A major problem with dating the Lower Paleolithic in Egypt is that many stone tools of this period have been found in eroded deposits along the rocky terraces to either side of the Nile Valley, or scattered across the surface of the low desert. Without the geological contexts in which the tools were deposited, they have to be dated according to their typology, from early to late types as established by specialists who study stone tools.
The Lower Paleolithic tools that have been found in Egypt, on the margins of the Nile Valley and in the Western Desert, are of a lithics industry known elsewhere in the Old World as Acheulean, the most characteristic tool of which is the handax. Formed by chipping off flakes from a block of stone, handaxes were worked along the edge on both sides (bifacial flaking). It is not known what handaxes were used for. They were too large and heavy to be points for spears or arrows. They might have been used for multi-purposes, including cutting, sawing, chopping, and hammering.
Fred Wendorf, an archaeologist at Southern Methodist University (see 1.4), began excavating Paleolithic sites in the 1960s, first in Nubia and later in the Western Desert and Upper Egypt. From his extensive investigations, and research in Kharga and Dakhla Oases, it is now known that during less arid periods in Lower Paleolithic times people lived in the Western Desert next to pools of water fed by oasis springs, as well as next to seasonal ponds and lakes to the south of these oases which formed when there was some rainfall. Typologically, the handaxes at these sites are late Acheulean, possibly 500,000 years old. Earlier Acheulean tools were recorded in Lower Nubia in the 1960s, and handaxes may also be associated with ancient east-west river channels now buried under the southern part of the Western Desert. These channels were located by ground-penetrating radar images taken from a satellite, but extensive excavation is needed to demonstrate their age(s).
World History
