Savanna on the Nile

2021 ◽  
pp. 926-953
Author(s):  
Dorian Q. Fuller ◽  
Leilani Lucas
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Systems ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Winter Cereal ◽  
Cultivation System ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The North ◽  
Winter Crop ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Cereal Cultivation

This paper provides an overview of changing agricultural systems from the Neolithic to the Post-Meroitic Period in the greater Nubian region. There remain major gaps in the archaeobotanical evidence, and larger samples collected by systematic sieving and flotation are few and far between. Gaps in our knowledge include the initial establishment of the summer, sub-Saharan cereal cultivation system, but other important trends are much clearer, such as the arrival of the classic Egyptian winter cereal cultivation system of Near Eastern origin in the Late Neolithic at least in Lower Nubia; the latter of which complemented established pastoral traditions providing for the emergent political economy. The northward spread of the summer savannah crop system during the first few centuries ce formed the basis for subsequent intensification through the adoption of the cattle-powered saqia. Diversification and intensification through an integration of the summer and winter crop systems along with the development of a cash crop industry facilitated the development of Meroitic state. These processes also may have played an important role in economic changes in the Late Meroitic to Post-Meroitic transition, including the devolution of the Meroitic state. In addition to representing a long-term frontier of overlapping agricultural systems, Nubia was a frontier in cooking traditions, a crossroads between a world of bread in the North and one of liquid preparations, porridges, and beers in the South.

scholarly journals THE STUDY OF METAL VESSELSFROM ANATOLIA (III MILLENNIUM BC): MORPHOLOGY AND THE FINDS CONTEXT

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Л.И. Авилова
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Hierarchical Structure ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Early State ◽  
The North ◽  
Metal Vessels ◽  
Functional Purpose ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Morphological Distribution

Статья посвящена металлическим сосудам раннего и среднего периодов бронзового века Анатолии. Цель исследования – попытка провести анализ хронологического и морфологического распределения металлических сосудов в регионе и уточнить их назначение, социальные и ритуальные функции с позиций анализа контекста обнаружения. В соответствии с поставленной целью материал рассматривается в нескольких аспектах: динамика распространения металлической посуды во времени; морфология и материал находок; функциональное назначение и социальные практики использования металлических сосудов. Автор подчеркивает значение таких находок для определения комплекса как элитарного, а также в связи с их функциональным использованием в ходе общественно значимых событий, таких, как церемониальная трапеза, в том числе погребальное пиршество. Несмотря на относительную малочисленность данной группы находок, металлические сосуды следует рассматривать как один из важных признаков иерархической структуры раннегосударственного общества, сложения цивилизаций ближневосточного типа. Это косвенно подтверждается отсутствием металлической посуды в памятниках III тыс. до н. э. в Северном Причерноморье. The paper explores metal vessels from the early and the middle periods of the Anatolian Bronze Age. The study attempts to analyze the chronological and morphological distribution of metal vessels in this region and clarify their purpose, social and ritual functions by analyzing the context of archaeological finds. In line with this aim, metal vessels are considered from several aspects: changes in their distribution over time; morphology and the material the finds are made from; functional purpose and social practices metal vessels were used in. The author emphasizes relevance of such finds for categorizing assemblages containing metal vessels as elite ones as well as highlights their significance in relation with their use in socially important events such as ceremonial feasts, including funerary feasts. Despite a relatively limited number of finds attributed to this group, metal vessels should be regarded as one of eloquent markers of a hierarchical structure of society in early state formations and development of civilizations of the Near Eastern type. The said is indirectly confirmed by absence of metal vessels in the III mill. materials from the North Ponticregion.

scholarly journals In the Sorraia River Valley (Coruche, Portugal): Settlement Dynamics of Ancient Peasant Societies on the Left Bank of the Lower Tagus River (5500 to 1800 B.C.E.)

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 95-158
Author(s):  
Ana Catarina Sousa ◽  
Victor S. Gonçalves ◽  
André Texugo ◽  
Ana Ramos-Pereira
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Left Bank ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Tagus River ◽  
Settlement Dynamics

This article is the result of archaeological and paleoenvironmental investigations carried out within the scope of the ANSOR project in the Sorraia valley (Coruche), on the left bank of the Lower Tagus. In the analysis of settlement dynamics between 5500 and 1800 a.n.e. we considered four moments: 1) The first peasant societies of the ancient Neolithic; 2) The Middle and Late Neolithic; 3) Chalcolithic; 4) The Early Bronze Age. The Sorraia valley was also framed in the framework of the Center and South of Portugal during the period under analysis. Interpretative models are presented for changes in the implantation patterns in the four stages under study, oscillating between paleoenvironmental factors and the socio-economic changes registered in the old peasant societies. 

scholarly journals Jelentés a Kaposvárt elkerülő 61-es számú főút 2. lelőhelyén végzett feltárásról

2014 ◽  
pp. 175-184
Author(s):  
Edith Bárdos ◽  
Máté Varga
Keyword(s):  
Medieval Period ◽  
The South ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
The North ◽  
Late Medieval Period ◽  
Site Number ◽  
Extended Area

