The Mid-Holocene bifacial projectile points from Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt: Implications concerning origins of the knapping tradition, changing hunting patterns, the local neolithic, and African cultural independence

Abstract

The bifacial lithic technology used to produce the numerous arrowheads found in North Africa in the Mid-Holocene is generally thought to have arrived from the Levant, imported with the Neolithic farming tradition after 6200 BCE. However, evidence from Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt, suggests that few Neolithic traits were adopted, while the local bifacial knapping tradition developed independently of the Levant. A group of points from the Dakhleh Bashendi A unit, thought derived from the small points of the Levantine Pottery Neolithic, actually appear much earlier in Dakhleh and evolved locally. Likewise, large points in Dakhleh, usually equated with the large arrowheads of the Levantine PPNB, again developed locally. They were produced by a different chaîne opératoire, while their dimensions and morphology suggest they tipped spears rather than arrows, for use against large Mid-Holocene game animals. A similar range of large points is found in the Fayum Oasis and at Merimde in the Nile Delta, and smaller versions occur westward in the Central Sahara, but in both cases long after they first appeared in Dakhleh. In the Fayum and Merimde, the Dakhleh hollow-based large point was modified to deal with dangerous animals such as crocodiles.