FLINT IMPLEMENTS AND PALiEOLlTHS 85 



decided, for the sake of clearness, to illustrate this paper by 

 means of slightly " idealised " drawings. These drawings 

 however have been executed under the close supervision of 

 the author, and are based upon a large series of actual imple- 

 ments. But before proceeding to describe these drawings it 

 is necessary to write a few lines on the question of flint-flaking. 

 To every one who has taken the trouble, or rather experienced 

 the pleasure of flaking flint, it has become clear that to be able 

 to detach flakes with precision, it is needful, whenever possible, 

 to have a flat surface upon which to deliver the necessary 

 blows. It is almost impossible to detach flakes from a rounded 

 surface of flint owing to the fact that the hammer-stone cannot 

 " get home," so to speak, but glances off ineffectively. There 

 is no doubt that the necessity for a flat surface of flint in flaking 

 was one of the first discoveries made by man in his earliest 

 efforts to shape flints to his needs. The most ancient edge- 

 trimmed stones are almost invariably of a tabular form, and 

 it seems that these stones were selected because they afforded 

 two naturally formed broad flat surfaces upon which to deliver 

 blows with a hammer-stone. As time went on, as will be shown, 

 it was found possible to produce the necessary flat surface by 

 flaking, and this production of a " striking-platform " was, 

 and always must be, one of the fundamental necessities in flint- 

 implement making. In the author's opinion the rostro- 

 carinate or " eagle 's-beak " type of implement plays an im- 

 portant part in the evolution which it is the intention of this 

 paper to describe. 1 It seems necessary, therefore, to give an 

 accurate description and drawing of an ideal rostro-carinate 

 implement, such as the ancient flakers of flint apparently had 

 in their mind, but to which ideal they did not often attain. 



The following description is copied from that given in Sir 

 Ray Lankester's Memoir (Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc, May 191 2) 

 and the accompanying drawing of an ideal rostro-carinate is 

 also taken from the same publication. 



A rostro-carinate is an implement with broad posterior 

 region, narrowed anteriorly to a quasi-vertical cutting edge. 

 This anterior narrow edge is strongly curved and gives the 



1 See Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, vol. xlvi. January-June 

 1916. These particular specimens were first found by the author in 1909 in the 

 detritus-bed below the Pliocene Red Crag of Suffolk, and have been described 

 fully by Sir Ray Lankester and by himself. 



