2o8 



EOLITHIC IMPLEMENTS FROM THE PLATEAU 



Indeed the plateau gravel may even contain traces of man 

 dating back to a time before he had learnt to fashion flint 

 implements for himself. For no doubt he employed flints of 

 suitable size and shape in breaking open bones for the sake of 

 their marrow, and in analogous ways, long before he became 

 acquainted Avith the art of modifying them for purposes to which 

 they were not naturally adapted. Indeed it was no doubt 

 through such use that he first became acquainted with the 

 peculiar properties of fracture possessed by flint, the knowledge 

 of which was to play so important a part in his future career. 

 Though flints battered and splintered in this way are seldom 



Fig I. Scraper. 



(Actual size.) 



distinguishable from those that have been much knocked about 

 by natural agencies, such for instance as the action of a torrent, 

 yet now and then the handiwork of man can be recognised in 

 them. And possibly some of the battered flints from the 

 plateau gravel, the fractured i^urfaces of which, from their very 

 much worn and abraded condition, would seem to be older than 

 the deposit itself, bear traces of use which date back to a time 

 anterior to that at which he discovered the way to work 

 flint. 



Even the recognisable implements are of so primitive a 

 character that their artificial origin was for long, and indeed is 

 still, disputed by a great number of anthropologists. But while 



