The Naqada culture is an archaeological culture of Chalcolithic Predynastic Egypt (c. 4000–3000 BC), named for the town of Naqada, Qena Governorate. A 2013 Oxford University radiocarbon dating study of the Predynastic period suggests a beginning date sometime between 3,800 and 3,700 BC. The final phase of the Naqada culture is Naqada III, which is coterminous with the Protodynastic Period (Early Bronze Age c. 3200–3000 BC) in ancient Egypt.

Chronology

William Flinders Petrie

The Naqada period was first divided by the British Egyptologist William Matthew Flinders Petrie, who explored the site in 1894, into three sub-periods:

Werner Kaiser

Petrie's chronology was superseded by that of Werner Kaiser in 1957. Kaiser's chronology began c. 4000 BC, but the modern version has been adjusted slightly, as follows:

Monuments and excavations

The Material culture at Naqada sites vary depending on the phase of Naqada Culture. The excavation of pottery at most Naqada sites with each distinct periods of culture having their own defining pottery. The types of pottery that were found at Naqada sites arranged from bowls, small jars, bottles, medium-sized neck jars to wine jars and wavy-handled jars. Most of the pottery excavated from Naqada sites have probably been used for cultural reasons (when having decorations on them) and for storage of food as well as the placing of food on them (for consumption). The various designs that are included in pottery have waves in them and are sometimes accompanied with floral motifs or drawings of people, suggesting that art was strongly expressed during Naqada Cultures. These designs might have also had an early Mesopotamian influence as some animals depicted on pottery during the Naqada II period show griffins and serpent-headed panthers, which are linked to early Uruk period pottery.

