Eolian Settings: Loess
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EASTERN SAHARA: COMBINED PREHISTORIC EXPEDITION Christopher L. Hill Graduate College, Boise State University, Boise, ID, USA Geoarchaeological studies conducted by the Combined Prehistoric Expedition (CPE) in the Eastern Sahara focused on stratigraphic sequences and paleolandscapes associated with Acheulian, Middle Paleolithic, Late Paleolithic, and Neolithic archaeological sites. Significant regions of study included Bir Sahara-Bir Tarfawi, Wadi Kubbaniya, and Nabta, all situated west of the Nile in southern Egypt. From its inception in 1962 until 1999, Fred Wendorf served as Director of the CPE, with Romuald Schild serving as Associate Director beginning in 1972 and as Director after 1999. After Schild’s retirement in 2007 the CPE was led by Jacek Kabacinski. Schild was responsible for the geologic mapping and stratigraphic studies, although an impressive list of geologists and geoarchaeologists were members of, or collaborated with, the expedition. The CPE first conducted research along the Nubian region of the Nile Valley as part of the construction of the Aswan High Dam (Wendorf, 1968). The study region extended from south of Aswan in Egypt to Wadi Halfa in Sudan, and it included Dungul Oasis and Kurkur Oasis. During the late 1960s, field studies were conducted primarily along the Nile Valley, but they included also the Western Desert’s Fayum depression in 1969 (Wendorf and Schild, 1976). In 1972, the major focus of research became the Eastern Sahara (Wendorf and Schild, 1980).
Bir Sahara became a significant region for the CPE when, in 1971, Bahay Issawi discovered the stratigraphic exposures about 350 km south of Kharga (Schild and Wendorf, 1981). In 1972, spring vents west of Kharga at Balat (Dakhla) containing Acheulian bifaces were studied (Schild and Wendorf, 1977). Bir Sahara and nearby Bir Tarfawi were investigated in 1973 and 1974 and in three seasons from 1986 to 1988 (Wendorf et al., 1993). Although the Sahara-Tarfawi area contains some Neolithic scatters, the primary focus was on spring and pond deposits associated with Acheulian artifacts and a series of important Middle Paleolithic localities associated with either year-round lakes or playas. The Acheulian deposits may date to about 500,000 years ago, while the Middle Paleolithic localities range from before 200,000 to after 100,000 years ago. They reveal Middle and Late Pleistocene environments linked to fluctuating wetter and drier climates during the evolutionary transition to anatomically modern Homo sapiens. The discovery of channel-like features in 1981 by space shuttle imaging radar (McCauley et al., 1982) prompted the CPE to conduct a systematic archaeological survey of the region south of Bir Tarfawi in 1984 (Wendorf et al., 1987). Hundreds of archaeological sites were found in the region of the radar channels. Most were assigned to the Neolithic, although several interesting Acheulian localities were also studied. Satellite images show a paleodrainage system extending from the highlands in southwestern Egypt towards the Bir Tarfawi reg
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