462 STRAXDLOOPER INSTRUMENTS AND ORNAMENTS. 



minute forms in Europe, one of which, figured by Sollas from the 

 same cave, agrees very well with several of the pygmy crescents 

 from Wilton : it differs from the majority of our crescents only 

 in presenting no trace of the small facet that commonly occurs 

 on the supper surface of a Wilton specimen at its widest part. 

 TfV may, therefore, 'provisionally regard the large crescents, from 

 coastal shell-mounds, and the pygmys from inland cares, as com- 

 plementary, and referable to the same people: it must be under- 

 stood, however that the shell-mounds may include the cultures 

 of various races, these mounds being largely unexplored. 



The actual process of manufacture was evidently the same 

 for all sizes of crescent. Owing to the supposed difficulty of 

 trimming into shape the parent flakes, it has been suggested to' 

 me that many of the pygmy crescents are merely chips deliberately 

 knocked off from the cutting ends of scrapers by way of renewing 

 the edge. The specimens themselves bear no marks that would 

 necessarily follow such procedure, nor have we found scrapers from 

 which such chips were removed, although the Rev. P. Stapleton 

 has examined some hundreds of scrapers to test this view. There 

 can be no doubt that all these crescents were made from parallel - 

 sided flakes. Larger flakes were sometimes converted into crescents 

 by working one edge into a curve at each end, the middle portion 

 of that edge remaining untouched. More often, however, the 

 whole of that edge was worked, and it follows that, at the widest 

 part, about the middle of the implement, the worked edge is 

 narrower than at points in a line with the dorsal ridge. In one 

 example from Port Alfred the curved edge has been carefidly 

 flaked throughout its length by percussion from above, and there 

 results a sharp cutting edge which would make the implement 

 quite useful as a two-edged knife. But in most specimens the 

 crescentic edge is a blunt one, quite unsuitable for use as a knife, 

 any acute edge that may once have been present being destroyed 

 by vertical pressure or blows from below. 



There is a very interesting note on " Pygmy Implements from 

 the sand-dunes of Fish Hoek, Cape Colony," bv Mr. W. J. Lewis 

 Abbott, in "Man," September, 1913. Some of these are described 

 as crescents, although they are quite different from those I have 

 just described, having both edges conversely curved and bevelled : 

 in size and delicacy of flaking they recall the Tardenoisian cul- 

 tures at Wilton and Taaibosch, but the shapes are different. A 

 great number, taken close to the sea or in the neighbourhood of 

 vleis in the south-western part of Cape Colony, are figured in 

 Dr. Peringuey's book, PI. 18, Fig. 143. Mr. Lewis Abbott was 

 much impressed by the fact that the methods employed in making 

 such implements were apparently much the same in South Africa 

 as in Europe. He refers the pygmy implements of the French 

 caves to two main groups according to the mode of manufacture. 

 In some cases the characteristic edge-working was in all proba- 

 bility effected by a strip of bone with a sawsetter slot. In others 

 they were made by the removal of old edges of scrapers and burins 

 by a blow administered at the point or butt when it was desired 

 to put on a new edge. Both types he claims to have identified 



