Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-22dnz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T05:17:16.025Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The prehistory of Jebel Moya, Sudan: results from the first three seasons of excavations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2023

Isabelle Vella Gregory ,
Michael Brass ,
Ahmed Adam ,
Iwona Kozieradzka-Ogunmakin ,
Kevin MacDonald ,
Shadia Abdelwahabe ,
Abdelhai Fedlelmula ,
Ezzeldin Hajjaj ,
Dorian Q Fuller  and
Anna den Hollander
...Show all authors
Isabelle Vella Gregory*
Affiliation:
MacDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3ER, United Kingdom
Michael Brass
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31–34 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PY, United Kingdom
Ahmed Adam
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Khartoum, Al-Nil Avenue, Khartoum, Sudan
Iwona Kozieradzka-Ogunmakin
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology and History, University of Exeter, 319 Laver Building, North Park Road, Exeter, EX4 4QE, United Kingdom
Kevin MacDonald
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31–34 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PY, United Kingdom
Shadia Abdelwahabe
Affiliation:
National Museum of Antiquities and Museums, Al-Nil Avenue, Khartoum, Sudan
Abdelhai Fedlelmula
Affiliation:
National Museum of Antiquities and Museums, Al-Nil Avenue, Khartoum, Sudan
Ezzeldin Hajjaj
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Khartoum, Al-Nil Avenue, Khartoum, Sudan
Dorian Q Fuller
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31–34 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PY, United Kingdom
Anna den Hollander
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31–34 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PY, United Kingdom
Musaab Khalid
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Khartoum, Al-Nil Avenue, Khartoum, Sudan
Omer Elsir Ali
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Khartoum, Al-Nil Avenue, Khartoum, Sudan
Marsa Hashim Ibrahim
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Khartoum, Al-Nil Avenue, Khartoum, Sudan
Hanaa Ibrahim
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Khartoum, Al-Nil Avenue, Khartoum, Sudan
*
Corresponding author: Isabelle Vella Gregory, email: iv219@cam.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper outlines the ways in which the project is addressing the colonial legacy of Henry Wellcome as well as presenting the data from the first three field seasons at Jebel Moya, south-central Sudan. These data have substantially revised our chronological and socio-economic understanding of the site. Our excavations, initiated in 2017 and continued in 2019 and 2022, show a longer, more continuous occupation of the site than has been previously recognised. The faunal and botanical remains have implications for the spread of early domesticates in the eastern Sahel and for climate changes, and raise issues of resilience. There is confirmed human burial activity from at least the third millennium BC onwards, while the pottery continues to yield information about the variety of decoration and, for the final Assemblage 3, data on its usage. Overall, the continued importance of the site for the eastern Sahel is re-emphasised.

نتائج المواسم الثلاثة الأولى في جبل موية، السودان

إيزابيل فيلا جريجوري ، مايكل براس ، أحمد آدم ، إيونا كوزيرادزكا-أوغونماكين ، شادية عبد الوهاب ، عبد الحي فضلمولا ، آنا دن هولاندر ، دوريان كيو فولر ، كيفين ماكدونالد ، عز الدين حجاج ، مصعب خالد ، عمر علي و هناء إبراهيم .

توضح هذه الورقة الخطوط العريضة التي تعامل بها المشروع مع الإرث الاستعماري لهنري ويلكوم بالإضافة إلى عرض البيانات من مواسم العمل الميداني الثلاثة الأولى في جبل موية، جنوب وسط السودان. لقد قامت هذه البيانات بتنقيح جوهري لفهمنا الزمني والاجتماعي والاقتصادي للموقع . تُظهر أعمال التنقيب، التي بدأت في عام 2017 واستمرت في عامي 2019 و 2022، استيطان الموقع لفترة أطول وأكثر استمراراً مما تم التعرف عليه سابقاً. البقايا الحيوانية والنباتية لها دلالات على انتشار الدواجن المبكر في شرق الساحل و تغير المناخ، و تثير قضايا بخصوص قدرة التحمل. هناك نشاط دفن بشري مؤكد منذ الألفية الثالثة قبل الميلاد (على الأقل) فصاعداَ، بينما يستمر الفخار في تقديم معلومات عن مجموعة متنوعة من الزخارف، كذلك لنسبة للتجميع النهائي 3، حيث يقدم بيانات عن استخدامها. بشكل عام، تم إعادة التأكيد على الأهمية المستمرة للموقع لمنطقة شرق الساحل .

