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Around the question of the origin of the state in Egypt, eight topics were retained by the Scientific Committee of the congress:

Craft specialisationl
How to understand the social structuring, the capacity of the elite and the organisation of the state through the craft productions (pottery, beer brewery, complementarities of the domestic activities) ?

Physical anthropology
It is the specificity of the scientific pole of Toulouse. Thanks in particular to the collaborations initiated in Egypt by the Conseil Régional de la Région Midi-Pyréenées, the recent research carried out in the field of the physical anthropology allows to better conceive the problems related to the adaptation of the populations with their environment, their health or their diseases, and contribute to the comprehension of social complexification processes.

Environmental sciences in a social context
Archaeozoology, carpology, geomorphology... as many sciences which are interested in the environment of the populations and constitute today essential elements to understand the archaeological sites and the predynastic ways of life.

Upper-Lower Egypt interactions
Considered as one of the most threatened area in Egypt, because of the urbanisation and the agricultural pressure, the Nile Delta retains today detailed attention of the scientific community. What is our current knowledge of the cultures of Low-Egypt and their reciprocal relationships to the Naqada complex ?

Desert-Nile Valley interactions
Still largely unexplored, the deserts bordering the Nile Valley constitute key territories in the identification of the Predynastic roads and trade.

Foreign relations
Crossroads between Africa, the Mediterranean and Asia, Egypt is the centre of an important communication network and long distance exchanges with its close (Nubia, Palestine) or further neighbours (Mesopotamia, Anatolia).

Birth of writing
The development of writing, its appropriation by the elite and the importance which it acquires at the end of the Early Dynastic period appear among the most important questions of the cultural process which carried out to the birth of the State in Egypt.

Cult, ideology and social complexity
How to apprehend the social and ideological mutation which announced the first kings and the birth of the State in Egypt ?