Egyptian Limestone Plateau: Prehistoric links between the Desert and the Nile
Karin Kindermann
A number of links – notably several artefact types and technological features – point to contacts between Neolithic and Predynastic sites of the Nile Valley and Mid-Holocene groups in the “Western Desert”. This research project focuses on archeaological features from the so called “Limestone Plateau”  between the Egyptian oases and the Nile Valley. Directly in the centre of this plateau, only 15 km away from the Abu Muharik-dune train, the archeaological site “Djara” is situated next to an old camel track, connecting Farafra and Assiut. A lot of different bifacially retouched stone tools were found, for example various sorts of arrowheads, knives, leafpoints and side-blow flakes. Some circular scrapers and especially bifacial retouched knives are comparable to predynastic as well as to neolithic stone artefacts, although the sites yield already Middle Neolithic dates. Four facially retouched arrowheads, found in a fireplace, were dated into the Middle Neolithic with radiocarbon datings among 5.630 and 5.360 calBC. Just as most of the archaeological sites on the Limestone Plateau belong to neolithic periods. The Djara region appears as the core of a settlement area with a diameter of nearly 10 by 5 km. Here we observed several sites with an extraordinary richness of lithic artefacts. More than one reason is responsible for this kind of conglomeration in the middle of the Egyptian Plateau, several natural favorable factors encounter. It seems to be that in former times water was temporarily available here in good years. Over and above that, various local flint deposits and workshops document a surplus of raw material for a stone artefact-production. An aim for our further research is to get more informations about the economical and environmental conditions on the Egyptian Plateau, also about different strategies of land use and the spatial concepts. What are the reasons for such a concentration of sites and how do they interact?  
Landscape and prehistoric land use in the Gilf Kebir (Southwest Egypt)
Jörg Linstädter
The Gilf Kebir Plateau is situated in the far Southwest of Egypt, to the South of the Great Sand Sea and about 650 km to the west of the Nile valley. Although nowadays part of one of the earth’s most arid deserts, the valleys of the Gilf Kebir offered favourable conditions for prehistoric settlement during the so-called “Neolithic wet phase” from the middle of the 7th to the middle of the 4th millennium BC. Human occupation was favoured by the fact that wadis were blocked by north-south trending dunes which resulted in the formation of temporary lakes (playas) upvalley. Since the early eighties numerous sites in the vicinity of the playa and the barrier dune in the Wadi Bakht were excavated. They were dated in the Middle Neolithic (6500-4350 calBC) and the Late Neolithic (4350-3500 calBC). Since the Middle and the Late Neolithic are clearly distinguished by their material culture, one of the research subjects is to find out whether the various lithic inventories can be related to different mode of production in regard t different strategies of land use.
The holocene occupation of the Regenfeld area
Heiko Riemer
Since 1995 archaeological investigations of the ACACIA project have been conducted in the area of “Regenfeld” (south-eastern Great Sand Sea). The excavations and surveys give new evidence for the epipalaeolithic reoccupation of the desert by prehistoric people, and for the occupation during the Early and Middle Holocene when the climate changed to better conditions. Radiocarbon analysis dates the earliest epipalaeolithic remains in this area to 8300 BC. Moreover, epipalaeolithic and mid-neolithic features fall between 8000 and 6000 BC. Nevertheless, the Great Sand Sea during the so-called holocene “wet-event” was far from being a paradise, offering only sparse resources. Archaeological research allows us to reconstruct the cultural and economic development and adaptation to the changing environment. The question of economic change and the introduction of domestic animals and pastoralism may be discussed, based on the evidence from plant and bone remains (surveys by B. Eichhorn and H. Berke). Domestic fauna is not documented in the archaeological inventories, but there are rich remains of hunted wild animals (gazelle, addax, hare, ostrich). Except, a small mandible fragment – excavated from a small mid-neolithic site – which belongs probably to cattle. Although the Sand Sea was occupied, there is no indication that the camp sites could be used for longer streches of time. The prehistoric groups had to travel seasonally or temporarily from site to site, or to more favoured regions, when the small water pools ran dry. The identification of “exotic” artefacts and raw materials focus on such m...