Khor Abu Anga and Magendohli Stone Age Sites on the Sudanese Nile
Abstract
The results of the excavation of two Paleolithic sites on the Nile in the Republic of the Sudan undertaken in 1965-66 are presented in this monograph. Artifact assemblages from Khor Abu Anga and Magendohli are described, illustrated, quantified, placed in chronological order, and assigned to Acheulian, Sangoan, Lupemban, and Aterian industrial complexes.
... More recent studies by Carlson (2015) and Nassr (2014) are in agreement that there are three sequent techno-complexes present at KAA: late Acheulean, Sangoan, and Lupemban. This chapter will summarize the results of the previous studies at the site and compare them with recent discoveries along the Sudanese Nile and Eastern Desert to place the record in the general context of northeast African Pleistocene archaeology. ...
... This evidence of a wetter condition in central Sudan during the middle Pleistocene indicates an environment rich in natural resources which would have supported hominin settlement as well as played a significant role in stimulating cultural change from Acheulean to later lithic complexes as confirmed by the recent discoveries south of KAA, where stratified MSA sites are recorded in the Al Khiday area (Spinapolice et al., 2018). Arkell's (1949) research, Carlson's (2015) excavations, and Nassr's (2014) study of the KAA collections are the main contributions to our knowledge of the site. Since its discovery in 1942, the site has been visited by many archaeologists, and by students from the University of Khartoum. ...
... Since its discovery in 1942, the site has been visited by many archaeologists, and by students from the University of Khartoum. Arkell conducted no excavations, but Carlson, 2015) Aswan Reservoir in 1965, the University of Colorado's Fourth and final Nubian Expedition carried out test excavations at the site (in 16 places near the channel) in early 1966 directed by Roy L. Carlson. The fieldwork was done at the request of Thabit Hassan Thabit, then Director of the Sudan Antiquities Service. ...
The site of Khor Abu Anga (KAA) is located immediately west of the Nile and partly within the city of Omdurman in central Sudan (at 15.362 N, 32.473 E). The site consists of Early and Middle Stone Age (MSA) artifacts found in silts and gravels exposed both by erosion in the seasonally flooded khor (ravine in Arabic) and by extensive quarrying for both topsoil for gardens and calcareous silt and gravel for house building. The lithic record at KAA comprises late Acheulean, Sangoan, and Lupemban-Levallois entities, which appear to have been widespread in the upper Nile valley during the Middle Pleistocene. Handaxes dominate the late Acheulean assemblage, heavy-duty tools of various types characterize the Sangoan complex, and small bifacial points, lanceolate bifaces, and stemmed tools typify the Lupemban. The archaeology of KAA has a wider implication for understanding the technological behavior of successive hominin groups inhabiting the Nile corridor during the Middle Pleistocene. Further excavation of the area west of Omdurman is still feasible, and radiometric dating is critically needed in order to situate the evidence within regional and local Stone Age frameworks.
... Site no. 2 is situated within the khor whose course is marked with the dashed line: alQ -Holocene alluvia of Nile; pcCr -Cretaceous Nubian Sandstones; (b) elongated bars composed of fluvial deposits (marked with white dashed line) within which Paleolithic artifacts occur; (c) Lithological sections showing the position of the artifacts. Khor Abu Anga section after Carlson (2015) ...
... The presence of Levallois and discoidal cores with LCTs attests to hominin flexible technological adaptation as has been noted in other African Late Acheulean assemblages. The available data are not sufficient to assert the presence of the Sangoan at Khor Shambat 2, even though the presence of oval handaxes can be interpreted as a possible expression of such technology given that it is present in the neighboring Khor Abu Anga site (Carlson, 2015). The chronology for these sites was based on the chronology from Sai Island (Van Peer et al., 2003). ...
