The simple comb impression is still in use in the Grave 111 dated between 4400 and 4350 BC where a carefully executed tulip beaker was found (Fig. 17).
Afterwards the pottery production changed greatly to a very fine pottery, whose fabric is still equal, with a simple burnishing outside and decoration limited to the rim, for example a rocker zig-zag motif or combed parallel oblique lines. The burnishing sometimes gives the pot almost a metal appearance.
New shapes are introduced such as the biconical jars, cylindrical or sub-cylindrical containers with flat bases or convex ones and carinated bowls (Fig. 18).
These ceramics were also found at one of the Kadruka cemeteries and, recently at Multaga, a site located close to the Debba area, which produced dates very similar to those of R12, between 4450 and 4200 BC.
Closing this list it would be worth mentioning a fragmentary conical pot with a flat base black-topped and rippled (Fig. 19), with a ware different from all the other pots found in the R12cemetery. It was found in the first field season inside a disturbed pit. A-Group related people at R12?
It is also worth mentioning that pottery fragments of the Pre-Kerma period, whose identification was confirmed by Francis Geus, were found in the cemetery.
The intricate grid of relationships between the many “neolithics” recognised in the Nile Valley is probably close to a revision, thanks to new excavations and some interesting work aiming at revisiting the oldest data collected during the late sixties and seventies.
The Nubian Neolithic Tradition, represented by the Abkan, named after the Myers excavation at Abka IX, is poorly known, or mainly known for its lithic industry than for its pottery production. From Abka IX there is a date, normally discarded for its too wide range, 5960±400BP, which happens to fall in the range of the oldest dates produced by cemeteries of the Kadruka region and R12. The few descriptions of Abkan pottery fit with the brown rocker decorated type of pottery found at R12. But where the similarity is greater is within the lithic industry, with same core processing technique and similar tool production.
While the term Abkan is limited to the groups identified in the Second Cataract region, it seems that they have a lot in common with those of the Kadruka, R12 areas and, moreover with the so-called Karat Group of the Old Dongola Reach and the Letti Basin, also having similar lithic and pottery production. Research in the Fourth Cataract highlighted sites with similar cultural material. So it seems we have different groups but similar traditions probably as much as in modern times. Apparently greater differences come out when considering the sites of central Sudan where the Ripple Ware, for example at Kadada, is dated much later, such as the first centuries of the 3rd millennium BC. On the contrary, it must be pointed out that at the Ghaba cemetery, located north of Khartoum, in the Shendi area, pottery decoration similar to R12 have been found (Fig. 20) which can be dated, according to radiocarbon determinations, to the same chronological range as the northern specimens.
Most of the Early Neolithic sites of Central Sudan are actually dated in the first half of the 5th millennium BC, but an incomplete publication of the data collected at some of these sites prevents clarifying the complex set of relationships among them and with the Nubian region.

Fig. 17	Fig. 18	Fig. 19	Fig. 20