First Sentence

"Although most recent research into Egyptian quarrying has tended to concetrate on the large-scale procurement of limestone, sandstone and granite in the Pharaonic period, the exploitation of stone in the Nile valley can be traced back at least as early as 40,000 BP, when the Middle Palaeolithic inhabitants of Middle Egypt were quarrying and working cobbles of chert along the limestone terraces on either side of the Nile (Vermeersch et al. 1990)."