1897. WORKED FLINTS FROM THE FOREST BED. gr 



anthropologists to a Forest Bed implement. However, I left sufficient 

 " pan " upon it to prove its original position. 



By reference to Fig. i, it will be seen that this flaked flint presents 

 the outline of the hand-pick type of implement, a type that has come 

 down to palaeolithic times ; many collectors, like myself, will be able 

 to pair it from the Thames and other valleys. It is generally supposed 

 that these were held in the hand, before the process of hafting had 

 been discovered. There is a broad flaked face opposite the point, and 

 the shape fits the hand in a most suggestive manner. It will be seen 

 that whatever part "starchy fissure" or natural forces might have 

 played in operating on the original flint nodule after it left the Chalk, 

 there are only very few facets that do not show the well marked con- 

 choidal ripplings, so characteristic of man's work ; and practically 

 whenever possible there are the characteristic pits of concussion, from 

 which the bulbed flakes were removed when the tool was brought into 

 its present outline ; and in the last side operated upon these are 

 quite parallel for more than three-fourths of its length, and even turn 

 the corner in the same zone. 



These are points of inestimable importance : often a flint has 

 been made to simulate an implement in outline through the removal 

 of pieces or flakes by natural agencies — colloid fissure, prismatic 

 fissure, frost -fracture, vicissitudes of gravel-making, etc. — associated 

 with other facets which, from their conchoidal fracture, we might 

 attribute to man, and thus hastily give him credit for an implement 

 he never made. In such specimens, the naturally removed flakes 

 clearly post-date those supposed to have been removed by man^ 

 truncating or transversely bisecting the original flake-facet, removing 

 all traces of the pit of concussion, which must have originally existed, 

 perhaps several inches beyond the present periphery. It is certain 

 that whatever may be the outline presented by such a flint, it 

 manifests no marks of design, and cannot be regarded as the work of 

 man. In an artificially-worked flint, the last flakes taken off which 

 bring the implement into the desired shape should truncate or remove 

 the pits of concussion from the earlier made facets, and carry with 

 them their own pits as evidence of the part they played. I am fully 

 aware that this is a most exacting test, and that by its application 

 many a specimen, at present cherished, would be rejected ; but it errs 

 on the side of preventing us accepting anything as human, which may 

 be the result of combined natural forces. Tested by these uncom- 

 promising rules, the specimens here described, from the Forest Bed, 

 come out unscathed. 



The point of the implement shown in Fig. i, and the edges that 

 would be exposed if used in the manner suggested, show signs of 

 abrasion, such as would be produced in active service ; and when we 

 see that these edges are obtuse, and that of all the others — some 

 of which are quite acute — none show any such marks, may we not 

 fairly consider this the rational explanation of the facts presented by 



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