Variant of the so-called Saharan Neolithic complex in the Ténéré Dessert and extends from northeastern Niger into western Chad, Africa, dating from 6500-4500 BP. Chipped stone implements include backed microliths, bifacial projectile points, and discoid knives and the pottery may have connections with contemporary Sudanese Nile valley sites. Rock engravings and rock pictures of animals were also created by the Neolithic (8,000-5,000 BC) inhabitants. A pastoral economy existed as well as hunting; the climatic conditions at the time may have dictated the subsistence. Ténéré is now one of the most forbidding regions of the Sahara, with an extremely hot and dry climate and virtually no plant life. Fossils show that this arid desert was, in the Late Carboniferous Period (320-286 million years ago), a seafloor and later became a humid tropical forest. In the Middle Paleolithic (d 60,000 BC) human habitation is indicated in this region by flint axes, arrowheads, and stone artifacts.