PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 75 



tells us, are scrapers, varying in diameter from less than 

 an inch to an inch and a half. Most of them are of a 

 shape suitable for scraping the skins of animals, whdc a 

 few have the concave edge which would be specially 

 useful for scraping arrow-shafts or bone needles. Arrow- 

 heads are so numerous and so varied in shape, that Mr 

 Cardew divides them into six typical varieties, some halt- 

 an-inch some two inches, from base to point, hqually 

 variable in pattern are the knives. Some are triangular, 

 and might easily have been fitted into a handle ; others are 

 scimitar-shaped; others are like lancets, whh sides 

 curving to a sharp point, the effect of a prog from one 

 of which, says Mr Cardew, w^e would rather contemplate 

 in the imagination than experience in the reality, for no 

 sharper weapon could be devised with hammer and steel. 

 Worked balls of flint, like bullets, were probably used as 

 sling-stones. Borers and rimers are by no means un- 

 common, and flints with serrated edges, like miniature 

 saws are often found. A remarkable feature, not only of 

 the Middle Cotteswolds but of the Cotteswolds genera ly, 

 is the almost entire absence of the larger megahthic 

 instruments, such as hammers and hatchets. The 

 scarcity is the more remarkable from the fact that in 

 other parts of the country pre-historic stone implements 

 include a fairly large proportion of axes and hamrners ; 

 indeed, Canon Greenwell does not beheve it would be 

 possible to find a parallel to it in any other part ot 

 Britain, at all events in so great a degree. Explanation 

 he has none ; it is not easy, he says, to understand how 

 "a population which it might be supposed would require 

 "axes to cut down trees, adzes to work upon the wood, 

 " and hoes to break up the soil, equally with other people 

 "who appear to have lived under much the same 

 " conditions, were able to construct the essential requisites 

 " of domestic life, or to obtain some of the main products 



