1903 Rambles on the Lincolnshire Wold 145 



Scunthorpe took Mr Gatty thither. As a result of numerous 

 visits he has accumulated an astonishing collection of tiny 

 flint implements, all conforming, with but few exceptions, 

 to one or other of some half-dozen distinct types. All show 

 unmistakable signs of having been wrought by hand, and 

 many exhibit the marks of use. They are found generally 

 lying in the sand, and especially in the mounds or barrows 

 previously referred to, which Mr Gatty believes to have 

 served in some sort as habitations. Many of these mounds 

 are broken in, disclosing a kind of floor, whereon lie the 

 pigmy flints, in some cases side by side with raw, unworked 

 chips of flint. At least in one instance they were found in 

 company with some cremated bones, and an incense-vase 

 of rough, crudely ornamented pottery, of a pattern still used 

 in India to-day in the ceremonial rites around the funeral 

 pyre, — a coincidence the more remarkable in view of the 

 Indian discoveries just mentioned. 



Scunthorpe has proved, perhaps, the district most prolific 

 of these prehistoric remains, but other districts, it should 

 be noted, have yielded them as well. Rochdale has already 

 been referred to, and in addition Mr Gatty has been very 

 successful in his hunt for specimens at Lakenheath, near 

 Cambridge. Analogous " finds " have been made besides 

 at Sevenoaks, Sittingbourne, and Wandsworth, as well as 

 at Namur in Belgium, and in certain parts of France. 

 In every case the specimens have conformed to the various 

 distinct types. 



The significance of these pigmy flint implements it is 

 hard to define. That they are complete implements is 

 established beyond a doubt ; but that they point to the 

 existence of a pigmy race (though the specially remarked 

 absence — except at Lakenheath — of other and larger neo- 

 lithic implements from their company seems to point to 

 such a theory) is not proven. Granted, however, that a 

 pigmy race (pigmies indeed, since some of the Scunthorpe 

 specimens measure ony y\th of an inch !) fashioned these 

 implements, there arises the fascinating question as to 

 whether these English, Belgian, French, and Indian colonies 

 were branches of one race, or — owing to a migration — 

 identical. In support of the former alternative may be 

 vol. 11. — no. 6. k 



