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The subsistence practices of Holocene communities living in the Nile Valley of Central Sudan are comparatively little known. Recent excavations at Khor Shambat, Sudan, have yielded well-defined Mesolithic and Neolithic stratigraphy. Here, for the first time, archaeozoological, palaeobotanical, phytolith and dental calculus studies are combined with lipid residue analysis of around 100 pottery fragments and comparative analysis of faunal remains and organic residues. This holistic approach provides valuable information on changes in adaptation strategies, from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to Neolithic herders exploiting domesticates. A unique picture is revealed of the natural environment and human subsistence, demonstrating the potential wider value of combining multiple methods. Keywords: Sudan, Mesolithic, Neolithic, diet, archaeobotany, lipid residue analysis, Introduction Relatively little is known about the diet and subsistence practices of Early and Middle Holocene communities in Central Sudan, with most available data coming from osteological assemblages or burial [...]

Abstract Nicholas of Cusa read Augustine, like he read Dionysius the Areopagite, as teaching that God was best known and encountered in an understanding of one's own ignorance of ultimate [...]

The hyperarid climate of the central Sahara precludes permanent agriculture, although occasional temporary ponds, or etaghas, as a result of rain-fed flooding of wadi beds in the Tadrart Acacus Mountains of the Libyan Sahara allow the pastoral Kel Tadrart Tuareg to cultivate cereals. Geoarchaeological and archaeological data, along with radiocarbon dating and evidence from rock art, however, suggest a much greater antiquity for the exploitation of these etaghas. The authors propose that the present-day cultivation of etaghas mirrors attempts at flood-recession or rainfed cultivation by late prehistoric Pastoral Neolithic groups, who first exploited residual water resources to supplement their pastoral subsistence practices. Keywords: Sahara, Libya, Tadrart Acacus, Pastoral Neolithic, rain-fed cultivation, Tuareg, Introduction Since the Mid Holocene, the Sahara's climate has been hyperarid, with a mean annual rainfall of between 0 and 20mm (Nicholson 2011). This limited and unpredictable rainfall does not [...]

Decorated ostrich eggs were traded around the Mediterranean during the Bronze and Iron Ages. Research on their origins has focused primarily on decorative techniques and iconography to characterise the producers, workshops and trade routes, thereby equating decorative styles with cultural identities and geographic locations. This is problematic, as craftspeople were mobile and worked in the service of foreign royal patrons. The present study investigates the provenance of ancient ostrich eggs, reconsiders trade patterns via isotopic indicators and characterises decorative techniques in order to assist in the identification of culturally distinct decorative styles or regional preferences. Keywords: Mediterranean, Middle East, North Africa, Bronze Age, Iron Age, stable isotopes, ostrich eggs, Introduction Engraved, painted and embellished with ivory, precious metals and faience fittings, decorated ostrich eggs were traded and exchanged as luxury items during antiquity. They were deposited primarily in Bronze [...]

Corisande Fenwick. 2020. Early Islamic North Africa: a new perspective. London: Bloomsbury; 978-1-35007-518-4 Ebook $19.40. The history of early Islamic North Africa remains in great part to be written, especially [...]

Rain-fed cultivation in drylands--especially in arid and hyper-arid areas--is often considered to play a minor role in human subsistence. Drawing upon the results of ethnoarchaeological research in North Africa, this paper reviews non-irrigated agricultural practices in the absence of anthropogenic water-harvesting structures, and presents a proposal for how such practices can be identified in the drylands of the past. An improved understanding of the long-term development of rain fed cultivation augments our knowledge of past land-use strategies and can inform future models of sustainable agriculture in some of the world's driest regions. Keywords: Sahara, Al Khiday, rain-fed cultivation, drylands, resilience, phytoliths, Introduction Today, drylands cover approximately 40 per cent of the world's land area and host around 40 per cent of the world's population. The United Nations Environment Programme defines drylands [...]

R.N.E. BARTON, ABDELJALIL BOUZOUGGAR, SIMON N. COLLCUTT & LOUISE T. HUMPHRIES (ed.). 2019. Cemeteries and sedentism in the later Stone Age of NWAfrica: excavations at Grotte des Pigeons, Taforalt, Morocco [...]

