THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD 



pebble was found at Sandridge l near St. Albans, by the Rev. Dr. 

 Griffith, and is now in the British Museum. Another formed from a 

 sandstone pebble, 4^ inches long, was found near Ware. 2 



Flint Flakes, Cores, Scrapers, etc. The same remarks that have been 

 made with regard to roughly chipped celts apply to these forms, which are, 

 in fact, much more abundant in the county than the published accounts 

 of their discovery would seem to indicate. I have found flakes, cores 

 and scrapers on the surface in many parts of the parish of Abbot's 

 Langley, and I have no doubt that many other parts of the county 

 would prove equally prolific. They are often so rudely made that it 

 seems hardly worth while to preserve them, and, moreover, there is in 

 most instances a difficulty in assigning a date to them. One of those 

 from Abbot's Langley 9 is undoubtedly Neolithic, as it has the edge ground 

 so as to form a knife. A flat flake, trimmed at the end into a scraper- 

 like form and found near Hitchin, 4 has been figured. Scrapers have been 

 found at Abbot's Langley, Braughing, Rickmansworth, St. Albans and 

 elsewhere. 



I have a large curved flake, 6 inches in length and i inch in 

 extreme breadth, found near Royston. It has both ends trimmed into 

 a semicircular form, and is also trimmed along each side. 



A kind of pointed oval knife, sharp at the edge all round, but not 

 ground, has been found near Ware. 6 



Arrowheads. The earliest and perhaps the most interesting recorded 

 discovery of these objects in Hertfordshire was made about the year 1763 

 at the Grove, 6 the seat of Mr. Scare, near Tring. Some labourers sinking 

 a deep ditch or drain at a depth of seven feet came across a human 

 skeleton with the legs and arms extended. Between the legs were some 

 barbed flint arrowheads, in outline like a Gothic arch, and at the feet 



two * bracers ' or arm-guards 

 for archers, ' convex on one 

 side and concave on the other, 

 polished, and of a greenish cast.' 

 There was also a large jet ring, 

 grooved and perforated at the 

 edge, and an earthen urn. 



Rather more than a hun- 

 dred years after this discovery 

 I found in 1866 a flint arrow- 



FIC. 7. FIG. 8. head of the same character as 



those from Tring Grove on 

 the surface of a field at the foot of the chalk escarpment between 



1 Trans. Herts Nat. Hist. Soc., viii. p. 174. 



* Ancient Stone Implements, 2nd ed. p. 228. 



3 Op. cit. 2nd ed. p. 291 ; Trans. Herts Nat. Hist. Soc., viii. p. 175. 



* Op. cit. viii. p. 177. Ancient Stone Implements, 2nd ed. p. 334. 



8 Arch&ol., viii. p. 429, pi. xxx. ; Ancient Stone Implements, 2nd ed. pp. 383, 398, 426, 

 456 ; Cussans, Hist. Herts, iii. p. 13 ; Trans. Herts Nat. Hist. Soc., viii. p. 178. 



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