Recent Prehistoric Field Research in Central Tunisia: Prehistoric Occupations in the Meknassy Basin

Recent field prospection and test excavations in the Meknassy Basin (Central Tunisia) has revealed many prehistoric sites covering almost all the phases of North African prehistory from the Palaeolithic to the Neolithic. Excavations at the Aïn El-Guettar Mousterian site has yielded a faunal assemblage dominated by bovids and equids. One human tooth was found in situ. The stratigraphic sequence contains charcoal-rich occupation layers with faunal, human and lithic finds. A level with an industry resembling the Aterian was found beneath a Mousterian layer. The excavations at Aïn Oum Henda 2 (Jebel Maloussi) provided many Middle Palaeolithic lithic artefacts, some of which are pedunculates. From the excavations of the Rammadiya El Oghrab (Jebel Bou Hedma) we recovered some bones of antelope, many fragments of ostrich egg shell (among them a worked disc), an enormous quantity of flint (tools and splinters) and of land snails. In spite of the scarcity of land snails and the absence of bone in the rammadiya of Jebel Bou Hedma 1, the site produced a beautiful flint collection including an arrowhead found on the surface, which led us to place the site in the Neolithic.