Fieldwork Activity

Some of the sites discovered during the first survey season, at risk of destruction because of the expansion of Omdurman southern periphery, have been the object of excavations during the 2001 field season. The aim of the work was to recover cultural and chronological information and to control the degree of preservation of the anthropic deposit.
One of these sites is the already mentioned 10-X-6, a huge settlement located on a White Nile western bank ridge (Fig. 30). High concentrations of Khartoum Mesolithic pottery (Wavy Line and Dotted Wavy Line) were noticed on the site surface (Fig. 31), mainly in the higher points of the mound, associated to fireplaces, and around the graves of the modern cemetery which occupy all the western extension of the artificial mound.
A trench of 4x10 m, located on the top of the site not yet touched by the modern cemetery (Fig. 32) was opened. The excavation was accomplished using a proper stratigraphic methodology - not by artificial cuts - with a horizontal control provided by a 1x1 m grid. All the earth was sieved with a 3 mm mesh. In the southern part of the trench, the trace of an elliptical pit appeared after a surface cleaning (Fig. 33). It was a grave probably dating to the Early Islamic period.

The skeleton was well preserved and lying on the right side, oriented north-south with the head to the south. The body was covered with a mat of which only scanty traces were preserved and was accompanied by a long stick along the body.
The archaeological deposit seems well preserved even if very disturbed by animal and human activities that determined a certain degree of mixture of the archaeological material.
Along the western trench edge a linear mud-brick structure was evidenced and a possibly Meroitic almost complete bowl was found in stratigraphic connection with the “wall” (Fig. 34).


Under this level, not more than 30 cm thick, there is a deposit also partially disturbed by grave pits. We excavated one of this grave which contained the remains of an infant buried in a flexed position, on the left side and oriented north-south with the head to the north (Fig. 35). The child skeleton was complete even if a rodent barrow disturbed the chest, arms and skull.
Before deepening the entire excavation trench area we decided to make a small deep sondage on an surface of 1x2 m (Fig. 36) to have a first window on the deposit thickness and consistency. Here the virgin soil was reached at a depth -2 m from the surface, or -2.50 m from our zero (the highest point of the archaeological mound). At a depth of -1.50 m the deposit changed from loose silty-sand to compact silt. Some living floors were identified in this compact silt layer. The span of life this deposit seems to embrace is probably from the Mesolithic to the Early Neolithic.
The pottery is present in two main ware types: a rough ware, with angular quartz grains, and a finer one with fine micaceous sand. Much less frequent are wares with rough quartz sand and vegetal temper.

The most common decorations are the Wavy Line, Dotted Wavy Line, Rocker Stamp zigzag and dotted lines realised with an alternately pivoting stamp technique.
A graph shows (Fig. 37) the distribution of different pottery types in the 50 cm of deposit excavated in an area of 4x10 m. A trend clearly appears and it shows that the angular quartz tempered ware with a wavy line decoration increases with the deepening of the excavation substituting fine wares, which are more common in the most superficial layers.
The material admixture of the upper levels is, almost surely, the product of human disturbances linked to daily activities or the excavation of burial pits cut through the most ancient archaeological levels. It is not a case that the upper levels, 1006 and 1007, produced big fragments of Mesolithic pottery reused as polishers (Figs. 38-39).

In general we can say that the angular quartz tempered ware characterises the production of Mesolithic pottery not only in this Nilotic settlement but also in those we located near Jebel Baroka.
A second settlement where we conducted test trenches (10-X-8) resulted highly damaged in 2001 by foundation trenches excavated for the constructions of a mosque.
Nevertheless, we decided to open two small trenches, one along the western slope of the mound and the other at its centre.
The first trench revealed the presence of appreciable residues of anthropic deposit, with traces of pits containing pottery and animal bones fragments (Fig. 40). The pottery coming from the deposit is highly homogeneous and can be assigned to a Late Neolithic phase.
The second trench revealed the presence, on the top of the mound, of a 70 cm thick deposit highly disturbed by man made pits and intense animal disturbances which produced a considerable admixture of the archaeological material (Fig. 41).
The indications obtained from the even small test trenches seem to be enough to plan for the next season an extensive excavation of the Late Neolithic area of the site. Furthermore, it has to be underlined that settlements of this period are not yet excavated in Sudan.
As already mentioned, one of most recent settlement we located along the Nile is the Early-Islamic site 10-X-5. Cleaning an exposed section at the margin of a small wadi a sequence of fireplaces and mud-brick structures (Fig. 42) was brought to light. One of the fireplaces located along the section was still containing a n almost complete pot (Fig. 43).

The primary goals of next field-season, finally, will include the enlargement of the excavation trench at the Mesolithic site 10-X-6, the exploration of selected cairns at cemeteries 10-U-3 and 10-U-21 and the completion of the Jebel Baroka area survey where we hope to find further evidence of the most ancient peopling of the region.