Radiocarbon dating b p
Straight-backed pointed bladelets, perforators, and large endscrapers made on reused Middle Paleolithic artifacts are the characteristic tools.A few grinding stones and rare sherds of pottery also occur.Several radiocarbon dates place the complex between 9,500 and 8,900 B. There is no evidence that there were wells during this period.It is assumed, then, that these sites represent occupations that took place after the summer rains and before the driest time of the year when surface water was no anger available.Another brief period of aridity between 8.200 and 8,100 B. coincides with the end of the El Ghorab type of Early Neolithic in the desert.With the return of greater rainfall between about 8,0100 B.
The faunal samples from the other two sites are very small.This inference is drawn from the fact that the plant remains in the early Holocene archeological sites are the same as those growing today several hundred kilometers to the south, on the northern margin of the Sahel and the adjacent Sahara, which are in a summer rain-fall regime.The quantity of rainfall was sufficient for seasonal pools or playas to form in large depressions.There are claims that the Africans domesticated cattle first, which seems unlikely as the DNA from African cattle is pretty much restricted to sub Saharan Africa, with minority contribution in Northern Africa and a little in Portugal , whereas it would have been all over the place if it had been first. I’ve added this item because the appearance of the sheep and goats helps to trace the arrival of the Neolithic revolution into Africa. Extracts from: Are the early Holocene cattle in the Eastern Sahara domestic or wild?Fred Wendorf & Romuald Schild (Evolutionary Anthropology 3(4), 1994) In the early Holocene, the Eastern Sahara had more rainfall, probably between 100 and 200 mm per year in its Egyptian area The rain probably fell during the summer.