... The chronology for these sites was based on the chronology from Sai Island (Van Peer et al., 2003). From this perspective, the Acheulean ages proposed for Khor Abu Anga by Carlson (2015) might potentially be adequate for Khor Shambat 2, falling within the range of 350-200 ka. ...
Khor Shambat (Omdurman, Sudan) bearing Acheulean material, is situated on the left-bank Nile valley a few km north of Khor Abu Anga and about 7 km from the Nile valley, 10 km to the north-west of the confluence of the Blue and White Nile. The artifacts occur randomly in the channel or in the channel deposit, the latter forms elongated bars composed of fluvial deposits with a low degree of sorting. The assemblage consists of 34 artifacts made from highly eroded Nubian sandstones. The most common shape of the handaxe from Khor Shambat is the cordiform type with lenticular cross section made on a chunk or cobble. The hand-axes from Khor Shambat were subject to a morphometric analysis together with the assemblage from two other Nubian Acheulean sites. The geometric-morphometric approach to 2D objects attempted to identify differences between the assemblages. The broad chronology of the Acheulean proposed for Khor Abu Anga by Roy L. Carlson might potentially be applicable to the Khor Shambat assemblage, which may fall within the range of 350–200 ka.
... Tools are shaped across their entirety or their whole margins suggesting blank modification is important. Core-axes are also mentioned; however, the definition used by S. McBrearty (McBrearty, 1988) (large artifacts with an untrimmed butt) does not match the one proposed by J.D. Clark (2001), nor the one proposed by R.L. Carlson (1967Carlson ( , 2015, thus preventing us from comparing this tool-type. ...
... A monograph about Khor Abu Anga (Sudan, excavated in the mid-1960s) (Carlson, 2015) also allows us to observe some common patterns with the Congo Basin sites of MP, NZA and NZK. The author describes several shaped tool-types among the different Lupemban layers and illustrates a large morphometric diversity of shaped tools. ...
ABSTRACT----
In the Congo Basin, a regional industry attributed to the Middle Stone Age, the Lupemban, has been empirically considered as a technological adaptation to African tropical rainforests. The “forest industry” hypothesis is based on the presence of diverse heavy-duty tools and their location on the valley bottoms of the Congo Basin. Nowadays, the Lupemban complex in Central Africa remains poorly contextualized preventing us from integrating this geographical crossroad into a pan-African Middle Stone Age framework. Other features such as blade production, backing, hafting and pigment-use are also associated with the Lupemban complex, suggesting an important role of this industry for understanding the emergence and intra-continental diffusion of modern human behaviours. However, this was lacking strong supporting evidence such as chronological, stratigraphic and paleoenvironmental context, as well as thorough technological and functional evaluation. Indeed, only few sites contributed to define the Lupemban and these latters are mainly peripheral to the Congo Basin. In addition, most of the Congo Basin Lupemban collections have been collected several decades ago. Even though poorly documented, these collections constitute a major fund for documenting the prevailing technological features of the Lupemban. Here, we present a technological analysis of lithic production using a qualitative approach to describe five Lupemban lithic collection stored at the Museum national d’Histoire naturelle and at the Institut de Paléontologie Humaine that were collected between the 1930s and 1970s in the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo. We highlight some repeated technological patterns and discuss their representativity for characterizing Central African Upper Pleistocene lithic assemblage.
