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*The Antiquity of Man*

Exploring human evolution, gender and social organisation


    Are the early Holocene cattle in the Eastern Sahara domestic or wild?
    Fred Wendorf & Romuald Schild (Evolutionary Anthropology 3(4), 1994)

[*/Note/*/: The references and diagrams are not included. Please consult
the original article/]

Questions relating to the antiquity of domestic cattle in the Sahara are
among the most controversial in North African prehistory. It is
generally believed that cattle were first domesticated in southwest
Asia, particularly Anatolia, or in southeast Europe, where their remains
have been found in several sites dated between 9,000 and 8,000 years
ago. The discovery, in several small sites in the Western Desert of
Egypt, of large bovid bones identified as domestic cattle and having
radiocarbon dates ranging between 9,500 and 8,000 B.P. has raised the
possibility that there was a separate, independent center for cattle
domestication in northeast Africa. However, it has not been universally
accepted that these bones are from cattle or, if so, that the cattle
were domestic.

Disputes about the large bovid remains and whether or not they represent
domestic cattle do not have to do only with issues of primacy and the
multiple independent developments of pastoralism and food production. Of
greater importance, perhaps, is the possible role of pastoralism in
facilitating human exploitation of harsh, unfavorable environments and
the adjustments people made to live in them. Examination of the data may
help us understand the processes involved in the development of
pastoralist societies.


_The evidence from the Eastern Sahara_

Today the Eastern Sahara is a desert with a rainfall of less than 1 mm
per year. It is almost completely devoid of life. Until recently, when
paved roads were built and several deep water-wells were dug, the desert
was unpopulated except at a few large oases such as Farafra, Dakhla, and
Kharga, where artesian water was available.

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. 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 may also
have been permanent water about 250 km farther south at Sehima, and
there certainly were permanent lakes near Merga in northern Sudan about
500 km south of the Egyptian border. Nevertheless, the Eastern Sahara
was, at best, a marginal and highly unstable environment with frequent
droughts and episodes of hyper-aridity. The Eastern Sahara in Egypt was
not an environment that could have supported wild cattle nor one where
the earliest domestication of cattle would have been like likely to
occur. Cattle need to drink every day or at least every other day and
there was no permanent water anywhere in the area.


_Early Neolithic_

Radiocarbon dates indicate that the early Holocene rains began sometime
before 10,000 B.P., perhaps as early as 11,000 or 12,000 B.P. However,
there is no evidence of human presence before 9,500 B.P. except for a
radiocarbon date of around 10,000 years ago from a hearth west of
Dakhla. The earliest sites with large bovid remains are imbedded in
playa sediments that overlay several meters of still older Holocene
playa deposits.

All of these sites contain well-made, bladelet-based lithic assemblages.
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. The
pottery is well made; the pieces are decorated over their entire
exterior surfaces with deep impressions formed with a comb or wand in
what is sometimes referred to as the Early Khartoum style.

These assemblages have been classified as the El Adam type of the Early
Neolithic. Several radiocarbon dates place the complex between 9,500 and
8,900 B.P. 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. Three of these sites, E-77-7,
E-79-8, and E-80-4, all having only El Adam archeology and all located
between km and 250 km west of Abu Simbel, have yielded, through
excavation, more than 20 bones and teeth of large bovids that have been
identified as /Bos/. These occurred along with several hundred bones of
gazelle (Gazella dorcas and G. dama) and hare (Lepus capensis); a few
bones of jackal (Canis aureus), turtle (Testudo sp.); and birds (Otis
tarda and Anas querquedula); the large shell of a bivalve (Aspatharia
rubens), probably of Nilotic origin; and various snail shells (Bulinus
truncatus and Zoorecus insularis).

