Sociétés et rites funéraires : le Nil moyen (Soudan) du Néolithique à l’Islamisation

Abstract

This article tests the relevance of an approach integrating ethnohistory and archeology, in a regional ethnoarchaeological and linguistic framework following a logicist type demonstration. It addresses the recent prehistory and pre-Islamic history of Sudan since the Neolithic and aims to give a renewed view of the development of the civilizations of the Middle Nile Basin and Kordofan in the field of funerary rites. It presents an Africanist anthropological perspective in order to complete the Egyptian vision which today dominates the archeology of this region. The demonstration is built on five successive levels: an updated ethnographic approach referred to linguistic contexts, a collection of archaeological and ethnohistorical paradigmatic data, an anthropological vision that defines the dynamic structure of the phenomenon. Two sets emerge, one, neolithic, comprehensible in the context of the dynamics of the Afro-phylum, the other, at the origin of pre-state and state societies (Kerma, Napata, Meroe), which integrate the dynamics of the nilo-Saharan phylum. Some general proposals on the evolution of societies are expressed.

Keywords

• Neolithic
• logicist study
• linguistics
• anthropology
• ethnohistory