Abstract

the site of Africa’s earliest state, lies near the crossroads of two other continents, and has had historic interactions with all its neighboring regions. This alone would make it an ideal place to study historical population biology. Egypt can also be conceptualized as a lin-ear oasis in the eastern Sahara, one that traverses several regions of Africa. An oasis can be a way station or serve as a refugium, as well as be a place of settlement with its own special biological and cultural adaptive strategies. Both of these perspectives—crossroads and oasis/refugium— can be expected to provide insight into the processes that could have affected the Nile valley’s populations/peoples. From these vantage points History in Africa 32 (2005), 221–246 1Discussions over a long period of time with G.A. Harrison provided useful input for the outline of this presentation, as did John Baines. P. Underhill provided useful comments that improved this manuscript. I wish to also thank F. Wendorf, F. Hassan, C. Ehret, A. Brooks, and R. Kittles, and the numerous participants at the Poznan