After a period of aridity around 8,800 years ago, when the desert may
have been abandoned, the area was re-occupied by groups with a lithic
tool-kit that emphasized elongated scalene triangles. The grinding
stones, scrapers, and rare pieces of pottery that are present
characterize the El Ghorab type of Early Neolithic and have been dated
between 8,600 and 8,200 B.P. Oval slab-lined houses occur during this
phase. all of them located in the lower pans of natural drainage basins.
However, there are no known wells, suggesting that the desert still was
not occupied during the driest part of the year. Faunal remains are
poorly preserved in these sites and. indeed, only one bone of a large
bovid was recovered from the four sites with fauna. in these sites the
Dorcas gazelle is the most numerous, followed by hare, together with
single bones of wild cat (Felis silvestris), porcupine (Hystrix
cristata), desert hedge-hog (Paraechinus aethiopicus) an amphibian, and
a bird.

Another brief period of aridity be-tween 8.200 and 8,100 B.P. coincides
with the end of the El Ghorab type of Early Neolithic in the desert.
With the return of greater rainfall between 8.100 and 8+000 B.P., a new
variety of Early Neolithic, the El Nabta type, appeared in the area. El
Nabta. sites are often larger than the previous Early Neolithic sites
and usually have several large, deep wells, some with adjacent shallow
basins that might have been used to water stock. A variety of lithic and
bone tools occur in these sites, including stemmed points with pointed
and retouched bases, perforators, burins, scrapers. notched pieces, bone
points, and scalene triangles measuring about one centimeter. Grinding
stones and sherds of pottery are more numerous than in the earlier
sites, but still are not abundant. Their deeply impressed designs are
similar to those on objects recovered from sites of the El Adam and El
Ghorab types of Early Neolithic. Occasional pieces have "dotted wavy
line" decoration.

Radiocarbon dates place the El Nabta sites between 8,100 and 7,900 B.P.
One of these, E-75-6, is much larger than the others and consists of a
series of shallow, oval hut floors at--ranged in two, possibly three,
parallel lines. Beside each house was one or more bell-shaped storage
pits; nearby were several deep (2.5 m) and shallow (1.5 m) water-wells.
This site, located near the bottom of a large basin, was flooded by the
summer rains. The houses were repeatedly used, probably during harvests
in fall and winter Several thousand remains of edible plants have been
recovered from these house floors. They include seeds, fruits, and
tubers representing 44 different kinds of plants, including sorghum and
millets. All of the plants are morphologically wild, but chemical
analysis by infrared spectroscopy of the lipids in the sorghum indicates
that this plant may have been cultivated. Of the four El Nabta sites
that have yielded fauna, two contained bones of a large bovid identified
as /Bos/. The faunal samples from the other two sites are very small.


_Middle Neolithic_

Another brief period of aridity separated the El Nabta Early Neolithic
from the succeeding Middle Neolithic, which is marked by the much
greater abundance of pottery. In addition, each piece of pottery is
decorated over its entire exterior surface with closely packed comb- or
paddle-impressed designs. Some of the pots are large, and analysis of
the clays indicates that they were made locally. There were also some
changes in lithic tools. More of them were made of local rocks, but
there was sufficient continuity in lithic typology to suggest that the
preceding Nabta population was also involved.

Radiocarbon dates indicated an age for the Middle Neolithic between
7,700 and 6,500 B.P. The sites from the early part of this period range
from one-or-two house homesteads in some of the smaller playas to
multi-house villages in the larger basins. There is also one very large
settlement along the beach line of the largest playa in the area, as
well as, small camps on the sandsheets and the plateaus beyond the
basins. This variation in site size has been interpreted as reflecting a
seasonally responsive settlement system in which the population
dispersed into small villages in the lower pans of the basins during
most of the year, particularly the dry season, then, during the wet
season, aggregated into a large community along the edge of the
high-water stand of the largest playa.

Various house types are represented in the villages: some are circular
and semi-subterranean (30 to 40 cm deep), some slab-lined, and others
appear to have had walls of sticks and clay (wattle and daub). All of
the sites have large, deep walk-in wells and storage pits. Except for
the small camps, most of the sites appear to have been reused many
times, with new house floors placed on top of the silt deposited during
the preceding flood.

