halfan existed c. 22.5-22.0 ka cal BP. People survived on a diet of large herd animals and the Khormusan fishing tradition. Greater concentrations of artefacts indicate they were not bound to seasonal wandering but settled for long periods. The Halfan culture was derived from the Khormusan, which depended on specialized hunting, fishing, and collecting techniques for survival. The primary remains of this culture are stone tools, flakes, and many rock paintings.
Sebilian culture
In Egypt, analyses of pollen found at archaeological sites indicate that the people of the Sebilian culture (also known as the Esna culture) were gathering wheat and barley. The Sebilian culture began around 13,000 BC and vanished about 10,000 BC. Domesticated seeds were not found. It has been hypothesized that the sedentary lifestyle used by farmers led to increased warfare, which was detrimental to farming and ended this period.
Qadan culture
The Qadan culture (13,000–9,000 BC) was a Mesolithic industry that, archaeological evidence suggests, originated in Upper Egypt (present-day south Egypt) approximately 15,000 years ago. The Qadan subsistence mode is estimated to have persisted for about 4,000 years. It was characterized by hunting and a unique approach to food gathering that incorporated the preparation and consumption of wild grasses and grains. Systematic efforts were made by the Qadan people to water, care for, and harvest local plant life, but grains were not planted in ordered rows.
Around twenty archaeological sites in Upper Nubia give evidence of the Qadan grain-grinding culture. Its makers also practised wild grain harvesting along the Nile during the beginning of the Sahaba Daru Nile phase, when desiccation in the Sahara caused residents of the Libyan oases to retreat into the Nile valley. Among the Qadan culture sites is the Jebel Sahaba cemetery, dating to the Mesolithic.
Qadan people were the first to develop sickles, and they also developed grinding stones independently to aid in the collecting and processing of these plant foods before consumption. However, there are no indications of using these tools after around 10,000 BC, when hunter-gatherers replaced them.
Harifian culture
The Harifians (8,800 – 8,000 BC) are viewed as migrating out of the Fayyum[b] and the eastern deserts of Egypt (including Sinai) during the late Mesolithic to merge with the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) culture, whose tool assemblage resembles that of the Harifian. This assimilation led to the Circum-Arabian Nomadic Pastoral Complex, a group of cultures that invented nomadic pastoralism and may have been the original culture which spread Proto-Semitic languages throughout Mesopotamia.
Neolithic
Lower Egypt
Faiyum A culture
Continued expansion of the desert forced the early ancestors of the Egyptians to settle around the Nile more permanently and adopt a more sedentary lifestyle during the Neolithic.
The period from 9000 to 6000 BC has left very little in the way of archaeological evidence. Around 6000 BC, Neolithic settlements appear all over Egypt. Studies based on morphological, genetic, and archaeological data have attributed these settlements to migrants from the Fertile Crescent in the Near East returning during the Egyptian and North African Neolithic, bringing agriculture to the region. Jared Diamond, in a non-scholarly work, proposes other areas of Africa independently developed agriculture at about the same time: the Ethiopian highlands, the Sahel, and West Africa.
Some morphological and post-cranial data has linked the earliest farming populations at Fayum, Merimde, and El-Badari to Near Eastern populations. However, the archaeological data also suggests that Near Eastern domesticates were incorporated into a pre-existing foraging strategy and only slowly developed into a full-blown lifestyle, contrary to what would be expected from settler-colonists from the Near East. Finally, the names for the Near Eastern domesticates imported into Egypt were not Sumerian or Proto-Semitic loan words, diminishing the likelihood of mass migrant colonization of lower Egypt during the agricultural transition.
Weaving is evidenced for the first time during the Faiyum A Period. People of this period, unlike later Egyptians, buried their dead very close to, and sometimes inside, their settlements.
Although archaeological sites reveal very little about this time, examining the many Egyptian words for “city” provides a hypothetical list of causes of Egyptian sedentarism. In Upper Egypt, terminology indicates trade, protection of livestock, high ground for flood refuge, and sacred sites for deities.
