Technological choices within a framework of interaction: Eastern Nile Delta in the 4th millennium BC A methodological assessment from Anthropology of Technology

DAIZO, M. B.

El Cairo

Conferencia; Meeting the Other: Transfers and cultural interactions around the Nile Valley; 2021

IFAO & PCMA

Mobility -both regional and interregional- implies not only goods that are put into circulation, but also people and knowledge. Namely, these exchanges carry with them a cultural identity in terms of the circulation of ideas, symbols, technologies, goods and images of the other and, therefore, they are immersed in a complex system where there is an interplay of interconnected identities. The aim of this presentation is to analyze the cross-cultural interactions of the Nile Delta with its peripheries in the 4th millennium BC from the perspective of the Anthropology of Technology, highlighting the social context in which these technological choices are part of these interaction networks. In this sense, in a context of changes and continuities, technological choices are understood as inventions, loans, and recombinations that are embedded in a woven symbolic system.The socio-historical context analyzed here allows us an interesting approach to the role of the communities of the Eastern Delta and their relationships with their neighboring areas, i.e. the Southern Levant and Upper Egypt within the framework of the exchange of goods and craft specialization. A focal point in this analysis is the evidence of copies, local imitations and hybrid styles that reflect a display of everyday practices that would have emerged among new social settings. In other words, local and foreign groups would have coexisted in the same scenario where social ties would be quite close and could have converged on social and technological practices with numerous elements in common.Therefore, we propose a processual approach that considers the meaning of technical concatenations from specific socio-ecological-territorial contexts with an emphasis on political intentions, power relations, use needs, as well as the confrontation of various corpus of knowledge.