246 Recent Wiltshire Boohs, Pamphlets, and Articles. 



Early Man and his Stone Implements, a paper read 



by Mr. J. W. Brooke at a meeting of the Swindon Field and Camera 

 Club on Oct. 30th, is printed in full in the North Wilts Herald, Nov. 1st, 

 1901. The writer deals at considerable length with the origin of man, 

 and states his opinion that stone implements may be divided into three 

 periods. Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic — and with regard to Mr. 

 S. B. Dixon's recent remarkable discovery of flints in the Savernake 

 flint gravels, he says: — "I have seen nearly all the specimens found, 

 and though they bear some analogy to Palaeolithic weapons, yet I consider 

 they belong to a middle period, and are Mesolithic ... all of them 

 assimilate far more with the last Stone Period than they do with the 

 first." He maintains, moreover, that many of the stones in the gravel 

 pit from which they were taken show distinct glacial striation, proving 

 that the gravel is pre-glacial. Passing on to the origin of the extraordinary 

 polish which some of the Savernake flints show on their surface, which 

 has been attributed to the action of blown sand, Mr. Brooke suggests 

 that lightning is a more probable explanation — in fact that parts of the 

 surface of a flint have been fused without the general substance of the 

 flint being in any way affected. This theory will hardly commend itself. 

 On the other hand Mr. Brooke takes the commonsense view that the 

 more or less cone-shaped flints, which it is possible to stand up on their 

 flat butts, (which in the eyes of Mr. Auberon Herbert and other 

 writers in The Times have become totems, or phalli), in so far as 

 their butts have been purposely fashioned flat at all, were intended as 

 implements for some practical purpose, for which a flat butt was desirable. 

 Mr. Brooke gives an interesting account of the methods of polishing 

 flint implements, but he is in error in speaking of early pottery as 

 " sun-baked." In England, at least, all the early hand-made ware has 

 been burned — imperfectly it is true. He also begins the Bronze Age 

 about fifty years before the advent of Julius Caesar, and ends it with the 

 reign of Domitian — leaving no room for the Late Celtic or Iron Period 

 in which the southern tribes of Britain, at least, were living for some 

 time before the coming of the Romans. 



Wiltshire Notes and Queries, No. 32, Dec, i900. 



Mr. W. H. H. Rogers discourses on " Rogers-Courtenay-Huddesfield of 

 Bradford-on-Avon, Carrington, Som., and Shillingford, Devon, with a plate 

 of a barn at Shillingford and two cuts of arms. Records of Bratton are 

 continued. Mr. Kite continues his excellent notes on Amesburj' Monastery, 

 giving the salient events in the lives of its possessors : the first Earl of 

 Hertford, Protector Somerset ; the second Earl Edward ; Sir "William 

 Seymour, third Earl and Marquess of Hertford and afterwards second Duke 

 of Somerset. Under the latter the mansion was probably built from the 

 designs of Inigo Jones, carried out by John Webb Mr. Brakspear adds a 

 note identifying " The Jessye " as being not a chamber, but in all jjrobability 

 the necessai'ium, or rere-dorter. Quaker Birth Records — Calendar of Feet of 

 Fines— and Notes and Queries complete the number. 



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