93

the favorable environment of the Nile Valley, were the so-called Tasians, named after the type site of their culture at Deir Tasa. At the time of their occupation, this part of the Nile Valley was still swampy, with large trees growing at the fringes of the marsh. In view of these climatic conditions, it is estimated that this culture may have been introduced as early as 5000 or even 6000 b.c.¹⁵

Although the physical type of the Tasians has not yet been fully de­scribed, Brunton’s preliminary notice informs us that the few skulls as yet found are large, thick-walled, and strong in muscle relief, with heavy browridges. The cranial form, while prevailingly dolichocephalic, in­cludes some brachycephals.¹⁶ The faces are broad, the orbits square, the lower jaws deep, wide, and square, with flaring gonial angles and pro­jecting, bilateral chins. Judging from the drawings of one example pub­lished by Brunton, we may deduce that they were orthognathous, and in this case at least, mesorrhine. They seem to belong to a purely white cate­gory, and we may hazard a guess that they represent an Upper Palaeo­lithic strain of Afalou or Early Natufiian type, forming a link between Algeria and Palestine. They were not, however, important in the ultimate formation of the Egyptian people, for in subsequent times they seem, both culturally and racially, to have disappeared.

Another early Neolithic civilization of Egypt which left no clear traces in the dynastic culture was that of the Fayum people and the Merimdians of the Delta, who, contemporaneously with the Tasians, and following the Sebilians, grew barley, emmer wheat, and flax along the shores of the Fayum Lake and the estuaries of the Delta. They also kept herds of cattle, and especially of swine. Their technology bridges the gap between a Cap­sian Mesolithic and a full Neolithic. Their pottery, a thick black ware decorated by incision, resembles early ceramic types of Neolithic western Europe and of Anatolia.

The importance of these people is that they probably represent the pro­totype of the Neolithic agriculturalists who moved westward along the shore of North Africa to Morocco, and over into Spain, whence they spread the Neolithic economy, with emmer, flax, and swine, to the Swiss lakes and to the Rhine.¹⁷ Although they may have had little importance for Egypt, they had much for Europe. Their appearance in the Fayum and the Delta is dated at about 5000 B.C., and their disappearance about 4000 B.C. One millennium later they or people like them appeared in western Europe.

The skulls of these people, which consist mostly of females and infants,

14. Brunton, Guy, Antiquity, vol. 3, #12, Dec., 1929, pp. 456-457.

15. Menghin, o., Lecture at Harvard University, April 6, 1937.

16. Childe, V. G., op. Cit.Y p. 64.