Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 83 This study for the first time provides an in-depth examination of the Butana Group ceramics that in turn represent a large sedentary development existing in the far reaches of the eastern Sahel during the 4th millennium BC. These particular ceramics are compared with known Nilotic Neolithic and post-Neolithic ceramic groups in northeast Africa, including the Egyptian Neolithic and Predynastic, the Nubian A-Group, the Abkan Group, the Khartoum Neolithic and Late Neolithic of the Central Nile Valley. In the end, the Butana Group ceramics represent yet another significant cultural development in northeast Africa very different from other cultures situated along the Nile Valley.