Predynastic Egypt (to 3100 B.C.E.)

The environment was the single most infl uential factor on the people
of early Egypt. As the wet climatic phase at the end of the last Ice
Age receded, North Africa began to dry up, and peoples near the
Nile, accustomed to grassy plains and ample wild animals to hunt,
had to adjust to increasing scarcity. Probably organized into tribes,
these early peoples had begun to grow barley and emmer wheat and
to domesticate the wild cattle that abounded in their area, as well
as sheep and goats. In addition to the probability that these ancient
tribes migrated on land, there is some evidence that they were already
building boats and navigating both the Nile and the Red Sea before
they settled there.
It was not easy to adapt to living along a large river that fl ooded
annually, and people had to learn how to grow crops on shifting soil
and to channel and store the fl oodwaters to ensure an adequate harvest
to feed their families. Developing these skills by trial and error must
have taken centuries. For a long period Egyptians migrated between
the increasingly desiccated Western and Eastern Deserts and the Nile
Valley, following seasonal patterns of vegetation and animal life.
The earliest human remains in Egypt have been found in a desert
region called Nabta Playa (west of Abu Simbel). Ten thousand years
ago this area was covered with trees and grass. It supported such game
animals as elephant, rhinoceros, giraffe, ibex, deer, antelope, wild ass,
and ostrich. Nabta contains tombs not only for humans but also for
wild cattle, foreshadowing the cow cult that would prevail in ancient
Egypt. By about 7000 B.C.E. these early peoples had erected stone structures
aligned to the movement pattern of stars and constellations. The
oldest village site, dating to about 5000 B.C.E., is in the Eastern Desert,
near a modern village called al-Badari. Its people farmed, baked bread,
brewed beer, herded cattle, caught fi sh from the Red Sea, sailed boats,
fi red pots, and carved religious objects from bone and wood. They
traded with peoples of Southwest Asia and may have been the earliest

link between the peoples of Egypt and Sumer. Probably this trade connection
went via the Red Sea and the Arabian Peninsula.
Recent archaeological discoveries are uncovering many such settlements,
pushing back the dates for ancient Egyptian civilization well
before the dynastic era, which began around 3100 B.C.E. The predynastic
Egyptians had already learned to harness the Nile to irrigate their crops
and to transport their goods. They had domesticated dogs, donkeys,
cattle, sheep, and goats. They had created religious cults, built small
temples, founded a city known as Hierakonpolis that had a surrounding
wall and a ceremonial gateway, and set up a social hierarchy and political
system. Tribal organization gave way to city-states along the Nile.
By the fourth millennium B.C.E. the cities were becoming united
into two kingdoms, one for the Delta or Lower Egypt, called the Red
Land; the other for Upper Egypt, called the White Land. The earliest
Egyptians did all this while their country changed from a fertile
savanna and hunting ground into a desert punctuated only by oases
and the mighty river Nile. For ancient Egypt to emerge in all its glory,
though, someone had to unite the kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt
under a single crown