Keywords

excavationarchaeobotanyclimate changeburialpottery
Type
Articles
Information
Libyan Studies , Volume 54 , November 2023 , pp. 55 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the British Institute for Libyan & Northern African Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The online version of this article has been updated since original publication. A notice detailing the change has also been published

References

Adam, A. 2011. The material culture of the Funj kingdom 1504–1821 AD. Adab Journal. Journal of the Faculty of Arts, University of Khartoum 28: 51–52.Google Scholar
Addison, Frank. 1949. Wellcome Excavations in the Sudan I: Jebel Moya, 1910–1914. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Addison, F. 1956. Second thoughts on Jebel Moya. Kush 4: 4–18.Google Scholar
African Plant Database (version 4.0.0). Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de la Ville de Genève and South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria, Retrieved 29 April 2023, from <http://africanplantdatabase.ch>..>Google Scholar
Andrews, F.W. 1950–1956. The Flowering Plants of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 3 volumes. Khartoum: Sudan Government.Google Scholar
Arkell, A.J. 1955. Jebel Moya, by Frank Addison, with a chapter by A.D. Lacaille Vols I (Text) and II (Plates) of the Wellcome Excavations in the Sudan, 1949. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 20 (1): 126–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barron, A., Fuller, D.Q., Stevens, C., Champion, L., Winchell, F. and Denham, T. 2020. Snapshots in time: MicroCT scanning of pottery sherds determines early domestication of sorghum (sorghum bicolor) in East Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 123 (November): 105259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beldados, A., Manzo, A., Murphy, C., Stevens, C.J. and Fuller, D.Q. 2018. Evidence of sorghum cultivation and possible pearl millet in the second millennium BC at Kassala, Eastern Sudan. In: Mercuri, A., D'Andrea, A., Fornaciari, R. and Höhn, A., Plants and People in the African Past (eds). Springer, Cham: 503–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, J.W. 1943. Recent developments in the functional interpretation of archaeological data. American Antiquity 9: 208–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brass, M. 2016. Reinterpreting Chronology and Society at the Mortuary Complex of Jebel Moya (Sudan). Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 92, Oxford, Archaeopress.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brass, M. and Vella Gregory, I. 2021. The chronological and social implications of the pottery from Jebel Moya (South-Central Sudan). Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 35 (February): 102677.Google Scholar
Brass, M., Adam, A., Fuller, D.Q., Stevens, C., Hassan, F., Kozierdazka-Ogunmakin, I., Abdallah, R.M.J. et al. 2018. First season of the UCL-UoK-NCAM expedition to the Southern Gezira (Sudan): Jebel Moya. Sudan and Nubia 22: 38–45.Google Scholar
Brass, M., Adam, A., Vella Gregory, I., Abdallah, R., Alawad, O., Abdalla, A., Kozieradzka-Ogunmakin, I. et al. 2020. The second season of excavations at Jebel Moya (South-Central Sudan). Libyan Studies 51: 126–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brass, M., Adam, A.H.A. and Wellings, J. 2018. New data from Jebel Moya and Shaqadud (Central Sudan): implications for Late Mesolithic interconnectivity with the Sahara. Libyan Studies 49 (November): 21–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brass, M., Fuller, D.Q., MacDonald, K., Stevens, C., Adam, A., Kozieradzka-Ogunmakin, I., Abdallah, R.M.J. et al. 2019. New findings on the significance of Jebel Moya in the Eastern Sahel. Azania (Archaeological Research in Africa) 54 (4): 425–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brothwell, D. 1981. Digging Up Bones: The Excavation, Treatment, and Study of Human Skeletal Remains. Ithaca, Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Buikstra, J. and Ubelaker, D. 1994. Standards for data collection from human skeletal remains. Arkansas, Arkansas Archeological Survey Research Series No. 44.Google Scholar
Caneva, I. 1991. Jebel Moya revisited: a settlement of the 5th millennium BC in the Middle Nile Basin. Antiquity 65: 262–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, J.D. 1973. Recent archaeological and geomorphological field studies in the Sudan: some preliminary results. Nyame Akuma 3: 55–64.Google Scholar
Clark, J.D. and Stemler, A. 1975. Early domesticated sorghum from Central Sudan. Nature 254: 588–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cunningham, C., Scheuer, L. and Black, S. 2016. Developmental Juvenile Osteology. London, Academic Press.Google Scholar
El-Hussein, D.M. 2003. Culture of peace: the concept within the Sudanese context. The Ahfad Journal: Women and Change 20 (2): 26, 28–37.Google Scholar
Fuller, D.Q. 2008. Archaeological science in field training. In: Ucko, P.J., Quin, L. and Hubert, J. (eds), From Concepts of the Past to Practical Strategies: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques. London, Saffron Press: 183–205.Google Scholar
Fuller, D.Q. and Lucas, L. 2021. Savanna on the Nile: Long-term agricultural diversification and intensification in Nubia. In: Emberling, G. and Williams, B. B. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia. Oxford, Oxford University Press: 927–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garve, R., Garve, M., Link, K., Türp, J.C. and Meyer, C.G. 2016. Infant oral mutilation in East Africa – therapeutic and ritual grounds. Tropical Medicine & International Health 21 (9): 1099–105.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Garve, R., Garve, M., Türp, J.C. and Meyer, C.G. 2017. Labrets in Africa and Amazonia: medical implications and cultural determinants. Tropical Medicine & International Health 22 (2): 232–40. https://doi.org/10.1111/tmi.12812.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gerharz, R. 1994. Jebel Moya. Meroitica 14. Berlin, Akademie Verlag.Google Scholar
