The Predynastic period is generally divided into cultural eras, each named after the place where a certain type of Egyptian settlement was first discovered.

[5] Some of the oldest known structures were discovered in Egypt by archaeologist Waldemar Chmielewski along the southern border near Wadi Halfa, Sudan, at the Arkin 8 site.

Many are lined with flat sandstone slabs which served as tent rings supporting a dome-like shelter of skins or brush.

Studies of the skeletal material showed they were in the range of variation found in the Wadi Halfa, Jebel Sahaba and fragments from the Kom Ombo populations.

Schild and Wendorf (2014) discard the earliest and latest as erratic and conclude that the Halfan existed c. 22.5-22.0 ka cal BP (22,500-22,000 calibrated years before present).

It was characterized by hunting, as well as a unique approach to food gathering that incorporated the preparation and consumption of wild grasses and grains.

Falkenburger categorized them based on the nasal index, overall head and face form, taking into account width, eye socket structure, amongst other given indicators.

It showed closest affinity to Wadi Halfa, modern Negroes and Australian aborigines, being quite different from Epipalaeolithic materials of Northern Africa usually labelled as Mechta-Afalou (Paleo-Berber) or the later Proto-Mediterranean types (Capsian).

[25] Similar results would later be found by a short report from SOY Keita in 2021, showing affinities with the Qarunian skull and the Teita series.

[26] Dating to about 5600-4400 BC of the Faiyum Neolithic,[19][27] continued expansion of the desert forced the early ancestors of the Egyptians to settle around the Nile more permanently, adopting increasingly sedentary lifestyles.

[28] Some studies based on morphological,[29] genetic,[30][31][32][33][34] and archaeological data[35][36][37][38][39] have attributed these settlements to migrants from the Fertile Crescent in the Near East returning during the Egyptian and North African Neolithic, bringing agriculture to the region.

[40][41][42] The archaeological data also suggests that Near Eastern domesticates were incorporated into a pre-existing foraging strategy and only slowly developed into a full-blown lifestyle.

[46][47] However, some scholars have disputed this view and cited linguistic,[48] physical anthropological,[49] archaeological[50][51][52] and genetic data[53][54][55][56][57] which does not support the hypothesis of a mass migration from the Levant during the prehistoric period.

[58] Egyptologist Ian Shaw (2003) wrote that "anthropological studies suggest that the predynastic population included a mixture of racial types (Negroid, Mediterranean and European)", but it is the skeletal material at the beginning of the pharaonic period that has proven to be most controversial.

He said according to some scholars there may have been a much slower period of demographic change, than previously hypothesized rapid conquests of people coming into Egypt from the East.

In Upper Egypt, terminology indicates trade, protection of livestock, high ground for flood refuge, and sacred sites for deities.

The Tasian culture group is notable for producing the earliest blacktop-ware, a type of red and brown pottery that is colored black on the top portion and interior.

"[75] Bruce Williams, Egyptologist, has argued that the Tasian culture was significantly related to the Sudanese-Saharan traditions from the Neolithic era which extended from regions north of Khartoum to locations near Dongola in Sudan.

The Badarian Culture continued to produce the kind of pottery called blacktop-ware (albeit much improved in quality) and was assigned Sequence Dating numbers 21–29.

[88] Dental trait analysis of Badarian fossils conducted in a thesis study found that they were closely related to both Afroasiatic-speaking populations inhabiting Northeast Africa, as well as the Maghreb.

[89]: 222–224  The Late Roman era Badarian skeletons from Kellis were also phenotypically distinct from those belonging to other populations in Sub-Saharan Africa.

[98] In 2023, Christopher Ehret reported that the physical anthropological findings from the "major burial sites of those founding locales of ancient Egypt in the fourth millennium BCE, notably El-Badari as well as Naqada, show no demographic indebtedness to the Levant".

[100] Gerzean culture coincided with a significant decline in rainfall,[106] and farming along the Nile now produced the vast majority of food,[105] though contemporary paintings indicate that hunting was not entirely forgone.

[79] Silver, gold, lapis, and faience were used ornamentally,[105] and the grinding palettes used for eye-paint since the Badarian period began to be adorned with relief carvings.

Objects such as the Gebel el-Arak knife handle, which has patently Mesopotamian relief carvings on it, have been found in Egypt,[109] and the silver which appears in this period can only have been obtained from Asia Minor.

[112] During the time when the Dynastic Race Theory was still popular, it was theorized that Uruk sailors circumnavigated Arabia, but a Mediterranean route, probably by middlemen through Byblos, is more likely, as evidenced by the presence of Byblian objects in Egypt.

[113] Also, it is considered unlikely that something so complicated as recessed panel architecture could have worked its way into Egypt by proxy, and at least a small contingent of migrants is often suspected.

She summarised that "In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas",[116] but exhibited local variation in an African context.

[121][122] Also, excavations from Nabta Playa, located about 100 km west of Abu Simbel for example, suggest that the Neolithic inhabitants of the region included migrants from both Sub-Saharan Africa and the Mediterranean area.

[123][124] According to Christopher Ehret, the material cultural indicators correspond with the conclusion that the inhabitants of the wider Nabta Playa region were a Nilo-Saharan-speaking population.