On desert origins for the ancient Egyptians

The volumes under discussion, while very different in nature and value, reflect a growing dissatisfaction with the application of a classic Childean paradigm to the evolution of Egyptian civilisation. An increasing number of studies are now questioning the once axiomatic importance of settled village life as the basis for early state formation, and returning to older models in which mobile groups, and particularly pastoralists, played a greater role. As they apply to Egypt, many of these models were formulated during the early twentieth century, and reflect broader assumptions of their time concerning the evolutionary potential of indigenous African populations. Accordingly, they need to be treated with critical care, even by well meaning archaeologists whose aim seems to be to turn those same ideas on their head, in order to demonstrate a pristine African genesis for such important innovations as plant cultivation or animal domestication.