Introduction Hutchings and La Salle (2019) pose a fundamental question regarding sustainability and its significance within archaeology. Much of the authors' critique focuses on sustainability within the context of cultural [...]

Evidence for light architecture characteristic of mobile and semi-mobile societies is difficult to detect archaeologically. This article investigates such evidence in the form of narrow cylindrical holes discovered on rock walls at the archaeological site of Sphinx, in the Sixth Nile Cataract (central Sudan). Using innovative experimental reconstruction, these holes are interpreted as features associated with wooden pole-built structures, some of which may have been dwellings. This research highlights a significant category of North African archaeological evidence which has, to date, received limited attention. Keywords: North Africa, Sudan, Sixth Nile Cataract, Mesolithic, architecture, drilled holes, Introduction In North Africa, a broad array of human-made features of diverse shapes, dimensions and functions can be found on solid rocks (Gabriel 2003). These include cupules or cupule-like features [...]

During Augustine's life, government authorities were generally friendly to the Christianity he came to adopt and defend. His correspondence mentions one imperial magistrate in Africa, Virius Nicomachus Flavianus, a pagan [...]

Where did pottery first appear in the Old World? Statistical modelling of radiocarbon dates suggests that ceramic vessel technology had independent origins in two different hunter-gatherer societies. Regression models were used to estimate average rates of spread and geographic dispersal of the new technology. The models confirm independent origins in East Asia (c .16000 cal BP) and North Africa (c. 12 000 cal BP). The North African tradition may have later influenced the emergence of Near Eastern pottery, which then flowed west into Mediterranean Europe as part of a Western Neolithic, closely associated with the uptake of farming. Keywords: Neolithic transition, hunter-gatherers, agriculture, pottery, statistical model, radiocarbon dating, diffusion, Introduction The origins of pottery and farming--and their roles in the European Neolithic--have occupied a central place in archaeological debate for over a century. Long assumed to be derived from [...]

Writing about the 'Tophet; a children's cemetery in Carthage, Smith et al. argued in these pages that the age distribution of the children peaks at 1-1.49 months, supplying 'another link in the chain of evidence-funerary practices, texts, iconography--that supports the interpretation of the Phoenician Tophets as ritual sites set aside for infant sacrifice' (2011: 871). In this they had challenged Jeffrey Schwartz and colleagues, who previously argued (2010) that 'skeletal remains from Punic Carthage do not support systematic sacrifice of infants'. Here Schwartz et al. restate their position for Antiquity readers, showing that the verdict on the Phoenician practice of child sacrifice is, at best, not proven. Keywords: Carthage, Punic, first millennium BC, Tophet, infanticide, child burial, human sacrifice, Introduction The history of Punic Carthage is shrouded in fantastic imagery, but not solely because Queen Dido secured the land upon which she founded it with strips of ox hide [...]

Long doubted, the existence of Pleistocene rock art in North Africa is here proven through the dating of petroglyph panels displaying aurochs and other animals at Qurta in the Upper Egyptian Nile Valley. The method used was optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) applied to deposits of wind-blown sediment covering the images. This gave a minimum age of ~15 000 calendar years making the rock engravings at Qurta the oldest so far found in North Africa. Keywords: North Africa, Egypt, Pleistocene, ~15 ka minimum age, rock art, OSL dating, Introduction The existence of pre-Holocene rock art in North Africa has been a subject of debate ever since 1974, when some Saharan (Libyan) petroglyphs were first attributed to the Upper [...]

Western Sahara has one of the last remaining unexplored prehistories on the planet. The new research reported here reveals a sequence of Holocene occupation beginning in a humid period around 9000 bp, superceded around 5000 bp by ah arid phase in which the land was mainly given over to pastoralism and monumental burial. The authors summarise the flint and pottery assemblage and classify the monuments, looking to neighbouring cultures in Niger, Libya and Sudan. Keywords: Western Sahara, Tifariti, Holocene, Neolithic, Pastoral, climate, environment, funerary monuments, Introduction Western Sahara is a disputed, non-self-governing territory bordering Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania. The majority of the land is currently controlled by Morocco, while the remainder is administered by the [...]

