I have not made any special study of stone implements, nor have I been
able to pay any considerable attention to their collection during my
journeys, having usually found my time very fully taken up with other
matters. I have, however, been much struck by the wide distribution of
stone implements in the desert. I have found them, for instance, not
only in Siwa Oasis and near the wells of Abu Mungar and Sheb, but also
on the plateau between Baharia and Farafra, on the open desert between
Terfawi and Owenat, and to the south-west of Owenat near the Anglo-
French boundary. This wide range of occurrence, coupled with the finds
of Schweinfurth and others on the plateaux nearer the Nile, inclines me
to think that there is scarcely any part of the Libyan Desert in which
stone implements might not be found by an expedition which would make
the collection and study of them one of its main objects. The likeliest
places in which to search (besides the neighbourhood of old wells and
springs) would appear to be the shores of the various lakes and around
the feet of hills affording shelter from wind and sun; for it is in such
localities that I have most usually come across implements and pottery.
Grinding-stones, often with a sort of stone rolling-pin, unpolished
celts, knives, and arrow-heads are the principal forms of implement I
have met with. Many of the grinding-stones must have been carried for a
considerable distance, for they are made out of rocks which do not
naturally occur in the localities in which they are found.
Whether this wide distribution of stone implements would justify the
view of Blanckhenhorn[59] that primitive man lived on the desert
plateaux rather than in the Nile Valley must, I think, be settled by the
further collection of specimens and by a careful comparison of the forms
to be found in the two situations. In this connection I may remark that
the grinding-stones I have seen in the desert seemed to me to be very
similar to those used by the Nubians of the Nile Valley to-day for
grinding corn.
APPENDIX
SOME RECENTLY DETERMINED POSITIONS IN THE LIBYAN DESERT
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