*EGYPT - FRENCH ARCHAEOLOGISTS* GREAT FIND

Archaeologists find neolithic remains in Nile delta.

CAIRO : Archaeologists in Egypt say they have found one of the oldest known villages in the Nile Delta dating back to the Neolithic era.

A joint Egyptian and French mission discovered several storage silos containing large quantities of  animal and plant remains, as well as pottery and stone tools, the antiquities ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

The ministry said the find indicates that humans inhabited the fertile  Tell-al- Samara, in the northern province of EI-Dakahlia, as early as the fifth millennium BC, predating Egypt's oldest known pyramid.

''Analysing the biological material that has been discovered will present us with a clearer view of the first communities that settled in the Delta and the origins of agriculture and farming in Egypt,'' said Nadia Khedr, a ministry official responsible for Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities on the Mediterranean.

Rain-based Neolithic farming may hold vital clues to a technological leap that lead to irrigation-based farming along the Nile. [Reuters]