184 SIE JOHN EVANS — THE STONE AGE 



Stevenage,* Hitchin, and Ippollitts. Examples from most of these 

 places are figured in Plates XI and XII ; particulars of wMch are 

 given in the Description of the Plates. 



In the valley of the Stort two Palaeolithic implements have been 

 found by Mr. W. H. Penning near Bishop's Stortford. Though 

 both were found on the surface, yet their condition is such that 

 there can be no doubt as to their having been but recently dug out 

 of the soil, their colour being dark brown and ochreous in places. 

 One of them was found at a short distance from the river, by the 

 side of a ditch cut in a thin deposit of valley brick -earth, about 

 a mile north of Bishop's Stortford, and it had probably been 

 thrown out with the soil from the ditch. It is oval in outline, 

 rather flatter on one side than on the other, and a little thinner at 

 one end than at the other. The second was found on the sandy 

 surface of a ploughed field close to Pesterford Bridge. It is of the 

 same character, but is somewhat broader, and square at the base. 

 An additional idea of some of the most prevalent forms of Palseo- 

 lithic implements may be gained from Plate X, figs. 6, 7, and 8, of 

 which fig. 6 represents a flake. That from Hoxne, Suffolk, is 

 singularly like the one described by Mr. Frere so long ago as 1797. 



I must now refer to one of the most remarkable discoveries of 

 such implements which have been made in Hertfordshire. On the 

 hills in the neighbourhood of Caddington,f Mr. Worthington Smith 

 has made a similar discovery to that on the west side of the lower 

 part of the valley of the Lea, to which I have already alluded. 



He has there discovered what he believes to be the site of an 

 ancient lake, the shores of which were once tenanted by men of the 

 Early Stone Period, who have left evidences not only of their 

 occupation of the site but also of their having made their stone 

 implements on the spot, for they have left the flint tools with which 

 they made them and the flakes they chipped off them in the process 

 of manufacture. Mr. Smith has pieced together many of these 

 flakes, reconstructing the original block of flint and thus showing 

 that the flakes were struck off on the spot. He considers that the 

 men who made these implements were skilful workmen, and there- 

 fore that they were not nearly the most ancient of the human race, 

 having probably migrated from some country with a warmer 

 climate. The implements which he has found comprise nodules 

 of flint artificially pointed at one end, and with an unworked butt 

 end, which was very convenient for holding in the hand ; di'ills 



* See 'Trans. Watford Nat. Hist. Soc.,' Vol. I, p. Ixi. 

 t See ' :\Ian, the Primeval Savage,' by Worthiugtou G. Smith. Stanford, 

 Loudon, 1894. 