RESUME-----
Dans le bassin du Congo, un faciès régional attribué au Middle Stone Age, le Lupembien, a été empiriquement considéré comme une adaptation technologique aux forêts tropicales et équatoriales d’Afrique centrale. L’hypothèse d’une « industrie forestière » ou d’un « faciès forestier » est basée sur la présence de divers outils massifs et leur localisation dans les fonds de vallée du Bassin du Congo. Aujourd’hui, ce faciès d’Afrique centrale reste mal contextualisé, nous empêchant d’intégrer un espace géographique clé, au coeur du continent dans une perspective panafricaine du Middle Stone Age. D’autres caractéristiques telles que la production laminaire, l’emmanchement et l’utilisation de pigments sont également associées au Lupembien, suggérant un rôle important de cette industrie pour comprendre l’émergence et la diffusion intracontinentale des comportements humains « modernes ». Cependant, il manque toujours d’importantes données et notamment un contexte chronostratigraphique et paléoenvironnemental, ainsi qu’une évaluation technologique et fonctionnelle approfondie de l’outillage en pierre. Dans ce contexte, le Lupembien a principalement été défini à partir de sites localisés aux marges du Bassin du Congo. De plus, la plupart des artefacts lupembiens du Bassin du Congo proviennent des collections constituées il y a plusieurs décennies. Malgré qu’elles soient peu contextualisées, ces collections constituent un fonds majeur pour documenter les caractères techniques lupembiens. Ici, nous présentons une analyse technologique de la production lithique en utilisant une approche qualitative pour décrire cinq collections lithiques lupembiennes conservées au Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle et à l’Institut de Paléontologie Humaine qui ont été collectées entre 1930 et 1970 en République centrafricaine et en République du Congo. Nous mettons en évidence certains caractères techniques redondants et discutons de leur représentativité pour caractériser les tendances technologiques lithiques du Pléistocène supérieur d’Afrique centrale.
Keywords : Middle Stone Age, Lupemban, Congo Basin, Lithics, Shaped tools, Central Africa
Mots clés : Middle Stone Age, Lupembien, Bassin du Congo, Lithiques, Outils façonnés, Afrique centrale
... The Sangoan-Lupemban complex has also been associated with four stratigraphic units at the Khor Abu Anga site in Sudan (Carlson 2015;Nassr and Carlson 2023). Like on Sai Island, numerous core-axe tools, as well as lanceolate and foliate points, were discovered there, along with a large share of Levallois points and classic and Nubian Levallois cores. ...
This article presents the results of research carried out at two previously unreported Eastern Desert Atbara River project (EDAR) Middle Stone Age (MSA) sites-EDAR 134 and EDAR 155. Luminescence dating results indicate human activity in this area during the Marine Isotope Stage 5 period (MIS 5), approximately 90 kya. Discussion concerning the affiliation of both analyzed inventories will be provided, including another MSA site from the EDAR area, where an assemblage dated to MIS 6/5e does not have technological features known from other technocomplexes in the eastern Sahara region (EDAR 135). Microscopic analysis of traces of tool use for the EDAR 155 assemblage shows the high impact of post-depositional (aeolian) processes on the state of preservation of lithic material. Sites EDAR 134 and 155 provide evidence for hominin activity during the late Pleistocene within an area only episodically accessible, due to arid conditions prevailing in the Saharan deserts.
... The Eastern Sahara is strewn with thousands of deflated remains of Pleistocene hunter-gatherer's activities, examples of which can be the Sudanese Bayuda Desert (Masojć and Paner, 2014), the Egyptian Eastern Desert (Leplongeon et al., 2024) or the Red Sea Coastal Region (Beyin et al., 2019). Sites within well preserved stratigraphical context are rare and only a small number has been investigated in detail throughout several decades of research on the earliest prehistory of this area (Carlson, 2015;Nassr and Carlson, 2023;Wendorf, 1977, 1981;Van Peer et al., 2003, 2010Masojć et al., 2021a). Surficial materials as pavement dominate, which lack stratigraphic context and are likely affected by erosion processes (Kleindienst, 2020;Wendorf et al., 1987). ...
