This volume presents a new synthesis of the archaeology of Nubia and Sudan, a region which for millennia has been where the Eurasian and sub-Saharan worlds met, and which has produced the earliest states and some of the most spectacular archaeology in sub-Saharan Africa. The first major synthesis for over 30 years, the book provides a thoroughly up-to-date review, drawing on the results of the latest research, as well as developing new interpretative frameworks.
The book breaks new ground in a number of ways, especially in moving beyond often Egyptocentric and traditional existing culture-histories of 'Nubia', isolated from other areas of Africanist research. One particular concern has been to re-locate the early civilizations of the region and their archaeology within their Sudanic African context - the geographical range of the book extending far beyond the Nubian north, to include wide areas of the Middle Nile Basin and what has come to be the modern Sudan. Through the period-based chapters, the distinctiveness, or otherwise, of the region's long-term history can be traced both in relation to the Sudanic world and the Egyptian Lower Nile. New ground is also broken in exploring the potential for a more broadly framed and inclusive 'historical archaeology', dealing with the Sudan's more recent past.

This volume presents a new synthesis of the archaeology of Nubia and Sudan, a region which for millennia has been where the Eurasian and sub-Saharan worlds met, and which has produced the earliest states and some of the most spectacular archaeology in sub-Saharan Africa. The first major synthesis for over 30 years, the book provides a thoroughly up-to-date review, drawing on the results of the latest research, as well as developing new interpretative frameworks.
The book breaks new ground in a number of ways, especially in moving beyond often Egyptocentric and traditional existing culture-histories of 'Nubia', isolated from other areas of Africanist research. One particular concern has been to re-locate the early civilizations of the region and their archaeology within their Sudanic African context - the geographical range of the book extending far beyond the Nubian north, to include wide areas of the Middle Nile Basin and what has come to be the modern Sudan. Through the period-based chapters, the distinctiveness, or otherwise, of the region's long-term history can be traced both in relation to the Sudanic world and the Egyptian Lower Nile. New ground is also broken in exploring the potential for a more broadly framed and inclusive 'historical archaeology', dealing with the Sudan's more recent past.

Of the Nubian Archaeological Campaigns responding to the construction of the Aswan High Dam, the survey and excavations carried out within Sudanese Nubia represent the most substantial achievement of the larger enterprise. Many components of the larger project of the UNESCO - Sudan Antiquities Service Survey have been published, in addition to the reports of a number of other major projects assigned separate concessions within the region. However, the results of one major element, the Archaeological Survey of Sudanese Nubia (ASSN) between the Second Cataract and the Dal Cataract remain largely unpublished. This volume, focusing on the pharaonic sites, is the first of a series which aims to bring to publication the records of the ASSN. These records represent a major body of data relating to a region largely now lost to flooding. This is also a region of very considerable importance for understanding the archaeology and history of Nubia more generally, not least in relation to the still often poorly understood relationships between Lower Nubia to the north and the surviving areas of Middle and Upper Nubia, to the south. The ASSN project fieldwork was undertaken over six years between 1963 and 1969, investigating c.130km of the river valley between Gemai, at the south end of the Second Cataract, and Dal.

The second volume presenting the results of researches at Gabati in central Sudan is concerned with the physical anthropology. The book consists of two parts. Part I details the analysis of the skeletons excavated at Gabati and summarises their general health and lifestyle. An in-depth social interpretation is not the intention of this analysis, but rather it forms an anthropological foundation to invite further research. Chapters 2-6 present the methods and results of inventory, demography and palaeopathology. Chapter synthesises these results to impart an impression of life and health experienced at Gabati during the Meroitic, post-Meroitic and medieval periods. Chapter 8 situates the site and funerary program within the broader context of Nubian archaeology. Part II presents the skeletal catalogue of osteobiographical information for each individual and lists the unassociated skeletal remains, if any, for each tomb. The appendices include preservation tables, individual data tables, descriptive statistics for metrical data, frequency tables for non-metric traits and finally the plates.

A revised work, based on the author's doctoral research, which examines the Meroitic Civilization in sub-Saharan Africa. Rejecting the common Egyptocentric approach to the subject, Edwards' concern is to develop a more social archaeology, and explore linkages between state structure, population and material culture. His aim is to adopt an African oriented standpoint, refusing to rely only upon monuments, the higher arts, and inscriptions, to produce a traditional historical narrative. Using modern advances in theory and methodology, the analysis covers 'power bases' (subsistence & production, economic administration, manufactures), long-distance exchanges and the prestige goods economy, and thorough interpretation of settlement patterns in lower Nubia. Extensive Bibliography.