Merimde culture
From about 5000 to 4200 BC, the Merimde culture, known only from Merimde Beni Salama, a large settlement site at the edge of the Western Delta, flourished in Lower Egypt. The culture has strong connections to the Faiyum A culture and the Levant. People lived in small huts, produced simple, undecorated pottery and had stone tools. Cattle, sheep, goats and pigs were held. Wheat, sorghum and barley were planted. The Merimde people buried their dead within the settlement and produced clay figurines. The first life-sized Egyptian head made of clay comes from Merimde.
El Omari culture
The El Omari culture is known for a small settlement near modern Cairo. Their sites were occupied from 4000 BC to the Archaic Period (3,100 BC). People have lived in huts, but only postholes and pits survive. The pottery is undecorated. Stone tools include small flakes, axes and sickles. Metal was not yet known.
Maadi culture
The Maadi culture (also called Buto Maadi) was an essential Lower Egyptian prehistoric culture dated about 4000 – 3500 BC and contemporary with Naqada I and II phases in Upper Egypt. The culture is best known from the site Maadi near Cairo, as well as the location of Buto, but is also attested in many other places in the Delta to the Faiyum region. This culture was marked by development in architecture and technology. It also followed its predecessor cultures when it came to undecorated ceramics.
Copper was known, and some copper adzes have been found. The pottery is hand-made; it is simple and undecorated. The black-topped red pots indicate contact with the Naqada sites in the south. Many imported vessels from Palestine have also been found. Black basalt stone vessels were also used.
The Naqada III culture replaced the Maadi culture; whether this happened by conquest or infiltration is still an open question. People lived in small huts, partly dug into the ground. The dead were buried in cemeteries but with few burial goods.
The developments in Lower Egypt before the country’s unification have been the subject of considerable disputes. The recent excavations at Tell el-Farkha (de: Tell el-Farcha), Sais, and Tell el-Iswid have somewhat clarified this picture. As a result, the Chalcolithic Lower Egyptian culture is now emerging as an essential subject of study.
Upper Egypt
Nabta Playa
Nabta Playa was once a large internally drained basin in the Nubian Desert, located approximately 800 kilometres south of modern-day Cairo or about 100 kilometres west of Abu Simbel in southern Egypt, 22.51° north, 30.73° east. Today, the region is characterized by numerous archaeological sites. The Nabta Playa archaeological site, one of the earliest of the Egyptian Neolithic Period, is dated to circa 7500 BC. Also, excavations from Nabta Playa, about 100 km west of Abu Simbel, suggest that the region’s Neolithic inhabitants were migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa.
Tasian culture
The Tasian culture was the next in Upper Egypt. This culture group is named for the burials found at Der Tasa on the east bank of the Nile between Asyut and Akhmim. The Tasian culture group is notable for producing the earliest blacktop ware, red and brown pottery coloured black on the top portion and interior. This pottery is vital to the dating of Predynastic Egypt. Because all dates for the Predynastic period are tenuous at best, WMF Petrie developed a sequence dating system by which the relative date, if not the final date, of any given Predynastic site, can be ascertained by examining its pottery.
As the Predynastic period progressed, the handles on pottery evolved from functional to ornamental. The degree to which any given archaeological site has functional or decorative pottery can also be used to determine the relative date of the site. Since there is little difference between Tasian ceramics and Badarian pottery, the Tasian Culture overlaps the Badarian range significantly. From the Tasian period onward, it appears that Upper Egypt was influenced strongly by the culture of Lower Egypt. Archaeological evidence has suggested that the Tasian and Badarian Nile Valley sites were a peripheral network of earlier African cultures that featured the movement of Badarian, Saharan, Nubian and Nilotic populations.