Intensive survey and three sample sections at Jebel Gharbi in north-west Libya offer a new dated sequence of the environment, and the human presence within it, from the Middle Stone Age to the early Holocene. Hunter-gatherers were continuously active, including during the hitherto elusive Later Stone Age. Keywords: Sahara, Libya, Middle Stone Age, Later Stone Age, Aterian, Iberomaurusian, Neolithic, Introduction Recent archaeological research in North Africa has brought into focus the final phase of the Pleistocene which increasingly appears to have been a period of critical environmental and human [...]

The assumption that civil society in Middle East and North Africa are detrimental to democracy as the main role is played by Islamist groups is challenged. It is argued that Islamist associations can be a possible force for democratization as they are able political learners, generate secular civil society activism and can cooperate with other civil society groups and many issues.

Nd isotopic composition has been determined for 16 igneous rocks, representing the wide geochemical, spatial and temporal range of post-collisional, late Cenozoic magmas in the Aegean area. Nd isotopes are used to further interpret previously published Pb and Sr isotope data. The overall pattern of late Cenozoic volcanism resulted from rapid extension, with thermal effects causing melting of hydrated, enriched, subcontinental lithosphere to produce widespread K-rich magmas. Slab break-off and intrusion of hot asthenosphere caused partial melting of rift-related continental margin basalts at the detachment point to generate adakitic magmas. Further outboard, mafic magma from enriched lithospheric mantle melted thickened lower crust to produce the granitoid plutons of the Cyclades. Nd isotopic variation in these varied rock types correlates with pre-Cenozoic palaeogeography. Proterozoic subduction-related enrichment in Th and U, together with other large-ion lithophile elements, produced distinctive Pb isotope composition. This was later modified where Mesozoic subduction of terrigenous sediment was important, whereas subduction of oceanic carbonate sediments produced enrichment in radiogenic Sr and low Ce/Sr ratios. Late Cenozoic magmas sourced in eastern Pelagonian zone sub-continental lithospheric mantle have Nd model ages of about 1.0 Ga, and generally high [sup.87]Sr/[sup.86]Sr and high [sup.207]Pb/[sup.204]Pb (~ 15.68) and [sup.208]Pb/[sup.204]Pb (~ 39.0) for low [sup.206]Pb/[sup.204]Pb (~ 18.6), but rocks to the west have more radiogenic Pb and higher Ce/Sr as a result of greater subduction of terrigenous sediment from the northern Pindos ocean. Magmas sourced from sub-continental lithosphere beneath the Apulian continental block were strongly influenced by subduction of oceanic crust and sediments north of the passive margin of north Africa. Subduction of Nile-derived terrigenous sediment in the east resulted in Nd model ages of 0.7 to 0.8 Ga and radiogenic Pb isotopes. Greater subduction of oceanic carbonate in the west resulted in magmas with higher [sup.87]Sr/[sup.86]Sr and lower Ce/Sr. The strongly negative [[epsilon].sub.Nd] for adakites in the central Aegean rules out a source from subducted oceanic basalt, and the adakite magma was probably derived from melting of hydrated Triassic sub-alkaline basalt of continental origin. Where trachytic rocks are succeeded by nepheline-normative basalts (e.g. Samos), Nd isotope data imply that early partial melting of the enriched subcontinental lithospheric mantle involved hydrous amphibole and phlogopite, but once these minerals were consumed, younger magmas were produced by partial melting dominated by olivine and orthopyroxene.

Recent interest in the early-modern British composite state has neglected Hanover, despite evidence of frequent and informal co-operation between the countries in foreign affairs. This article explores one aspect of diplomacy with particular import for the British-Hanoverian union, British policy in North Africa, and finds a greater degree of integration in trade policy than has been hitherto recognized. Britain's government came to recognize and treat Hanoverians in Morocco as British subjects during the eighteenth century, a policy which was expanded to the rest of North Africa and elsewhere after the acquisition of the maritime state of East Friesland at the Congress of Vienna increased the Hanoverian government's commercial responsibilities beyond its ability to cope. British policy did not reflect a consensus, and it was criticized by some who regarded Hanover as an entirely foreign state beyond the purview of the British government. But British sponsorship of Hanoverian trade prevailed over such dissent until the union's end, so that Britain's experience of composite statehood lasted until 1837.

