MSA Technology in Kerma, Sudan: The Development of Fieldwork Methods for Data Acquisition in Basalt Outcrop Settings

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Establishing the Science of Paleolithic Archaeology: The Legacy of Harold Dibble (1951–2018) Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

One of the primary centers for understanding Anatomically Modern Human dispersal is the Nile Valley. In this paper, we present preliminary results from a survey and MSA lithic collection during a second field season to take place in the Kerma region, northern Sudan, during January 2023. The lithic assemblages are mostly basalt, a major raw material in the area due to the presence of outcrops, that cut through the local Nubian sandstone bedrock. While many of these outcrops are small extrusions spread on the landscape, there is at least one major basalt plug, some 150 m high and over 600 m in diameter. On top of this landscape feature, there are various loci where the basalt was exploited, and in each there are thousands of MSA artifacts. This paper will present the methodological strategies for collecting data at each of these loci.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Establishing the Science of Paleolithic Archaeology: The Legacy of Harold Dibble (1951–2018) Part II   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35979.0