Periodic Reporting for period 3 - DiverseNile (Cultural diversity in the Middle Nile Valley. Reconstructing biographies in the periphery of urban centres in northern Sudan during the Bronze Age)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2023-04-01 do 2024-09-30
A major scientific challenge for archaeologists is to move away from established concepts of cultural categories, such as fixed views of culture which are unsuitable to describe the realities of ancient lives. By introducing the ‘cultural entanglement approach’ several recent projects have conducted significant work on the complex encounters between Egyptian and Nubian groups in the Middle Nile. This makes it an opportune time to investigate the realities of cultural diversity of Middle Nile groups by focusing on the peripheries of the main centres. The DiverseNile project explores a key part of northern Sudan as a case study to reconstruct Bronze Age biographies (c. 1750–1200 BCE) moving away from the established (and outdated) categories of ‘Egyptian’ and ‘Nubian’.
The primary goal of DiverseNile is to refine the cultural entanglement concept specifically for New Kingdom Nubia, moving away from current elite and religious biases in favour of addressing genuine cultural diversity in marginal zones. This includes developing a novel method for tackling complexity and cultural dynamics in the Middle Nile. The main hypothesis of the project is that cultural diversity becomes archaeologically more obvious in peripheral zones, within contact spaces of central sites with diverse populations. Combining this with a landscape biography approach, the DiverseNile project applies a new concept of ‘contact space biography’, the aim of which is to investigate whether degrees of cultural diversity and entanglement relate to the marginal location of the sites.
Our novel approach uses a rural region in northern Sudan as a case study to reconstruct the ‘landscape biography’ of a contact space — considering humans and technology as well as animals and environmental properties. This includes disentangling settlement and burial sites from previous cultural categorisations and reconstructing the dynamics of an ancient ‘contact space’ showing acceptance, appropriation, or ignorance of various cultural influences. The reconstruction of these cultural encounters also includes a detailed assessment of the material record and analyses of key production activities, technologies, and foodways, as well as the investigation of the geological and geomorphological features of the study area. This provides an essential framework for historical and cultural processes, comparable to other examples around the world.
The primary goal of DiverseNile is to refine the cultural entanglement concept specifically for New Kingdom Nubia, moving away from current elite and religious biases in favour of addressing genuine cultural diversity in marginal zones. This includes developing a novel method for tackling complexity and cultural dynamics in the Middle Nile. The main hypothesis of the project is that cultural diversity becomes archaeologically more obvious in peripheral zones, within contact spaces of central sites with diverse populations. Combining this with a landscape biography approach, the DiverseNile project applies a new concept of ‘contact space biography’, the aim of which is to investigate whether degrees of cultural diversity and entanglement relate to the marginal location of the sites.
Our novel approach uses a rural region in northern Sudan as a case study to reconstruct the ‘landscape biography’ of a contact space — considering humans and technology as well as animals and environmental properties. This includes disentangling settlement and burial sites from previous cultural categorisations and reconstructing the dynamics of an ancient ‘contact space’ showing acceptance, appropriation, or ignorance of various cultural influences. The reconstruction of these cultural encounters also includes a detailed assessment of the material record and analyses of key production activities, technologies, and foodways, as well as the investigation of the geological and geomorphological features of the study area. This provides an essential framework for historical and cultural processes, comparable to other examples around the world.
The initial phase of the project was to develop the contact space biography approach as the methodological underpinning for DiverseNile. The concept of objectscapes was also integrated into our research. A significant focus and achievement for this first phase was setting up a number of databases. This includes a reference database of all known and relevant settlements and cemeteries in the concession area. This was based on assessing published data from within the concession in the Middle Nile and comparing it with information from other regions. The main source for this data was a survey conducted by André Vila in the 1970s. All sites recorded by Vila were reinvestigated and georeferenced in the project’s GIS database, which also allowed for distribution analyses.
An initial focus on comparative material was partly due to the inability to conduct fieldwork and gather new evidence during the pandemic. As such, petrographic and chemical analyses of samples from Dukki Gel in Sudan, made available through cooperation with Swiss colleagues, were conducted and included in a bespoke database created for the project. Since 2022, new samples from our concession have also been processed. Overall, significant progress was made in understanding ceramic and pottery production based on archaeometric studies and experimental archaeology. This includes the use of animal dung in the production of pottery which offers important new insights into both long-standing traditions and cultural encounters in Nubia.
In terms of landscape archaeology, a significant shift had to be made from fieldwork in Sudan to remote sensing, again due to the pandemic. A new collaboration with the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) was established which allowed the project to consider the development of the riverine system in the region (from a complex network of numerous ancient Nile channels to a single course due to aridisation) by processing satellite and radar data
Finally, the latest field season in March and April 2022 focused on the excavation of several sites, which included both settlements and cemeteries. The results of these excavations yielded important information on the re-dating of structures, evidence for possible local pottery production in the “in-between” style (between Egyptian and Nubian), the identification of new gold working sites, as well as new data for trade and cultural contacts during the Bronze Age, presumably not only along the Nile but also via desert routes.