Excavations at five Middle Neolithic sites have yielded more than 50
bones from large bovids. Most of these bones came from the large
"aggregation" site (E-75-8) at the margin of the largest playa in the
area and from the early Middle Neolithic site E-77-l, dated before 7,000
B.P., which is located on a dune adjacent to another large playa. Each
of the other three Middle Neolithic sites yielded only one to three
large bovid bones.

Around 7,000 B.P., the remains of small livestock (sheep or goats)
appear in several Middle Neolithic sites at Nabta. Because there are no
progenitors for sheep or goats in Africa, these caprovines were almost
certainly introduced from southwest Asia.

The faunal remains in many of these sites are extensive, including not
only the same species recovered from the Early Neolithic sites, but also
lizards (Lacertilia sp.) ground squirrel (Euxerus erythropus), field rat
(Aricanthis nioloticus), hyena (Hyaena hyaena), and sand fox (Vulpes
rueppelii). One bone is from either orstx (Oryx dammah) or addax (Addax
nasosulcatus), The most nurmerous remains are those of hare and the
Dorcas gazelle. Nevertheless, the paucity of the fauna and the absence,
except for cattle and small livestock, of animals that require permanent
water suggests a rather poor environment, most likely comparable to the
northernmost Sahel today with about 200 mm of rain or less annually.

The Middle Neolithic was brought to an end by another major but brief
period of aridity slightly before 6,500 B.P., when the water table fell
several meters and the floors of many basins were deflated and reshaped,
The area probably was abandoned at this time.


_Late Neolithic_

With the increase in rainfall that began around 6,500 years ago. human
groups again appeared in the area, but this time with ceramic and lithic
traditions that differed from those of the preceding Middle Neolithic.
This new complex, identified as Late Neolithic, is distinguished by
pottery that is polished and sometimes smudged on the interiors. This
pottery resembles that found in the slightly later (about 5,400 or,
possibly, 6,300 B.P.) Baderian sites in the Nile Valley of Upper Egypt.
[12, 13] It seems likely that an as yet undiscovered early pre-Badarian
Neolithic was present in that area and either stimulated or was the
source of the Late Neolithic pottery in the Sahara. It is unlikely,
however, that this hypothetical early Nilotic Neolithic will date much
earlier than 6,500 B.P. There are terminal Paleolithic sites along the
Nile that are dated to around 7,000 B.P. and it is highly improbable
that two such different life-ways could co-exist exist for long in the
closely constrained environment of the Nile Valley.

Late Neolithic sites in the Egyptian Sahara consist mostly of numerous
hearths representing many separate episodes of occupation. The hearths
are long and oval, dug slightly into the surface of the ground, and
filled with charcoal and fire-cracked rocks. No houses are known. Most
of the sites are dry-season camps located in the lower parts of basins
that were flooded by the seasonal rains. Many of the sites are
associated with several large, deep wells.

Many of the Late Neolithic tools are made on "side-blow flakes" that
have been retouched into denticulates and notched pieces There are also
a few bifacial arrowheads, often with tapering stems, or, rarely with
concave bases similar to those found in the Fayum Neolithic where they
date between 6,400 and 5,7OO years ago.The end of the Late Neolithic in
the Eastern Sahara is not well established.The period may have tasted
until around 5,300 B.P. when this part of the Sahara was abandoned.

Due to poor preservation faunal re-mains in Late Neolithic sites are not
as abundant as those from the Middle Neolithic. However, the Late and
Middle Neolithic samples generally include the same animals suggesting
that the environment was also generally similar during these periods.
Although large bovids are also present in three Late Nealithic sites,
and more frequently than in the faunal assemblages of the preceding
period, they still are a minor component of the sample.

