Studies on the Post-Glacial Peopling of the Sudanese Sahara

Selima

About 10,000 years ago, northern Africa experienced a major episode of population expansion – the post-glacial peopling of the Sahara. How did the process of peopling this unfamiliar region proceed? What role did innovations in the sphere of technology and subsistence play? And where did the people who settled the previously inhospitable area come from? During the Early Holocene, a northward shift of the monsoon rain belt caused increased precipitation, transforming the Sahara for several millennia into a savannah landscape that provided a viable habitat for humans and animals alike. Numerous archaeological sites bear witness to this process and suggest that the Sahara was already populated at the beginning of the Holocene. Especially in its eastern part, environmental and settlement history has been a subject of intense research over the past decades. Nevertheless, fundamental questions about the post-glacial peopling remain unanswered to this day. They include not only questions regarding the peopling process but also those regarding the origin of the Early Holocene Epipalaeolithic groups. Did people at the beginning of the Holocene really follow the monsoon rains coming from the south, as often assumed? Currently, the oldest sites of this period are to be found in Egypt and thus in the northern part of the Eastern Sahara. In its southern, Sudanese part, some sites are known that can be roughly assigned to the Early Holocene, Epipaleolithic occupation phase, but due to a lack of absolute dating, it is not possible to determine their age more precisely. This project aims to address this gap in research through targeted excavations at known Epipalaeolithic sites in the wider surroundings of the Selima Oasis in northern Sudan, a region that has so far only been partially surveyed. In addition to this, surveys and excavations in the adjacent "Selima Sand Sheet" region will be carried out as well as an examination of already recovered artefacts and lacustrine sediments. In order to address economic and palaeo-environmental questions, archaeozoological, archaeobotanical, sedimentological-geochemical, and lipid analyses are planned. The project will focus on three main questions: 1) When was the southern part of the Eastern Sahara first occupied after the end of the last glacial period? 2) How did the process of the post-glacial peopling of the southern part of the Eastern Sahara proceed and how did innovations in technology and subsistence, such as pottery and animal husbandry, contribute to this process? 3) How and when did the reoccupation phase in the southern part of the Eastern Sahara come to an end, and is there evidence for a connection with the rapid environmental changes at the end of the Early Holocene (“8.2 event”)?