Exploration of the late prehistoric occupation in the western part of Jebel Sabaloka in central Sudan : findings of the 2018 field campaign
Abstract
The most significant findings of the ongoing exploration of the Fox Hill site in the western part of the Sabaloka Mountains include the detection of extensive remains of a more-than-one-metre thick deposit on Terrace 1, tentatively interpreted as a relic of prehistoric Nile floods that must have reached as high as 10 metres above the present level of the Nile inundation, and the confirmation of the considerable size of the burial ground on Terrace 3, where 26 primary inhumations and 21 groups of more or less articulated humen bones appertaining to a still unspecified number of individuals have been uncovered so far. Further examples of scare remains of grave goods were found with three individuals (stone tools, bones of a large mammal, beads of ostrich eggshell and red quartz).
We suppose Mesolithic dating for most of the burials, but a Neolithic date is more likely in the case of the burial of a child with stone beads found in the uppermost stratigraphic position (indication of the continuity of the burial ground into the Neolithic). It is thus confirmed that Fox Hill stands out in many respects in the settlement structure of the western part of the Sabaloka Mountains and can constitute a source of data of extraordinary significance for addressing a number of issues of supra-regional importance.