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Secrets of the sands:
Neolithic people from Dakhleh Oasis
Over the past few years, several skeletons, representing individuals
from about 3000BC, were found around the Dakhleh Oasis, in the western
desert of Egypt. These skeletons were recovered by Dr Jennifer
Thompson, from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), as part
of her investigation of human adaptation to arid lands.
People have lived in and around Dakhleh Oasis for thousands of years
- as shown by the stone tools and pottery recovered throughout the region.
From the archaeological evidence, we know that the Neolithic people in
this region were pastoralists. Once the area began to become more arid,
from about 6000BC onwards, people moved closer to the centre of the oasis,
where water and plants were still available, and this shows that they
were affected by changes in their environment. However, not much was known
about the people themselves: what did they look like, did they have any
connection with the Nile Valley, and how did they manage to survive the
rapid aridification of the desert?
Skeleton keys
To answer the first question, there are now skeletons, or parts of skeletons,
of six individuals from this era. What can they tell us? Four of these
individuals are males, one a female, and one is of unknown sex as it is
too fragmentary to make a diagnosis. One male was at least 5ft 6ins tall
and the female about 5ft 2ins in height, so there were some size differences
between the sexes. Most of these people died between the ages of 20 to
30 years of age, while one male reached an age of about 40. So life must
have been pretty tough for these individuals.
Dakhleh Oasis, located about 250km west of Luxor, is several days travel
by foot from the Nile Valley: was there any contact between these two
areas? The older male individual suffered from arthritis, and markings
left by his muscles indicate that he was powerfully built and probably
had walked long distances. He was the only individual who had an artifact
with his burial. A copper pin was found underneath his pelvis. Apparently,
in the Nile Valley, Neolithic males carried copper pins in leather pouches
on their waists, as indicated by burials from that region. This suggests
that there may have been contact between people of the two areas.
A comparison of the skulls of the most complete male and the female show
interesting size and shape differences. The female is similar in facial
features to females from the Nile Valley, while the male is more similar
to males from sub-Saharan Africa. More work needs to be done to confirm
this, but this evidence, along with the copper pin, suggests that travel
occurred between several regions of Africa at this time.
Survival skills
How did these people cope with increasing aridification in the area surrounding
the oasis? Again, the skeletons reveal clues about the health of these
pastoralists. Several individuals have enamel defects on their teeth that
suggest they suffered systematic stress from disease or poor nutrition.
Some enamel defects may have occurred at weaning, while others occur throughout
the teeth and indicate long-term stress during the time when the teeth
were forming.
Several individuals had incidences of dental cavities (caries). Root
caries are commonly found in pre-agricultural people because the diet
tended to be more abrasive, wearing down the surfaces of the crowns before
carious lesions could form there. With root caries, the lesion starts
on the root and eats its way up to the crown. This can lead to tooth loss
or infection of the bone surrounding the teeth, causing an abscess. In
fact, two individuals had abscesses and this may have been the cause of
their death. Abscesses can lead to blood poisoning and without treatment
can be fatal.
Lifestyle choices
What are the implications of all this in terms of the lives of these
people? In terms of health, many of them died young: most of these individuals
were 20 to 30 years of age. Their teeth show signs of pervasive and ongoing
stress. Only one individual lived to about 40 years - long enough to develop
arthritis.
These skeletal and dental finds are important because this time period,
approximately 6500 to 4000 years ago, is so far not well documented in
terms of physical remains. Skeletal evidence becomes more plentiful when
it became more common for people to be buried in cemeteries. The discovery
of these individuals from Dakhleh Oasis has helped to shed light on the
health of people from this time, and also allows contrasts to be made
with earlier people in this area as well as later agriculturalists.
• Dr Jennifer Thompson is a physical anthropologist
known for her work on Neanderthal and early modern humans, on more recent
Chinese immigrants from northern Nevada,
as well as on the prehistoric people of Dakhleh Oasis. She has been a
member of the Dakhleh Oasis Project since 1997 and was invited to join
the project as their expert in prehistoric human remains. For more information
visit her website.
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