Abstract
Funerary landscapes are eminent results of the relationship between environments and superstructural human behavior, spanning over wide territories and growing over centuries. The comprehension of such cultural palimpsests needs substantial research efforts in the field of human ecology. The funerary landscape of the semi-arid region of Kassala (Eastern Sudan) represents a solid example. Therein, geoarchaeological surveys and the creation of a desk-based dataset of thousands of diachronic funerary monuments (from early tumuli up to modern Beja people islamic tombs) were achieved by means of fieldwork and remote sensing over an area of ∼4100 km2. The wealth of generated information was employed to decipher the spatial arrangement of sites and monuments using Point Pattern Analysis. The enormous number of monuments and their spatial distribution are here successfully explained using, for the first time in archaeology, the Neyman-Scott Cluster Process, hitherto designed for cosmology. Our study highlights the existence of a built funerary landscape with galaxy-like aggregations of monuments driven by multiple layers of societal behavior. We suggest that the distribution of monuments was controlled by a synthesis of opportunistic geological constraints and cultural superstructure, conditioned by the social memory of the Beja people who have inhabited the region for two thousand years and still cherish the ancient tombs as their own kin's.
Highlights
Among the many facets of archaeological vestiges, burials and funerary monuments are common
Human groups created complex funerary landscapes that sometimes are the palimpsest of funerary monuments belonging to different cultural phases of prehistory and history [2]
We focus on Sudan, whose territory is archaeologically prosperous with countless funerary monumental manifestations of the historical civilizations of the Nile Valley, which has traditionally been the most investigated region by explorers and scholars [10]
Summary
Among the many facets of archaeological vestiges, burials and funerary monuments are common In some cases, they are not inhumations, but rather testify complex societal behaviours; funerary practices symbolize a specific type of human interaction with the landscape [1]. Human groups created complex funerary landscapes that sometimes are the palimpsest of funerary monuments belonging to different cultural phases of prehistory and history [2]. Such built environments are especially well preserved and evident in arid lands because of the lack of vegetation cover. Several arid-land archaeological projects pursued dedicated studies on the topic, each presenting case-specific
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