nf HERTFOEDSHIEE. 185 



or borers ; trimmed flakes; knives and scrapers; hammer- stones ; 

 punches ; and other tools the use of which is unknown. Amongst 

 the implements are some which have been rc-pointed, and others 

 which appear to have been broken in use. In several places there 

 are artificially-raised heaps of flints, a further indication that this 

 was a workshop where the implements were manufactured. 



In illustration of these important discoveries, Mr. Worthington 

 Smith has kindly lent to the Society a selection of the wood-blocks 

 used in his excellent little book, "Man, the Primeval Savage." 

 Impressions from these are given in Plates XIII and XIV, and 

 full particulars concerning them will be found in the Description 

 of the Plates. 



Mr. Smith believes that the Palaeolithic implements which he 

 has exhumed at Caddington are not all of the same age, for they 

 occur in distinct layers, the tools in the highest layer being 

 different in their nature and colour from those in the layers below. 



It does not by any means follow that a rudely-chipped imple- 

 ment belongs to the Palaeolithic Period, for although the forms of 

 such implements afford a comparatively safe guide as to their 

 antiquity, their age can with safety be determined by geological 

 evidence only. The character of the fauna with which the worked 

 flints are associated, comprising as it does the elephant, rhinoceros, 

 hippopotamus, and other animals now extinct in this country, 

 affords corroborative evidence as to the length of time that has 

 elapsed since these flints were fashioned. 



These appear to afford the earliest traces of the existence of man 

 which occur in oiu- own county, but if we visit the South of 

 England we find more striking proofs of his antiquity, for there, 

 capping the cliffs some 80 or 90 feet above the level of the sea, 

 what was once the bed of a river now forms the surface of the hills 

 which stretch along the coast, the other side of the valley having 

 been removed by the inroads of the sea, and in these high-level 

 and almost inconceivably ancient river-deposits flint-implements 

 have been discovered. 



In Kent what have been regarded as worked flints have been 

 found in ancient beds upon the plateaux, and these if rightly 

 regarded as implements, seem to belong to a still earlier period 

 than the ordinaiy Palaeolithic forms. 



But early as may possibly be the period to which these 

 discoveries point, I should not venture to affirm that they 

 designate the origin of primeval man, for discoveries which have 

 been made in India and other southern countries seem to indicate 

 a still earlier period for human existence ; and although these 



VOL. VIII. — PART VII. 14 