Haaland, R. 1984. Continuity and discontinuity: how to account for a two thousand years gap in the cultural history of the Khartoum Nile environment. Norwegian Archaeological Review 17: 39–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haaland, R. 1987. Socio-Economic Differentiation in the Neolithic Sudan. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.10.30861/9780860544531CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutton MacDonald, R. 1999. In the Teeth of the Problem: Dental Anthropology and the Reconstruction of Africa Dietary Regimes. PhD, London: Institute of Archaeology, University College London.Google Scholar
Iacumin, P., di Matteo, A., Usai, D., Salvatori, S. and Venturelli, G. 2016. Stable isotope study on ancient populations of Central Sudan: insights on their diet and environment. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 160: 498–518.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ingold, T. 2000. The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London and New York, Routledge.Google Scholar
Larson, F. 2009. An Infinity of Things: How Sir Henry Wellcome Collected the World. Oxford, Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latour, B. 1999. Pandora's Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, MA.Google Scholar
Latour, B. 2007. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mackinnon, E. 1948. Blue Nile Province. In: Tothill, J.D. (ed.), Agriculture in Sudan. Oxford, Oxford University Press: 762–809.Google Scholar
Manzo, A. 1995. Remarks on the Jebel Moya ceramics in the British Museum and their cultural significance. Sudan Archaeological Research Society Newsletter 9: 11–19.Google Scholar
Marks, A.E. 1991. Shaqadud and the 1981/83 excavations. In: Marks, A.E and Mohammed-Ali, A. (eds), The Late Prehistory of the Eastern Sahel. The Mesolithic and Neolithic of Shaqsdud, Sudan. Dallas, Southern Medthodist University Press: 33–64.Google Scholar
Miles, A. 1962. Assessment of age from the dentition. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 51: 1057–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mukherjee, M., Rao, C.R. and Trevor, J.C. 1955. The Ancient Inhabitants of Jebel Moya (Sudan). Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pearsall, D.M. 2000. Paleoethnobotany: A Handbook of Procedures. New York, Academic Press.Google Scholar
Saied, A.S., Gebauer, J., Hammer, K. and Buerkert, A. 2008. ‘Ziziphus Spina-Christi (L.) Willd.: A Multipurpose Fruit Tree’. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 55: 929–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, J. 2006. Skeleton Keys: An Introduction to Human Skeletal Morphology, Development and Analysis. Oxford, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Steward, J.H., and Setzler, F.M. 1938. Function and configuration in archaeology. American Antiquity 1 (4–10).Google Scholar
Turner, T. 1993. The social skin. In: Burroughs, C.B and Ehrenreich, J.D. (eds), Reading the Social Body, translated by 200. c.99.1253. Iowa, University of Iowa Press: 15–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turton, D. 2004. Lip-plates and ‘the people who take photographs’: uneasy encounters between Mursi and tourists in Southern Ethiopia. Anthropology Today 20 (3): 3–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valancius, Q., Brass, M., Vella Gregory, I., Adam, A. Dunne and Evershed. 2023. Production and use of ceramics in the first millennium BC: Jebel Moya, Sudan. African Archaeological Review (awaiting online publication).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van der Merwe, N.J. 1982. Carbon isotopes, photosynthesis and archaeology. American Scientist 70: 596–606.Google Scholar
Vella Gregory, I. 2020. Ordering the land beyond the sixth cataract: imperial policy, archaeology and the role of Henry Wellcome. Libyan Studies 51: 43–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vella Gregory, I. 2021. Re-examining Jebel Moya figurines: new directions for figurine studies in Sudan. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 56 (2): 193–218. https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2021.1925024.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vella Gregory, I. (2023). Jebel Moya (Site 100). UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology. https://escholarship.org/uc/nelc_uee (awaiting online publication).Google Scholar
Vella Gregory, I., Brass, M. and Kozieradzka-Ogunmakin, I. 2022. New radiocarbon dates from Jebel Moya (Sudan): 2500 years of burial activity. Antiquity 96 (388): 1015–20. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2022.58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, M.A.J., Adamson, D.A. and Abdulla, H.H. 1982. Landforms and soils of the Gezira: A quaternary legacy of the Blue and White Nile rivers. In: Williams, M.A.J. and Adamson, D.A. (eds), A Land between Two Niles: Quaternary Geology and Biology of the Central Sudan. Rotterdam, Balkema: 111–42.Google Scholar
Winchell, F., Stevens, C.J., Murphy, C., Champion, L. and Fuller, D.Q. 2017. Evidence for sorghum domestication in fourth millennium BC Eastern Sudan: spikelet morphology from ceramic impressions of the Butana group. Current Anthropology 58 (5): 673–83. https://doi.org/10.1086/693898.CrossRefGoogle Scholar