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and the supply of material for implements was so very large, that 

 it is difficult to understand how operations on a scale so extensive 

 could have been required when the use of stone must have been to 

 a great extent superseded by metal. During the time when both 

 stone and metal were in use, flint was required more for smaller 

 weapons, such as arrow points, and for articles like scrapers, saws, 

 and knives, than for larger implements such as hatchets. The 

 pei-forated stone axes, which were no doubt in use together with 

 bronze, are never made of flint. We may regard these workings, 

 then, as belonging to the neolithic age, when metal was unknown, 

 but when the grinding and polishing of stone was understood. 

 The palaeolithic age, when flint was most extensively used in the 

 same district, cannot have been that of the working of these pits ; 

 for, apart from the fact that nearly all the drift implements have 

 been made from surface flints, and those generally not belonging 

 to flint of the quality obtained at Grime's Graves, the greater part 

 of the animal i*emains found in the pit do not belong to the fauna 

 of the drift, nor were any bones of the most characteristic animals 

 of that period discovered there. (This last sentence must be 

 somewhat modified when applied to Cissbury, as some of the 

 implements found are similar in shape to recognised palaeolithic 

 tools, and the urus also belongs to the drift fauna.) The time 

 occupied in working the whole series of pits and galleries must 

 necessarily have been a long one ; for, even with a large population, 

 such extensive operations could not have been undertaken in a 

 short period. There could scarcely, however, have been a large 

 population settled in the locality; for such could not have been 

 supported — the supply of game, large though that may have been, 

 being quite inadequate to aff"ord food for more than a people of 

 limited number, and pasturage for domesticated animals being 

 very scanty and poor. The evidence supplied by the pits them- 

 selves very strongly supports the view that a long period of time 

 must have been occupied in quarrying the flint. A single pit, 

 with its galleries, would afi'ord stone sufficient for the manufacture 

 of thousands of implements, even allowing for a most lavish and 

 wasteful expenditure; and when it is considered that the pits 

 number about 250, some idea may be formed of the enormous 

 quantity of implements which must have been supplied by the 

 (Grime's Graves) workings alone. There is, howevei', good reason 



