Early food production and food producers in prehistoric Sudan

Abstract

Early food production in Sudan dates between the sixth and the fourth millennium BC. With the onset of the Neolithic period, it replaced hunting-gathering and engaged food producers in the extraction, management and use of domestic resources introduced from Southwest Asia (cattle, caprines, wheats and barley) and locally domesticated (sorghum). The Neolithic marked the decline of egalitarian societies and the emergence of social inequality based on the value of wealth and capital as symbols of power and ostentation in life and after death. It also implied the adoption of a series of social patterns and cultural behaviours in all sectors of human life and funerary traditions, spanning from settlement systems to social roles and individual engagements and affecting relationships, prestige values, ideology and symbols. Keywords: Early food production, Neolithic, pastoralism, agropastoralism, Sudan