title: "The Role of Warfare and Headhunting in Forming Ethnic Identity: Violent Clashes between A-Group and Naqada Peoples in Lower Nubia
(mid-4th millennium BCE)"
authors: ["henriettehafsaas.md"]
abstract: This article reassesses the earliest cemeteries dating to the 4th millennium BCE in northern Lower Nubia. Remains from two cultural groups have been found in the region -- native predecessors of the A-Group people and Naqada people arriving from Upper Egypt. The evidence presented suggests that Naqada people from the chiefdom at Hierakonpolis conducted a violent expansion into Lower Nubia in the mid-4th millennium BCE. The following violent encounters with the natives are testified through interpersonal violence in five cemeteries of the predecessors of the A-Group people, young males buried with weapons in a Naqada cemetery in A-Group territory, and a settlement pattern shifting southwards. The author argues that the violence led to an ethnogenesis among the native population of northern Lower Nubia, and the ethnic boundary between the two groups became even more defined through headhunting provoking a schismogenesis. This case study provides new insights into warfare in ancient Nubia and an opportunity to discuss ethnic identity, ethnogenesis, and schismogenesis in the Nile Valley at the beginning of the Bronze Age.
abstract: This article reassesses the earliest cemeteries dating to the 4th millennium BCE in northern Lower Nubia. Remains from two cultural groups have been found in the region -- native predecessors of the A-Group people and Naqada people arriving from Upper Egypt. The evidence presented suggests that Naqada people from the chiefdom at Hierakonpolis conducted a violent expansion into Lower Nubia in the mid-4th millennium BCE. The violent encounters with the natives are testified through evidence of interpersonal violence in five cemeteries of the predecessors of the A-Group people, young males buried with weapons in a Naqada cemetery in A-Group territory, and a settlement pattern shifting southwards. The author argues that the violence led to an ethnogenesis among the native population of northern Lower Nubia, and the ethnic boundary between the two groups became even more defined through headhunting provoking a schismogenesis. This case study provides new insights into warfare in ancient Nubia and an opportunity to discuss ethnic identity, ethnogenesis, and schismogenesis in the Nile Valley at the beginning of the Bronze Age.
@ -252,10 +252,15 @@ observations, we can assume that the tradition of male burials as
archers started in the *Kerma ancien II* phase and must have continued
until the end of Middle Kerma.[^27]
Let us return to the archers\' graves of the oldest sectors.[^28] Their
Let us return to the archers\' graves of the oldest sectors.[^28]
**~~Figure 8a. Plundered grave containing an adult with his leather loincloth and a double bend bow (Kerma ancien II, Sector 23). For detail of the bow, see figure 8b~~**
Their
equipment consists of:
\- One or two bows, single or double-curved (Figure 8). It seems to us
\- One or two bows, single or double-curved (Figures 8a and 8b). It seems to us
that not too much should be made of this distinction, because the double
curvature can be achieved by deformation. It does not necessarily
suggest a composite bow, attested in Egypt later and supposedly
@ -278,9 +283,8 @@ occasionally decorated with a plume of ostrich feathers at its extremity
to manufacture the bows since these had been too severely damaged by
termites.
**~~Figure 8. Plundered grave containing an adult with his leather loincloth and a double bend bow (Kerma ancien II, Sector 23). At the bottom: general view of the grave. At the top: detail of the bow whose length is over 1,5 m.~~**
**~~Figure 8b. Detail of a double bend bow whose length is over 1,5 m (Kerma ancien II, Sector 23).~~**
**~~Figure 9. Plume of ostrich feathers with a string, which was rolled up at the extremity of the bow (Kerma ancien II, Sector 23).~~**
@ -5,4 +5,8 @@ affiliation: Volda University College
# Biography
Henriette Hafsaas is a Sudan archaeologist working at the University College of Volda holding a PhD from the University of Bergen.
Henriette Hafsaas is an archaeologist researching the relationship between peoples in ancient Nubia and Egypt from a southern perspective. She completed her PhD thesis titled "War on the Southern Frontier of the Emerging State of Ancient Egypt" at the University of Bergen in 2015. In the dissertation, she argues that warfare was a significant form of contact between Nubia and Egypt during the 4th millennium BCE, leading to the emergence of a distinct Nubian culture called the A-group people in the mid-4th millennium BCE and to the collapse of the A-group society towards the end of the 4th millennium BCE.
Hafsaas has worked on various archaeological projects in Sudan, Palestine, and Norway. In Sudan, she has been part of the Medieval Sai Project, which focused on the medieval cathedral of Sai. Hafsaas has published several articles in peer-reviewed academic journals. She is also engaged in ethical dilemmas for archaeologists.
Currently, Hafsaas is the Head of Research at Volda University College in Norway, and she continues to pursue her research interests in the past of ancient Nubia and Egypt.
