Esh Shaheinab

Esh Shaheinab is an African archaeological site that was occupied multiple times during the early Holocene. Artifacts from this site exemplify various traditions including the Early Khartoum (8800 to 5000 BC),[1][2] Neolithic (4580-4460 BC and 4500-4380 BC[3]), and Late Neolithic (4th millennium BC[2]).[3]

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Site at Esh Shaheinab
Location of Esh Shaheinab

The site lies approximately 50 km north of Omdurman on the west bank of the Nile in central Sudan.[3] The climate Esh Shaheinab residents experienced was humid and its "wooded savannah" ecosystem ("patches of forest, grass and scrub") depended on large amounts of rain in the summer.[4][5] Occupants relied heavily on the Nile for fishing while maintaining a hunter-gatherer economy.[2] Remains of domesticated dwarf goats and some sheep indicate some participation in herding however, the remains are so limited that Esh Shaheinab is not categorized as a pastoralist society.

A. J. Arkell was the first archaeologist to excavate the site (1949) with the intention of filling in the gaps that remain between northern and western Neolithic histories in Africa.[6] He excavated hearths riddled with evidence of complex culture and various subsistence practices. After the occupation that left the hearths, during the early Neolithic, it became a burial ground for occupants during the Late Neolithic.[2] Numerous other archaeologists have visited the site since and published findings on pottery, food production, and tool production.

  1. ^ Keding, Birgit (2017-12-07). "Middle Holocene Fisher-Hunter-Gatherers of Lake Turkana in Kenya and Their Cultural Connections with the North: The Pottery". Journal of African Archaeology. 15 (1): 42–76. doi:10.1163/21915784-12340003. ISSN 1612-1651.
  2. ^ a b c d Garcea, Elena (2020). The Prehistory of the Sudan. Cham: Springer International Publishing AG. ISBN 9783030471842.
  3. ^ a b c Garcea, Elena (2006). "The endless glory of a site: esh-Shaheinab in the Sudanese prehistory". Acta Nubica: 95–102.
  4. ^ D'Ercole, Giulia (17 April 2021). "Seventy Years of Pottery Studies in the Archaeology of Mesolithic and Neolithic Sudan". African Archaeological Review. 38 (2): 345–372. doi:10.1007/s10437-021-09432-y. S2CID 234854234.
  5. ^ Krzyzaniak, Lech (April 1978). "New Light on Early Food-Production in the Central Sudan". The Journal of African History. 19 (2): 159–172. doi:10.1017/s0021853700027572. ISSN 0021-8537. S2CID 162767986.
  6. ^ Arkell, A. J. (1949). "Excavations at Esh Shaheinab, Sudan (1949)". Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. 15: 42–49. doi:10.1017/s0079497x00019174. ISSN 0079-497X. S2CID 131658533.