Divergent pathways to early food production and early complex societies. Archaeozoological data from northeastern Africa.

Food production was probably the most important development in human history, appearing first about 10,000 years ago. It launched a whole chain of other developments, beginning with the emergence of complex societies, displaying new features, such as social inequality. The developments finally resulted in our present-day, global and industrialized society. Many of its problems, such as the environmental ones, have very early roots. Because the Fertile Crescent is Europe's cradle of food production, many researchers are rusted in the models valid there, for example that stock keeping and farming were usually spread as one package. Research in other areas, like northern Africa, shows that the possible pathways are in fact very diverse and are determined largely by the natural environment. At the basis of the proposed project is the analysis of faunal remains from archaeological sites in the Egyptian and Sudanese Nile Valley. Four very specific themes, crucial in the framework of early food production and early complex societies, will be investigated: 1) the context of independent cattle domestication in Africa, 2) the regional variation in early food production, 3) elite and elite food production on the natural environment.

Keywords:Arcaeozoology, Egypt, Sudan, Neolithisation, Cattle domestication, Elite, Environmental impact

Disciplines:History