The Late Neolithic Nabta is marked by interesting signs of increased
social complexity, including several alignments of updght slabs (2 x 3
m) imbedded in, and sometimes almost covered by, the playa sediments.
Circles of smaller uptight stabs may calendrical devices. Stone-covered
tumuli are also present; two of the smaller ones contain cow burials,
one in a prepared and sealed pit. none of the more than 30 large tumuli
thus far located, which are by large, roughly shaped blocks of stone,
has been excavated.

Even the earliest of these early Holocene Eastern Sahara sites have been
attributed to cattle pastoralists. It is presumed that these Early
Neolithic groups came into the desert from an as yet unidentified area
where wild cattle were present and the initial steps toward their
domestication been taken.

This area may have been the Nile Valley between the First and Second
Cataracts, where wild cattle were present. Moreover, lithic industries
were closely similar to those in the earliest Saharan sites. It has been
suggested that cattle may have facilitated human use of the Sahara by
providing a mobile, dependable, and renewable source of food in the font
of milk and blood. The use of cattle as a renewable resource rather than
for meat is seen as a possible explanation for the paucity of cattle
remains in most of the Saharan sites. Such use in a desert, where other
foods were so limited, may have initiated the modern East African
pattern of cattle pastonlism in which cattle are important as a symbol
of prestige, are primarily used for milk and blood, and rarely are
killed for meat.

It is assumed, because of the apparrent absence of wells at the earliest
sites, that the first pastoralists used the desert only after the summer
rains, when water was still present in the larger drainage basins. After
8,000 years ago, when large, deep wells were dug, the pastoralists
probably resided in the desert year-round.


_Linguistic evidence_

In addition to the archeological and paleontological evidence, recent
linguistic studies indicate the presence of early pastoralists in the
Eastern Sahara. Detailed analysis of Nilo-Saharan root words has
provided "convincing evidence" that the early cultural history of that
language family included a pastoralist and food producing way of life,
and that this occurred in what is today the south-western Sahara and
Sahel belt.

The Nilo-Saharan family of languages is divided into a complex array of
branches and subgroups that reflect an enormous time depth. Just one of
the subgroups, Kir is as internally complex as the lndo-European family
of languages and is believed to have a comparable age. The Sudanese
branch is of special interest here. This is particularly true of the
Northern Sudanese subfamily that includes a Saharo-Sahelian subgroup,
the early homeland of which is placed in nonh-west Sudan and northeast
Chad. Today, the groups that speak Saharo-Sahelian are dispersed from
the Niger river eastward to northwestern Ethiopian highlands.

The Proto-Northern Sudanic language contains root words such as "to
drive," "cow, "grain,""ear of grain," and "grindstone." Any of these
might apply to food production, but another root word meaning "to milk"
is cetainly the most convincing evidence of incipient pastoralism. There
are also root words for "temporary shelter" and "to make a pot." In the
succeeding Proto-Saharo-Sahelian language, there are root words for "to
cultivate", "to prepare field", to "clear" (of weeds), and "cultivated
field." this is the first unambiguous linguistic evidence of
cultivation. There are also words for "thombush cattle pen," "fence,"
"yard," "grannary," as well as "to herd" and "cattle." In the following
Proto-Sahelian period, there are root words for "goat," "sheep," "ram,"
and "lamb," indicating the presence of small livestock. There are root
words for "cow," "bull," "ox," and "young cow" or "heifer" and, indeed,
a variety of terms relating to cultivation and permanent houses.

On the basis of known historical changes in some of the language, Ehert
estimates that the Proto-Northern Sudanic language family, which
includes the first root words indicating cattle pastoralism, should be
dated about 10,000 years ago. He also estimates that the
Proto-Saharan-Sahelian language family, which has words indicating not
only more complex cattlw pastroalism, but the first indications of
cultivation, occurred around 9,000 years ago. He places the
Proto-Sahelian language at about 8,500 years ago.

