Palaeolithic Man and the Nile Valley in Nubia and Upper Egypt: A Study of the Region during Pliocene and Pleistocene Times

Abstract

The first volume of this series (see review, AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol. 32: 677-78) dealt with the Faiyum basin and the adjacent west side of the Nile valley a short distance above Cairo, or more precisely, 125 to 175 miles up the river from the Mediterranean. The present volume is a supplementary report on another segment of the Nile trough, extending from Luxor southward beyond the Egyptian border as far as the third or Semnah cataract in Sudan, or more strictly, Nubia; i.e., between points approximately 425 and 775 miles upstream. As before, the aim is to correlate early human activities with definite geological events, an undertaking to which the specially equipped authors have devoted no less than five field seasons, the present report representing surveys conducted in 1926-7 and 1929-30, supplemented by final checkups in 1930-31. Fully two thirds of the verbal report is devoted to the geological and topographical history of the Nile valley, the remaining portion being divided between description of selected artifacts found in situ and description of typical local petroglyphs. The geologic introduction begins with considerations of the ancient igneous (granitic) and later metamorphic (sandstone, shale, limestone) formations across which the Nile has cut its deep channel. It next demonstrates the existence during Pliocene times of a Mediterranean gulf extending up the Nile trough for a distance of more than 500 miles, as indicated by the presence along the valley sides of breccias and conglomerates ranging up to 180 meters above the present sea level. Beyond the head of this gulf, near Kom Ombo, no Pliocene formations occur, the well-marked fresh-water gravel terraces there present being regarded as of much later origin. The older or upper series of these terraces, considered as of Plio-Pleistocene date, range at levels approximately 300, 200, and 150 feet above the present Nile valley floor; while the younger or lower definitely Pleistocene terraces occur at elevations respectively 100, 50, 30, and 10 feet above the same valley floor, with which all are uniformly parallel for several hundred miles. These extensive gravel terraces are taken to indicate a strong Nile current, or in other words a relatively heavy rainfall, both local and distant. But, following the last or ten foot gravel terrace, a diminution in precipitation-foreshadowing the approach of modern desert conditions-is indicated from below the second cataract northward by the mantling accumulation exclusively of fine silt. This silt phase-still in progress-was at first characterized