Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Breaking news! Archaeologists Find Egyptian Stone Age Stores

Archaeologists in Egypt have found eight Stone Age grain stores at an oasis southwest of Cairo that help show the shift from hunting to agricultural societies, the Ministry of Culture reported.

The ministry said the discovery was made by a team from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in an area north of Fayoum 60 miles southwest of Cairo, where 67 grain stores were found in 1926.

"The well-preserved nature of these stores helped experts to understand the transformation of societies, from depending on hunting to a stable agricultural society," government antiquities chief Zahi Hawas said in the statement.

The statement did not say when the discovery was made.


That's the whole thing. We did a quickie search and think it may refer to this work, either the particular season described at that link, or related work in a different season. As the article above states, other grain storage facilities were found by Caton-Thompson and Gardner earlier and provided the basis for the Fayum Neolithic subsistence model. Check out Andie Byrnes' Neolithic Faiyum page for a good background discussion including Koms W and K, which is Caton-Thompson's site.