Recipient Dr. Michael Brass (UCL)
Date 01 December, 2020
Amount £4810 (Pilot Project Award)
Summary The 2021 season will excavate new burials and habitation levels ranging from 2000 years ago to the late 6th millennium BC, the latter continuing the first securely recorded Mesolithic occupation in the southern Gezira. The 2017 season produced the first indication of two distinct phases of burial activity; the intensity of the earlier phase was unknown. The second season (2019) confirmed not only the presence of at least two intense phases of burial activity but also the presence of a low-laying mud-dried wall in a late Mesolithic layer. Further burials will be excavated and analysed.

Materials will be compared with those from the central Sahara and new opportunities discerned to address issues of health, identity, interconnectivity and lifestyle pathways for the Eastern Sahara/Sahel. Thereby, the site will continue contributing to the emerging debate on alternative (pastoral) complexities – mobility, identity and interactions - within and beyond Africa.