Hollow-Base Projectile Point

The Paleolithic Period covers the thousands of years during which hunters and gatherers followed herds of wild animals as they moved through the Nile Valley and the western desert's oases. The Lower Paleolithic, beginning about 300,000 B.C., saw the first human occupation in Egypt. At that time the most distinctive tool was the Acheulian hand ax (a core tool). No skeletal material has been found in Egypt, but similar hand axes from elsewhere belonged to people known as Homo erectus. Flake tools, especially those showing the Levallois technique, and not core tools, characterize the Middle Paleolithic Period (90,000-35,000 B.C.). A number of industries, each with slightly different tool kits, may be noted. By 35,000 B.C. modern humans occupied Egypt. The Upper Paleolithic (ca. 35,000-6900 B.C.) tool kit consisted largely of blades, thin strips of flint knapped from a core and fashioned into a variety of tools.

Flint, a silica mineral found as cobbles in Egypt's limestone cliffs, was the most common material for the manufacture of cutting tools through prehistory and even the Pharaonic Period. Easily acquired, flint was available to anyone needing a cutting edge or projectile point. Tools tend to get their names from their form, function, size, or hafting style (mounting of the completed form) -- saw, sickle blade, scraper, knife, awl, spear, or arrowhead, for example.