Sodmein Cave

Description

Sodmein Cave is situated in the isolated Tertiary limestone complex of Djebel Duwi (Red Sea Mountains), which runs nearly parallel to the Red Sea graben structure. The cave is located on the northern flank of the breakthrough of Wadi Sodmein through Djebel Duwi. About 30 years ago the cave was discovered during a survey of the American Research Centre. Systematic research started in the 1990s by the Belgian Middle Egypt Prehistoric Project (BMEPP, Leuven University). Since 2010 research was continued by a joint team of archaeologists and geographers from the universities of Cologne (Germany) and Leuven (Belgium) under the aegis of the CRCR 806 “Our Way to Europe”. This unique site yielded a 4 m deep archaeological sequence ranging from the Middle Palaeolithic (c. 120 ka) to the Neolithic (c. 7.5 ka) with a stratigraphic hiatus between around 25 and 7.5 ka ago.