Can One See the Wood for the Trees in Prehistoric Egypt? A Study of Fayum Neolithic Axes

ABSTRACT The Fayum has been known as the oldest center of cereal cultivation in prehistoric Egypt. How Egypt’s earliest Neolithic farmers lived a life is still a subject of controversy. This article focuses on Neolithic stone axes from Kom W, the type site of the Fayum Neolithic. These axes were collected and insufficiently published by the British archaeologist Gertrude Caton-Thompson in the early twentieth century, and are presently stored in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology at University College London. A new study elucidates how these axes were made, used, repaired and recycled. These axes suggest that there was woody vegetation around Kom W and the inhabitants of this site needed to fell trees and work wood.