The Desert Fayum at 80: revisiting a Neolithic farming community in Egypt

Since the seminal research by Caton-Thompson and Gardner over 80 years ago, the archaeology of the Desert Fayum has attracted significant interest as the earliest known centre of agriculture in Egypt. Traditional interpretations of subsistence behaviour and residential mobility have drawn heavily on the studies of lithic assemblages and faunal remains. These interpretations must now be reconsidered in light of lithic material, both from the original excavations and from more recent fieldwork. It emerges that Kom W, the type site for the Neolithic Fayum, was probably a permanent settlement occupied by a community cultivating cereals, in addition to having long-standing practices of hunting and fishing.