Labels

1IMP 2IMP Abu Simbel Abusir Abydos Aegean Afterlife books Alexandria Amarna Amduat Archaeology Asyut Atfih Avaris Beni Hassan Bible Book of the Dead Bubastis Buhen Coffin Texts Coptic Dahshur Deir el Gebrâwi Deir el Medina Demotic Dendera Early Dynastic East Desert Edfu El Bersheh El Kab Fayum GIS Giza Greco-Roman Hermopolis Hieraconpolis KV. Karnak Khufu Kom Ombo Lahun Late Period Levant Libya Luxor Medinet Habu Meir Memphis Menkaure Mesopotamia Middle Kingdom Mo'alla Naqada New Kingdom Nubia Old Kingdom Papyrology Philae Punt Pyramid Texts Queenship Ramesseum Red Sea Saqqara Sarapeum Seti 1 Sphinx TT Thebes Tutankhamon West desert agriculture amulets animals architecture art astronomy bibliography biology boats body-soul calenders ceramics chronology climate coffins conservation coregency cosmology cult daily life deities dictionary domestic life dress economy egyptology embalming encyclopedia epigraphy erasures ethnicity excavations festivals figurines funerary beliefs furniture gender general and popular geography graffiti health hermetism hieratic hieroglyphs history international relations journals juridical king-lists kingship kinship landscape lecture (video) letters literature magic materials mathematics mummies museums music mythology names nilometer numismatics oasis osteoarchaeology ostraca papyri personal piety philology photo archive pigments poetry predynastic priesthood pyramid temples pyramids quarries reception history religion rituals rock art sculpture settlements shipping social organisation social relations stelae syncretism temples textiles texts thechnology titles tombs tourist guide trade transport travels urbanity ushabti warfare wisdom texts writing

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Shirai: The archaeology of the first farmer-herders in Egypt

Shirai, Noriyuki (2010)
The archaeology of the first farmer-herders in Egypt: 
new insights into the Fayum Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic
Doctoral thesis


Abstract
This book explores how and why farming and herding started in a particular time period in a particular region of Egypt. The earliest Neolithic farming in combination with herding in Egypt is known in the Fayum, which is a large oasis with a permanent lake in the Egyptian Western Desert. Farming and herding started at the transition from the Epipalaeolithic to Neolithic in the 6th millennium cal.BC owing to the arrival of Levantine domesticates. The Neolithic farmer-herders in the Fayum relied heavily on hunting and fishing, which had been the major subsistence activities since the Epipalaeolithic period. There are no remains of substantial dwellings to indicate that these farmer-herders lived a sedentary way of life. Previous researchers have thus asserted that the Fayum people were nomadic and moved seasonally. Lithic evidence obtained through new research suggests that the Fayum people were not nomadic but were tethered to lakeshores. The introduction of farming and herding would not have taken place in the Fayum without a lakeshore-tethered if not fully sedentary way of life. But the success of a farming-herding way of life in the Fayum would not have been possible without the reorganisation of mobility, which led to decreased moves of residential bases and increased logistical moves of individuals. Lithic evidence also suggests that the Fayum people kept exerting special efforts to make farming and herding a reliable subsistence and to maximise the yield. The introduction of farming and herding in the Fayum would have been a solution to mitigate growing population/resource imbalances when the climate became drier and more people had to aggregate around permanent water sources in the 6th millennium cal.BC.

No comments:

Post a Comment