The UN attempts to resolve the conflict between Morocco and the Polisario Front, which wants to establish an independent Saharan Arab Democratic Republic, have not yet succeeded as both sides have enough resources to back their claims. Morocco has the support of the US and France. The Polisario Front's main supporter is Algeria. Non-governmental supporters of the Polisario Front are struggling to internationalize the issue as they lack funds.

An articulated hen's skeleton, set under the doorway of a building at the celebrated desiccated site of Qasr Ibrim in Egyptian Nubia, is cause to look again at the flight [...]

In the decade after 1952 France faced sustained United Nations criticism of its colonial policies in north Africa. As membership of the UN General Assembly expanded, support for the non-aligned states of the Afro-Asian bloc increased. North African nationalist parties established their permanent offices in New York to press their case for independence. Tracing UN consideration of French North Africa from the first major General Assembly discussion of Tunisia in 1952 to the end of the Algerian war in 1962, this article considers the tactics employed on both sides of the colonial/anti-colonial divide to manipulate the UN Charter's ambiguities over the rights of colonial powers and the jurisdiction of the General Assembly in colonial disputes.

This paper examines the biosocial basis of premarital sexual and reproductive behaviour among women in Sudan. It applies Udry's biosocial perspective, which attempts to reconcile the biological and sociological models of premarital sexual and reproductive behaviour. World Fertility Survey (WFS) data were used to study premarital first motherhood. Early puberty was found to be paramount in determining childbearing in a separate biological model, but also in a biosocial model constructed to take account of social controls. This finding suggests that social controls do not influence the biological predisposition to premarital sexual behaviour. However, given the limitations of the WFS data, conclusive evidence must await a more appropriately designed study of reproductive behaviour in Sudan.

There are a number of reasons for anticipating that contact by women in developing country settings with modern maternal-child health (MCH) services will lead to increased use of family planning services. Indeed, the expectation of such a relationship underlies the integrated service delivery strategy that has been adopted on a more or less global basis. However, the available empirical evidence in support of this proposition is inconclusive. This study re-examines this issue in Morocco. Household survey data and data on the supply environment for health and family planning services gathered in 1992 are analysed in the study. A full-information maximum likelihood estimator is used to control for the possible endogeneity of health care and contraceptive choices. The findings indicate a substantial and apparently causal relationship between the intensity of MCH service use and subsequent contraceptive use. Policy simulations indicate that sizeable increases in contraceptive prevalence might be realized by increasing the coverage and intensity of use of MCH services.

Information on reproductive attitudes is now routinely collected in fertility surveys in developing countries, and has become very important for understanding fertility behaviour. The quality of this information, however, is rarely assessed, partly due to lack of necessary data. In this paper, the recently completed panel survey in Morocco by the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) was used to investigate the consistency of reporting of ideal number of children, reproductive intentions and the planning status of the last birth. The validity of reproductive intentions for subsequent fertility behaviour was also examined. The findings indicate that the three measures of reproductive attitudes are subject to different degrees of measurement error. The measure of reproductive intentions is the most consistent of the three, followed by ideal number of children. The latter is much more consistent at the aggregate level than at the individual level. The reliability of the planning status of the last birth is marred, mainly by an unwanted child being reclassified as 'wanted' with time since the birth of the child. The reproductive intentions of women were also found to be positively related to their subsequent fertility.

According to official census returns from Roman Egypt (first to third centuries CE) preserved on papyrus, 23.5% of all documented marriages in the Arsinoites district in the Fayum (n = 102) were between brothers and sisters. In the second century CE, the rates were 37% in the city of Arsinoe and 18.9% in the surrounding villages. Documented pedigrees suggest a minimum mean level of inbreeding equivalent to a coefficient of inbreeding of 0.0975 in second century CE Arsinoe. Undocumented sources of inbreeding and an estimate based on the frequency of close-kin unions (corrected downwards to 30% for Arsinoe) indicate a mean coefficient of inbreeding of F = 0.15-0.20 in Arsinoe and of F = 0.10-0.15 in the villages at the end of the second century CE. These values are several times as high as any other documented levels of inbreeding. A schematic estimate of inbreeding depression in the offspring of full sibling couples indicates that fertility in these families had to be 20-50% above average to attain reproduction at replacement level. In the absence of information on the amount of genetic load in this population, this estimate may be too high.

