Editing Neolithic (section)

=== Northeastern Africa ===
[[File:African cave paintings.jpg|thumb|Algerian cave paintings depicting hunting scenes]]

The earliest evidence of Neolithic culture in northeast Africa was found in the archaeological sites of [[Bir Kiseiba]] and [[Nabta Playa]] in what is now southwest Egypt.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |editor-last=Bard |editor-first=Kathryn |editor-link=Kathryn A. Bard |title=Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt |date=9 March 2014 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=9780415757539 |page=73 |language=en}}</ref> Domestication of [[sheep]] and [[goats]] reached [[Egypt]] from the [[Near East]] possibly as early as 6000&nbsp;BC.<ref>{{Cite journal |title = Sites with Holocene dung deposits in the Eastern Desert of Egypt: Visited by herders? |date = July 2010 |pages = 818–828 |volume = 74 |issue = 7 |doi = 10.1016/j.jaridenv.2009.04.014 |url = http://www.elenamarinova.net/publications/LinseeleMarinovaVanNeerVermeersch2009_JAE.pdf |last = Linseele |first = V. |journal = Journal of Arid Environments |display-authors = etal |bibcode = 2010JArEn..74..818L |access-date = 2013-09-05 |archive-date = 2022-03-09 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220309030448/http://elenamarinova.net/publications/LinseeleMarinovaVanNeerVermeersch2009_JAE.pdf |url-status = dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://factsanddetails.com/world.php?itemid=1506 |title=Early Domesticated Animals |date=March 2011 |access-date=5 September 2013 |website=Facts and Details |last=Hays |first=Jeffrey |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131021222544/http://factsanddetails.com/world.php?itemid=1506 |archive-date=21 October 2013 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title = The Origins and Development of African Livestock |last1 = Blench |first1 = Roger |publisher = Routledge |year = 1999 |isbn = 978-1-84142-018-9 |last2 = MacDonald |first2 = Kevin C}}</ref> [[Graeme Barker]] states "The first indisputable evidence for domestic plants and animals in the Nile valley is not until the early fifth millennium BC in northern Egypt and a thousand years later further south, in both cases as part of strategies that still relied heavily on fishing, hunting, and the gathering of wild plants" and suggests that these subsistence changes were not due to farmers migrating from the Near East but was an indigenous development, with cereals either indigenous or obtained through exchange.<ref>{{cite book |last = Barker |first = Graeme |title = The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory: Why Did Foragers Become Farmers? |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=-Z2imAEACAAJ&pg=PA292 |access-date = 3 December 2011 |year=2009| publisher = Oxford University Press |isbn = 978-0-19-955995-4 |pages = 292–293 }}</ref> Other scholars argue that the primary stimulus for agriculture and domesticated animals (as well as mud-brick architecture and other Neolithic cultural features) in Egypt was from the Middle East.<ref>{{cite book |author = Alexandra Y. Aĭkhenvalʹd |author2=[[Robert Malcolm Ward Dixon]] |title = Areal Diffussion and Genetic Inheritance: Problems in Comparative Linguistics |year = 2006 |publisher = Oxford University Press, USA |isbn = 978-0-19-928308-8 |page = 35 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book| author = Fekri A. Hassan |title = Droughts, food and culture: ecological change and food security in Africa's later prehistory |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=kIPDE7FnODIC&pg=PA164| access-date = 3 December 2011| year = 2002 |publisher = Springer |isbn = 978-0-306-46755-4 |pages = 164– }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last = Shillington |first = Kevin |title = Encyclopedia of African history: A–G |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Ftz_gtO-pngC&pg=PA521 |access-date = 3 December 2011| year = 2005 |publisher = CRC Press |isbn = 978-1-57958-245-6 |pages = 521– }}</ref>