What Forced the Prehistoric Cattle-Keepers to Emigrate from the Red Sea Mountains?

Abstract

Abstract Today’s desert area of Red Sea Hills is now inhabited by a Beja-Bisharin tribe, the camel breeders. In prehistoric times, this area was inhabited or penetrated by pastoral communities engaged in cattle breeding. Their occupation is primarily marked by thousands of engravings with representations of long-horned cattle, which were discovered in a rock art gallery in Bir Nurayet, one of the largest rock art galleries in Africa and the whole world. We still do not know when the shepherds and their herds abandoned the area. This issue can be addressed by geoarchaeology and investigation of sediments discovered in Wadi Diib, i.e. silts. As we believe, they record climate and environmental changes taking place in recent millennia, which probably to a large extent determined the socio-cultural processes in the area.