The Prehistory of the Sudan

More than 30 national and international research teams are currently active and new remarkable discoveries are unearthed every year. Continuous new data, analyzed with the most up-to-date scientific techniques (geochemistry, genetics, biomolecular archaeology, palynology, accurate radiometric dating, etc.), offer a prominent contribution to the general theoretical and methodological panorama of world archaeology. By contrast, very few people outside Sudan know that the archaeology of this country has been explored and appreciated since the 1700s. Because of the presence of the Nile River and the ancient region of Nubia in northern Sudan, this country’s archaeology is often associated with that of Egypt, at the same time as it is often eclipsed by the fame of Egyptian antiquities. Sudanese archaeology is still rarely involved in scientific debates on global archaeology, Middle Eastern archaeology, or even African archaeology. It is hardly ever mentioned in university textbooks and books for the general public as it is seemingly perceived as a niche topic. The media almost totally ignore it, except for the special occasions of the European exhibitions held decades ago (e.g., Munich, 1996; Paris, 1997; Amsterdam, Toulouse, Mannheim, 1998; London, 2004). This book aims to fill this gap. It is addressed to Africanist archaeologists who study other parts of Africa; to prehistorians investigating other parts of the world; to archaeology students and teachers interested in having a global view on human adaptation and behavior in ancient Sudan; to science journalists, and to antiquity admirers and learned tourists who travel to Sudan and Nubia. African archaeology, Mediterranean archaeology, Asian archaeology, and perhaps also New World archaeology could be better understood and placed if they were viewed within a comprehensive panorama on long-distance trade, convergences, and divergences. For all of these reasons, this volume is intended to fit the general scope of this book series, which aims at offering contributions “from” Africa to the outside world. The main topics comprise the Out-of-Africa dispersals of early hominins and anatomically modern humans, the last hunters-fishers-gatherers, the early food producers and users of domestic plants and animals either local or imported from the Near East, and the presuppositions of the rise of the kingdoms of Kerma, Pharaonic Egypt, and Axum on the basis of the latest available data. Beside the Nile Valley, the various geographical regions of Sudan, which are an integral part of the country’s history, are attentively taken into consideration.