68 



NATURE 



[November 15, 1894 



post-glacial age, and in the lower deposits oi certain caves. As 

 some evidence has been brought forward to show that the river- 

 drift people, as they are called, are earlier than the cave- 

 dwellers, we will consider the river-drift people first. 



Remains of man from the river-drifts have only been found 

 in the south of England from Chard, Axminster, and the Bristol 

 Channel, in the west to the Straits of Dover, the lower Thames, 



SufTolk, and Norfolk on the east, and as far north as Cambridge. 

 They are conspicuous by their absence north-west of a line 

 passing from Bristol to the Wash. The remains consist of a 

 small porti'in of a skull, reputed to be of this period, imple- 

 ments of flint, quartzite, and chert, antlers of deer, and of 

 certain fossil shells, probably used as ornaments. 



The portion of skull was found by the late Mr. Henry Prigg, 



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in 1882, at Weslley, in .Suffolk, seven and a half feet from the 

 surface, in a pocket of brick earth eroded in the chalk, and in 

 an adjoining pocket two molar leetli uf mammoth and four 

 I'al.colithic flint implement* were found,' The fragment of 

 ikull was part of the vertex, and included the upper portions of 

 the frontal and parietal bones, with part of the coronal and 

 sagittal sutures. It wa« examined by Mr. Worthington .Smith, 



' / //'. .\nihro/>. /ml , vol. xiv. p. 51. 



NO. 1307. VOL. 51] 



and in transit to the finder of it was unfortunately smashed. As 

 it was not a characteristic part of the skull, it shed little light 

 on the cranial characters of its owner. With this exception, no 

 human bones have been found in fluviatile deposits in Britain. 



The implements from the river-drift consist principally of 

 oval-pointed flints which have been fashioned by chipping, and 

 were used without handles, oval or rounded flints with a cutting 

 edge all round, scrapers for preparing skins, pointed flints used 

 for boring, flakes struck ofl^ from blocks or cores by means of 

 large hammer-stones, often of quartzite, and choppers of pebbles 

 chipped to an edge on one side. The tools with which these 

 implements were manufactured consisted of anvil stones of 

 large blocks of flint, pointed flints or punches, and carefully 



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KiG. 



Fic. 5. 



made fabricators. All the implements, though simple and 

 rude, show signs of manufacture, the more finely finished speci- 

 mens having been prepared by delicate chipping. Their manu- 

 facture seems to have been carried on at certain spots, on the 

 banks of rivers and other places, where there was plenty of 

 material to make them from. It will be observed that ;\t this 

 time there were no flint arrow-heads, and that man was but poorly 

 equipped for the chase, although it was undoubtedly by that 

 means he gained his livelihood. Besides these flints, man doubt- 

 less used wood and bone implements ; indeed, pieces of pointed 

 stakes of wood have been found on the Paleolithic floors where 

 he worked, by Mr. Worlhington .Smith. Bead-like fossil shells 



of Cosciiwpora nlobulosa have been found by Mr. Smith, with 

 artificial enlargement of their natural orifices, which would 

 indicate that they had been used for necklaces or amulets, 

 so that primitive man seems not to have been without his 

 personal adornments even at this time. 



It is of importance to consider for a moment the animals 

 which lived with man at this period. There are found in the 

 same slrata with him remains of the hippopotamus, two species 

 of elephants and of rhinoceros, the cave bear and lion, the wild 

 cat, h).ina, urus, bison, the wild horse and boar, stag, roe, rein- 

 deer, and other animals, many of which are now exlinct. Man 

 at that lime had no domestic animals. The only clothing he 

 had, if he wore any, was made from the skins of the animals he 