Since the Middle Pleistocene, the Sahara region has undergone strong environmental changes resulting from climate changes. Dry periods, constituting an ecological barrier to human presence, alternated with wet periods when the Sahara area was covered with green savanna and an extensive network of watercourses, allowing the area to be occupied by hunter-gatherer groups. Responding to the Quaternary climatic changes, hominin dispersal was channeled through vegetated corridors. Such evidence for human settlements connected to Pleistocene green corridors in the Sahara region has been discovered in the research area called EDAR (Eastern Desert Atbara River). This area comprises a cluster of Acheulean and Middle Stone Age (MSA) sites discovered in the fluvial sedimentary context. This manuscript discusses the occurrence of Middle Pleistocene Acheulean artifacts in much younger sediments documented at the site EDAR 6. These Acheulean artifacts are present within thick Holocene calcareous sandy silts formed between 2.7 ka and 8.7 ka based on an optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) chronology, which is also supported by paleomagnetic analysis. The stone gravelly artifacts mantled above the eolian deposits have been known in other Paleolithic sites under the desert environment of Northern Africa. We propose that the relocation of the Palaeolithic artifacts was due to long-lasting erosional and redepositional processes affecting the Acheulean artifacts-bearing sediments since the Middle Pleistocene. We interpret that the cumulative results of the two processes, i.e., the gravel framework dilation and the gravel overpassing, allowed the stone artifacts to be exposed at the surface or incorporated in the Holocene sediment layers.
... Another example comes from the discussion of Early Stone Age technology where Garcea writes (p. 19) that " Carlson (2015) referred to surface collections to distinguish Acheulean from Sangoan techno-complexes on the basis of morphological criteria and separated Acheulean handaxes from later ones by the quality of their flaking and their width/thickness ratio, producing larger, thinner, and finely flaked types in the Sangoan." This implies that Sangoan handaxes are thinner and finely flaked, while Carlson affirms exactly the opposite: "The Sangoan Type 1 and 2 hand axes occupy the same shape range as the Acheulian, from acuminate to ovate, with the majority less than 13 cm in length, consistently lack the fine retouch characteristic of Acheulian, and are thicker" (2015, p. 20, emphasis added). ...
... For Khor Abu Anga, Arkell (1949) brie y describes an archaeological sequence including Acheulean, Sangoan and Lupemban artefacts and the related deposits. The site was more systematically explored by R. Carlson in 1965Carlson in -1966, but a detailed report of the excavation has only been published recently (Carlson 2015). ...
The middle reaches of the Nile River play a key role in the current models about the diffusion of modern Humans out of Africa, nevertheless the Early and the Middle Stone Age (Early Palaeolithic and Middle Palaeolithic) in central Sudan are poorly known. On-going investigation at al-Jamrab (White Nile region) highlights the archaeological potential of the central Sudan and illustrates the importance of an integrated approach combining archaeological excavation and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction for understanding cultural site formation and post-depositional dynamics. The stratigraphic sequence at al-Jamrab includes a thick cultural layer rich in Early and Middle Stone Age artefacts, preserved in a deeply weathered palaeosol developed on fluvial sediments. The cultural layer includes a two-fold human occupation covering the Middle Stone Age, with Acheulean and Sangoan bifacial artefacts, although an Early Stone Age/Middle Stone Age transitional phase cannot be excluded. The artefact-bearing unit is attributed to the Upper Pleistocene based on preliminary OSL dating, the local palaeoenvironmental context, and strong pedogenetic weathering. Considering the paucity of archaeological data for the Pleistocene of Sudan and the importance of this region in the study of human dispersal out of Africa, this preliminary work on a new site and its associated stratigraphic context provides insights into the early peopling of Sudan and adds one more tessera to the Eastern Africa picture.
Middle Stone Age (MSA) lithic artefacts coming from dated
layers preserved in their original stratigraphic position are still
rare in Northeast Africa in general and in Sudan in particular.
This paper aims to present the results of technological and
functional analyses of an assemblage coming from a
stratigraphic context, i.e. the upper level of the EDAR (Eastern
Desert – Atbara River) 135 site, discovered in an abandoned
gold mining pit in the Sudanese Eastern Desert, approximately
70 km east of the town of Atbara. The assemblage, which is
based on locally available quartz and rhyolite, comes from a
layer bracketed by OSL dates of 116 ± 13 and 125 ± 11 kya.
