The volume presents all the data collected during the cycle of research conducted by the Italian Archaeological Mission in the Farafra Oasis between 1990 and 2005. The 29 multidisciplinary essays contained in this book provide a detailed picture of the population of the Farafra Oasis, hitherto one of the least well known within the Western Desert. Farafra became particularly important during the middle Holocene, the period when climate conditions were most favourable, with later brief humid episodes even in the historic periods. The results of the long-term research cycle presented here, combined with data from the survey of the whole Wadi el Obeiyid still in progress, allow the authors to identify changes in the peopling of the oasis and to define various occupation phases. The new chronology for the Wadi el Obeiyid is one of the main achievements of the book and, as demonstrated in the final chapter, is in complete agreement with the main cultural units of other territories in the Western Desert. On this chronological basis, the contacts between the latter and the populations established on the Nile are brought into sharper focus. The importance of the archaeological documents discovered at Farafra and, at the same time their fragility due to the deterioration of the physical environment and the uncontrolled human activities, make us fear for their conservation. We hope that this book, with its complete documentation of the precious nature of the Farafra Oasis landscape and its archaeological heritage, may help to promote more effective policies for its safeguard.

This book addresses the question of variability in backed bladelet-based technologies. It also examines the role of LSA microlithic industries as adaptive strategies for coping with paleoenvironmental changes in North Africa. The multidisciplinary research activities conducted in caves and open-air sites in North Africa over the past two decades have highlighted the importance of this region for understanding the development of LSA microlithic technologies in Africa. This book, therefore, enriches the debate of origin and the spread of Late Pleistocene microlithic technologies in North Africa and beyond. Previously published in African Archaeological Review Volume 37, issue 3, September 2020

This book highlights climate as a complex physical, chemical, biological, and geological system, in perpetual change, under astronomical, predominantly, solar control. It has been shaped to some degree through the past glaciation cycles repeated in the last three million years. The Holocene, the current interglacial epoch which started ca. 11,700 years ago, marks the transition from the Stone Age to the unprecedented cultural evolution of our civilization. Significant climate changes have been recorded in natural archives during the Holocene, including the rapid waning of ice sheets, millennial shifting of the monsoonal fringe in the northern hemisphere, and abrupt centennial events. A typical case of severe environmental change is the greening of Sahara in the Early Holocene and the gradual desertification again since the fifth millennium before present. Climate Changes in the Holocene: Impact, Adaptation, and Resilience investigates the impact of natural climate changes on humans and civilization through case studies from various places, periods, and climates. Earth and human society are approached as a complex system, thereby emphasizing the necessity to improve adaptive capacity in view of the anthropogenic global warming and ecosystem degradation. Features: Written by distinguished experts, the book presents the fundamentals of the climate system, the unparalleled progress achieved in the last decade in the fields of intensified research for improved understanding of the carbon cycle, climate components, and their interaction. Presents the application of paleoclimatology and modeling in climate reconstruction. Examines the new era of satellite-based climate monitoring and the prospects of reduced carbon dioxide emissions.

