Jebel Sahaba ( ar, جَبَل ٱلصَّحَابَة, Jabal Aṣ-Ṣaḥābah, lit=Mountain of the Companions; also Site 117) is a prehistoric cemetery site in the Nile Valley (now submerged in Lake Nasser), near the northern border of Sudan with

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

Northeast Africa Northeast Africa, or ''Northeastern Africa'' or Northern East Africa as it was known in the past, is a geographic regional term used to refer to the countries of Africa situated in and around the Red Sea. The region is intermediate between North ...

. It is associated with the

Qadan culture The Qadan culture (13000-9000 BCE) was an ancient culture that, archaeological evidence suggests, originated in Upper Egypt (present day south Egypt) approximately 15,000 years ago.Phillipson, DW: ''African Archaeology'' page 149. Cambridge Uni ...

, dated to the

Younger Dryas The Younger Dryas (c. 12,900 to 11,700 years BP) was a return to glacial conditions which temporarily reversed the gradual climatic warming after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, c. 27,000 to 20,000 years BP). The Younger Dryas was the last stag ...

some 12,000 to 15,000 years ago, with one skeleton having been

radiocarbon dated Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...

to approximately 13,140–14,340 years ago. Newer apatite dates indicate that the site is at least 11,600 years old. It was discovered in 1964 by a team led by

Fred Wendorf Fred may refer to: People * Fred (name), including a list of people and characters with the name Mononym * Fred (cartoonist) (1931–2013), pen name of Fred Othon Aristidès, French * Fred (footballer, born 1949) (1949–2022), Frederico R ...

. The site is often cited as the oldest known evidence of

warfare War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regul ...

or systemic intergroup violence. Some anthropologists argue that the deaths were linked to environmental pressures.

Discovery

The original project that discovered the cemetery was the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

High Dam Salvage Project. This salvage dig project was a direct response to the raising of the

Aswan Dam The Aswan Dam, or more specifically since the 1960s, the Aswan High Dam, is one of the world's largest embankment dams, which was built across the Nile in Aswan, Egypt, between 1960 and 1970. Its significance largely eclipsed the previous Aswan L ...

which stood to destroy or damage many sites along its path. Three cemeteries are present in this area. Of these cemeteries, two comprise Jebel Sahaba, with one cemetery located on either side of the

Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest ...

. A third cemetery, Tuskha, is situated nearby.

Skeletal remains

61 individual skeletons were recovered at Jebel Sahaba, as well as numerous other fragmented remains. 38 of the skeletons show signs of trauma, with 16 showing indications of injury at or near time of death. Pointed stone projectiles were found in the bodies of 21 individuals, suggesting that these people had been attacked by

spear A spear is a pole weapon consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with fire hardened spears, or it may be made of a more durable material fasten ...

s or arrows. Cut marks were found on the bones of other individuals as well. Some damaged bones had healed, demonstrating a persistent pattern of conflict in this society. Cranial analysis of the Jebel Sahaba fossils found that they shared osteological affinities with a hominid series from Wadi Halfa in Sudan. Additionally, comparison of the limb proportions of the Jebel Sahaba skeletal remains with those of various ancient and recent series indicated that they were most similar in body shape to the examined modern populations from Sub-Saharan Africa (viz. 19th century fossils belonging to the San population, 19th century

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, M ...

fossils, 19th and 20th century

Pygmy In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a pop ...

fossils, and mid-20th century fossils culled from

Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi ...

and

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...

in East Africa). However, the Jebel Sahaba specimens were post-cranially distinct from the

Iberomaurusian The Iberomaurusian is a backed bladelet lithic industry found near the coasts of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. It is also known from a single major site in Libya, the Haua Fteah, where the industry is locally known as the Eastern Oranian.The ...

s and other coeval series from

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

, and they were also morphologically remote from later

Nubia Nubia () (Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), or ...

n skeletal series and from fossils belonging to the Mesolithic

Natufian The Natufian culture () is a Late Epipaleolithic archaeological culture of the Levant, dating to around 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introducti ...

culture of the Levant.

Curation

The skeletal remains and any other artifacts recovered by the UNESCO High Dam Salvage Project were donated by Wendorf to the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

in 2001; the collection arrived at the museum in March 2002. This collection includes skeletal and fauna remains, lithics, pottery, and environmental samples as well as the full archive of Wendorf's notes, slides, and other material during the dig.

References

External links

* {{Prehistoric technology Cemeteries in Sudan Archaeological sites in Sudan Paleolithic

Discovery

Skeletal remains

Curation

See also

References

Further reading

External links