The Gilf Kebir Plateau is situated in the far Southwest of Egypt, to the South of the Great Sand Sea and about 650 km to the west of the Nile valley. Although nowadays part of one of the earth s most arid deserts, the valleys of the Gilf Kebir offered favourable conditions for prehistoric settlement during the so-called Neolithic wet phase from the middle of the 7th to the middle of the 4th millennium BC. Human occupation was favoured by the fact that wadis were blocked by north-south trending dunes which resulted in the formation of temporary lakes (playas) upvalley. Since the early eighties numerous sites in the vicinity of the playa and the barrier dune in the Wadi Bakht were excavated. They were dated in the Middle Neolithic (6500-4350 calBC) and the Late Neolithic (4350-3500 calBC). Since the Middle and the Late Neolithic are clearly distinguished by their material culture, one of the research subjects is to find out whether the various lithic inventories can be related to different mode of production in regard t different strategies of land use. Since 1995 archaeological investigations of the ACACIA project have been conducted in the area of Regenfeld (south-eastern Great Sand Sea). The excavations and surveys give new evidence for the epipalaeolithic reoccupation of the desert by prehistoric people, and for the occupation during the Early and Middle Holocene when the climate changed to better conditions. Radiocarbon analysis dates the earliest epipalaeolithic remains in this area to 8300 BC. Moreover, epipalaeolithic and mid-neolithic features fall between 8000 and 6000 BC. Nevertheless, the Great Sand Sea during the so-called holocene wet-event was far from being a paradise, offering only sparse resources. Archaeological research allows us to reconstruct the cultural and economic development and adaptation to the changing environment. The question of economic change and the introduction of domestic animals and pastoralism may be discussed, based on the evidence from plant and bone remains (surveys by B. Eichhorn and H. Berke). Domestic fauna is not documented in the archaeological inventories, but there are rich remains of hunted wild animals (gazelle, addax, hare, ostrich). Except, a small mandible fragment excavated from a small mid-neolithic site which belongs probably to cattle. Although the Sand Sea was occupied, there is no indication that the camp sites could be used for longer streches of time. The prehistoric groups had to travel seasonally or temporarily from site to site, or to more favoured regions, when the small water pools ran dry. The identification of exotic artefacts and raw materials focus on such movement. Prehistoric pottery of the surveyed desert regions of ACACIA and B. O. S. project fall to the period between 6500 BC and the end of the holocene wet-event. Potsherd samples of excavated or collected inventories are archived for comparative studies. Data about the ceramics (temper, surface ...
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