LTD1: Kerma settlement in the Letti Basin (Sudan)

Research work carried out in the Letti Basin between 2022 and 2023 revealed a number of unknown sites including LTD1, showing the southern extent of the Kerman culture settlement sites (3rd–2nd millennium BC) in the Nile Valley. The findings represent an important voice in the decades-long debate on the “settlement hiatus” between the Third and Fourth Cataracts in this period. In addition, the results of the new excavations at Letti have yielded data on the material culture and economic basis of the Kerman community away from the capital. Research has found that the Letti population closely followed the cultural and economic patterns known from the capital. This is evidenced by artifacts, e.g. Classical pottery, the organization of settlements, and the dominant role of ruminants —cattle and ovicaprids— indicated by the results of archaeozoological analyses. What is more, strontium analyses have yielded new data on the circulation of cattle far beyond the range of influence of one of Africa’s earliest civilizations, Kerma, previously claimed by researchers to have been limited to the Middle Nile. The new research at Letti provides important information on the functioning of the Kerma state, especially on the hitherto obscure issue of its provincial settlement.