The Flint Implements of Addington. 257 
138.—Tue Fut Ivetements or AppineTon. 
By Anrxanper J. Hoce. 
(Read October 19th,-1897.) 
By flint implements we understand weapons or tools fashioned 
of flint by the hand of man, and adapted for any specific purpose. 
In districts where flint did not exist, or was not easily obtainable, 
implements were frequently made from other kinds of stone. 
Implements of granite have been found in Jersey; of limestone 
in Leigh Woods, above Clifton; and of slate on the Welsh 
mountains; while in the Wealden area they are not uncommonly 
made from Kentish rag, or the dense and intractable ironstone 
of the Lower Greensand. 
It was formerly supposed that the shapes of these implements 
: were for the most part accidental, or that they were the work of 
savage men who simply broke a stone into fragments and 
selected those most suitable for the purpose of the moment. 
This may have been the origin of what became afterwards an 
art ; but among the oldest known implements are many forms 
which resemble each other, and notwithstanding their rude 
workmanship we can trace in them the types of tools used at 
much later periods, and even the prototypes of the workman’s 
tools of the present day. 
The long ages which passed before the earlier races of mankind 
found out how to work in metals were formerly inadequately 
divided into the palzolithic, or older Stone age, and the neolithic 
or newer Stone age; the former including the ruder and less 
worked implements, and the latter those finely chipped and 
ground or polished. 
To these the researches of Mr. Benjamin Harrison, of Ightham, 
have added the eolithic series—so easily distinguished by their 
warm red-brown colour, like the rust of iron; and Mr. Worth- 
ington Smith has drawn attention to a mesolithic series, inter- 
mediate in age between the palxolithic and the neolithic, but 
_ not of very clearly defined characteristics. At the present time 
_these implements may be said to be divided into three classes— 
_ paleolithic, mesolithic, and neolithic. The first of these in- 
clude the eolithic or plateau implements, so plainly marked off 
by their almost uniform brown tint; but of the rest it cannot be 
id that there is any clear dividing line between them. 
In the British Museum those of massive form and rough 
kmanship, or boldly flaked, are classed as paleolithic, and 
_ are well represented by numerous examples; those of lighter 
D> 
#4 
i 
make, including the finely chipped and the polished specimens, 
c 
