Resumen de Archaeological survey in the Blue Nile area: Central Sudan

Víctor Manuel Fernández Martínez, Mario Menéndez Fernández, Alfredo Jimeno Martínez, Javier Lario

• español

  Se presentan los resultados de una prospección intensiva del área de Wadi Soba-el-Hasib al este de Jartum en la orilla oriental del Nilo Azul y una exploración del Nilo Azul aguas arriba hasta Singa. El objetivo principal fueron los restos prehistóricos, con un 80% de yacimientos mesolfticos (Early Khartoum), siendo el resto neolftico (Shaheinab-Jebel Moya) junto a escasos restos paleolfticos. Por primera vez se han registrado yacimientos importantes del Neolftico Final en el Sudán Central, siempre en áreas lejanas al Nilo de la Butano y la Gezira. Se han aplicado métodos estadísticos multivariantes a los procesos de formación, seriación cerámica y modelos de asentamiento. Se advierte el paso primero de una explotación acuática por grupos móviles a una concentración demográfica de cazadores-pastores de sabana, que luego adoptan una economía móvil con túmulos funerarios como único resto arqueológico hasta la época moderna.

• English

  The results are presented of an intensive survey of the Wadi Soba-el-Hasib area east of Khartoum on the east bank of the Blue Nile and the exploration of the Blue Nile Basin upstream to Singa. The survey focused mainly on the Prehistoric sites, with the Mesolithic period (Early Khartoum) as the mostly represented with more than 80% of the discovered sites, the Neolithic sites (Shaheinab-Jebel Moya) making up most of the remainder 20%. Very few Palaeolithic sites were recorded. Late Neolithic sites of large size have been found for the first time in the Central Sudan, all of them located away from the Blue Nile in the Butana and Gezira plains. Site structure and formation processes, ceramic seriation and settlement patterns have been analysed applying statistical multivariate methods to the survey quantitative data. Some historical trends have been noticed. The first is the change from a Nilewadi aquatic exploitation by small mobile groups towards demographic concentration of near-sedentary savanna hunting-herding populations. During the Late Neolithic period the groups adopted a mobile economy and their only archaeological record thereafter are the burial tumuli fields up to the Christian and Islamic periods.