These age estimates are just that, and should not be used to suggest any
other chronology. Nevertheless, the sequence of cultural changes is
remarkably similar to that in the archeology of the Eastern Sahara and,
with some minor adjustments for the beginning of cultivation and for'
the inclusion of "sheep" and "goat," reasonably closely to the
radiocarbon chronology.


_Evidence from other parts of North Africa_

The antiquity of the known domes-tic cattle elsewhere in North Africa
does not offer much encouragement with regard to the presence of early
domestic cattle in the Eastern Sahara. Gautier recently summarized the
available data, noting that domestic cattle were present in coastal
Maurita-nia and Mali around 4,200 years ago and at Capeletti in the
mountains of northern Algeria about 6,500 years ago. At about that same
time, they may have been present in the Coastal Neolithic of the
Maghreb. Farther south in the Central Sahara, domestic cattle were
present at Meniet and Erg d'Admco, both of which date around 5,400 years
ago, and at Adrar Rous, where a complete skeleton of a domestic cow is
dated 5,760 +/- 500 years B.P ].

Domestic cattle have been found in western Libya at Ti-n-torha North and
Uan Muhuggiag, where the lowest level with domestic cattle and small
livestock (sheep and goats) dated at 7,438 t 1,200 B.P. At Uan
Muhuggiag, there is also a skull of a domestic cow dated 5,950 +/- 120
years. In northern Chad at Gabrong and in the Serir Tibesti, cattle and
small livestock were certainly present by 6,000 B.P. and may have been
there as early as 7,500 B.P. We are skeptical, however, about the
presence of livestock at Uan Muhuggiag and the Serir Tibesti before
7,OO0 B.P., when small livestock first appear in the Eastern Sahara, if
we must assume that these animals reached the central Sahara by way of
Egypt and the Nile Valley. This also casts doubt on the 7,500 B.P. dates
for cattle in these sites.

The earliest domestic cattle in the lower Nile Valley have been found at
Merimda, in levels that have several radiocarbon dates ranging between
6,000 and 5,400 B.P. and in the Fayum Neolithic, which dates from 6,400
to 5, 400 B.P. These sites also have domes-tic pigs and either sheep or
goats. In Upper Egypt, the earliest confirmed domestic cattle are in the
Predynastic site of El Khattara, dated at 5,300 B.P. However, domestic
cattle were almost certainly present in the earliest Badarian Neolithic,
which dates before 5,400 B.P. and possibly were there as early as 6,300
B.P. Farther south, in Sudan near Khartoum, the first do-mestic cattle
and small livestock oc-curred together in the Khartoum Neolithic, which
began around 6,000 B.P.

It is probably significant that none of the early Holocene faunal
assem-blages in the Nile Valley from the Fayum south to Khartoum that
date between 9,000 and 7,000 H.P contains the remains of cattle that
have been identified as domestic It is this ab-sence of any evidence of
recognizable incipient cattle domestication in the Nile Valley or
elsewhere in North Africa that cautions us to consider carefully the
evidence of early domestic cattle in the Eastern Sahara.


_Other opinions_

Numerous scholars, including Clut-ton-Brock, Robertshaw, Muzolini, and
Smith, have debated about whether the large bovids are cattle or buffalo
and stated that if they are cattle, they probably were wild.

It has also been suggested, because the large bovid bones are so rare,
that the /Bos/ were possibly intrusive and not associated with the dated
occupations where they occurred That argument is not convincing The
occupations at many of the sites with large bovids were limited to only
one type of Early Neolithic. Moreover, the bovids were recovered from
excavations at 15 Neo-lithic sites dating before 6,500 years ago and, in
fact, were found at every site that yielded more than 41 speci-mens of
identifiable faunal remains. Unfortunately, it is not possible to date
these large bovid hones directly. Several attempts have been made and
each was unsuccessful. Apparently. collagen is not preserved in bones
found in hyper-arid environments. It should also be noted that the large
bovid hones are not fossilized, and thus are not geological intrusions.
Also, there are no large bovids living in the Eastern Sahara today nor
have there been for several thousands of years.

