The book presents the results of Polish-German investigations conducted in the years 1984 to 1989 in the Armant region, Upper Egypt. Predynastic settlements associated with the cemeteries known from explorations by R. Mond and O. Myers were discovered on the edges of the Nile valley. The book has an interdisciplinary character, dealing with predynastic settlement against the background of geology, geomorphology and mineralogy of sediments in the Low Desert and in the Nile valley. At the same time the results of archaeobotanical and archaeozoological examinations of plant and faunal remains accompanying traces of predynastic settlement are analysed. The evolution of this settlement has been based on a seriesof more than 80 radiocarbon dates: the largest series for a single archaeological site in Egypt from the period between 4360 to 3600 years cal. B.C.
The book provides the palaeogeographical background namely, the evolution of the climate landscape relief and river network of the study region from 12000 years B.P. to the dynastic times. Prcdynastic settlement concentrates around a fossile pond – part of the old river-bed of the Nile – and is intersected by fossile wadis. Three occupational phases correspond to the early phase of the Armant rıecropolis. The late phase of this cemetery has no parallels in the Low Dessert zone; it is likely that settlements from that period have been buried under the sediments of the recent cultivation zone.
The book is the first monograph of a predynastic site which, owing to the precision of investigations and analyses, offers insight into a number of new aspects of land use, subsistence ecconomy, material culture and behaviour of Nagadian groups.