ABSTRACT
The importance of the environment as a main driving force of social transformations has always been acknowledged in the studies of the Sahara and North Africa in general. For the Eastern Sahara a fundamental archive of information is offered by the paleo-lakes region of Bir Tarfawi and Bir Sahara, in the southernmost part of the Egyptian Western Desert. The aeolian MIS2 deposits in north-western Libya are a clear indication of the expansion to the North and the Mediterranean of the northern boundary of the Sahara. The Eastern Sahara and the Nile Valley represented, then, a generalized ecosystem of hunting and hunting-fishing-gathering activities aimed at a broad exploitation of resources. Relations with the Nile Valley can be detected in the ceramic production, in the way of working the chert, in the maceheads and finally in the first appearance of copper.
