To browse Academia. Colloquium Africanum 4. Desert animals in the eastern Sahara breaks new ground in investigating the changing and exceedingly complex relationship between man and wild animals from an interdisciplinary perspective. This volume brings together an international group of experts from diverse fields, including Egyptology, archaeology, biology, archaeozoology, and nature conservation, to explore the animal world of the Sahara, past and present.
The chapters cover the distribution, behaviour, and economic significance of desert wildlife animals in antiquity and today, and highlight the impact of climate change and human activity on species well-adapted to some of the harshest conditions on earth. They emphasise cultural perception and the changing roles in hunting, social structure, and religion, as reflected in the bones, rock art, tomb decorations and ancient texts. Contributors: Hubert Berke, John C.
As researchers of the Collaborative Research Centre ACACIA at the University of Cologne β , the editors have cooperated for many years in fieldwork and interdisciplinary studies of ancient Egypt and its desert environments. The compiled data indicate that hartebeest, aurochs and gazelle were the main species hunted during the Late Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic.
Populations of hartebeest and aurochs were essentially limited to the Nile Valley proper, whereas gazelles could be found in semi-desert and desert environments as well. The population densities of hartebeest and aurochs were probably never very high because of the narrow floodplain, especially in Upper Egypt, and the seasonal effect of the inundations of the Nile. From the Neolithic onwards, domestic livestock took over the role of game as the most important meat provider.
Populations of hartebeest and aurochs declined after the Palaeolithic, no doubt because of competition with humans and their flocks. During the Predynastic period, the decline is most clear in Upper Egypt, where from then onwards, the emphasis shifts to gazelles. The Predynastic elite cemetery at Hierakonpolis locality HK6 yielded the oldest osteological evidence of keeping wild animals in confinement. During the Old to New Kingdom periods, game animals continue to be found in small quantities and from then on, the populations of aurochs and hartebeest may also have started to decline in Lower Egypt.
