Lithic Evidence for the Peopling of Northern Ethiopia

A comparative study of lithic assemblages from the Gash Delta lowlands of eastern Sudan and from Seglamen in the highlands of northern Ethiopia is used to investigate the origins of the pre-Aksumite people and their anonymous predecessors. Multiple similarities in knapping strategies and in lithic tool types support the hypothesis of a south-eastward movement of agro-pastoralists into the highlands of the Tigray Plateau, probably starting in the fifth millennium BC.