9.19 Nubian Pottery.

In Shaqadud, east of Khartum in Nubia (present Sudan), excavations revealed corded or burnished wares dated between 6 and 5,000 BC. These had wavy-line inscribed decoration that by 5,500 BC had developed to dotted wavy-line decorated pottery.

Wavy line and dotted wavy line decoration
UC13972 and 14085 - Copyright of the
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL

This pattern is very similar to the earlier pottery of Central Sahara, decorated with a comb/fishbone moved horizontally and up and down, to produce a number of parallel, wavy and dotted lines. The Libyan Desert oases were important staging posts for the previously mentioned migration from the Sahara to the Nile, and there is evidence of the presence in Egypt of some of the residents of the Libyan oases who also retreated to the Nile as the Sahara started to dry out. This desertification was not a steady process, but went in cycles and there were two particularly long stretches of drought between 6 and 5,000 BC. As it became drier and drier, people congregated beside the Nile and, as a consequence, a more sedentary lifestyle was forced on them. There is evidence that another early settlement area in Nubia, Nabta Playa, 100 km west of Abu Simbel, was occupied around 9,000 BC when the climate was much wetter. However, wells had to be used to extend the viability of this region from about 7,000 BC. Evidence has been found of ceramics made locally there around 6,000 BC with combed patterns. They had sheep before 6,000 BC and from about 5,000 BC they too had a cattle cult.

Cattle appear to have been domesticated on three independent occasions – Saharan Africa around 7,000 BC, the Fertile Crescent 6,000 BC and the Indus Valley 5,000 BC. The first two were probably derived from wild Aurocks, which are the predecessors of domesticated European cattle, while the third was the humped variety, derived from the Gaur or wild ox.

9.20 The Nile

The importance of the Nile for transport and communications is reflected in the invention of very early, sizeable, multi-oared boats around 6,000 BC that were depicted in Egyptian rock art.  Around 5,000 BC, about the same time as in Mesopotamia, they developed single, square, cloth sails, good for running with the wind. They may have had woven reed sails before this. A pottery vase illustrating such a sailing boat has been found dated to 3,500 BC. The Nile provided fish, waterfowl, reeds for baskets and matting, and clay for pottery and bricks. Date and doum (gingery flavoured nut) palms grew near any water. Papyrus also grew abundantly in the marshy and crocodile infested Nile Valley and was later cultivated for food, for making boats, furniture, rope, matting and sandals, but most notably to us for papyrus writing material, which became an important Egyptian export. The word paper was derived from papyrus. The swampy Nile Valley was slowly drained to grow grain, and once cereals became abundant meat became a mainly richer person’s dish. Native sheep were replaced by the Asiatic variety and goats were also introduced from West Asia in the 6th millennium BC. Ducks and geese were domesticated, as was the dog used for hunting (possibly from the jackal). Around 4,000 BC cattle became more extensively used for food and oxen for transport, pulling carts and ploughs, and the donkey was domesticated to become the main beast of burden. Cats were first domesticated in Egypt as pets, and no doubt to catch rodents.

The following Cultures are not definite as there is not a lot of evidence to go on. Also some might overlap in time and have different geographical coverage. However what follows is a reasonable representation of the likely chronology.