Badarian culture
The Badarian culture, from about 4400 to 4000 BC, is named for the Badari site near Der Tasa. It followed the Tasian culture but was so similar that many consider it one continuous period. The primary difference that prevents scholars from merging the two periods is that Badarian sites use copper in addition to stone and are thus Chalcolithic settlements. In contrast, the Neolithic Tasian sites are still considered Stone Age. The Badarian Culture continued to produce the kind of pottery called blacktop ware (albeit much improved in quality) and was assigned Sequence Dating numbers 21–29.
Badarian flint tools continued to develop into sharper, more shapely blades, and the first faience was developed. Badarian sites have been located from Nekhen to a bit north of Abydos. It appears that the Fayum A culture and the Badarian and Tasian Periods overlapped significantly; however, these periods were less agricultural and still Neolithic. Cranial analysis and skeletal studies have shown solid biological affinities between Badarians and other African populations.
Dental trait analysis of Badarian fossils found that they were closely related to other Afroasiatic-speaking populations inhabiting Northeast Africa and the Maghreb. Among the ancient people, the Badarians were nearest to other ancient Egyptians (Naqada, Hierakonpolis, Abydos and Kharga in Upper Egypt; Hawara in Lower Egypt), and C-Group and Pharaonic era skeletons excavated in Lower Nubia, followed by the A-Group culture bearers of Lower Nubia, the Kerma and Kush populations in Upper Nubia, the Meroitic, X-Group and Christian period inhabitants of Lower Nubia, and the Kellis population in the Dakhla Oasis. Among the recent groups, the Badari markers were morphologically closest to the Shawia and Kabyle Berber populations of Algeria and Bedouin groups in Morocco, Libya and Tunisia, followed by other Afroasiatic-speaking people in the Horn of Africa. The Late Roman era Badarian skeletons from Kellis were also phenotypically distinct from those belonging to different populations in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Naqada culture
The Naqada culture is an archaeological culture of Chalcolithic Predynastic Egypt (c. 4000–3000 BC), named for Naqada, Qena Governorate. It is divided into three sub-periods: Naqada I, II and III. Several craniometric studies have found Naqada’s skeletal remains to have apparent African affinities. In 1996, Lovell and Prowse reported the presence of individuals buried at Naqada in what they interpreted to be elite, high-status tombs, showing them to be an endogamous ruling or select segment who were significantly different from individuals buried in two other, apparently nonelite cemeteries, and more closely related morphologically to populations in Northern Nubia than those in Southern Egypt.
Amratian culture (Naqada I)
The Amratian culture lasted from about 4000 to 3500 BC. It is named after the site of El-Amra, about 120 km south of Badari. El-Amra is the first site where this culture group was found unmingled with the latter Gerzean culture group. Still, this period is better attested at the Naqada site, also called the Naqada I culture. Black-topped ware continues to appear, but white cross-line ware, a type of pottery decorated with close parallel white lines being crossed by another set of tight parallel white lines, is also found now. The Amratian period falls between SD 30 and 39 in Petrie’s Sequence Dating system.
Newly excavated objects attest to increased trade between Upper and Lower Egypt at this time. A stone vase from the north was found at el-Amra, and copper, which is not mined in Egypt, was imported from the Sinai or possibly Nubia. Obsidian and a small amount of gold were both imported from Nubia. Trade with the oases was also likely.
Innovations appeared in Amratian settlements as precursors to later cultural periods. For example, the mud-brick buildings for which the Gerzean period is known were first seen in Amratian times, but only in small numbers. Additionally, oval and theriomorphic cosmetic palettes appear in this period, but the artistry is very rudimentary, and the relief artwork for which they were later known is not yet present.
