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The
Ecological Context
of Ancient Egyptian Predynastic Settlement
Predynastic Ancient Egypt was a contrast of mixed ecologies. These ranged
from the borderland deserts both to the east and to the west of the
floodplains, to the contrast between the Middle and Upper Egyptian floodplains
itself and the Nile Delta. The differing environments affected not only
settlement regions, but also site positions within those regions as
well as the cultural composition of the inhabitants.
The Lower Egyptian
Cultural-Ecological Sequence
In c. 5 000 BC there was a dip in the level of the Nile floods, which
probably exerted an adverse effect on the subsistence fishing practices
of the Nile Valley inhabitants. This mid-Holocene ecological crisis
effect would also have extended to the plant and animal resources available
on the low desert adjacent to the floodplain, most likely leading to
a readiness on the part of the native Valley inhabitants to experiment
with new social and economic forms. It was a period when desert groups
migrated into the Valley, a consequence of the desert desiccation, and
subsequent cultural and demographic mergers occurred with the Nilotes.
These mergers are evident in the archaeological record by both artifact
and faunal remains.It is unfortunate that until fairly recently the
archaeology of the Delta has largely been disregarded, an error primarily
due not only to the mistaken early impression that it was unimportant
in Egypt's formative periods, but also because of the difficulties of
conducting archaeological excavations there. Knowledge about Predynastic
settlement patterns in Lower Egypt (the Delta) is limited, due to the
low numbers of sites that have been found and excavated. The inner Delta,
which is a vital area as it is possible that it was the key area of
northern Predynastic Egyptian settlement (which it was in later Dynastic
periods), has yet to yield a Predynastic site. Nearly all the sites
are covered either by the watertable (for which special archaeological
water-logged excavation techniques are currently being developed) or
by more modern communities. Sites excavated at the Delta apex and its
margins reveal a different Predynastic cultural pattern to that existing
in Upper Egypt, yet they are too few to be able to determine between
geographical and temporal cultural variations.Those surviving habitation
sites in the Nile Delta built up over time on the higher sections of
gerizas (sand gravel mound formations produced by the Nile floods).
As few pottery sherds have been excavated from the tops of geriza, groups
of people most likely only took refuge on the top during extra-ordinarily
high Nile floods; the tops were also too distant from the areas of cultivation
for permanent settlement.
Merimda Beni Salama
The earliest known Neolithic settlement in either the Nile Valley or
Delta is that of Merimda on the western Delta margin of the desert,
whose beginnings date from between c. 5 000 - 4 800 BC and are represented
in the basal layers of the 180 000 sq. m. site. The site, with a 2m
cultural deposit, is situated on a low rise above the modern floodplain,
thereby overlooking the Delta floodplain, and is set against low hills
of a sandy Pleistocene 60m terrace.The early inhabitants possessed a
similar way to life to their Fayum counterparts (described below), with
a mixed hunting, fishing and cultivation economy. The settlements were
composed of scattered shelters, with the middle occupation yielding
similar postholes to that of the Fayum and more substantial subterranean
homes only appearing in the uppermost levels that date to c. 4 300 BC.
The granaries had also been integrated within the village by c. 4 300,
leading to the belief that a differential formal organization of houses
had occurred.
The Fayum
The Fayum is another excellent example of a Lower Egyptian settlement
region displaying good evidence of a "Neolithicized" community.
The largest Fayum Neolithic site is Kom W (c. 4 700 BC), whose bone
and animal remains indicate a highly diverse diet which included fish,
and cattle and hartebeest meat. The cereal grains are from emmer wheat
and two-rowed barley. No permanent housing structures have been detected
(but with there being post-holes, suggesting that their structures were
of oval shape with the poles overlain with mats or reeds), although
there are hundreds of hearths, granary pits, potsherds and lithic debris.
The settlements' communal underground granaries were strategically positioned
in higher ground slightly away from the habitation in order to avoid
spoiling from ground water. These factors indicate that the inhabitants
possessed a mixed pattern of subsistence and residential mobility, a
combination of fully agricultural sedentary communities, nomadic herders
and hunter-gatherers.If indeed such a para-agricultural mode of life
existed in the Fayum, a symbiotic relationship may also have existed
with the more fully agricultural communities in the Valley and the Delta.
The tentative steps towards the beginning of agricultural life at Kom
W, and indeed the Fayum as a whole, could well have been hindered by
the pitfalls of pursuing agriculture along the Fayum lake shores. Coupled
with this was the high productivity and stability of the marsh fauna
and flora that would have attracted the inhabitants towards fishing,
hunting and gathering.