The preliminary explorations of the bypass of road 61 to the North of Kaposvár took more years. Among the ex-cavations in the pathes of the new highway, one of the great-est and most important is the excavation of site number 2 to the South of Toponár. The excavation is located on the East-ern bank of Stream Deseda. The territory was almost always suitable for settlement. It is proved by the fact that we found artifacts from 9 period-cultures from the late Neolithic to the late Medieval period. On the site of the excavations there is an outstanding amount of scattered cremation burials and urn graves from the period of the Transdanubian Encrusted Pot-tery Culture, as well as the cemetery established in the 11th century, in the Arpadian-age. The extended area of the exca-vations was settled intensively in the late Avar-age and in the early Arpadian-age.

scholarly journals CONTINENTAL MUSICOLOGY: DECOLONISING THE MYTH OF A SINGULAR “AFRICAN MUSIC”

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 177-193
Author(s):  
Thomas Mathew Pooley
Keyword(s):  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Musical Structure ◽  
African Music ◽  
Popular Imagination ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
Musical Identity ◽  
The North ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
And Function

The musical identity of the African continent is sustained in the popular imagination by the idea of its unity. This identity emerges from a constellation of ideas about Africa’s distinctiveness constructed by generations of scholars who have diminished its diversity to substantiate the claim that shared principles of musical structure and function in sub-Saharan cultures can be read as ideal types for the continent as a whole. The idea of a singular “African music” is predicated on the notion that African “traditional” music of precolonial origin in sub-Saharan Africa possesses a set of distinctive features that are essential to its identity. Musical cultures as diverse as Aka, Ewe, Shona, Yoruba, and Zulu are subsumed within a singular frame of reference; others that do not possess these features are, by implication, excluded. To make sense of this myth of a singular “African music” we must reckon with the universalising impulse that sustains it. This means interrogating the discursive formations out of which it has been fashioned. Whose interests does it serve? Taking a decolonial perspective on the power dynamics that structure global south-north relations in the academy, this article points to the ways in which the north perpetuates its authority and dominance over the south by subsuming others within its cultural and intellectual ambit. Decolonising “African music” means dismantling the hegemony of “continental musicology” and the myth of a singular “African music” that is its creation.

scholarly journals THE LAND BEHIND THE LAND BEHIND BAGHDAD: ARCHAEOLOGICAL LANDSCAPES OF THE UPPER DIYALA (SIRWAN) RIVER VALLEY

Iraq ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 79 ◽  
pp. 47-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Casana ◽  
Claudia Glatz
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Physical Geography ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Archaeological Survey ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The North ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Regional Project ◽  
The Rich

While the Diyala (Kurdish Sirwan) River Valley is storied in Near Eastern archaeology as home to the Oriental Institute's excavations in the 1930s as well as to Robert McC. Adams’ pioneering archaeological survey, The Land Behind Baghdad, the upper reaches of the river valley remain almost unknown to modern scholarship. Yet this region, at the interface between irrigated lowland Mesopotamia and the Zagros highlands to the north and east, has long been hypothesized as central to the origins and development of complex societies. It was hotly contested by Bronze Age imperial powers, and offered one of the principle access routes connecting Mespotamia to the Iranian Plateau and beyond. This paper presents an interim report of the Sirwan Regional Project, a regional archaeological survey undertaken from 2013–2015 in a 4000 square kilometre area between the modern city of Darbandikhan and the plains south of Kalar. Encompassing a wide range of environments, from the rugged uplands of the Zagros front ranges to the rich irrigated basins of the Middle Diyala, the project has already discovered a wealth of previously unknown archaeological sites ranging in date from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic through the modern period. Following an overview of the physical geography of the Upper Diyala/Sirwan, this paper highlights key findings that are beginning to transform our understanding of this historically important but poorly known region.

The Excavation of a Late Neolithic Enclosure at Marden, Wiltshire

1971 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. J. Wainwright ◽  
J. G. Evans ◽  
I. H. Longworth
Keyword(s):  
Timber Structure ◽  
The South ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
South Side ◽  
The North ◽  
North Bank

SummaryExcavations in 1969 within a 35-acre enclosure at Marden on the north bank of the River Avon in the Vale of Pewsey confirmed its association with the Grooved Ware ceramic style and its superficial resemblances to the Durrington Walls enclosure ten miles downstream. A survey of the enclosure produced an unusual plan bounded by a bank with an internal ditch and on the south side by the River Avon itself, whilst the position of the Hatfield Barrow was established by geophysical means. Within the north-entrance causeway a small circular timber structure was recorded in a comparable position to the much larger building at Durrington Walls.

ICT and Distance Learning for Agricultural Extension in Low Income Countries

2008 ◽  
pp. 1554-1560
Author(s):  
Colin R. Latchem ◽  
Ajit Maru
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Land Reforms ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Pests And Diseases ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Value Add

About 2 billion people in low-income countries are dependent upon smallholding farming for their livelihoods. These are among the world’s poorest people. Most of them lack land tenure and farm in regions with limited land and water resources. Many must cope with drought, desertification, and environmental damage caused by failed land reforms, large-scale monocropping, overgrazing, logging, destroyed watersheds, and the encroachment of new pests and diseases. They use only the most primitive of tools and they lack the knowledge and skills to improve their farming methods, value-add their produce, and compete in national and global markets. Many of these smallholder communities have been devastated by HIV/AIDS. In some regions of sub-Saharan Africa, food production has dropped by 40%, and it is estimated that over the next 20 years, 26% of the agricultural labour force will be lost to this pandemic. And demographic and economic changes in the low-income nations are increasingly leaving farming in the hands of women, who lack the knowledge and resources to farm efficiently.

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