Gerzean culture (Naqada II)
The Gerzean culture, from about 3500 to 3200 BC, is named after the site of Gerzeh. It was the next stage in Egyptian cultural development, and during this time, the foundation of Dynastic Egypt was laid. Gerzean culture is essentially an unbroken development out of Amratian Culture, starting in the Delta and moving south through upper Egypt but failing to dislodge Amratian culture in Nubia. Gerzean pottery is assigned values from SD 40 through 62 and distinctly differs from Amratian white cross-lined wares or black-topped ware. The pottery was painted in dark red with pictures of animals, people, ships, and geometric symbols derived from animals. Also, “wavy” handles, rare before this period (though occasionally found as early as SD 35), became more common and elaborate until they were almost entirely ornamental.
Gerzean culture coincided with a significant decline in rainfall, and farming along the Nile now produced the vast majority of the food. However, contemporary paintings indicate that hunting was not entirely forgone. With increased food supplies, Egyptians adopted a much more sedentary lifestyle, and cities grew as large as 5,000.
At this time, Egyptian city dwellers stopped building with reeds and began mass-producing mud bricks, first found in the Amratian Period, to develop their cities.
While still in use, Egyptian stone tools moved from bifacial to ripple-flaked construction. Copper was used for various tools, and the first copper weaponry appeared here. Silver, gold, lapis, and faience were used ornamentally, and the grinding palettes used for eye paint since the Badarian period began to be adorned with relief carvings.
The first tombs in classic Egyptian style were also built, modelled after ordinary houses, and sometimes composed of multiple rooms. Although further excavations in the Delta are needed, this style is generally believed to have originated there and not in Upper Egypt.
Although the Gerzean Culture is now clearly identified as the continuation of the Amratian period, significant Mesopotamian influence worked its way into Egypt during the Gerzean, interpreted in previous years as evidence of a Mesopotamian ruling class, the so-called Dynastic Race, coming to power over Upper Egypt. This idea no longer attracts academic support.
Distinctly, foreign objects and art forms entered Egypt during this period, indicating contact with several parts of Asia. Things such as the Gebel el-Arak knife handle, which has patently Mesopotamian relief carvings, have been found in Egypt, and the silver appearing in this period can only have been obtained from Asia Minor.
In addition, Egyptian objects are created that mimic Mesopotamian forms, although not slavishly. Cylinder seals appear in Egypt, as well as recessed panelling architecture. The Egyptian reliefs on cosmetic palettes are made in the same style as the contemporary Mesopotamian Uruk culture. The ceremonial mace heads, which turn up from the late Gerzean and early Semainean, are crafted in the Mesopotamian “pear-shaped” style instead of the Egyptian native style.
When the Dynastic Race Theory was still famous, it was theorized that Uruk sailors circumnavigated Arabia. This trade route is difficult to determine, but contact with Canaan does not predate the early dynastic, so it is usually assumed to have been conducted over water. Still, a Mediterranean route, probably by intermediaries through Byblos, is more likely, as evidenced by the presence of Byblian objects in Egypt.
The fact that so many Gerzean sites are at the mouths of wadis that lead to the Red Sea may indicate some trade via the Red Sea (though Byblian trade could have crossed the Sinai and taken the Red Sea). Also, it is considered unlikely that something so complicated as recessed panel architecture could have worked its way into Egypt by proxy, and at least a small contingent of migrants is often suspected.
Despite this evidence of foreign influence, Egyptologists generally agree that the Gerzean Culture is still predominantly indigenous to Egypt.
Protodynastic Period (Naqada III)
The Naqada III period, from about 3200 to 3000 BC, is generally identical to the Protodynastic period, during which Egypt was unified.
Naqada III is notable for being the first era with hieroglyphs (though some dispute this), the first regular use of serekhs, the first irrigation, and the first appearance of royal cemeteries.
The relatively affluent Maadi suburb of Cairo is built over the original Naqada stronghold.
Bioarchaeologist Nancy Lovell stated that there is a sufficient body of morphological evidence to indicate that ancient southern Egyptians had physical characteristics “within the range of variation” of both ancient and modern indigenous peoples in the Sahara and tropical Africa. She summarised, “In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas” but exhibited local variation in an African context.
