Megaliths and Neolithic astronomy in southern Egypt

J. McKim Malville (), Fred Wendorf, Ali A Mazar and Romauld Schild
Additional contact information
J. McKim Malville: University of Colorado
Fred Wendorf: Southern Methodist University
Ali A Mazar: Egyptian Geological Survey
Romauld Schild: Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences

Nature, 1998, vol. 392, issue 6675, 488-491

Abstract: Abstract The Sahara west of the Nile in southern Egypt was hyperarid and unoccupied during most of the Late Pleistocene epoch. About 11,000 years ago1 the summer monsoons of central Africa moved into Egypt, and temporary lakes or playas were formed. The Nabta Playa depression, which is one of the largest in southern Egypt, is a kidney-shaped basin of roughly 10 km by 7 km in area2,3,4. We report the discovery of megalithic alignments and stone circles next to locations of Middle and Late Neolithic communities at Nabta, which suggest the early development of a complex society. The southward shift of the monsoons in the Late Neolithic age rendered the area once again hyperarid and uninhabitable some 4,800 radiocarbon years before the present (years bp). This well-determined date establishes that the ceremonial complex of Nabta, which has alignments to cardinal and solstitial directions, was a very early megalithic expression of ideology and astronomy. Five megalithic alignments within the playa deposits radiate outwards from megalithic structures, which may have been funerary structures. The organization of the megaliths suggests a symbolic geometry that integrated death, water, and the Sun. An exodus from the Nubian Desert at ∼4,800 years bp may have stimulated social differentiation and cultural complexity in predynastic Upper Egypt.

Date: 1998
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/33131 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:392:y:1998:i:6675:d:10.1038_33131

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/33131

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().