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The Ecological Context of Ancient Egyptian Predynastic Settlements

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The fact that these sites were short-lived suggests lively inter-action between ecological and social influences. The floodplain narrows here and this would have stinted the development of large individual settlement. This would have coupled with the stochastic fluctuations small populations are subjected to - the inhabitants of a community joining that of another community when their settlement population numbers decline.

Hierakonpolis

The settlements at Hierakonpolis differ from the usual Predynastic communities, settled mostly on the low desert escarpments paralleling the floodplain, by extending both parallel and perpendicular to the river banks.

Hierakonpolis contains the entire Nagada I - III cultural sequence (c. 4000 - 3100 BC), stretching back to the end of the Badarian. Excavations by Hoffman have led him to conclude that the initial settlement at Hierakonpolis was by colonists from more northern unspecified sectors of Upper Egypt. Hoffman also hypothesizes that there was a "population explosion" between 3800 and 3400 BC, with the central sector of the settlement supporting between 5000 - 10 000 inhabitants. The growth he attributes to the region's ecological diversity and incredible agricultural potential. This Nagada Ic - IIa period was also one of regional expansion, with clustered rectangular house settlements and Hierakonpolis becoming a centre for pottery production.

The Neolithic Subpluvial (resulting from the southward shift of the Mediterranean rainbelts) lasted from c. 7000 - 3000 BC, the rainfall estimates for the Hierakonpolis region ranging from 5cm to 25cm per year. Even 5cm of rainfall would have resulted in a regular seasonal runoff from the surrounding highlands for the Great Wadi at Hierakonpolis, enriching the surrounding environment enabling plant and animal life to prosper in this semi-desert.

The rainfall would have been between January and February, meaning that the inhabitants of the district of Hierakonpolis practiced two different agricultural regimes: "dry" farming in the Wadi and basin irrigation on the floodplain.As the floodplain and the Wadi are separated by a substantial distance, and taking into account that each regime requires its own special cultivation technique as well as the cultivation taking place in both places at the same time (late March and early April being the harvesting period),


 

 

 

 

the local predynastic society was most likely divided into two units - one living in the desert borderlands of the Wadi by a combination of farming, hunting and herding, and the other existing either on or nearby the floodplain in areas like the Nagada II town practicing basin irrigation agriculture (which began during this period) as well as fishing and plying their trade along the Nile.

The decline in rainfall at the end of the Neolithic Subpluvial signified the end of the wadi-based constituent of the Hierakonpolis regional subsistence economy between c. 3300 - 3100 BC. This increasing desiccation led to a settlement shift of the desert regional inhabitants that boosted the floodplain population density and thus the numbers of the available labour force and the base through which local big-men could increase in importance (similar to Carneiro's state-formation model previously mentioned). This increase in hierarchical power could have been achieved by a number of different variants, likely acting in tandem with one another - providing Nile transportation for trade goods; as intermediaries for local and regional trade exchanges; acting as judges in cases involving land, water and dower disputes; able military leadership; and resources for religious and elite secular building constructions.

Apart from the socio-economic consequences, resulting in the quickening emergence of an elite, the Saharan pastures were effectively eliminated to a great extent with the desiccation which rendered the remainder of the Nile floodplain and the Delta attractive inducements for military expeditions, conquest and thereby the expansion of the city-state of Hierakonpolis - during a time of low Nile floods - into one of the world's first nation-states, Ancient Egypt.

Conclusion

The currently known distributions of Predynastic settlements are determined by geological rather than by cultural factors. The ecology of the Nile Valley and Delta also determined the placement of sites within a particular region, like Merimda on a terrace or the divided Hierakonpolis society in its formative stages. Yet the unparalleled transport navigability of the Nile, with each settlement located within a few kilometres of one another, also provides an explanation for most of Ancient Egypt's political and religious Dynastic unity.

However, it is in this lead-up to the unification of the Nile city-states under Hierakonpolis that the environment plays one of its most important roles. The end of the Neolithic Subpluvial (thus ruling out expansion into the desert) and the pressure brought to bear by the decreased Nile floods (thereby putting strain on agricultural production), in tandem with the increased population, made the rest of the Valley and the Delta look increasingly attractive for various means of expansion.

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By Michael Brass

 

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