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The Neolithic and ‘Pastoralism’ Along the Nile: A Dissenting View

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Journal of World Prehistory Aims and scope

Abstract

A largely accepted paradigm in African recent prehistory considers pastoralism to be the main subsistence source of food-producing communities along the Sudanese Nile valley from the 6th millennium cal BC onwards. This paradigm is constraining the development of a wider theoretical perspective that assumes, instead, a regionally differentiated picture of the economic and social organisation of local communities in northeastern Africa. This paradigm is thus the strongest impediment to achieving reliable and convincing syntheses of the transition from food collection to food production in this area. New data from Upper Nubia and central Sudan open the way for different and more complex scenarios and a new understanding of the local transition from agro-pastoral to agricultural practices. A more systematic data-based approach helps to change radically our perception of different Neolithic trajectories. Moreover, it helps to place in a different perspective—based on various levels of identity formation processes—change and continuity along the chrono-cultural sequence, as well as the different meanings that each local group confers on apparently similar acts in the context of the funerary ideology.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank some colleagues that contributed to ameliorate our text with their useful comments: Maria Carmela Gatto, Stefano Biagetti and Julie Dunne, as well as the three anonymous referees for their invaluable comments and suggested corrections. For our activity in Sudan we are indebted to our funders: the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Centro Studi Sudanesi and Sub-Sahariani and the Universities of Parma, Padova and Milano. Special thanks are due to the National Corporation of Antiquities and Museums of Khartoum and the Director General Abdelrahman Ali Mohammed. Suzanne Needs, freelance copy editor and translator, is thanked for her helpfulness and patience.

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    Sandro Salvatori & Donatella Usai

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Salvatori, S., Usai, D. The Neolithic and ‘Pastoralism’ Along the Nile: A Dissenting View. J World Prehist 32, 251–285 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-019-09132-1

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