Six thousand years of occupation: Results from the Sudanese Red Sea Coast -- FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL The role of local communities throughout the Red Sea history
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Abstract
The rich material culture recovered from the extensive Red Sea coast has provided fertile ground for archaeological research and understanding of the prehistory and early history of the region.Compared with the Egyptian part of the Red Sea hills, the Sudanese part of this coast remains largely understudied. For this reason, the University of Khartoum has started a fieldwork program in a large area of about 500 km in length and 200 km in width. This project aims to identify and map archaeological sites belonging to different periods. The archaeological reconnaissance carried out by team members of the project confirms long-term human occupation in an area often considered remote and difficult to inhabit. The results of our first season indicate occupation since at least the Late Stone Age (4500 BC). There are also numerous instances of rock art (as yet undated), megalithic burials of the tumuli and large stone slab traditions, remains of a small building that has classical, Egyptian, and Meroitic architectural elements, and Roman remains in the Suakin and Aqiq ports and medieval remains, including a fortress, pottery sherds, and fish-tail graves. At the beginning of the field season, we visited the nine islands described by the inhabitants of the region to know more about the connections between these islands and those we knew before. This paper present the results from our survey and excavation in the last seasons, and the involvement of the public in protecting and saving the heritage during the threats and the war that started in Sudan.. Based on ethnoarchaeological observation, the paper will also elaborate on current settlement pattern and relationships with Nilotic civilizations in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, which are reflected in many features of the current buildings and cultural remains.
