Paleolithic: 100,000 - 30,000 BC
Between the Lower and Middle Paleolithic
eras, the Abbassia Pluvial ended and the Sahara returned to a desert
state. By this time Homo erectus had evolved into Homo
neanderthalensis, and began to escape the encroaching desert by
migrating to the Nile Valley and to the oases that were left, such as
the one at Kharga.
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- It was about this time that a more efficient
stone tool industry developed. Called Levalloisian after the site in
France where tools of this style were first discovered, it involves
the making of several stone tools from one piece of stone by chipping
a number of similarly sized and shaped flakes from around the circumference
of the stone. This technique was a good step over the previous techniques
which often required an entire stone to make a single tool, or if multiple
flakes were taken from a single stone, they would be of varying sizes,
many unusable. With this technique, numerous thin, sharp, almost identical
flakes could be made and only slightly reshaped to make what was desired.
The standardization of stone tools, as well as the development of several
new tools had begun. Most importantly, the Levalloisian industry resulted
in an invention that would change everything that had come before: the
spear point.
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- Levallois points not only had a better
piercing point, they were also made to be fitted to wooden shafts. The
advantages of a stone spear point over a sharpened wood one permitted
a great increase in hunting efficiency, as well as a change in hunting
tactics. The stone spear point may even have led to another trait of
the Middle Paleolithic, which was the focus of tribal attention on one
particular type of game, such as sheep or goats, a step toward domestication.
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- It was during Middle Paleolithic times
that early humans began to spread throughout the area. The development
of these new stone industries and survival techniques, coupled with
the Mousterian Pluvial (which was even greater than the Abbassian that
preceded it) between 50,000 and 30,000 BC caused a widespread distribution
of early human culture. Whereas Lower Paleolithic sites are few and
far between, Middle Paleolithic sites are scattered all over Egypt and
the Sudan, from the Nile Valley to the coast of the Red Sea to even
the now-hostile Liqiya depression in the southern Libyan Desert. The
Mousterian Pluvial caused the Sahara to bloom like never before, not
only in vegetation and wildlife, but also in new human settlements.
By this time, early humans (still Neanderthaloid) had spread to almost
every habitable area of North Africa.
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- Two new industries emerged during the
Mousterian Pluvial, those being the Aterian Industry and the Khormusan
Industry. The Aterian Industry, named for the type site at Bir-el-Ater
in Tunisia, began some time around 40,000 BC, about the middle of the
pluvial, and ended just shy of 30,000 BC. Aterian points are characterized
by a distinct "tang" or plug on the bottom, which allowed
for a more secure fit to the spear shaft. Originally thought to be arrow
points, Aterian points may have been far too bulky to be used on primitive
arrows, and were more likely points for a smaller variety of spear,
the dart, which was more efficient in hunting small game than the normal-sized
spear. Another invention of the Aterian Industry was that of the spear-thrower,
a small length of wood with a notch at one end for the back end of the
spear shaft, which allowed for greater power in throws as well as greater
accuracy. These new developments permitted increased efficiency in hunting
large grazing animals. The discoveries of gigantic stores of animal
remains and human artifacts at site BT-14 attest to the success of these
new hunting methods as well as the success of the settlement itself.
The bones from this site reveal that our ancestors made use of a wide
variety of animal life such as the white rhinoceros, the now-extinct
Pleistocene camel, gazelles, jackals, warthogs, ostriches, and various
types of antelopes.
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- In the Khormusan Industry, stone tools
became even more varied and advanced, and tools made of bone and ground
hematite became widespread. Of course, these industries did not follow
one another one by one, but rather overlap by several thousand years
as well as in area. The Khormusan is noted above all for the prolific
use of a small, sharp point that greatly resembles the early arrow points
of the Native Americans. In fact, such points were used during the Upper
Paleolithic to tip the arrows developed at that time. Whether the Khormusans
developed bow technology is still under debate, as is whether the Aterians
did. Regardless, the Khormusans were certainly efficient hunters, as
well as being gatherers and fishers, and their diet resembled that of
the Aterians, and added wild cattle (think of cattle roughly twice as
big as our domestic cattle), and fish from the Nile. These animals came
from many different in the Nile Valley and the surrounding area, so
Khormusan hunting parties must have ranged from the river itself to
the savanna grasslands. These two industries, or rather, these two cultures,
for such they were, existed almost side-by-side until the end of the
pluvial, foreshadowing the the great cultural cross-sections that would
inhabit Dynastic Egypt thousands of years later.
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