DESCKIFTIONS OF THE PLATES STONE IMPLEMENTS. [A. XXXVIII. XXXIX.] 171 



A. STONE IMPLEMENTS. 



A. PLATE XXXVIII. & XXXIX. (Double.) 



Several of the large clumsy Knives, heavy Side-scrapers, Choppers, or one-edged 

 cleaver-like flint Implements from Le Moustier, are here shown. Each is carefully 

 dressed to a sharp hatchet-edge, usually curved, along one margin, and elsewhere 

 retaining some portion of the surface and outer crust of the original flint nodule, 

 which had been in most instances somewhat water-worn. They also bear patches 

 of discoloured calcareous incrustation; and there are particles of mica in the 

 adherent ochreous earth. The unchipped portion, or back, of these Implements 

 fits more or less easily to the hand ; and thus they are adapted for hewing and 

 splitting wood, cracking bones, scraping skins, and other purposes. They might 

 be used as Hand-stones (Casse-tetes), in close fight, or as Wedges. Some may be 

 only half-made Implements further manipulation producing such sharp-pointed 

 but blunt-butted tools as are figured in A. Plate XVII. figs. 1 & 2, and in 

 A. Plate XXVIII. figs. 1 & 2 (see pages 78 and 119), and still more labour per- 

 fecting the better dressed lanceolate specimens found at Le Moustier, such as 

 A. Plate III. fig. 2, page 6. 



Such as are here figured are not rare at Le Moustier (see A. Plate V., A. Plate 

 XVII. figs. 3 & 4, and A. Plate XXV., pages 17, 78, and 114), together with such 

 approximate forms as are shown in A. Plate XII. page 39. A few were met with 

 at Les Eyzies and La Ma delaine*. 



The small specimen, fig. 2, differs from the others on this Plate, not only in 

 size, but in being a flake, with a strong "bulb of percussion " on the face which 

 is not figured. This would serve for a Scraper, Knife, Chisel, or a light Chopper ; 



* Some English localities for these Chopper-stones have been mentioned at page 1 19 ; and we may 

 add that, in his 'Ancient Stone Implements &c. of Great Britain' (1872), Mr. John Evans, F.R.S.. 

 figures one from Santon-Downham, Suffolk (fig. 437, p. 505), one from Brandon, Essex (fig. 443, p. 511), 

 and one from Stoke-Newington, Middlesex (fig. 453, p. 525), and describes the probable method of their 

 fashioning and their uses. M. Mortillet observes that analogous flint implements have been found in the 

 Quaternary Alluviums of the Somme and the Seine, see ' Materiaux pour 1'histoire. de 1'Homme,' vol. iv. 

 (1868) p. 455, fig. 110. Sir John Lubbock makes mention of this kind of tool in his ' Prehistoric Times ' 

 (1865), p. 251. ; 



