The Khormusan. About 50,000 years ago, during the Middle Palaeolithic era, the first stone age industry, the Khormusan, appeared in the Nile River Valley of Lower Nubia (first identified at the site of Khor Musa south of Wadi Halfa). Living in large settlements, these folk lived by fishing, hunting and gathering, all with the use of stone tools. The people of the Khormusan originally migrated to the valley from the Sahara, which at that time, was a grassy savannah just beginning its slow transition to desert. By contrast, in Egypt to the north, the Nile Valley first played host to permanently occupied settlements only much later in the Upper Palaeolithic era, i.e., after 30,000 BC.

Anthropology. It has been said that the early populations of Nubia and Egypt were related in some fashion, sharing ethnological and cultural similarities. Genetical studies of early human remains from both Egypt and Nubia suggest that there was only little physical distinction between their two peoples. However, over time, they seemingly did become physically distinct from each other, perhaps due to an infusion of a new population into Upper Egypt in the Neolithic era (after 7,000 BC). As Karl Butzer has noted, the Upper Egyptians of the Neolithic and Predynastic eras, were not the descendants of the earlier palaeolithic inhabitants, but were immigrants to Upper Egypt, probably from the northwest, i.e., from the northern Libyan Desert and its oases, which were in a slow process of desiccation at that time.

The Qada Culture. The Late Palaeolithic Age in Lower Nubia is best exemplified in the Qada Culture, which thrived from ca. 15,000-10,500 BC. This culture is known in numerous sites stretching from the Second Cataract northward to Toshka. The Qada Culture provides us with the earliest surviving evidence of human remains in the entire Nile Valley (i.e., skeletons, corpses, etc.). Characteristic of the Qadan burials are that they are separated from the settlement- perimeters, the corpse laid on its side in a fetal position, and oriented generally with head to the east. No goods or objects were deposited in the burials, although at Toshka the skulls of wild cattle were placed above certain graves. At the cemetery of Gebel Sahaba, the Qadan burials are quite distinctive for the large numbers of corpses struck with arrowheads or with other stone blades embedded in their bones, suggesting an uncharacteristically high percentage of violent deaths for such a hunter-gatherer society.

It had once been suggested that this culture had engaged in agricultural experimentation some 6,000 years before the agricultural revolution took hold in Western Asia. However, we now realize that the Qadans probably were actually engaged in the simple harvesting and processing of wild grains and fruits, which was not atypical of the period. The earliest true agricultural sites in Africa are found in the southern Libyan Desert to the west of Lower Nubia, and these date to almost 10,000 years ago.

Upper Nubia: The Khartum Mesolithic

By contrast, in Upper Nubia, the oldest known cultural assemblages date to the end of the Late Palaeolithic era, eighth millennium BC. These are found in certain sites from Dongola to Khartum and eastward toward the sea. Called the Khartum Mesolithic, this culture dates ca. 8,000-5,000 BC, and it provides us with the earliest human remains known in Upper Nubia. Among the primary characteristics of this culture are its sedentariness, its distinctive pottery (brown painted with wavy lines and dots), and its burial practices. Burial pits occur inside the settlements (under the houses or in the wide passageways between them) where the corpses are laid without any attention to orientation. The culture of the Khartum Mesolithic did not practice agriculture, but rather, lived by hunting and fishing and gathering food.