Fossil wood is found in various places in the Sahara, especially in the Tidikelt. This is a piece of an old Araucaria. In itself, this once vegetable but now entirely mineral material has nothing to do with prehistory; but it was highly sought after by all the civilisations that followed where it occurred, because it can be worked extraordinarily well. Moreover, it impressively demonstrates that the face of today's Sahara is only a temporary aspect of a landscape that had several times had large forest stands. A few thousand years ago, one could still find large hackberry trees, firs and oaks there ... Much has changed since then. - Algeria - 1966
