Prehistory
Prehistory
| The flat areas, with a fertile ground and rich of natural resources
thanks to the yearly floods of the Nile, favored the human settlements in the
Valley of the Nile, delimited at the east and the west by the desert, that
protected it for a long time from the invasion. In fact we Know, from the archaeological finds, that already since the Palaentic there were settlements along the valley of the Nile and that from the Bronze Age (which began around 4000 Bc) to the beginning of the Ancient Reign, the native people began to expand and form small villages. As they became sedentary, they began to farm, cultivating mostly cereals (farro, millet and oats) and vegetables; in the marshy areas along the banks of the river, even the breading of cattle, was practiced. But in the period from the V to the III millennium BC, differences between the North and south of the country developed: in fact in the area of the delta of the Nile (lower Egypt) the great festility of the land allowed to have surplus products for the trade, also on the sea, with the neighbouring people, in the south (upper Egypt) the less festile land forced the people to make raids in the surrounding areas. The last part of prehistory (pre-dynastic age, ended with the unification of Egypt under only one king) is anyway divided – according to ceramic finds in the tombs of the IV millennium – in three periods, each one of which gats its name from the place where the archaeological finds were: Badoriano, period Amraziano period and Gerziano period. While the badariana and amraziana culture (which is a development of the last first) were diffused in upper Egypt, the gerziana culture (3600 – 3100 BC) had a wides diffusion, from Nubia to the area of the delta. During this last phase, there were remarkable changes in the ceramic decorations: according to some, there was a migration of people from the Near Orient who would have introduced also semitic elements in the Egyptian language, while according to others, innovatory elements were introduced only thanks to the trade with the eastern people. |
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