Uruguayan has theory on the evolution of Egypt

Professor Juan José Castillos, of the Uruguayan Institute of Egyptology, claims that the evolution of the Egyptian civilisation resulted from the ambition of individuals with a strong inclination towards exerting power. He presented his thesis yesterday at the 2nd National Summit for Egyptology Studies, in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba. . . .

With regard to Egypt, the professor explains, the "aggrandisers" appeared in Pre-Historic times, and for that reason, there are no written recordings of their names and actions. Nevertheless, excavations made recently in the country revealed the existence of graves with no inscriptions in which individuals were buried with great honours. The high-value objects found at those sites indicate that those were people who had important positions in society. They would have been the ones responsible for the advent of the advanced, complex, and stratified society of the dynastic periods in Ancient Egypt.

For those interested in finding out more about the research of Juan Jose Castillos, see his web pages, where he has published some of his papers, at:
http://www.geocities.com/jjcastillos/
The site is a bit of a pain to navigate, but stick with it if you're interested in the Predynastic - there's some interesting stuff in there, including Symposium reports - in both English and Spanish. The theory of state formation mentioned in the above article is described in much more detail on his site on the following page:
http://www.geocities.com/jjcastillos/complexity.html