Preface - 1. Introduction - 2. Approaches to the post-Pleistocene societies of the Sahara and the Nile Valley - 3. Holocene climatic change - 4. Utilisation of plants in the final Pleistocene and early Holocene - 5. Early animal husbandry in the Sahara - 6. Hunter-gatherers and fishers of the Sahara: Settlement and society. The cognitive world: rock art. A techno-economic model - 7. Late paleolithic societies in Nubia and Upper Egypt - 8. Early Holocene societies in the Egyptian Sahara - 9. The transition from hunting and gathering to domestication in Cyrenaica and the Libyan Sahara - 10. From the Epipalaeolithic to the "Neolithic" in Niger - 11. The mesolithic and neolithic sequence of the Sudan - 12. Overview - Bibliography - Index.