VOL. XV. (3) PYGMY FLINTS 223 
is the vast quantity in which they were produced. 
Carlleyle found five hundred “crescents” in a single cave, 
and similar abundance has rewarded the researches of Mr 
Gatty, M. de Pierpoint, and Dr. Sturge. Consequently, 
the little tools must have served the requirements of daily 
life, and any explanation must be inadequate which assigns 
to them only highly specialized functions of rare and excep- 
tional use. They may have been, and no doubt were, 
used for trepanning, tattooing, and such special purposes. 
But even Neolithic man was not always being either 
tattooed or trepanned, and the thousands of implements 
found must have served much more general purposes. It 
is quite clear that implements found in such quantity on 
the floors of dwellings were not merely amulets or 
intended for symbolical use at funerals or other cere- 
monies, like the miniature pottery sometimes found in 
pre-historic graves. They must have been made for 
human nature’s daily needs. 
~The suggestion has been thrown out that women may 
have been specially employed in their manufacture, and it 
is clear that many of the implements, if properly fitted 
with holders, are well adapted for stitching and piercing 
“purposes in domestic economy. That hint explains a 
good deal, but not everything. The scalene triangle forms 
are exactly suited to make barbs for arrow- or spear-heads, 
when fitted into grooves in the manner indicated in Mr 
Read’s figure 118, or the similar illustration in the work of 
Montelius entitled “ The Civilization of Sweden in 
Heathen Times.” Other forms are plainly suitable for 
use as arrow-heads, and even the crescentic shapes may 
have been utilized sometimes in that way, although Sir 
John Evans does not accept the suggestion. Clearly such 
minute tools could not have been used except when fitted 
into handles and holders of various forms. Egyptian 
examples of wooden sickles with flint teeth are known. 
