Review of Predynastic Development in the Nile Valley

Abstract

The article attempts to review the predynastic development of ancient Egypt. The characteristics of the neolithic sites of Fayum and Merimde are summarised and the relations of these "cultures" discussed. In this connection the development at Khartoum is investigated. The problems of dating these sites are considered and the possibility of their very early date is noted. The better-documented evidence of development from the Badarian to the late Gerzean periods is presented and the origins of these cultures discussed. The view is put forward that these "cultures" correspond to peaceful evolution as opposed to infiltration and domination of one culture by another. The classic views of Sir Flinders Petrie and others are discussed in the light of more recent work and re-analysis of predynastic material. In the concluding section attention is drawn to some of the most important problems and questions which still remain to be answered. The comparative ignorance about predynastic Egyptian development is attributed, in great part, to the lack of modern scientific excavations of predynastic sites.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 65 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.