The environment and evolution of an early egyptian urban center: Archaeological and geochemical investigations at hierakonpolis

Abstract

Abstract We describe and summarize the results of new interdisciplinary techniques for recovering and analyzing historical and paleoenvironmental data from mid‐Holocene archaeological and geological deposits in the modern Nile floodplain at the site of Hierakonpolis in Upper Egypt. Application of these techniques has produced the first stratigraphic link between historic (Early Dynastic) and late prehistoric (Predynastic) periods in the Nile Valley at a site which played a central role in the evolution of Egyptian civilization.