🇬🇧 Kadruka
Neolithic necropolises in the Ouadi el-Khowi
Under the direction of Olivier Langlois, Philippe Chambon, Pascal Sellier.
Team: Emma Maines (PhD student, Paris I), Aline Thomas (anthropologist, UMR 7206), Louiza Aoudia (anthropologist, Paris X), Rebiha Smaïl (archaeologist, Univeristé d’Alger), Claire Martha (designer, Arts et Métiers Strasbourg), Lucie Cez (doctoral student, Paris I), Wanda Zinger (archaeologist, UR 7206), Hassimi Sambo (archaeologist, University of Yaoundé), Lionel Gourichon (archaeozoologist, CEPAM), Mohamed Saad (NCAM inspector) and Hisham Krar (NCAM inspector).
The wadi el-Khowi, which corresponds to ancient branches or courses of the Nile, is located on the east bank of the river, south of the Third Cataract. It is occupied by a high density of funerary sites and settlements, with Neolithic sites playing an important role. Wind erosion has considerably abraded the settlement sites, which are now only visible as scattered material on the surface. The cemeteries, on the other hand, have held up well because they were built on hillocks, and their excavation is now the best way of understanding the societies that inhabited the region between the 6th and 4th millennia.
Salvage work carried out by the SFDAS —the region has been heavily involved in agricultural development programmes for a number of years— has identified around fifty of these Neolithic burial or settlement sites. Of the twenty or so known cemeteries, six have been fully or partially excavated by the SFDAS. With the exception of two burial mounds containing over a thousand graves, the others contain just over a hundred burials. Nearly 700 burials have been recorded, with dates ranging from approximately 4,800 to 4,000 BC. The constants and variations observed in the material culture and funerary customs seem to reflect both the homogeneity of these populations and the rapid evolution of their social fabric.
These cemeteries bear witness to an increasingly hierarchical organisation. During the Neolithic period, chiefdoms were established with the emergence of a dominant figure. These societies formed the basis of the first protohistoric states, paving the way for the first kingdoms.
The current campaigns are focusing on the excavation of Kom KDK 23 and the KDK 23H settlement, as well as identifying and protecting the major deposits in the region. Continued excavation of the KDK 23 cemetery has led to the discovery of 25 new graves and the identification of its eastern boundary. These discoveries bring the total number of tombs identified in this necropolis to over 100. The density is exceptionally high: up to five individuals buried successively in a space barely larger than 1m². It is possible to observe the way in which previous human remains were treated in the case of cross-burials: bones severed or ripped out, skeletons reintroduced into the backfill of a new burial, remains carefully replaced alongside the new deceased. On the other hand, the preferential location of the youngest subjects in the upper levels, already noted during previous missions, has been confirmed by the latest investigations. It remains to be seen whether this location is linked to a specific chronology for these burials.
Numerous postholes attesting to the presence of settlement structures have been uncovered in sector KDK 23H, close to cemetery KDK 23. These pits are accompanied by a few fragments of archaeological layers located near a hearth identified in 2016. The density of pits decreases upstream of the Nile paleochannel that was identified in 2016. The geoarchaeological study of the sector suggests that the oldest domestic installations, contemporary with the KDK 23 necropolis, were destroyed by the passage of the river: only the remains relating to the most recent Neolithic period have been preserved. Surveys carried out this year suggest that this situation is not unique to the KDK 23 sector. In fact, while a number of koms appear to have housed the dead for a large part of the 5th millennium, the habitats around them have ceramic material on their surfaces that relates to the very end of this period.
In response to the expansion of agricultural cultivation, a series of surveys has been carried out in the Kadruka region to identify the most promising archaeological deposits. The use of the land for agriculture will not make it possible to preserve all the sites, and those that appear to be of major importance need to be demarcated and protected as soon as possible. In particular, area KDK 5, which corresponds to a vast “spreading habitat”, has been the subject of two 9 m² test pits designed to assess its state of conservation and clarify the nature of the archaeological levels and structures present. All revealed numerous post anchorage pits, which appeared immediately beneath the surface sand. One of these, which passed through a hearth, is evidence of a succession of at least 4 levels of occupation at this site. Approaches have been made to the local authorities to preserve from cultivation around twenty sites considered to be major or representative of the occupations in the area.
Bibliography:
- J. Reinold, “El Neolitico en Sudan”, in Nubia, Los reinos del Nilo en Sudan, catalogue de l’exposition à Barcelone et Madrid, Fundacion « La Caixa », 2003, p. 28-34 .
- J. Reinold, Archéologie au Soudan. Les civilisations de la Nubie, Éditions Errance, Paris, 2000.
- J. Reinold, « Le Néolithique de Haute Nubie. Traditions funéraires et structures sociales », Bulletin de la Société française d’égyptologie n° 143, Paris, 1998, p. 19-40.
- J. Reinold, « El-Kadada et Kadruka », dans Nubie. Les cultures antiques du Soudan (B. Gratien et F. Le Saout éd.), Lille, 1994, p. 51-66 et 70-86.
- J. Reinold, « Néolithique soudanais : les coutumes funéraires », dans Egypt and Africa. Nubia from Prehistory to Islam (W.V. Davies éd.), Londres, 1991, p. 16-29.
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
sfdas (4 novembre 2024). 🇬🇧 Kadruka. SFDAS Khartoum. Consulté le 14 janvier 2025 à l’adresse https://sfdas.hypotheses.org/5612
