Article révisé par les pairs
| Résumé : | Archaeological investigations conducted in the past 25 years have deeply transformed our perception of the human occupation in the Lower Nile Valley and the neighbouring deserts during Prehistory.This paper focusses on the late Prehistory of the region, namely the Predynastic (c. 4500-3325 BCE), Protodynastic (c. 3325-3086 BCE) and Early Dynastic (c. 3086-2686 BCE) periods. Among the most important results is the awareness that the dominant material cultures in these areas, which are the Lower Egyptian Complex in the North, the Naqadan Complex in Upper Egypt, and the A-Group in Lower Nubia, were only one aspect of a far more complex socio-ecological landscape. An increasing quantity of data gathered independently both in the deserts and the Valley demonstrate the presence of other communities alongside these dominant entities. However, despite this undeniable progress, it remains extremely difficult to “give a voice” to these “voiceless” communities which have left only scarce archaeological traces.Overcoming this difficulty in reconstructing the socio-ecology of the Lower Nile Valley requires a broader multidisciplinary collaborative effort. A workshop, gathering many specialists of these periods, was organised at the Université libre de Bruxelles on September 15, 2023, with the ambition to tackle this challenge. This paper, built on the themes addressed during this workshop, aims to provide an epistemological appraisal of the discipline and introduce the backdrop of this thematic dossier. |
