The Complex Taxonomy of ‘Nubian’ in Context

Abstract

The meaning of the word ‘Nubian’ in Middle Palaeolithic archaeology has changed markedly since its first published use in 1965 in the context of the Nubian rescue campaign in southern Egypt and northern Sudan. Initially referring to two types of prepared point cores, ‘Nubian’ later became attached to a widespread technocomplex in the 1990s and in more recent research describes a specific Levallois reduction strategy. In this review, we situate ‘Nubian’ in its geographic and historical contexts, exploring how its terminology and concepts emerged, developed, and are now viewed in the frame of subsequent research. Whilst the taxonomic origin of the Nubian descriptor—as a technology or technocomplex—is associated with this region of northeastern Africa, its widespread distribution, as shown in the works presented in this collection, suggests that Nubian reduction played as complex a role in past human behaviour and cultural dynamics as it does in current archaeological debates.