The determinants of modern contraceptive use in traditional populations are analysed in married women aged 30-44 living in the province of Marrakech (Morocco). Women who have never used contraception have smaller family sizes than those who do: the number of live children (or live births) is the variable with maximum predictive power on contraceptive use, while child mortality is the main inhibiting factor. The probability of contraceptive use increases with female age at marriage and decreases with the woman's age, indicating a generational change in reproductive behaviour. The socioeconomic variables education, employment and residence, have no significant independent predictive character on contraceptive use, although the interaction between education and residence does. The paper evaluates the hypothesis that traditional populations in the initial phase of their demographic transition resort to modern contraception in order to stop childbearing, when they have reached a desired number of children, rather than to space births or reduce their fertility.

This study examines the extent of assortative mating for education in Northern Sudan and urban Khartoum. More males than females were found at higher levels of education. Increasingly, people tend to marry persons of equal educational level, but the unequal educational opportunities for males and females have led to the emergence of educational exogamy in which members of different educational levels are more likely to marry from the adjacent educational category than from distant categories. The increasing level of education for both sexes, and especially for females, may in part explain the rising trend in age at marriage.

A sample of 842 rural women from Morocco (Amizmiz, Marrakech) was used to examine the relationship between a number of biosocial variables and fertility patterns. For women still in their reproductive years there were significant correlations between family size and woman's age, age at marriage and years of marriage. Among women with completed families, those with early age at marriage ceased childbearing about 10 years before reaching menopause, while women who married later continued to bear children until the end of their fertile life.

This research examines determinants of infant and child mortality in rural Egypt, primarily the effects of household economic status and the availability of health services. Certain features of the health service environment affect survival in the neonatal period. In early childhood, survival chances improve markedly as income increases and if the household depends almost exclusively on employment income. In infancy and in early childhood, mortality is strongly associated with region of residence and maternal demographic characteristics, and is weakly associated with parental schooling.

This paper analyses the relative importance of demographic and socioeconomic factors with respect to their role in reducing infant mortality in Egypt. Logit analyses of data from a nationally representative sample of Egyptian households, and for urban and rural households separately, indicate that demographic factors have more effect on infant mortality than socioeconomic factors. The results also show the need to improve housing in urban areas and sewerage systems in rural areas in order to reduce infant mortality. One of the most important policy conclusions, however, concerns the importance of providing a vigorous educational campaign to enlighten mothers and prospective mothers in both rural and urban areas on the positive effects of breast-feeding, longer birth intervals, and fewer children on the survival of infants.

Data from a 1985 survey in two major population centres in Southern Sudan, Juba and Wau, were analysed in order to assess childhood mortality levels and the effect of UNICEF's health care programme. There are continuing high levels of childhood mortality. Logistic regression analysis shows significant positive associations between child survival and immunization, oral rehydration therapy and maternal education.

A longitudinal study of twenty-six breast-feeding and twelve non-breast-feeding postpartum women was conducted in Assiut, Egypt in order to determine the time that ovulation resumed after childbirth, and the effect of breast-feeding frequency on the period of lactational anovulation. Breast-feeding women experienced the onset of follicular development, vaginal bleeding, ovulation and pregnancy significantly later than women who did not breast-feed. Ovulatory and non-ovulatory breast-feeders reported similar frequencies of breast-feeding episodes. The introduction of dietary supplements commonly preceded ovulation. An algorithm using three simple variables observable to the breast-feeding mother was found to predict up to 100% of the first ovulations. All breast-feeding women who did not give supplements and did not have a vaginal bleeding episode by 6 months postpartum were anovular by strict criteria for ovulation. Ovulation did not precede bleeding or supplementation in the women who experienced these events before 6 months, yielding a highly effective formula for preventing unplanned pregnancy by the informed use of breast-feeding.

Using individual birth history data from the Sudan Fertility Survey, 1979, parity-related differences in fertility are demonstrated, as well as differences between socioeconomic groups. Rural women, women with no education and those married to uneducated husbands show rapid parity progression and its cumulative effects on fertility which are consistent over all birth intervals. Urban women, women with some education and those married to educated husbands, however, go rapidly through their second and third birth intervals and then more slowly at higher parities. A limitation of the study was the inability to control fully for the effects of breast-feeding and contraception. There is evidence for a reduction in high parity births, starting in the 1970s.