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Khor Shambat, Early Khartoum, Neolithic, cemetery, graves, settlement, pottery, lithic inventory, archaeozoology

2016, 25, Vol. 25, Regular Issue

Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk

Polish Academy of Sciences Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology

Polish Academy of Sciences Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology

Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznań

Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk

Austrian Archaeological Institute in Vienna


Publication date

15.05.2017

Publishing model

open access

License type


Field

Humanities

Discipline

archeology

Language of publication

English

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Abstract

The locality of Khor Shambat in the Omdurman district of Khartoum was investigated in 2012. The site lies between two gorges draining water to the Nile Valley from the west. Testing established the site stratigraphy, dating the cultural level to the early Neolithic. The source material from this cultural level included vessel-type ceramics, microlithic stone artifacts, macrolithic stone tools and faunal remains. A cemetery containing 13 graves was investigated, the alignment of the burial pits and position of the interments leading to the conclusion that it started as a Neolithic burial ground and continued as a cemetery probably in Meroitic and post-Meroitic times. The archaeological, anthropological and archaeozoological data contributed new information on settlement on this site and in the broader overview, in central Sudan.

Keywords:

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