It has been suggested that the faunal samples from the archeological
sites do not reflect the range of animals that existed in that
environment. However, Gautier has identified a long list of animals from
these sites and, except for gazelles and hares, none is common. Beyond
that, all are small and desert-adjusted. These faunal samples probably
reflect the expected range of animals living in the desert at that time.

Smith made the most detailed criticism of Gautier's hypothesis about
domestic cattle, basing his objections on two major points. The first is
environmental. He noted that Churcher identified wild cattle, African
buffalo, hartebeests zebras, and gazelles from an "Early Neolithic"
context at Dakhleh Oasis, 300 km north of Bir Kiseiba. If this is a true
Early Neolithic faunal assemblage, however, the area would have required
a much wetter environment than is in-dicated by the geological evidence.
In fact, this Dakhleh assemblage in-cludes species that require much
more moisture than do the species that were in the Nile Valley at this
time. This suggests that the environ-ment at Dakhleh was richer and more
hospitable than that along the Nile, which is highly unlikely, to say
the least. Also, Equus, even in the Late Pa-leolithic, seems to have
been confined to the Red Sea Hills and the east bank of the Nile. [39]
The Dakhleh fauna closely resembles that found with lacustrine deposits
in the Eastern Sahara and dating to the Last Inter-glacial, while they
are associated with Middle Paleolithic artifacts. It seems likely that
this Dakhleh fauna was de-rived born deposits of the Middle Pa-leolithic
and was somehow mixed with Neolithic artifacts. Churcher (personal
communication) accepts this as a possible explanation.

Smith also noted that the Eastern Sahara faunal assemblages do not
include the addax, which is still found today in the Central Sahara, or
the onyx, giraffe, rhinoceros, or elephant he would expect to see in
even the driest environments. There are, of course, two bones of either
addax or onyx in the collections. Also, giraffes survived until recently
in areas of the Gilf Kebir where there was water. There is, however, no
evidence of giraffe on the plains of the Eastern Sahara after the lakes
of the Last Interglacial became dry between 70,000 and 65,000 years ago.
Occa-sional elephant teeth and a partial skull have been found in the
Neolithic sites, but the elephant skull is more mineralized than are the
bones of other fauna recovered from the same site. That skull, as well
as the elephant teeth found in other sites, are regarded as Middle
Paleolithic or earlier fossils collected by Neolithic people. In our
view, the Eastern Sahara was simply too dry for these larger mam-mals,
all of which, except the ele-phant, require nearby water. (The elephant
is known to range consider-able distances away from water)

Smith's other argument is osteological. He noted that Gautier was very
cautious in his identifications, using circumstantial evidence to
establish the identity of species. Smith observed that large bovid
remains from the Eastern Sahara are within the size range of wild cattle
in both Europe and North Africa, but that some are larger than known
do-mestic cattle. He suggested that these large bovids could just as
well be African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) or giant buffalo (Pelorovis
antiquus). Both possibilities, however, can be rejected on osteometric
and morphological grounds. The entire collection was carefully
re-examined to resolve this particular question and the initial
identification of the hones as those of Bus was confirmed.

It seems possible that we have not been adequately clear in our
discus-sion of the sedimentary and other geological data that support
the argument that there was no permanent water in this part of the
Sahara. Perhaps, also, our critics' personal experience in the Sahara
has been limited to its more tropical and luxurious areas where
permanent lakes existed in the Early Holocene. If so, this may have left
them with a dis-torted view of the environment in the Eastern Sahara,
where there are nu-merous deflated basins. In the center of many of
these basins are extensive remnants of typical playa clays, which grade
to silts and sands toward their margins. Diatomites, freshwater
limestones, and other organogenic evidence of permanent water do not
occur. There are no aquatic species of invertebrates and none of the
fauna except large bovids requires permanent water. It is for these
reasons that we reject the hypothesis that cattle were an integral part
of the natural, wild fauna of the Eastern Sahara in the early Holocene.
In this area under these conditions, cattle had to have been under human
control, and thus at least incipiently domestic. The cattle had to have
been moved from one grazing area and water hole to another and then,
when the drainage basins became dry returned to a place with permanent
water.

