Neolithic adaptation and the Holocene functioning of Tertiary palaeodrainages in southern Egypt and northern Sudan

Abstract

The ‘radar rivers’ of the southern Eastern Sahara are systems of aggraded valleys containing inset drainage channels, now entirely obscured by wind-blown sand in the dry and hostile open desert. These features, first recognized on radar images, are remnants of the very different and moister landscapes of the Pleistocene and early Holocene. Proof of their attraction for early human settlement are the Acheulean artefacts that are found buried in alluvium that completely fills these old valleys and at the surface, along with Neolithic sites. The distribution of these sites follows, with good reason, the order of the radar channels.