The egypto-nubian area offers a considerable amount of skeletal material covering the period from the predynastic until the christian era. Morphometric data pertaining to this material were collected in a data bank and analyzed by multivariate methods, in order to seek for parallels between cultural and biological change. A striking discontinuity can be observed in Egypt between the predynastic and the Old Kingdom period. Subsequently, the two regions - Lower and Upper Nubia, both inhabited before by populations of the same (nubian) stock - remain morphologically sharply distinct. The frontier area shows some fluctuations which have probably cultural and political parallels.