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 with the Naqada people expanding and the A-Group predecessors retreating. 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 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.
@ -311,10 +311,6 @@ palettes is Wadi Hammamat, midway between the Nile Valley and the Red
Sea in Upper Egypt.[^62] The palette shapes were described as rough,
irregular, oval, oblong, and ovoid,[^63] which fit a Naqada I date.
**~~Figure 2: a) The mace-heads and axe-heads uncovered in Cemetery 7. From the left: grave 229, grave 230, grave 230, and grave 234. Photo from Reisner, *The Archaeological Survey of Nubia*, plate 63/d. b) The disc-shaped mace-head from grave 229 at Cemetery 7. Photo by Alexandros Tsakos. Courtesy of Nubia Museum, Aswan. c) The disc-shaped mace-head from grave 230. Photo by Alexandros Tsakos. Courtesy of Nubia Museum, Aswan.~~**
In Cemetery 7, four weapons or tool-weapons were found in three graves
-- two maces and two ground stone axes (Figure 2). The mace-heads
were of the disc-shaped type and made of black and white speckled
@ -324,6 +320,11 @@ axes could have been used as both weapons and tools. However, the size
of these stone axes, with lengths of ca. 8 and 10 centimetres
respectively, suggests that they could have been effective as weapons.
**~~Figure 2: a) The mace-heads and axe-heads uncovered in Cemetery 7. From the left: grave 229, grave 230, grave 230, and grave 234. Photo from Reisner, *The Archaeological Survey of Nubia*, plate 63/d. b) The disc-shaped mace-head from grave 229 at Cemetery 7. Photo by Alexandros Tsakos. Courtesy of Nubia Museum, Aswan. c) The disc-shaped mace-head from grave 230. Photo by Alexandros Tsakos. Courtesy of Nubia Museum, Aswan.~~**
The few Naqada objects found at the site suggest that the cemetery was
