Agordat

A town in western Eritrea, Ethiopia, with four village sites from around the 3rd millennium BC. Surface artifacts, such as stone maceheads and ground stone axes seem related to the Nubian C Group of the Nile Valley. Other artifacts suggest an early practice of food production that may have been passed from the Nile Valley to the Ethiopian highlands.

Town in western Eritrea, Ethiopia, best-known archaeologically for the presence of four village sites, never excavated but attributed on the basis of surface collections to about the 3rd millennium be. The artefacts, notably the stone mace-heads and ground stone axes, show affinities to those of the Nubian C Group of the Nile Valley. Grindstones and a clay figurine akin to ‘C Group’ representations of domestic cattle suggest the practice of food-production. The Agordat sites have been proposed as marking an early passage of food-production techniques and associated material culture from the Nile Valley to the Ethiopian highlands (see African food-production).