The Sudan Handbook

eaRly states on the nile 61

human occupation of this region of the Nile Valley. Red and yellow iron

oxide was collected here, apparently for use as pigments, and this has

been claimed as evidence of early artistic activity. The climate at that time

was relatively humid but became arid soon after.

The earliest and most representative Palaeolithic site in central Sudan

is Khor Abu Anga in Omdurman, discovered in 1949. The site is associ-

ated with the long period of human history in which our ancestors used

simple stone tools and lived by hunting and gathering. Other sites from

this era have been recorded in Wadi Halfa and Argin, while later Lower

and Middle Palaeolithic sites were also found in the Dongola Reach.

A cemetery at Jebel Sahaba dated towards the end of the Palaeolithic

period has been called the earliest war cemetery in the world. Here lie

the remains of up to    53   men, women and children, most of them slain

by stone-tipped arrows.

Mesolithic populations were hunter-gatherers who developed seden-

tary societies with a food-collecting economy. In Sudan, they lived along

the Nile and its tributaries, exploiting riverine resources, producing

pottery and utilizing tools of stone and bone. The Mesolithic period

(8500–5500 bce) in the Nile Valley was first noted as a result of excava-

tion at Khartoum hospital by A.J Arkell, a British colonial administrator

and archaeologist. Arkell’s excavations in  1949     at esh-Shaheinab provided

the first evidence of the Early Neolithic period (4900–3800 bce) in

central Sudan. This period is characterized by a more systematic food

producing economy, with the harvesting of wild grains of barley and

sorghum and herding of cattle and goats. During this period the climate

in the Sahara was warm and humid.

The First Urban Civilization and Relations with Egypt

Towards the end of the Neolithic, extensive urban settlement began

in the Northern Dongola Reach; evidence for this has been located

beneath one of the cemeteries at Kerma. Until recently considered

to be a small rural settlement, it is clear that in the third millennium

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors bce^ there^ was^ a^ large^ urban^ complex^ here^ surrounded^ by^ massive^ and^

(www.riftvalley.net).