El-Omari
Approximately contemporary with Merimda's final occupation (c. 4300
BC) is an assemblage of habitation sites and cemeteries, collectively
termed El-Omari, and which survive down into early Dynastic times. These
assemblages are situated nearby and in the mouth of the Wadi Hof (between
Cairo and Helwan), most likely cultivable land then.The main settlement
is situated on a gravel terrace that slopes down to the Wadi Hof estuary.
A smaller site, contemporary with the estuary community, has been discovered
near two natural rain catchments on one of Jebel Hof's tallest terraces.
It is hypothesised that the latter, and other high settlements, were
established as naturally defended outpost of the former and other lower
habitations.The Merimda, Fayum and El-Omari occupations thus provide
clear evidence of functional cultural settlements in Lower Egypt before
4000 BC. Yet there are few sites (apart from El-Omari) spanning 4000
- 3700 BC, a period when large and functionally complex societies were
flourishing in Upper Egypt, the most important being at Hierakonpolis.
The Upper Egyptian Cultural-Ecological Sequence Throughout Ancient
Egyptian history, the majority of settlements were located on the Nile
floodplain while the Upper Egyptian cemeteries were often positioned
slightly beyond the edge of the cultivated land, in the desert margins.
As a consequence, many settlement sites (with the exception of those
constructed on reasonably high ground or, in the example of Kom Ombo,
on tells - the residential debris of previous sedentary communities)
have either been covered by silt or simply washed away as the river
changed course, thus providing an explanation for the low ratio of Upper
Egyptian Predynastic living-sites in relation to their known cemeteries.
Another reason is probably due in part to earlier excavators’ priorities.
The Predynastic cemeteries, containing much grave goods (some of which
were made from exotic materials), attracted greater interest to excavate
than habitation sites either disturbed by digging for sebakh (organic
remains utilized as fertilizer) or else wiped out by the more recent
expanding floodplain agriculture.The Nile floodplain was lower between
c. 8 000 - 5 000 BC than it is in modern times and this, coupled with
the valley also being narrower then (averaging c. 2km in many areas),
has resulted in even the cemeteries positioned along the then flooded
land margins having been buried under more recent alluvium deposits.Until
the early 1960s, Middle Egypt (to the north of Badari and south of Memphis)
was believed to have been uninhabited in Predynastic times. However,
work conducted by the geologist Karl Butzer has revealed that cemeteries
dating to this period in time were probably either wiped out by shifts
in the channel of the Nile or are buried beneath substantial sand and
alluvium deposits. Those surviving Predynastic living-sites are all
positioned on embankments that are several metres above the modern alluvium
level. Their survival is therefore fortuitous. Butzer further hypothesizes
that the low settlement density in the region between Memphis and the
Upper Egyptian sites may also have been the result of the large natural
Middle Egyptian flood basins that "would have required massive
labour to bring under control". By contrast, the flood basins from
Abydos southwards, in Upper Egypt, were smaller and thereby more easily
controllable than those from further north and the Delta.Interpretations
differ concerning the exact nature of these first complex societies.
Kemp hypothesizes that a "primate" settlement pattern existed,
i.e. the majority of the population lived in the towns, thus leading
to functional changes towards rapid centralization and economic functional
differential. The same data, however, has been analyzed by Hassan who
has proposed a "rank" system, i.e. economic and socio-political
systems with comparatively little authoritative or administrative centralization,
and which were first and foremost symbolic of a new order of life as
well as centres for the sacred shrine and deities. The "rank"
system, whereby settlements were strategically placed in order to maximize
control over the valley inhabitants, came into being as a result of
the linearity and narrowness of the floodplain that limited the available
cultivable land and thereby also the potential for the growth of pre-industrial
settlements in a way that, by comparison, the Mesopotamian settlements
were not.It seems at first glance an ecological paradox that Upper Egypt
was the initial heartland of cultural complexity and not Lower Egypt
with its wide fertile lands and richer diversity in resources due to
its contact with the Mediterranean lands. Yet the Upper Egyptian flood
basins were smaller in size and therefore easier to control for agricultural
purposes. The early state formation model of Carneiro could well thus
be relevant in this context, as he hypothesizes that a sharp population
rise in restricted agricultural environments leads to pressure on the
available resources and military competition over land ensues.
