At the end of last year – November/December 2017 – a geo-archaeological field campaign was carried out in the surroundings of Sodmein Cave (Eastern Desert, Egypt). Different Quaternary archives were investigated to get a better understanding of the landscape and the climate development – and thus also contributing to our understanding of human-environment interactions in the Late Pleistocene. The focus of this fieldwork, which was conducted in cooperation with the Egyptian Mineral Resources Authority (EMRA), was to sample archives for establishing a robust chronology of the landscape development.

Terraces, playa remnants and the sediments of Sodmein Cave as well as stalagmites from a new discovered cave were investigated. The team comprised experts from geology and geomorphology, sedimentology and micromorphology, as well as from dating techniques (OSL and U/Th) and archaeology. Altogether, the immediate discussion of all involved disciplines in the field made it a successful campaign. All the samples are ready for lab-analyse now and we are quite excited for the geo-archaeological discussion of the results.

Discussing and analysing a soil profile in the field. Photo: Norman Klahre

Sampling speleothems in the new discovered cave. Photo: Christian Schepers