The Desert Fayum Reinvestigated

The Early to Mid-Holocene Landscape Archaeology of the Fayum North Shore, Egypt

edited by Simon J. Holdaway and Willeke Wendrich

Book cover: The Desert Fayum Reinvestigated

Extent: 292 pages

Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press

Subjects: Ancient Egypt, Mediterranean Archaeology

Series: Monumenta Archaeologica

Series volume number: 39

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(April 2017)

ISBN: 9781938770098

8.46 x 10.94 inches

Price: $98.00

In stock

PDF (Published)

(December 2017)

ISBN: 9781938770500

Price: $60.00

The Neolithic is thought to have arrived in Egypt via diffusion from an origin in southwest Asia, relatively late compared to neighboring locations. The authors suggest an alternative approach to understanding the development of food production in Egypt based on the results of new fieldwork in the Fayum. They provide the results of a detailed study of the Fayum archaeological landscape interpretable at different temporal and spatial scales, using an expanded version of low-level food production to organize observations concerning paleoenvironment, socioeconomy, settlement, and mobility. While domestic plants and animals were indeed introduced from elsewhere, when a number of aspects of the archaeological record are compared, a settlement system is suggested that has no obvious analogues with the Neolithic in southwest Asia. The results obtained from the Fayum are used to assess other contemporary sites in Egypt.

  • Edited by Simon J. Holdaway
  • Edited by Willeke Wendrich