The Badari
The Badari area is located on the Nile east bank, roughly 30km to the
south of Assyut, where Badarian (4800 - 4000 BC) settlements and graves
extend 33 km southwards in the Mostagedda and Matmar region. There are
41 cemeteries and 40 settlement locations in the low desert that overlooks
the floodplain beneath the high desert limestone plateau cliffs. The
dwellings of the Badarians were similar to those Lower Egyptian sites
mentioned.A connection can be seen between the cemeteries, and the floodplain
and desert-edged settlements that suggests the Badarians were seasonal
occupiers of the plain. The Badarian settlement areas are modest and
deposits are thin, which suggests that villages did not exist for long
periods on the same site. The 40 habitation site strip from Badari-Mostagedda
can be subdivided up into three subregional settlement clusters and
various subclusters. The fact that these sites were short-lived suggests
lively inter-action between ecological and social influences. The floodplain
narrows here and this would have stinted the development of large individual
settlement. This would have coupled with the stochastic fluctuations
small populations are subjected to - the inhabitants of a community
joining that of another community when their settlement population numbers
decline.
Hierakonpolis The settlements at Hierakonpolis differ from the usual
Predynastic communities, settled mostly on the low desert escarpments
paralleling the floodplain, by extending both parallel and perpendicular
to the river banks.Hierakonpolis contains the entire Nagada I - III
cultural sequence (c. 4000 - 3100 BC), stretching back to the end of
the Badarian. Excavations by Hoffman have led him to conclude that the
initial settlement at Hierakonpolis was by colonists from more northern
unspecified sectors of Upper Egypt. Hoffman also hypothesizes that there
was a "population explosion" between 3800 and 3400 BC, with
the central sector of the settlement supporting between 5000 - 10 000
inhabitants. The growth he attributes to the region’s ecological
diversity and incredible agricultural potential. This Nagada Ic - IIa
period was also one of regional expansion, with clustered rectangular
house settlements and Hierakonpolis becoming a centre for pottery production.The
Neolithic Subpluvial (resulting from the southward shift of the Mediterranean
rainbelts) lasted from c. 7000 - 3000 BC, the rainfall estimates for
the Hierakonpolis region ranging from 5cm to 25cm per year. Even 5cm
of rainfall would have resulted in a regular seasonal runoff from the
surrounding highlands for the Great Wadi at Hierakonpolis, enriching
the surrounding environment enabling plant and animal life to prosper
in this semi-desert.The rainfall would have been between January and
February, meaning that the inhabitants of the district of Hierakonpolis
practiced two different agricultural regimes: "dry" farming
in the Wadi and basin irrigation on the floodplain. As the floodplain
and the Wadi are separated by a substantial distance, and taking into
account that each regime requires its own special cultivation technique
as well as the cultivation taking place in both places at the same time
(late March and early April being the harvesting period), the local
predynastic society was most likely divided into two units - one living
in the desert borderlands of the Wadi by a combination of farming, hunting
and herding, and the other existing either on or nearby the floodplain
in areas like the Nagada II town practicing basin irrigation agriculture
(which began during this period) as well as fishing and plying their
trade along the Nile.The decline in rainfall at the end of the Neolithic
Subpluvial signified the end of the wadi-based constituent of the Hierakonpolis
regional subsistence economy between c. 3300 - 3100 BC. This increasing
desiccation led to a settlement shift of the desert regional inhabitants
that boosted the floodplain population density and thus the numbers
of the available labour force and the base through which local big-men
could increase in importance (similar to Carneiro's state-formation
model previously mentioned). This increase in hierarchical power could
have been achieved by a number of different variants, likely acting
in tandem with one another - providing Nile transportation for trade
goods; as intermediaries for local and regional trade exchanges; acting
as judges in cases involving land, water and dower disputes; able military
leadership; and resources for religious and elite secular building constructions.Apart
from the socio-economic consequences, resulting in the quickening emergence
of an elite, the Saharan pastures were effectively eliminated to a great
extent with the desiccation which rendered the remainder of the Nile
floodplain and the Delta attractive inducements for military expeditions,
conquest and thereby the expansion of the city-state of Hierakonpolis
- during a time of low Nile floods - into one of the world's first nation-states,
Ancient Egypt.
Conclusion
The currently known distributions of Predynastic settlements are determined
by geological rather than by cultural factors. The ecology of the Nile
Valley and Delta also determined the placement of sites within a particular
region, like Merimda on a terrace or the divided Hierakonpolis society
in its formative stages. Yet the unparalleled transport navigability
of the Nile, with each settlement located within a few kilometres of
one another, also provides an explanation for most of Ancient Egypt's
political and religious Dynastic unity.However, it is in this lead-up
to the unification of the Nile city-states under Hierakonpolis that
the environment plays one of its most important roles. The end of the
Neolithic Subpluvial (thus ruling out expansion into the desert) and
the pressure brought to bear by the decreased Nile floods (thereby putting
strain on agricultural production), in tandem with the increased population,
made the rest of the Valley and the Delta look increasingly attractive
for various means of expansion.
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