Introduction
The lithic artefacts described in this paper were found by an American petroleum engineer. Given his interest as a naturalist, he was exploring the northern perimeter of Augila Oasis in 1976. He conveyed these tools to co-author Mason, who had carried out social anthropological fieldwork in Augila during 1968–70 (Mason Reference Mason1971) and was returning to the oasis in the spring of 1976 for follow-up research. The artefacts were found at the northern end of the oasis, located in Cyrenaica, along the now-dried riverbed, Wadi Nashoof. Found close to one another, the tools were scattered on the surface. It is possible that they were used in proximity to the once actively flowing wadi. The three artefacts were most likely exposed through wind erosion and occasional rainstorms. There was no further archaeological context.
Augila Oasis
Augila, the pre-Arab, Berber name of the oasis community, lies in a compact north–south basin 16 km long by 1.6 km wide at its widest point. Its geographic coordinates are N29°07′30″, E21°17′38″ (see Figure 1). As early as 450 BC, Greek historian Herodotus referred to the oasis by its present name, meaning that the Berber name has had continuity for at least 2,500 years. Although he probably did not travel to Augila, Herodotus had heard stories of life there from his fellow Dorian Greeks, who were living along the Mediterranean coast of present day Cyrenaica. These stories were recorded in Herodotus's Histories.
Map of Egypt and eastern Libya with the sites mentioned in the text.
Augila Oasis is directly in the line of the Western Desert trade and pilgrimage route. Even as recent as a hundred years ago, that route continued to serve as an active axis of trade from the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa to the east, via camel caravans. The Western Desert route also served over centuries as the major trans-Saharan gateway from Africa for pilgrimages to Mecca.
In historic times, wells had been sunk deep into the surface of the wadi, which until recently provided the 2,500–3,000 population with its main source of water. While this underground supply was tapped by hand-dug wells and pulley-drawn buckets until the late 1950s, from the 1960s, and during Mason's stay, gasoline engines were used to pump water for use in prolific vegetable gardens, home cooking and hygiene. Thousands of date palm trees dotting the oasis are fed naturally by the underground source. In the mid-1970s, the Gaddafi government began to pipe water into Augila from external sources.
Northern Cyrenaican pre-desert and desert zone lithic traditions
Geoarchaelogical surveys carried out as part of the ongoing investigation of the Haua Fteah cave and surrounding areas in mountains of northern Cyrenaica by a team from the University of Cambridge shed a possible light on the Augila artefacts. These surveys focused on pre-desert and desert ecological zones (Barker et al. Reference Barker, Hunt, Reynolds, Brooks and el-Rishi2007; Reference Barker, Basell, Brooks, Burn, Cartwright, Cole, Davison, Farr, Grün, Hamilton, Hunt, Inglis, Jacobs, Leitch, Morales, Morley, Morley, Pawley, Pryor, Rabett, Reynolds, El-Rishi, Roberts, Simpson, Stimpson, Touati and van der Veen2008; Reference Barker, Antoniadou, Barton, Brooks, Candy, Drake, Farr, Hunt, Ibrahim, Inglis, Jones, Morales, Morley, Mutri, Rabett, Reynolds, Simpson, Twati and White2009; Reference Barker, Antoniadou, Armitage, Brooks, Candy, Connell, Douka, Drake, Farr, Hill, Hunt, Inglis, Jones, Lane, Lucarini, Meneely, Morales, Mutri, Prendergast, Rabett, Reade, Reynolds, Russell, Simpson, Smith, Stimpson, Twati and White2010; Reference Barker, Bennett, Farr, Hill, Hunt, Lucarini, Morales, Mutri, Prendergast, Pryor, Rabett, Reynolds, Spry-Marques and Twati2012; Jones et al. Reference Jones, Farr, Barton, Drake, White and Barker2011), an area a few hundred kilometres north-east of Augila Oasis. One of the objectives of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project surveys was to test the hypothesis that ‘past occupation patterns during the Palaeolithic were strongly driven by changes in the region's hydrological regime’. The surveys included artefacts recorded along the northern fringe of the Great Sand Sea, Augila itself lying just to the west of it. The evidence is suggestive that the desert zone comprising the surveys may have resembled the desert ecozone in which Augila lies. However, an important proviso is that Augila is now characterised by greater desertification, including considerably less rainfall and vegetation, than is found in the survey zones.
According to the results from the TRANS-NAP survey, most of the artefacts recorded in the pre-desert and desert zones are Middle Stone Age, with ‘a significant amount of lithic variation and diversity within the MSA’ (Jones et al. Reference Jones, Farr, Barton, Drake, White and Barker2011, 13). A much smaller number of artefacts is attributable to the Late Stone Age, which could be dateable to the late Pleistocene or early Holocene, approximately 15,000–11,000 years ago. Despite this predominance of MSA and Epipalaeolithic materials, the presence of Neolithic hearths and lithic assemblages scattered on the surface reveal that the whole region was also exploited during the mid-Holocene (Barker et al. Reference Barker, Antoniadou, Barton, Brooks, Candy, Drake, Farr, Hunt, Ibrahim, Inglis, Jones, Morales, Morley, Mutri, Rabett, Reynolds, Simpson, Twati and White2009, 76–77).
