100 THE PALAEOLITHIC PERIOD 



During the high-level epoch man does not seem to have been 

 able to control the shape of the flakes, as they are nearly always 

 large and somewhat clumsily produced, but by the time the low- 

 level drifts were deposited he seems to have acquired great 

 dexterity in the manipulation of flint, for .the flakes are now 

 usually small and neat, while others of designed shape, as for 

 instance the long narrow flakes with a triangular section, such 

 as require great skill in their production, are common. A good 

 example of a designedly-shaped flake is that shown in Fig. 2. 

 There can be no doubt that this was meant to be used as a knife, 

 the broad end probably being bound round with vegetable fibre 

 or animal sinew, after the style of the Australian knife figured 

 by Sir John Evans, ^ and as such one cannot but admire its 

 eftectiveness. Even more eloquent of the ability of the later 

 Palaeolithic people is the testimony of the spear-heads, one of 

 which is represented by Fig. 3, for their shape is clearly the- 

 result of the skilful execution of a previously thought-out 

 pattern. A fine example in the Natural History Departaient 

 of the British Museum, in which the point has been artistically 

 finished by small secondary chipping, bears a close resemblance 

 to the obsidian spear-heads used by the natives of the Admiralty 

 Islands. 



A rare instrument of this period is the saw. Fig 4 shews 

 a specimen from the low level drift at Ilford. It is a flake 

 of slate-black flint, which has been serrated carefully along the 

 edge. I found this, together with other flakes, in situ, in a bed 

 of gravel, which yielded bones of rhinoceros and shells of land 

 and fresh -water molluscs.'^ 



Still more characteristic of the Palaeolithic period are the 

 peculiar tongue-shaped implements. Eolithic man confined his 

 work to the edges of the pieces of flint, but the tongue-shaped 

 mplements of Palaeolithic man are skilfully chipped all over, 

 sometimes into delicate tapering points, and sometimes into thin 

 flat blades. What these implements were used for is still a 

 mystery, in spite of the attention that has been paid to them. 

 Probably the majority were used as javelin or axe-heads, but our 

 knowledge, meagre though it be, of the uses to which the 



I Sir John Evans, Ancient Stone Implements . ... of Great Britain. 

 London : 1872 and 1897. 



2 J. P. Johnson, " Palaeolithic Implements from th2 low-ltvel drift of the Thames 

 Valley."— Essex Naturalist, vol, xii. (1901). 



