Four Thousand Years of Pottery Technology by Foragers in Jebel Sabaloka, Middle Nile Valley (Sudan)

Early-middle Holocene foragers in the Middle Nile Valley, in current Sudan, have long been known for their expertise in pottery manufacturing. Their most emblematic culture is called Early Khartoum (Sudan’s present capital city), which is widespread in central Sudan. Together with pottery, these foragers feature other innovative technical (ground stone tools, microlithic industries, and bone, horn, and shell tools) and social solutions (cemeteries) within (semi-)permanent occupations. Production of pottery vessels appeared since the beginning of Early Khartoum occupations. It displays high-quality manufactures consisting of vessels with surfaces mostly decorated with impressions and incisions. The earliest safe evidence comes from Jebel Sabaloka, a volcanic mountain upstream of the Sixth Nile Cataract, 80 km north of Khartoum, investigated since 2009 by the Charles University Sabaloka Expedition (Prague, Czech Republic). To date, 30 Early Khartoum sites have been recorded along the western fringe of Jebel Sabaloka and are dated from the ninth to the early fifth millennium BCE. One of them, Sphinx, 3.5 km from the Nile River, was extensively excavated with 11 trenches. Pottery at this site occurs throughout the 1.2-m thick deposit, increasing from the lower to the upper levels. Analyses of pottery technology aimed at correlating cultural change to technological and chronological variability. This paper aims at observing the transformative technology of the production and use of pottery vessels for over four millennia.