Techno-typological characterisation of the three artefacts
For the study of these tools, the typological classification system proposed by Holmes (Reference Holmes1989) for the pre-dynastic lithic industries of Upper Egypt was used.
Artefact 1: Sidescraper
The sidescraper, measuring 58 × 91 × 11 mm (51 grams), is manufactured on a brown chert tertiary flake detached from a multiple platform core. A small portion of cortex is still visible on the dorsal face. The striking platform was removed by retouch. The tool is D-shaped and shows an obverse, marginal or slightly invasive, semi-abrupt retouch running all over the perimeter, except for a small portion on the pointed tip. The retouch flake scars are mainly scalar and small–medium in size. The larger flakes are related to the central portions of both edges. Observing the patina spread on the tool's surface, which is more developed on the unretouched surfaces than on the retouched parts, it can be assumed that an older flake (difficult to say if MSA or Neolithic) has been retouched and reused. The tool was probably used unhafted (see Figures 2 and 3).
Artefact 1. Sidescraper. Dorsal face.
Artefact 1. Sidescraper. Dorsal face.
Artefact 2: Sidescraper
The sidescraper, measuring 72 × 58 × 6 mm (32 grams), is manufactured on a cortical flake of brown chert. The blank still shows the percussion platform, which is flat and irregularly lenticular in shape and the bulb of percussion which is diffuse. The tool is drop- or triangularly shaped and shows an obverse, marginal, semi-abrupt retouch, showing a denticulate trend running all over the perimeter. Retouch flake scars are mainly small and scalar. The distal front is the only one showing larger detachments, which seems to have been the main edge used. The ventral surface is completely unretouched. The tool could have been used both unhafted or hafted in the distal end (see Figures 4 and 5).
Artefact 2. Sidescraper. Dorsal face.
Artefact 2. Sidescraper. Dorsal face.
Artefact 3: Gouge/Plane
The tool, measuring 82 × 50 × 18 (81 grams), is manufactured on a piece of brown tabular chert. The tool, bifacially retouched, shows an oval shape expanding towards the possible working edge, with one flat and one highly convex face. The flat face is characterised by a natural (but not cortical) surface on its central area; a flat, invasive, scalar/stepped retouch runs all over the perimeter and it is characterised by medium and large detachments. The largest detachments are located on the widest edge and could be the result of re-sharpening of the tool's working edge. The convex face shows a covering retouch characterised by a denticulated trend along the edges, by centripetal medium and large scalar detachments on the central area, and semi-abrupt scalar detachments along the edges. It is possible that the piece was hafted on the thinner edge and used as a hoe, axe, plane, or scraper (see Figures 6 and 7).
Artefact 3. Gouge/plane. Dorsal face.
Artefact 3. Gouge/plane. Ventral face.
Discussion: cultural and chronological setting of Augila artefacts
The three Augila tools belong to the so-called bifacial tradition, which spread in the eastern Sahara during the mid-Holocene, from c. 6000 to 4800 BC, and even later, until pre-dynastic times along the Nile Valley. This tradition includes different classes of artefacts, namely bifacial knives, gouges, tranchet axes and planes, lens-shaped and tanged arrowheads, various types of scrapers, and bifacial borers.
In particular, the three Augila tools find strict parallels among the mid-Holocene production of the northern edge of the Farafra Oasis: Artefact 1 shows a particular type of semi-abrupt retouch, which removed the striking platform. This characteristic is not unusual among the sidescrapers on side-blow flakes found along the course of the Wadi el Obeiyid (Lucarini Reference Lucarini, Barich, Lucarini, Hamdan and Hassan2014, fig. 11/4.6, 2). Equally, Artefact 2 closely resembles the D-shaped cortical scrapers found in the Northern Plateau playa 1 and Hidden Valley (Lucarini Reference Lucarini, Barich, Lucarini, Hamdan and Hassan2014, fig. 11/4.6, 3–4). These tools can be characterised by bifacial or unifacial retouch, as in the case of Augila Artefact 2. Finally, Artefact 3 finds an exact parallel in the endscraper/gouge from Hidden Valley 2. Like the Augila specimen, the Farafra tool is drop-shaped and characterised by a bifacial retouch, showing very large, scalar detachments on the flat face and semi-abrupt smaller detachments on the dorsal one (Lucarini Reference Lucarini, Barich, Lucarini, Hamdan and Hassan2014, fig. 11/4.6, 7).