Wild cattle were numerous in the Nile Valley at this time. It might be
hypothesized that after the summer rains the cattle ranged westward on
their own to graze and the new grass then returned to the valley before
the dry season. Although it is possible that this could have happened at
Nabta, which is only 100 km from the Nile, it is ex-tremely unlikely to
have occurred at Bir Kiseiba, about 250 km west of the Nile. Also, this
hypothesis makes little ecological sense. If large cattle went far out
into the desert, why didn't me-dium-size animals do the same? This is a
particularly important question with regard to the hartebeest, which is
also common in the Nile Valley and is better adapted to aridity than are
cattle.

We have also considered the possi-bility that the cattle bones are
remnants of food brought to the desert from the Nile Valley by groups of
hunters. However, this is unlikely, for al-most all of the bones
recovered are lower limb elements, which have little or no meat and
frequently are dis-carded at killing and butchery sites.


_Conclusion_

How can we accommodate the conflicting evidence regarding cattle
pas-toralists during the early Holocene in the Eastern Sahara? In
particular, how can we propose that the first steps to-ward cattle
domestication began in the Nile Valley, perhaps during the Late
Pleistocene, when there is so little faunal evidence to support that
hypothesis? The answer may lie in the identification of the cattle
remains found in the Late Paleolithic sites in Sudanese and Egyptian
Nubia. It has been suggested that it would be very difficult to separate
the bones of the incipiently domestic cattle from those of wild cattle.
When the first cattle were discovered in the Eastern Sahara, Gautier
rechecked the //Bos// remains that had been found in all of the Late
Paleolithic Nilotic sites. He gave particular attention to those from
the Qadan site at Tushka, dated 14, 500 B.P., where cattle skulls were
used as head markers for several human burials, and those from the
Ark-inian site with a 14C date around 10,500 B.P. The Arkinian site was
of special interest because the little lithic assemblage from there
closely resembles the assemblages from the earliest El Nabta type
Neolithic in the Eastern Sahara. Gautier found that the cattle in both
the Qadan and Arkinian sites fell in two size groups one of which he
considered to be males, the other females both groups were identified as
being wild //Bos// primigenius.

Recently, however, work in a killing and butchery site near Esna, Egypt,
dated 19,100 B.P., yielded the remains of six very large //Bos//, much
larger than any other previously recovered in the Nile Valley. Indeed,
these //Bos// are even larger than those from much older Middle
Paleolithic sites. On the basis of this discovery, Gautier has suggested
that //Bos// primigenius bulls in the Nile Valley may well have been
much larger than was previously believed, and that the larger //Bos//
from the Qadan and Arkinian sites were female wild //Bos//. If so, the
smaller animals in those assemblages may have been these ones that were
in an early stage of domestication. Morphologically, the Eastern Sahara
cattle would then be well within the range of these incipiently domestic
cattle. The additional work planned at the Esna butchery site may
clarify this hypothesis.

By employing the method of "strong inferences," which involves
formulating alternative hypotheses, testing them to exclude one or more,
arid adopting those that remain, we have concluded that domestic cattle
probably were present in the Eastern Sahara as early as 9,000 years ago
and, perhaps earlier. At the same time, we recognize that there is no
such thing as proof and that science advances only by disproofs. Future
evidence may suggest a better hypothesis or indeed, this controversy may
be conclusively resolved if DNA testing now under way determines that
the //Bos// remains found in African and Southwest Asian archeological
sites belong to the same closely related gene pool or that they
represent two populations that have been separated for many thousands of
years. Until then, Gautier's hypothesis of domestic cattle in the
Eastern Sahara during the Early Holocene remains reasonable, if insecure.





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