The Nile Valley

This ancient land, 97 percent desert with the world's longest river running through it, encompasses more than 6,000 years of history and culture. The Nile Valley is first inhabited in the Lower Paleolithic Period 300,000 BC–90,000. Neolithic people continue to create stone tools, and exploit domesticated plants and animals 7000–4500. In the ensuing millennia many forms of art flourish, including jewelry and faience beads, ceramic vessels, geometric figures, and pottery, much of which is found in tombs. Hierakonpolis in the south, the largest Predynastic settlement known, is the center of political control. The pyramids of Giza and Saqqara arise in the Old Kingdom 2649–2150, one of the most dynamic and innovative periods in Egyptian culture.
The Lower Paleolithic period 300,000–90,000 is the earliest occupation known in Egypt and these ancestors of humans often used a bifacial tool we call the Acheulian hand ax. It is easily recognized and examples have been recovered in many parts of the desert. From about 90,000 to 35,000 B.C., groups of Middle Paleolithic people who settled at springs in the desert and along the river left behind more sophisticated tool kits that are dominated by blades and retouched bifaces. Upper Paleolithic cultures produced tool kits composed largely of monoliths. Sites from this latter period have also yielded hearths, plant and animal remains, and a few human burials. Neolithic the earliest permanent settlements belong to this period. Their occupation is identified from the remains of huts, hearths, granaries, and nonportable stone tools for grinding grains. People had now begun to exploit domesticated plants and animals, although animal bones indicate that hunting of birds, small game, and fish continues to be important to the economy. Stone tools remain significant components of the material culture, but tools of bone and ceramic vessels are now used as