This volume presents the results of a long study begun in 2004 within the framework of the Archaeological Mission in the Farafra Oasis of Egypt directed by Barbara Barich and Giulio Lucarini, of the Sapienza University of Rome (now under the auspices of ISMEO). The book focuses on the features known as “Steinplatz-type hearths” and their role in the settlement patterns of the human groups living in the Egyptian Western Desert during the middle and late Holocene. Steinplätze are concentrations of burned and fire-cracked stones that vary in shape and size, and have often been slightly elevated above the present ground level by post-depositional erosion processes. Occurring both as isolated features and in clusters, they are often the only visible structures – or even traces – of ancient settlements. The study of these features is closely interconnected with the mobility strategies of the communities that inhabited this desert region during a period of higher average rainfall than at present but also characterised by significant climate fluctuations, with humid periods interrupted by dry spells and eventually ending in an overall trend towards greater desertification. The use of the Steinplatz-type hearths was most widespread in the second half of the sixth millennium BC, when mobile occupation strategies replaced a more sedentary model. An analysis of the Farafra Oasis Steinplätze is coupled with a general reassessment of the subsistence and mobility models hitherto proposed for the Eastern Sahara, suggesting an integrated occupation system for Farafra itself. The economy of the forager-herders of the middle Holocene, during the climate optimum (6900-5550 cal BC), seems to have relied significantly on herding small livestock, but also on hunting, and likely concentrated on the gathering of wild cereals such as sorghum. During the climate optimum, forms of seasonal stabilisation of the settlement strategy seem to emerge, with the alternating occupation of two different winter and summer villages consisting of clusters of stone-slab huts; short-term task-specific camps, using Steinplätze, logistically completed the system. After this phase, only short-term camps with Steinplätze were occupied. These were probably directly dependent on the wettest areas at the centre of the oases and made use of a tethered exploitation strategy, with brief movements from the central oasis (“daisy-chain” movements). The use strategies of the Steinplatz-type hearths within the mobile settlement system are outlined adopting a clear and immediately assessable model. “Yet although they are among the most distinctive of the Sahara’s archaeological features, Steinplätze have received little systematic attention in recent decades. Marina Gallinaro’s work thus marks a new phase in their study, one that draws them back into discussions of how early livestock-keeping populations in Northeast Africa used the resources and landscapes to the west of the Nile along a trajectory of increasing aridification that eventually culminated in the desert we see today (…) Lucidly written, Gallinaro’s volume will, I believe, help inspire individuals to take up the research agenda she sets out. At a time when so much of the Sahara is off-limits to archaeological fieldwork, it is deeply gratifying to see here yet more evidence of the thoroughness and high quality that have characterized the work of Italian archaeologists in this region of Africa over many decades. The continuing publication of their research, Marina Gallinaro’s included, in the Arid Zone Archaeology monograph series will surely help sustain widespread interest in Saharan archaeology until it becomes possible to excavate and survey again free of current geopolitical restrictions. May that day come soon!” Prof. Peter Mitchell, University of Oxford, UK.

The Neolithic is thought to have arrived in Egypt via diffusion from an origin in southwest Asia, relatively late compared to neighboring locations. The authors suggest an alternative approach to understanding the development of food production in Egypt based on the results of new fieldwork in the Fayum. They provide the results of a detailed study of the Fayum archaeological landscape interpretable at different temporal and spatial scales, using an expanded version of low-level food production to organize observations concerning paleoenvironment, socioeconomy, settlement, and mobility. While domestic plants and animals were indeed introduced from elsewhere, when a number of aspects of the archaeological record are compared, a settlement system is suggested that has no obvious analogues with the Neolithic in southwest Asia. The results obtained from the Fayum are used to assess other contemporary sites in Egypt.

Numerous research projects have studied the Nubian cultures of Sudan and Egypt over the last thirty years, leading to significant new insights. The contributions to this handbook illuminate our current understanding of the cultural history of this fascinating region, including its interconnections to the natural world.

This richly illustrated book offers a concise overview of the geology of Egypt in the context of the geology of the Arab Region and Northeast Africa. An introductory chapter on history of geological research in Egypt sheds much light on the stages before and after the establishment of Egyptian Geological Survey (the second oldest geological survey worldwide), Hume's book and Said's 1962, 1990 books. The book starts with the Precambrian geology of Egypt, in terms of lithostratigraphy and classifications, structural and tectonic framework, crustal evolution and metamorphic belts. A dedicated chapter discusses the Paleozoic-Mesozoic-Cenozoic tectonics and structural evolution of Egypt. A chapter highlights the Red Sea tectonics and the Gulf of Suez and Gulf of Aqaba Rifts. Subsequent chapters address the Phanerozoic geology from Paleozoic to Quaternary. The Egyptian Impact Crater(s) and Meteorites are dealt with in a separate chapter. The Earth resources in Egypt, including metallic and non-metallic ore deposits, hydrocarbon and water resources, are given much more attention throughout four chapters. The last chapter addresses the seismicity, seismotectonics and neotectonics of Egypt.