1894.] on Early British Races. 249 



of peculiar and special type on certain high chalk plateaux in Kent, 

 in drift resting on Pleiocene beds, in drift deposits of Norfolk and 

 Suffolk, and in certain caves in which glacial drift is believed to be 

 deposited over the flints. All these implements are of the rudest 

 make, more or less stained, like the drift flints with which they are 

 associated, of a deep brown colour. They show a considerable 

 amount of wear, as though they had been rubbed and knocked about 

 a good deal, so that the worked edges are commonly rounded off and 

 blunt. In few instances have they been wrought out of larger flints, 

 and the amount of trimming they have received is very slight, and 

 has been generally made on the edges of rude natural flints picked up 

 from old flint drift ; indeed, sometimes the work is so slight, as to be 

 scarcely apparent, in other specimens it is considered by some suffi- 

 cient to show design and object. These implements indicate the very 

 infancy of art, and are probably the earliest efforts of man to fabricate 

 tools and weapons from other substances than wood or bone. They 

 give us some slight insight into the occupations and surroundings of 

 the race who used them, as they appear to have been used for breaking 

 bones to extract the marrow, scraping skins, and rounding sticks and 

 bones for use as tools or poles. From the absence of large massive 

 implements, it would seem as though offensive and defensive weapons 

 had not been much needed, either from the absence of large 

 mammalia, or from the habits and character of these early people. 

 Many archaeologists are not satisfied with the evidence yet adduced as 

 to these flints being of the early date claimed for them, consequently 

 of man's existence in Britain at that time, and regard the implements 

 just described as belonging to the early part of the next period. 



Whatever may be the ultimate decision arrived at as to the 

 age of these flints, all geologists and others are agreed that after 

 the Glacial period had passed away and Britain had once more 

 become a part of the continent of Europe after its submergence, a 

 race of men known to us as Palseolithic man migrated into the 

 country from the Continent, across the valley of the English Channel. 

 Man of this period is known to us from various remains of him 

 found in drifts of Post-glacial age, and in the lower deposits of 

 certain caves. As some evidence has been brought forward to show 

 that the River-drift people, as they are called, are earlier than the 

 Cave-dwellers, we will consider the remains of the former people 

 first. 



Remains of man from British River-drifts have only been found 

 in the south of England from Chard, Axminster, and the Bristol 

 Channel in the west, to the Straits of Dover, the lower Thames, 

 Suffolk and Norfolk on the east, and as far north as Cambridge. 

 They are conspicuous by their absence north-west of a line passing 

 from Bristol to the Wash. The remains consist of a small portion 

 of a skull reputed to be of this period, implements of flint, quartzite 

 and chert, antlers of deer, and of certain fossil shells, probably used 

 as ornaments. 



Vol. XIV. (No. 88.) s 



