New Light on Early Food-Production in the Central Sudan

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Abstract
The excavations in the Central Sudanese Neolithic settlement at Kadero resulted in the discovery of a large amount of skeletal remains of domestic animals: cattle, sheep, goats and dogs. Cattle pastoralism was of great economic importance for the Kadero population and it was supplemented by the herding of sheep and goats; the presence of dogs is closely associated with this pastoralism. Preliminary examination of plant impressions on potsherds reveals the presence almost exclusively of sorghum and two kinds of millet, which were most probably cultivated. This may explain the large number of grindstones found in the Kadero settlement. The pastoralism and possible cultivation at Kadero point to a much more developed food-producing economy practised by the Central Sudanese Neolithic population, compared to that of the Esh Shaheinab settlement. Food-production at Kadero was supplemented by food-gathering activities, among which the collecting of molluscs predominated, with hunting and fishing playing a less significant role. The data yielded by the burial ground at Kadero, where the heavily prognathous inhabitants of the local settlement were buried, seem to indicate that the Neolithic Kadero population was an autochthonous one on the Upper (main) Nile. It is assumed that the domestic animals and, perhaps, also the cultivated cereals of the Neolithic Kaderans, as well as of other Central Sudanese populations, were adopted by the local food-gathering human groups following contact with other and alien peoples.

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