A Neolithic burial ground from Upper Nubia as seen from recent work at Kadruka 23 (KDK23)

An archaeo-anthropological excavation of a new cemetery Located in Upper Nubia, within the northern Dongola Reach, the Kadruka concession lies between Kerma (to the north) and Kawa (to the south) and corresponds, mostly, to the Wadi el-Khowi, which is part of the former course of the River Nile (nowadays flowing some 19km to the west). Between 1985 and 2002, the whole concession was surveyed by Jacques Reinold, under the auspices of the SFDAS (Reinold 1987; 2001; 2004). He discovered more than 150 sites within the Kadruka district, amongst which he recognised 17 Neolithic burial mounds. Over the 17 years, he had the opportunity to excavate six of them either (almost) entirely (KDK1 N=124; KDK13 N=c. 30; KDK18 N=165; KDK21 N=288 out of an estimated total of c. 300 burials), or partially (KDK2 N=116 out of an estimated total of 1000 burials; KDK22 N=30 out of 150 estimated burials). So there are more than 750 individuals from six cemeteries excavated by Reinold; however, none of those sites have been fully published, and it is difficult to appreciate the representativeness of each burial sample. Since 2014, a multi-site and multidisciplinary project has operated at Kadruka (MaFSaK, Mission archéologique Franco-Soudanaise à Kadruka), jointly led by Langlois, Chambon and Sellier, funded by QSAP-06, with the collaboration of SFDAS and NCAM, with two main focuses: the Neolithic funerary dimension, and the analysis of the settlements of the Neolithic and the pre-Kerma periods. Part of the QSAP-06 project is the thorough excavation of a new cemetery from the Middle Neolithic period in the Kadruka area, namely the burial mound KDK23, discovered by Osman Idriss in the autumn of 1988 and first visited by Reinold in the winter of 1989 (after a test, he did not select KDK23 for further excavation). The present KDK23 excavation is much more than a supplementary site in the Kadruka area; it should shed new light on Neolithic burial practices and funerary chaînes opératoires, and should provide definite bioarchaeological data to establish the sequence of the ‘peopling corridor’ of the Upper Nubian Nile Valley, as well as analysing evidence for the presumed hierarchisation of the Neolithic societies. KDK23 was chosen because of its intermediate dimensions (‘only’ 40m in diameter and 1.5m high above the plain) and its relatively good preservation: in November 2013, scarce fragmented bones and a few potsherds seemed to indicate a low erosional impact and Reinold’s 1989 test work had barely affected the burials (encompassing cleaning of the surface, excavation of two child burials, a ‘q-shaped’ superficial test trench and the reopening of a probable looter’s pit that provided parts of at least three skeletons). Eventually the preservation of the human remains proved worse than expected: as is usual in desert contexts, only the mineral portion of the bones was preserved, which produced a high level of fragmentation. The archaeo-anthropological excavation (six campaigns up to now) needed to be slow and cautious because of the fragility of the bones, which were embedded in a very solid ground made of compacted silt layers from the Nile, and affected by a lot of fissures, all over the mound. Each bone was observed and recorded in situ and most of the biological and anthropological data was recorded directly in the field.