Communities and sources in the late prehistoric period in the Sabaloka Mountains, Central Sudan: from analysis to synthesis

The Sabaloka Mountains, along the 6th Cataract of the Nile, represent a unique remain of a late prehistoric landscape with a significant knowledge potential. The project, an immediate follow-up to six research campaigns running from 2009 to 2015, focuses on the evaluation of the so-far collected archaeological and anthropological data. At the same time, further necessary comparative data will be obtained by excavation carried out in two selected locations and by completing missing analytical data in the catalogue of locations in the whole monitored area. The project objective is to carry out a synthesis of data and to utilise their evidence, particularly in solving the issue of the relation between settlement structures, subsistence and territoriality, to the biological characterisation of local populations of the late prehistoric period, to the phenomenon of community burying, and to the role of the area in the supraregional distribution of stone materials.

Project name: Communities and sources in the late prehistoric period in the Sabaloka Mountains, Central Sudan: from analysis to synthesis
Code: 17-03207S
Duration: 2017–2019
Agency: Czech Science Foundation
Project type: consortial (NM as a secondary investigator)
NM’s investigator: RNDr. Petra Havelková, Ph.D.
Other participants: Faculty of Arts, Charles University (Mgr. Lenka Varadzinová, Ph.D.), Institute of Archaeology of the CAS (Mgr. Ladislav Varadzin, Ph.D.), National Museum (RNDr. Petr Velemínský, Ph.D.)

Anticipated results/outputs:
Through the final elaboration of previous researches and the obtaining of new comparative data, we would like to complete the primary research of the Mesolithic and Neolithic history in the area of the 6th Cataract of the Nile. As a result, a data synthesis and evaluation will be performed, and the knowledge obtained will be set into the context of the prehistoric development of Northeast Africa.