
FLINT IMPLEMENTS FROM ANCIENT EGYPT. 113 
numerous in the vicinity of the central watercourse. The ground had 
always a very gentle fall, so that the heavy showers which constitute the 
rainfall in Somaliland would wash away the sandy soil, and yet keep the 
stones lying free and clean upon the surface, in which position they were 
always found. Also, there were generally no other stones upon the surface 
besides those worked flints.” The implements were found “ covering the 
ground sometimes for the space of half an acre. . . . Sometimes I fownd 
an unfinished spear-head on the ground surrounded by a mass of flakes and chips, as 
though the people had dropped their work, and, carrying with them all their perfect 
weapons and belongings, had fled never to return.” (The italics are the present 
writer’s.) 
In 1895-96 Mr. Seton-Karr again visited Somaliland, and “secured 
many hundreds of paloliths, ranging up to 9 inches in length, during a 
journey of 19 days, in about 8° N. Lat., and 1000—2000 feet above Red Sea 
level. They are sometimes eroded even to a depth of 4 inch.” Sir John 
Evans has described this collection in a paper before the Royal Society 
of London (Proc. R.S. IX., 1896, p. 19) as “in form absolutely identical 
with some from the valley of the Somme and other places.” 
There are many points left in serious doubt, it appears to me, as to the 
real conditions under which these implements were found, which should be 
known before it is possible to pronounce them the handiwork of man in the 
paleolithic age of Europe. Their discoverer distinctly states that there were 
only flint nodules on the ground, while the material of many of the imple- 
ments is quartzite and limestone. A coating of limestone upon them proves 
that they were lying on a surface where they had been in contact with lime 
in solution. The remarkable circumstance of these implements being 
“scattered all over the country,” “covering the ground sometimes for 
the space of half an acre” where no remains apparently exist (so far 
as the published accounts tell us), of the deposits out of which they have 
been washed (if they ever were embedded*), seems difficult to reconcile with 
the usual process of aerial denudation acting through the enormous period 
which has elapsed since the palolithic age of Europe, with which Sir John 
Evans clearly considers them to be contemporaneous, when he says that 
“this discovery tends to prove the unity of race between the inhabitants of 
Asia, Africa, and Europe in palolithic times.” 
Mr. Seton-Karr’s further statement that he sometimes found spear-heads 
“on the ground, surrounded by a mass of flakes and chips, as though the people 
had dropped their work . . . andfled . . .” is very suggestive and 
important. One such occurrence is almost sufficient in itself, I venture to 
think, to disprove the high antiquity claimed by Sir John Evans for these 
implements ; for if they were ever embedded, it can hardly seriously be 
asserted that a nodule of stone surrounded by the flakes chipped from it tens 
or hundreds of thousands of years ago, could have remained undisturbed when 
the deposits by which it was covered have entirely disappeared. Even if these 
flints could have lain on the ground since man in the palzolithic age chipped 
them, can we bring ourselves to credit that during that immense period the 
ordinary effects of rain, wind, and the tramping across the country of great 
herds of animals would not have dispersed them? The appearance of these 
Somaliland tools—those at least possessed by this Museum—would certainly, 
apart from their “ palolithic form,” never lead anyone to ascribe any great 
antiquity to them. The edges of the implements and the margins of the 
flakes are as sharp as possible, and there is not the slightest indication of 

* Sir John Evans, in his paper to the Royal Society, says ‘‘ they seem to have been 
washed out of sandy or loamy deposits by the action of rain, or sometimes to have 
been laid bare by the wind.” 