Biological anthropological studies

In 1993 a craniofacial study was performed by the anthropologist C. Loring Brace, the report reached the view that "The Predynastic of Upper Egypt and the Late Dynastic of Lower Egypt are more closely related to each other than to any other population", and most similar to modern Egyptians among modern populations, stating "the Egyptians have been in place since back in the Pleistocene and have been largely unaffected by either invasions or migrations." The craniometric analysis of predynastic Naqada human remains found that they were closely related to other Afroasiatic-speaking populations inhabiting North Africa, parts of the Horn of Africa and the Maghreb, as well as to Bronze Age and medieval period Nubians and to specimens from ancient Jericho. The Naqada skeletons were also morphologically proximate to modern osteological series from Europe and the Indian subcontinent. However, the Naqada skeletons and these ancient and recent skeletons were phenotypically distinct from skeletons belonging to modern Niger-Congo-speaking populations inhabiting Sub-Saharan Africa and Tropical Africa, as well as from Mesolithic skeletons excavated at Wadi Halfa in the Nile Valley. In 2022, the methodology of the Brace study was criticised by biological anthropologist S.O.Y. Keita for "misstating the underlying assumptions of canonical variates and principal component analysis used in others' work". Also, Keita noted that the 1993 study overlooked "the fact that even in their study Egyptians could be found clustering with ancient Nubians and modern Somalis, both tropical African groups". Hanihara et al. (2003) performed a cranial study on 70 samples from a global database which featured samples from Predynastic Naqada and 12th-13th dynasty Kerma which were collectively classified in the study as "North Africans" and other samples from Somalia along with Nigeria which were classified as "Sub-Saharans", but lacked a specified dating period. The samples from predynastic Naqada and Kerma clustered closely and with European groups, whilst the other samples from Sub-Saharan Africa showed "significant separation from other regions, as well as diversity among themselves". On the other hand, various biological anthropological studies have found Naqada skeletal remains to have Northeastern African biological affinities. In 1996, 53 Naqada crania were measured and characterized by SOY Keita. He concluded that 61-64% were classified as southern series (which shares closest affinities with Kerma Kushites), while 36-41% were more similar to the northern Egyptian pattern (Coastal Maghrebi). In contrast, the set of Badarian crania were largely conforming to the Upper Egyptian-southern series at rates of 90-100%, with 9% possibly displaying northern affinities. This change is mainly attributed to the local migration along the Nile-Valley from northern Egyptians, and/or migration of Near-East populations, which lead to genetic exchange. The Middle Eastern series had some similarities with the early Southern Upper Egyptians and Nubians, which was considered by the researcher probably a reflection of their real presence to some degree, a consideration attested by archeological and historical sources. The biological anthropologists, Shomarka Keita and A.J. Boyce, have stated that the "studies of crania from southern predynastic Egypt, from the formative period (4000-3100 B.C.), show them usually to be more similar to the crania of ancient Nubians, Kushites, Saharans, or modern groups from the Horn of Africa than to those of dynastic northern Egyptians or ancient or modern southern Europeans". Keita and Boyce further added that the limb proportions of early Nile Valley remains were generally closer to tropical populations. They regarded this as significant because Egypt is not located in the tropical region. The authors suggested that "the Egyptian Nile Valley was not primarily settled by cold-adapted peoples such as Europeans". In 1996, Lovell and Prowse reported the presence of individuals buried at Naqada in what they interpreted to be elite, high-status tombs, showing them to be an endogamous ruling or elite segment who were significantly different from individuals buried in two other, apparently nonelite cemeteries, and more closely related morphologically to populations in Northern Nubia (A-Group) than to neighbouring populations at Badari and Qena in southern Egypt. Specifically, the authors stated that the Naqada samples were "more similar to the Lower Nubian protodynastic sample than they are to the geographically more proximate Egyptian samples" in Qena and Badari. Although, the samples from Naqada, Badari and Qena were all found to be significantly different from each other and from the protodynastic populations in northern Nubia. Overall, both the elite and nonelite individuals at the Naqada cemeteries were more similar to each other than they were to the samples in northern Nubia or to other predynastic samples in southern Egypt. In 1999, Lovell summarised the findings of modern skeletal studies which had determined that "in general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas" but exhibited local variation in an African context. She also wrote that the archaeological and inscriptional evidence for contact between Egypt and Syro-Palestine "suggests that gene flow from these areas was very likely". In 2018, Godde assessed population relationships in the Nile Valley by comparing crania from 18 Egyptian and Nubian groups, spanning from Lower Egypt to Lower Nubia across 7,400 years. Overall, the results showed that the biological distance matrix demonstrates the smallest biological distances, which indicate a closer affiliation are between Kerma and Gizeh, as well as Kerma and Lisht. The greatest biological distances are assigned to Sayala C-Group and the Pan-Grave sample, along with Sayala C-Group and the Semna South Christian sample. The earliest group, the Mesolithic, demonstrated smaller biological distances with Egyptian Naqada individuals than another Nubian group (Kulubnarti Island) and inline with the Nubian Christian group from Semna South. The northern Lower Nubia and Upper Egypt samples clustered together: A-Group, C-Group, Mesolithic, Sayala C-Group, Coptic, Hesa/ Biga, Badari, and Naqada. Second, the Lower Egypt samples (Gizeh, Cairo, and Lisht) formed a relatively homogeneous grouping. Finally, Semna South (Meroitic, X-Group, Christian), the geographically close Kulubnarti (Christian), Pan-Grave, and Kerma samples also plotted close together. In sum, there was a north–south gradient in the data set. In 2020, Godde analysed a series of crania, including two Egyptian (predynastic Badarian and Nagada series), a series of A-Group Nubians and a Bronze Age series from Lachish, Palestine. The two pre-dynastic series had strongest affinities, followed by closeness between the Nagada and the Nubian series. Further, the Nubian A-Group plotted nearer to the Egyptians and the Lachish sample placed more closely to Naqada than Badari. According to Godde the spatial-temporal model applied to the pattern of biological distances explains the more distant relationship of Badari to Lachish than Naqada to Lachish as gene flow will cause populations to become more similar over time. Overall, both Egyptian samples were more similar to the Nubian series than to the Lachish series. In 2023, Christopher Ehret reported that the physical anthropological findings from the "major burial sites of those founding locales of ancient Egypt in the fourth millennium BCE, notably El-Badari as well as Naqada, show no demographic indebtedness to the Levant". Ehret specified that these studies revealed cranial and dental affinities with "closest parallels" to other longtime populations in the surrounding areas of northeastern Africa "such as Nubia and the northern Horn of Africa". He further commented that "members of this population did not migrate from somewhere else but were descendants of the long-term inhabitants of these portions of Africa going back many millennia". Ehret also cited existing, archaeological, linguistic and genetic data which he argued supported the demographic history.

Genetic data on Naqada remains

Several scholars have highlighted a number of methodological limitations with the application of DNA studies to Egyptian mummified remains. Moreover, Keita and Boyce (1996) noted that DNA studies had not been conducted on the southern predynastic Egyptian skeletons. According to historian William Stiebling and archaeologist Susan N. Helft, conflicting DNA analysis on Egyptian mummies has led to a lack of consensus on the genetic makeup of the ancient Egyptians and their geographic origins. Although, various DNA studies have found Christian-era and modern Nubians along with modern Afro-Asiatic speaking populations in the Horn of Africa to be descended from a mix of West Eurasian and East African populations.

Relative chronology