Fayum-A culture

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The Fayum-A culture (also called Fayumien ) is a typical Neolithic culture of predynastic Egypt with hunting and fishing, animal breeding, isolated grain cultivation and ceramics.

Locations

It derives its name from the place where the first legacies of this culture were found: the Fayyum Basin , an oasis connected to the Nile Valley 80 km southwest of Cairo , in the middle of which lies Lake Birket Qarun . The sites are located around this lake.

Chronological order

The culture that precedes the Fayumien is called the Qarunien (also Fayum-B culture). The first settlement in the northern part of the Fayyum Depression can be found around 4,500 BC. Prove. It falls into a dry phase that lasts until around 4,000 BC. Continues. At the beginning of the 1st half of the 4th millennium BC The desert climate became more humid and periodically z. Sometimes very heavy rainfall . The end of Fayumien can be traced back to around 3,500 BC. Set. This is followed by the Moerien , a desert culture that drew its influences from the areas slowly developing into deserts and from the oases that were created.

Artifacts

For the production of artifacts , people used the Fayumien small Silexgerölle and chert fragments, they were picking up on the surface between the lake and desert. Larger flint lumps and chert fragments were made into devices with retouching on both sides and smoothed hatchets. Their origin is assumed to come from more distant areas, probably northeast of the Fayum Depression. The most important tools can be divided into four types of functions: notched devices, toothed devices, scrapers and retouched tees. Drills, burins, scratches and back tools are much rarer. In addition, tools were found that were worked on both sides and aimed at very specific and clearly definable tasks: sickles as harvesting tools, knives as all-purpose cutting tools and arrowheads for reinforcement. In addition, there were also smoothed hatchets and hitting and rubbing stones made using the knock-off technique.

From all that is known about this culture, the approximately 1,000 year development of the Fayumi stone tool industry does not seem to have been very progressive. The differences in the inventories result from the functional determinations of the individual tool types.

Ceramics

The ceramic forms found include spherical and hemispherical tureens, vessels with an S-shaped profile with a more or less separate cylindrical neck, tureens with an enlarged mouth rim, goblets with different proportions, tureens with separate bottoms and flat plates.

Relationships with other cultures

There are family relationships between the cultural assets of the Merimde and Fayum-A cultures, particularly with regard to the manufacture of stone tools (e.g. bifacially retouched flint tools ) and ceramics. Like the Merimde culture, the Fayumien also seems to have its cultural origins in the Middle East . Particularly clear traces lead to the Fayumien in the Jordan Valley (connections to the Jarmukien resident there ). The oldest sections of Fayumien can thus be derived from a Middle Eastern Neolithic type, through whose western migration material culture, economy and population reached Lower Egypt and the Fayum Depression.

Settlements

There are large Fayumian settlements (such as the excavated Kom W and Kom K) with over 100 fire pits. These large branches have numerous storage pits , which suggests that they had grain stores. They were in higher places, inaccessible even for periodic flooding of the lake. All of this indicates permanently populated and accessible places.

In addition, isolated fireplaces have been found, which indicates a seasonal settlement that was associated with certain functions, such as B. Hunting sites and so-called killing sites ("cutting sites"). Most of their sites were located closer to the lake, their legacies mainly consisted of leftover consumer goods such as hippopotamus , cattle , sheep , goat , remains of wild animals, but also of numerous fish remains such as cichlid and predatory catfish . From the findings it can be seen that cattle breeding played a relatively minor role there and that hunting was of less importance as a food reservoir; in contrast, fishing accounted for a fairly high proportion. Hunting mainly took place in the coastal area of ​​the lake. So while the fishing and hunting was pursued in the smaller camps, the breeding animals grazed on the meadows around the lake; Grain grain must also have been carried to the lake , as isolated millstones show. All of this took place on the lake during dry periods.

During the wet season, the population gathered in the larger settlements that were higher up on the lake. During this time people were engaged in agriculture , as indicated by numerous stores, remains of grain and numerous harvesting equipment and grinding and grating stones. Another economic goal there was the raising and keeping of breeding animals (sheep / goats, cattle, pigs ), whereby the hunt was not neglected, but was of secondary importance.

literature

  • Boleslaw Ginter, Janusz K. Kozlowski: Cultural and Paleoclimatic Sequence in the Fayum Depression. In: Communications from the German Archaeological Institute, Cairo Department. (MDAIK) Vol. 42, 1986, ISSN  0342-1279 , pp. 9-23.

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