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NOTES ON SOME 



By Joseph Stevens, Esq. 



JS the recent discoveries of flint implements in various parts 

 of England are, at the present time, attracting considerable 

 attention among scientific men, perhaps a few notes respecting 

 some wrought flints lately found in a new locality, in the neigh- 

 bouring county of Hampshire, might not merely be found inter- 

 esting but of some importance as furnishing an additional link to 

 the topography of the rude tribes who formerly inhabited Britain. 

 The implements to which I would advert are known as surface 

 implements, from the fact that they occur scattered over the surface 

 of the fields, and not met with in "drift-beds." Humanly-shaped 

 flints are, however, found in the drift, and are consequently known 

 as drift-implements. These differ in some essential particulars 

 from those of the surface, and are of greater antiquity. Our lead- 

 ing archaeologists have thought that the Stone Age, or period when 

 the earlier inhabitants of Europe used stone implements principally, 

 naturally falls into two great divisions. To the earlier Stone 

 Period, the period of the drift, the term Archceolilhic has been 

 assigned ; while Neolithic, signifying Newer Stone Period, has 

 been given to the time of the surface implements. To this latter 

 period the whole of the worked flints hitherto found at St. Mary 

 Bourne may be attributed. There are minor differences between the 

 implements of the two periods ; the axes from the drift are perhaps 

 more pointed, and their surface colour is commonly yellowish- 

 brown, probably from long contact with ferruginous gravels. These 

 distinctions are, however, by no means constant, the chief one being 

 that, while the drift implements are all formed by flaking, those 

 from the surface are often polished ; man having learned to grind 

 his stone implements, although chipped ones were in use at the 

 same time. Implements of the surface type are, besides, better 

 formed, and more diversified in character. 



