Talk:Prehistoric Egypt

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WikiProject Ancient Egypt to-do list:

Needed articles.

We should have an article on every pyramid and every nome in Ancient Egypt. I'm sure the rest of us can think of other articles we should have.

Cleanup.

To start with, most of the general history articles badly need attention. And I'm told that at least some of the dynasty articles need work. Any other candidates?

Standardize the Chronology.

A boring task, but the benefit of doing it is that you can set the dates !(e.g., why say Khufu lived 2589-2566? As long as you keep the length of his reign correct, or cite a respected source, you can date it 2590-2567 or 2585-2563)

Stub sorting

Anyone? I consider this probably the most unimportant of tasks on Wikipedia, but if you believe it needs to be done . . .

Data sorting.

This is a project I'd like to take on some day, & could be applied to more of Wikipedia than just Ancient Egypt. Take one of the standard authorities of history or culture -- Herotodus, the Elder Pliny, the writings of Breasted or Kenneth Kitchen, & see if you can't smoothly merge quotations or information into relevant articles. Probably a good exercise for someone who owns one of those impressive texts, yet can't get access to a research library.

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Frequently asked questions

Q:How is "prehistoric" Egypt different from "Paleolithic", "Predynastic", and "Protodynastic" Egypt?

A:In general, prehistoric is used to describe any culture prior to its use of written records. The Paleolithic, on the other hand, is an archaeological term for the Old Stone Age and consequently applies to the earliest section of prehistory, from the first human artifacts to roughly the end of the Ice Age. The Predynastic period is specific to Egyptology and refers to about the last 1500 years of Egyptian prehistory; the presence of pottery characterizes archaeological sites from this period and can even be used for relative dating. Finally, the Protodynastic period consists of two or three centuries on the cusp of not just Egypt's unification under the First dynasty, but also the development of proto-hieroglyphics and the first steps towards Egyptian history proper.

Q:Why are dates given so little emphasis in the article?

A:Without written records, Egyptian prehistory must be studied through archaeological methods that interpret data in a specific context of artifacts, location, and relative chronology (known as an archaeological culture). Some techniques like radiocarbon dating can estimate an absolute date for many artifacts and materials, but these methods are rarely precise enough to arrange cultures in time confidently. As a result, this article focuses on different cultures of prehistoric Egypt and only implies a sequence between widely different ages.

Q:Why do the dates have "BP" or "cal BP" next to them?

A:The acronym "BP" is short for "years before present", a dating scheme that has many advantages when discussing prehistory. The additional "cal" is short for "calibrated"; since atmospheric levels of different carbon isotopes have fluctuated over time, the raw output of a carbon-dating analysis will have some error. Radiocarbon calibration uses independent measures of these fluctuations to eliminate the error, bringing the date into sync with other methods like dendrochronology. If you add new dates to the article, please use calibrated ones whenever possible and mark them as "cal BP". If you must use uncalibrated dates, or are unsure if they're calibrated, please mark them as uncertain with the inline {{Calibrate}} template.

Q:Why is there no mention of Israel, Palestine, Syria, or Turkey?

A:While these nations correspond today to regions the Egyptians interacted with, no reputable scholars (nor national traditions) claim they existed in these areas as early as the period discussed by this article. As a result, the region that today encompasses Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and parts of Syria is referred to as either Canaan (the traditional name for the area prior to the presence of Hebrews and Philistines) or the Levant (the standard English term). Similarly, the territory that makes up much of Turkey today is here called either Anatolia or Asia Minor.

Q:Why doesn't the article have any discussion of early Egyptian religion or gods?

A:By definition, prehistoric Egyptians left us no writings discussing their religious beliefs. So even when archaeologists discover an artifact or figurative art, there is little context to determine if and how it has religious significance. This means that archaeologists are mostly limited to ritual burials and sacrifices as evidence for religious feeling; anything beyond this would be speculation unfit for the article.

Archives

Archive 1

Grammar and Language[edit]

"The vast majority of Predynastic archaeological finds have been in Upper Egypt, because the silt of the Nile River was more heavily deposited at the Delta region, completely burying most Delta sites long before modern times.[1]" though useful, is another example of syntax and comfortable language seamlessly making concepts of Upper and Lower Egypt confusing to intuition. A better statement could be made with a reference footnote such as: "The vast majority of Predynadtic arcahelogical finds have been in Upper Egypt." Aside from language concerns, and the quasi-academic grammar of the quoted reference, the "because" statement presumes sites existed of any significance which could be excavated. The statement is opinion, not empirical fact, misleading, and confusing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.73.92.28 (talk) 03:40, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Stone tool technologies (Illustrations)[edit]

Many casual, non-specialist readers will be quite unfamiliar with the specifics of the various stone-tool technologies referred to in this article. It would be extremely useful if this omission could be remedied, by the inclusion of appropriate additional illustrations and/or cross-referencing to other articles. 86.183.237.37 (talk) 17:18, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Genetic/ Morphological Connections Between Fayum and the Near East[edit]

Dont know where to put this but someone has sabotaged the page - this section "However, some morphological and post-cranial data has linked the earliest farming populations at Fayum, Merimde, and El-Badari, to Near Eastern populations" - should say LOCAL populations, not near eastern ones. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.155.226.109 (talk) 13:35, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, the citations at...

22 - Clines of nuclear DNA markers suggest a largely Neolithic ancestry of the European gene pool
21 - Paleolithic and Neolithic Lineages in the European Mitochondrial Gene Pool
20 - Origin, Diffusion, and Differentiation of Y-Chromosome Haplogroups E and J: Inferences on the Neolithization of Europe and Later Migratory Events in the Mediterranean Area
17- The questionable contribution of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age to European craniofacial form

... don't appear to support the claim that :

Studies based on morphological [and] genetic ... data have attributed these settlements to migrants from the Fertile Crescent in the Near East returning during the Egyptian and North African Neolithic.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.191.237.229 (talk) 11:00, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Nabta Playa is in Lower Nubia not Upper Egypt.[edit]

Nabta Playa is in modern-day Egypt but not within the borders of ancient Egypt. It's in Lower Nubia not Upper Egypt. Should it even be included on this page? If it is, it shouldn't be in the Upper Egypt section. Ario1234 (talk) 14:45, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Undue weight[edit]

a single account wikiuser4020 has been adding sources that give undue weight to discredited racialist theories about the ancient Egyptians id direct opposition to the scholarly consensus to numerous articles about ancient Egypt they have cherrypicked from a small group of heterodox scholars to give their views credibility and as an expert in this field I cannot allow this to stand. 75.131.101.131 (talk) 00:38, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Discredited by whom? Where? What opposition exactly are you referring to? 'As an expert' by itself is meaningless: you cannot cite yourself. Please explain why the sources added give undue weight to a viewpoint, not just that they do. WhoAteMyButter (🌇_talk│🍂^contribs) 02:03, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

for one they rely heavily on deeply flawed studies treating skeletal anthropometry as a reliable determinator of ancestry and ethnicity when mainstream anthropology has moved past those methods since they are generally considered unreliable. Inserting criticism of certain studies but omitting criticism of the more methodologically flawed or less difinitivevstudies from controversial scholars2600:1007:B067:42EF:7578:6E7F:59D3:B5E5 (talk) 22:24, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Can you list some source material that shares your expert opinion that we can use to update the material? 174.68.24.187 (talk) 15:41, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]