Contained between 200 000 (lower paleolithic) and 1200 B.C. (the eve of the arrival of the first Phoenicians), the Tunisian prehistory is rich in cultural facies whose oldest ones have been recognized at Sidi Zine and Koum el-Majene in the northwest; at Aïn Brimba, around Kebili, in the region of Nefzaoua; at -el-Djerid and el-Guettar salt lake (Gafsa), in the southwest; at Wadi el-Akarit in the southeast…

The vestiges and testimonies provided by Tunisian prehistoric sites are physical as well as spiritual ones. Indeed, since the middle paleolithic, besides the lithic set of tools such as fashioned pebbles, tips, scrapers, scrubbers, traces of spiritual bent have been discovered, and are vouched for at el-Guettar by what represents, undoubtedly, the oldest sanctuary known in the world, that Hermaïon whose so beautiful reconstruction the museum of Bardo treats us to!

The higher paleolithic (35,000-10,000) numbers two important cultures; the first one (35,000-18,000), attested on the north and northeast coasts as well as around Gabes, Gafsa and Redeyef, is so-called aterian. It is characterized by a pedunculate industry. The second one, so-called ibero-mauritanian culture (18,000 -8,000) is well attested along the northern coastline of the country, particularly at Ouechtata and at Nefza, near Tabarka. It is characterized by -among other things- the use of bone in the making of the set of implements.

Shorter but no less remarkable is the Capsian civilization (8,000 - 4,500), with its facies so-called of Capsa, the ancient name of the present Gafsa, the site where it was first identified. Fruit-picker, hunter and amateur of snails, the Capsian man left, besides the lithic implement, vestiges that betray aesthetic preoccupations. This applies to the fragments of ostrich egg that are often found pierced then engraved to be used as necklaces and adornments; similarly this is the case for the use of the red ochre to paint with it the inside walls of the tombs, etc…
Shortly after, this period and that of the Neolithic once elapsed, a time of agriculture and the art of fire, Tunisia slipped into history; she did so in the twelfth century B.C., at a time when the Phoenicians founded Utica!