Other parallels of the three Augila tools can be found in other mid-Holocene contexts of the Egyptian Western Desert. These include the Djara B phase of Abu Muhariq Plateau (Gehlen et al. Reference Gehlen, Kindermann, Linstädter and Riemer2002; Kindermann Reference Kindermann2004; Reference Kindermann2010); the Late Bashendi A and Bashendi B of the Dakhla Oasis (McDonald Reference McDonald1998; Reference McDonald2009); the Late Baris Unit of Kharga Oasis (McDonald Reference McDonald, Kroeper, Chłodnicki and Kobusiewicz2007; Reference McDonald2009); Lobo in the Eastern Sand Sea (Klees Reference Klees, Krzyzaniak and Kobusiewicz1989); the Chufu site (Riemer Reference Riemer, Kroeper, Chłodnicki and Kobusiewicz2007); the Siwa and Bahrein Oases (Cziesla Reference Cziesla, Krzyzaniak and Kobusiewicz1989; Reference Cziesla, Krzyzaniak, Kobusiewicz and Alexander1993; Hassan Reference Hassan1976; Hassan and Gross Reference Hassan, Gross and Close1987). Along the Nile Valley, the three Augila artefacts find parallels with the Neolithic artefacts from the Fayum depression (Caton-Thompson and Gardner Reference Caton-Thompson and Gardner1934; Shirai Reference Shirai2010). Some bifacial tools were also found on the Cyrenaican and Marmarican coast and, in particular, in the Haua Fteah cave and Abou Tamsa shelter (de Faucamberge Reference de Faucamberge2014; Hulin et al. Reference Hulin, Timby and Mutri2009; Lucarini Reference Lucarini and Shirai2013; Reference Lucarini, Barich, Lucarini, Hamdan and Hassan2014; McBurney Reference McBurney1967).
Conclusion
The above assessment of the three Augila tools fits well with the pressure-flaked tools from the Haua Fteah (Lucarini Reference Lucarini and Shirai2013; McBurney Reference McBurney1967) and Abou Tamsa (de Faucamberge Reference de Faucamberge2014), which were considered similar to the Egyptian Western Desert mid-Holocene assemblages. Thus, the presence of the bifacial tradition in the Lower Nile Valley and in the Libyan littoral could have unfolded through exchange networks during periods of favourable climatic condition in the mid-Holocene. These movements and exchanges would have occurred during c. 6000–5300 BC, by groups practising a broad spectrum exploitation of the environment, including hunting/gathering activities and herding. These exchanges also included the introduction and diffusion of domestic caprines from the Levant, via the Red Sea coast and the Sinai (Linseele Reference Linseele and Shirai2013; Linseele et al. Reference Linseele, Marinova, Van Neer and Vermeersch2010). These species then moved across to the Nile Valley and the Egyptian Western Desert oases. Through Siwa and Bahrein, they also reached the Cyrenaican coast and, possibly, the pre-desert area and the Augila Oasis.
Acknowledgements
During a visit to London in summer 2014, Mason was introduced to the Society for Libyan Studies (SLS) in order to discuss the three bifacial artefacts from Augila. His friend, Rundle Sutherland, whom he knew in Benghazi in 1969 and who is also a member of the SLS, introduced him to Ms Pauline Graham, General Secretary of the SLS. Ms Graham, in turn, referred Mason to Prof. Graeme Barker, University of Cambridge. Barker then suggested that Dr Sacha Jones, also of Cambridge, might review the photographs of the tools. She was most generous in assessing those photographs and in agreeing to review the physical objects themselves. Once receiving the artefacts by post from the USA, Dr Jones asked her colleague, co-author Dr Giulio Lucarini (a specialist in final Pleistocene and Holocene lithic technologies of Egypt and Libya), to assess them. This led to his participation in preparing this article. In consultation between Ms Graham and members of the board, the SLS offered to accept a donation of the stone artefacts for its archives, which are housed at the University of Leicester.
American prehistorian Fred Wendorf is also acknowledged for his analysis of photographs of the flakes several years ago. He suggested they were probably dated to the Holocene period. Mason had also earlier contacted Dr Mohamed Jerary in Tripoli at the suggestion of Libyan-American professor Dr Ali Ahmida, University of New England (Maine, USA), in order to determine if the tools could be donated and shipped to the Libyan Museum of Antiquities. Dr Jerary, in turn, suggested Mason contact Mr Mustafa Turjman, Director of the Museum of Antiquities in Tripoli, which he did. Due to the uncertainty of whether the tools could be safely shipped to Libya in light of the present conflictive situation there, Mason searched for another, temporary, home. We are pleased with the arrangement with the SLS noted above. At an appropriate time, when Libya is stable, it is requested that the tools be repatriated to the antiquities authorities there.