Such dating places it within Marine Isotope Stage 5e–5d.
Analysis of the assemblage revealed several characteristics that
seem to set it apart from other MSA Northeast African
inventories. Among these, the dominance of simple, nonpredetermined core reduction strategies and expedient tool
types, coupled with the lack of traces of Nubian Levallois
technique, are the most conspicuous. Micro-traces of use on
animal and plant matter were preserved on some of the tools.
EDAR 135 is part of a newly discovered complex of sites that
confirms the presence of Middle and Late Pleistocene
hominins along one of the possible routes out of Africa
towards Eurasia.
This paper presents the results of the analysis of a late Acheulean horizon from the EDAR 135 site, which was discovered in the Eastern Desert, Sudan, in an area heavily transformed by modern mining activity. A lithic assemblage was discovered there, within a layer of gravel sediments formed by a paleostream in a humid period of the Middle Pleistocene. This layer is OSL dated between 220 ± 12 and 145 ± 20 ka (MIS 7a/6). These dates indicate that the assemblage could be the youngest trace of the Acheulean in northeastern Africa. Technological analysis of the lithics reveals different core reduction strategies, including not only ad hoc ones based on multiplatform cores, but also discoidal and prepared cores. The use of prepared core reduction methods has already been confirmed at other Late Acheulean sites in Africa and the Middle East. Microwear traces observed on lithic artifacts could relate to on-site butchering activities.
Although essential for reconstructing hominin behaviour during the Early Palaeolithic, only a handful of Acheulean sites have been dated in the Eastern Sahara region. This is due to the scarcity of sites for this time period and the lack of datable material. However, recent excavations in the Atbara region (Sudan) have provided unique opportunities to analyse and date Acheulean stone tools. We report here on EDAR 7, part of a cluster of Acheulean and Middle Stone Age (MSA) sites that were recently discovered in the Eastern Desert Atbara River (EDAR) region, located in the Eastern Desert (Sudan) far from the Nile valley. At EDAR 7, a 3.5 metre sedimentary sequence was excavated, allowing an Acheulean assemblage to be investigated using a combination of sedimentology, stone tool studies and optically stimulated luminescence dating (OSL). The site has delivered a complete Acheulean knapping chaine opératoire, providing new information about the Saharan Acheulean. The EDAR 7 site is interpreted as a remnant of a campsite based on the co-occurrence of two reduction modes: one geared towards the production of Large Cutting Tools (LCTs), and the other based on the flaking of small debitage and production of flake tools. Particularly notable in the EDAR 7 assemblage is the abundance of cleavers, most of which display evidence of flake production. Implementation of giant Kombewa flakes was also observed. A geometric morphometric analysis of hand-axes was conducted to verify a possible Late Acheulean assemblage standardisation in the Nubian Sahara. In addition, the analysis of micro-traces and wear on the artefacts has provided information on the use history of the Acheulean stone tools. Sediment analyses and OSL dating show that the EDAR 7 sequence contains the oldest Acheulean encampment remains in the Eastern Sahara, dated to the MIS 11 or earlier. This confirms that Homo erectus occupied the EDAR region during Middle Pleistocene humid periods, and demonstrates that habitable corridors existed between the Ethiopian Highlands, the Nile and the Red Sea coast, allowing population dispersals across the continent and out of it.
Archaeological records in Southwest Asia and the Arabian Peninsula provide hints that Sudan contributed to both the northern and the southern route of the Out-of-Africa hominin dispersals. The northern route that led East African hominins out of their continent into Southwest Asia and onwards almost inevitably traversed Sudan. But Sudanese technological traditions also spread across the Red Sea, following the southern route. Furthermore, the large number of sites dating to the Early and Middle Stone Age shows that Sudan was not just a corridor, but a place of long-term thriving growth for hominins.
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