Abu Madi
Encyclopedia
Abu Madi is a cluster of prehistoric, Neolithic
tell
mounds in Southern Sinai, Egypt
. It is located East of the Saint Catherine Monastery at the bottom of a granite
ridge. It was suggested to have been a seasonal encampment for groups of hunter gatherers and contained the remains of two major settlements; Abu Madi I and Abu Madi III. Abi Madi I is a small site with the remains of a partially buried 4 metres (13.1 ft) building containing deposits up to a depth of 1.3 metres (4.3 ft). Abu Madi III was an area of roughly 20 square metre that was excavated close to a large nearby boulder. Dwellings were found to have stone built silo
s next to them. It was first excavated in the early 1980s
by Ofer Bar-Yosef
.
, Abu Madi has been suggested to be a form of late Khiamian
culture. It has been suggested that the dwellings found housed small groups of nuclear families continuing in the Natufian style. A large number of chipped flints were recovered including a new type of aerodynamic arrowhead
known as the Abu Madi Point characterised by elongated oval
s or rhomboid
shapes, occasionally with a small tang
. El Khiam
points were also found with deep concave bases and it has been suggested these arrowheads were used to hunt such animals as gazelles and wild ibexes. Abu Madi has been suggested to be amongst the ten probable centers for the origin of agriculture and used in statistical analysis to determine the rate of spread into Europe
.
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
tell
Tell
A tell or tel, is a type of archaeological mound created by human occupation and abandonment of a geographical site over many centuries. A classic tell looks like a low, truncated cone with a flat top and sloping sides.-Archaeology:A tell is a hill created by different civilizations living and...
mounds in Southern Sinai, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
. It is located East of the Saint Catherine Monastery at the bottom of a granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
ridge. It was suggested to have been a seasonal encampment for groups of hunter gatherers and contained the remains of two major settlements; Abu Madi I and Abu Madi III. Abi Madi I is a small site with the remains of a partially buried 4 metres (13.1 ft) building containing deposits up to a depth of 1.3 metres (4.3 ft). Abu Madi III was an area of roughly 20 square metre that was excavated close to a large nearby boulder. Dwellings were found to have stone built silo
Silo
A silo is a structure for storing bulk materials.Silo may also refer to:* Silo , a 3D modeling software* Silo , a defunct chain of retail electronics stores* SILO , used in Linux...
s next to them. It was first excavated in the early 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
by Ofer Bar-Yosef
Ofer Bar-Yosef
Ofer Bar-Yosef is an Israeli archaeologist whose main field of study has been the Palaeolithic period.He was Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the institution where he originally studied archaeology at undergraduate and post-graduate levels in the 1960s...
.
Culture
The culture has been referred to as the Abu Madi Entity as it shows evidence of having retained Natufian characteristics of a temporary settlement, while being at least partly contemporary with the PPNA cultures of the Levant further to the North. It has been dated approximately 10100 to 9700 BP or from between 9660 to 9180 BC with calibrated datings ranging between c. 9750 and 7760 BC. Judging by these radiocarbon datesRadiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to estimate the age of carbon-bearing materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present" ,...
, Abu Madi has been suggested to be a form of late Khiamian
Khiamian
The Khiamian is a period of the Near-Eastern Neolithic, marking the transition between the Natufian and the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A...
culture. It has been suggested that the dwellings found housed small groups of nuclear families continuing in the Natufian style. A large number of chipped flints were recovered including a new type of aerodynamic arrowhead
Arrowhead
An arrowhead is a tip, usually sharpened, added to an arrow to make it more deadly or to fulfill some special purpose. Historically arrowheads were made of stone and of organic materials; as human civilization progressed other materials were used...
known as the Abu Madi Point characterised by elongated oval
Oval
An oval is any curve resembling an egg or an ellipse, such as a Cassini oval. The term does not have a precise mathematical definition except in one area oval , but it may also refer to:* A sporting arena of oval shape** a cricket field...
s or rhomboid
Rhomboid
Traditionally, in two-dimensional geometry, a rhomboid is a parallelogram in which adjacent sides are of unequal lengths and angles are oblique.A parallelogram with sides of equal length is a rhombus but not a rhomboid....
shapes, occasionally with a small tang
Tang (weaponry)
A tang or shank is the back portion of a tool where it extends into stock material or is connected to a handle as on a knife, sword, spear, arrowhead, chisel, screwdriver, etc...
. El Khiam
El Khiam
El Khiam is an archaeological site near Wadi Khureitun in the Judean desert in Israel, on the shores of the Dead Sea.Archaeological finds at el-Khiam show nearly continuous habitation by groups of hunters since the Mesolithic and early Neolithic periods. The Khiamian El Khiam is an archaeological...
points were also found with deep concave bases and it has been suggested these arrowheads were used to hunt such animals as gazelles and wild ibexes. Abu Madi has been suggested to be amongst the ten probable centers for the origin of agriculture and used in statistical analysis to determine the rate of spread into Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
Literature
- Bar-Yosef, Ofer., Neolithic Sites in Sinai, Frey and Uerpmann 1981, Beiträge zur Umweltgeschichte des Vorderen Orients, Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients (TAVO) A 8, Wiesbaden, pp. 217–235, 19 pages, 1981.
- Gopher, Avi., Flint tool industries of the Neolithic period in Israel, Ph.D. thesis, Hebrew University Jerusalem, 389 pages, 1985.
- Kuijt, I. Bar-Yosef, O., Radiocarbon Chronology for the Levantine Neolithic: Observations and Data, Radiocarbon, 36, 227–245, 1994.
- Gopher, A., Arrowheads of the Neolithic Levant. A Seriation Analysis, Ph.D. thesis. American Schools of Oriental Research. Dissertation Series 10, 1994.