An initial focus on comparative material was partly due to the inability to conduct fieldwork and gather new evidence during the pandemic. As such, petrographic and chemical analyses of samples from Dukki Gel in Sudan, made available through cooperation with Swiss colleagues, were conducted and included in a bespoke database created for the project. Since 2022, new samples from our concession have also been processed. Overall, significant progress was made in understanding ceramic and pottery production based on archaeometric studies and experimental archaeology. This includes the use of animal dung in the production of pottery which offers important new insights into both long-standing traditions and cultural encounters in Nubia.
In terms of landscape archaeology, a significant shift had to be made from fieldwork in Sudan to remote sensing, again due to the pandemic. A new collaboration with the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) was established which allowed the project to consider the development of the riverine system in the region (from a complex network of numerous ancient Nile channels to a single course due to aridisation) by processing satellite and radar data
Finally, the latest field season in March and April 2022 focused on the excavation of several sites, which included both settlements and cemeteries. The results of these excavations yielded important information on the re-dating of structures, evidence for possible local pottery production in the “in-between” style (between Egyptian and Nubian), the identification of new gold working sites, as well as new data for trade and cultural contacts during the Bronze Age, presumably not only along the Nile but also via desert routes.
The time is right to focus on archaeological research in the Nile Valley in a truly interdisciplinary way, combining different methods and approaches. The DiverseNile project aims to create a ground-breaking data-based understanding of a specific ‘contact space’ in Nubia, moving away from the influence of current ideas of social and ethnic boundaries. The reconstruction of the landscape’s biography as a major integrated task introduces new possibilities to assess cultural diversity in marginal regions, such as the peripheries of urban sites or frontier regions.
We expect that the existing understanding of the categorisation of ‘Nubian’ or ‘Egyptian’ sites will be significantly revised by the project through its new concept of contact space biography, which capitalises on the dynamics of cultural encounters. We will explore cultural encounters through the distribution of sites and their duration, settlement infrastructure, building techniques, production activities and technologies, trade, diet, material culture, burial customs, religious practices and social structures. Therefore, DiverseNile will add important new insights to the growing debate of how to understand ‘Nubian’ and ‘Egyptian’. This will have an impact on the field of Egyptian and Nubian archaeology in general and ties in specifically with recent postcolonial approaches.
The results will also allow us to consider and discuss one region of the Middle Nile as a contact space inhabited by diverse social groups rather than as a static peripheral region, traditionally viewed from an Egyptian perspective and all the biases that entails. As a case study, DiverseNile will therefore illustrate the importance of bottom-up-approaches in archaeology and the need to consider alternatives to long-established narratives which are rooted in colonial biases towards ancient Sudan. Our research will contribute important data from non-elite contexts and illustrate the connectivity, complexity, and social diversity of lived experiences along the Nile in the presently unidentified marginal regions. We want to demonstrate the fundamental necessity of including social practices, communities, and the subsistence strategies of marginal regions in Egyptian and Sudanese archaeology, in order to understand the complexities of cultural processes and encounters in the Nile Valley.
We expect that the existing understanding of the categorisation of ‘Nubian’ or ‘Egyptian’ sites will be significantly revised by the project through its new concept of contact space biography, which capitalises on the dynamics of cultural encounters. We will explore cultural encounters through the distribution of sites and their duration, settlement infrastructure, building techniques, production activities and technologies, trade, diet, material culture, burial customs, religious practices and social structures. Therefore, DiverseNile will add important new insights to the growing debate of how to understand ‘Nubian’ and ‘Egyptian’. This will have an impact on the field of Egyptian and Nubian archaeology in general and ties in specifically with recent postcolonial approaches.
The results will also allow us to consider and discuss one region of the Middle Nile as a contact space inhabited by diverse social groups rather than as a static peripheral region, traditionally viewed from an Egyptian perspective and all the biases that entails. As a case study, DiverseNile will therefore illustrate the importance of bottom-up-approaches in archaeology and the need to consider alternatives to long-established narratives which are rooted in colonial biases towards ancient Sudan. Our research will contribute important data from non-elite contexts and illustrate the connectivity, complexity, and social diversity of lived experiences along the Nile in the presently unidentified marginal regions. We want to demonstrate the fundamental necessity of including social practices, communities, and the subsistence strategies of marginal regions in Egyptian and Sudanese archaeology, in order to understand the complexities of cultural processes and encounters in the Nile Valley.