The Sudanese Nile Valley: the ultimate frontiers of the Aterian and the northern and southern Out-of-Africa routes of early anatomically modern humans.

The Sudanese Nile Valley offers a fresh perspective on two extensively debated topics: the eastern geographical extent of the Aterian and the northern vs. southern route of the Out-of-Africa dispersals of anatomically modern humans. Firstly, the assumption, based on the Egyptian Nile Valley, that human groups associated with Aterian industries had very rarely extended to the Nile Valley should be reconsidered, at least as far as the Sudanese Nile Valley is concerned. Recent research and republications of previously excavated collections demonstrate Aterian occurrences in the Sudanese Nile Valley. Secondly, scholars working in either North Africa or East Africa tend to propose alternative, dichotomous views and see their area of interest as “the” privileged migration launchpad. The Sudanese Nile Valley is in a geographical position that definitively rules out this antithesis and its Middle Stone Age evidence offers substantial contributions supporting both northern and southern routes. Sudan’s Upper Pleistocene anatomically modern human populations likely brought cultural influences in both directions, to the Levant, through the northern route, and to the Arabian Peninsula through the southern route.