44 
or less covered with comparatively minute indentations. These 
indentations, moreover, form the principal evidence which goes 
to prove they were used as hammer-stones ; for, by experiment, 
one ascertains not only that flints of this shape and size are the 
most convenient to handle and of the right weight to produce the 
force necessary to detach a flake, but that continuous chipping 
results in giving them similar indentations, and, in fact, the exact 
appearance of the hammer-stone of prehistoric times. | Occasion- 
ally one comes across a flint core which has been used as a 
hammer-stone. 
Of the smaller flint implements awaiting description, the 
most common is the scraper (figs. 1-4). This tool is invariably 
a flint flake re-chipped to a round and bevelled edge. The 
Opinion is that these scrapers were used by primitive man in 
dressing the skins of animals; for, among the Eskimos, a 
similar instrument was, and—I believe I am correct in so 
stating—is still used for the same purpose. Several of these 
Eskimo scrapers are to be seen in the principal Museums of 
Europe and America, and, in his classic work on Stone Imple- 
ments, Sir John Evans figures one as a comparison with the 
scrapers of prehistoric times.* Many of the scrapers one finds 
on the Downs are beautifully formed, and, as they are of all 
shapes and sizes, the probability is they were used for a variety of 
purposes in a variety of ways. Judging by my own experiments 
in flint chipping, I may say these little tools are easily and 
rapidly made, and to this may be due the fact of their occurrence 
in such numbers. 
{ now ask you to closely examine the two scrapers which 
have little semi-circular notches chipped out of their edges 
(fig. 5). With these are arranged a number of flakes which also 
exhibit similar notches of varying sizes. It is evident they 
were used as a spoke-shave for scraping or pointing some cylin- 
drical object. In Matural Science is figured a similarly notched 
flake of white quartz, which is described as having been used by 
the Red Indians of the Sacramento Valley, U.S.A., for pointing 
their bone needles.t The notches in many of the local flakes 
would seem to have been serviceable for a similar purpose. In 
others, though, the notches are much too large for this, and 
might have been employed for scraping or smoothing the shafts 
of arrows or other wooden articles. Such hollow or concave 
scrapers have therefore been provisionally termed, according to 
their respective sizes, bone needle-makers(figs. 6-8) and arrow- 
shafters (figs. 9-11). These needle-makers occur nowhere so 
abundantly as on the Sussex Downs, and it at first occurred to 

* Ancient Stone Implements, p- 268, fig. 203. 
+ The Authenticity of the Plateau Implements, by W. J. Lewis 
Abbott, F.G.S., Matural Science, vol. xii., No. 72, plate vi., fig. 38. 
