Oct. 19, 1888.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



409 



FLINT INSTRUMENTS COLLECTED IN 

 TUNISIA BY M. F. MOREAU. 



THIRTY years ago flints intentionally wrought had 

 scarcely been remarked. Now they are found in 

 numbers in the most varied forms and in all regions of 

 the globe where it has been possible to search for them, 

 and thanks to them we are able to reproduce an entire 

 past age of humanity. Hence their importance to the 

 anthropologist and the archaeologist. Man, in however 

 savage a state, must have quickly comprehended the 

 utility of the stones lying at his feet, both for the purpose 

 of attack and of defence. He learnt to point them and to 

 give themshapesbestsuited for his purposes. Everywhere 

 these flints, sometimes split by fire or coarsely wrought, 

 sometimes polished by persevering toil, present an ana- 

 logy which strikes even the most hasty observer. "They 

 are found," says an American scientist, " underneath the 



M. F. Moreau, in the course of a recent voyage in 

 Tunisia, has traversed a little known country between 

 Gafoa and Tamerza. Dr. Collignon, whose researches 

 on the pre-historic past of the region are well-known, 

 has not been able to visit it. It is inhabited by a scattered 

 population living in tents or under shelters constructed 

 of branches, and migrating according to the weather. It 

 was not thus formerly. M. Moreau has found in many parts 

 true workshops where raw materials, fragments, nuclei, 

 articles, just sketched or completed, lie in confusion on 

 the ground, as they happened to be on the day when the 

 workman, driven by circumstances of which we know 

 nothing, forsook them for ever. 



The climate in those days was probably more hospit- 

 able than at present. The remains of fossilised trees, 

 and the remnants of more recent forests, attest that these 

 regions, now so desolate, were formerly wooded. The 

 disappearance of the trees has brought about that of the 



Fig. 1. — Point of Javelin found at Tamarza. Fig. 2.— Point of a Lance, from the Gorges of 

 Oued-Seldja. Fig. 3.— Thick and Massive Blade Found at Bir-Sahad. Fig. 4.— Fragment 

 of a Lance-Point discovered at Bir-Sahad. Fig. 5.— Scraper from Bir-Sahad. 



mounds of Siberia, in the tombs of Egypt, on the soil of 

 Greece, among the rude monuments of Scandinavia ; but 

 from whatever region they come they are so identical 

 in form, in material, in workmanship, that they might 

 easily be taken tor the work of the same artificers." 



Does this similarity allow us to suppose ancient rela- 

 tions of which we can scarcely seize the traces ? Or has 

 man simply obeyed innate instincts, as do the other ani- 

 mals daily before our eyes ? The former solution seems 

 to the author the more probable, though we should 

 incline to the second, adding that this is one of the num- 

 berless questions which it is easy to put, but which our 

 present knowledge does not permit us to answer with the 

 necessary certainty. We therefore follow with a lively 

 interest the new discoveries, all destined to facilitate the 

 examination of the grand problem which has occupied 

 the philosophers of the past, as it will doubtless still 

 engage those of the future. 



water, and has transformed fertile tracts into barren sands. 

 The cut flints brought by M. Moreau and shown in 

 figs. 1 to 5, borrowed from La Nature, belong to an 

 epoch to which no certain date can be assigned. Par- 

 ticular notice is due to a javelin-point derived from 

 Tamerza ; a lance-head with a stalk (for insertion in the 

 shaft), found in the bed of a streamlet in the deepest of 

 the gorges of Oued-Seldja ; a massive blade, found at 

 Bir-Sahad ; a fragment of a fine point, carefully retouched 

 on both surfaces, found at two kilometres from Bir-Sahad. 

 This is, of all the specimens which he has collected, the 

 one which M. Moreau considers the most remarkable in 

 workmanship. All belong, as far as it can be judged 

 from the figures, to " Mousterian " type, though we 

 cannot pretend to prove them contemporaneous with the 

 same type in Europe. M. Moreau has not found any 

 fragment of pottery nor any characteristic bone which 

 might permit of a more exact classification. 



