CHAP, vi.] RANGE OF RIVER-DRIFT MAN ON CONTINENT. 163 



Social Condition of the River-drift Man. 



The Palaeolithic implements in the late Pleistocene 

 river-beds are rude and simple. They consist of the flake, 

 the chopper or pebble roughly chipped to an edge on 

 one side, the hache, or oval pointed implement intended 

 for use without a handle (Figs. 33, 37, 39), an oval or 

 rounded form with a cutting edge all round, which may 

 have been used in a handle, a scraper for preparing 

 skins, and pointed flints used for boring. These are 

 the principal implements in the late Pleistocene river- 

 deposits, and although they imply that their possessors 

 were savages like the native Australians, they show a 

 considerable advance on the simple flake left behind as 

 the only trace of man of the mid Pleistocene age. In 

 this stage of culture man lived by hunting, and had not 

 yet learned to till the ground, or to seek the materials 

 out of which his implements were made by mining. He 

 merely fashioned the stones which happened to be within 

 his reach flint, quartzite or chert in the shallows of 

 the rivers, as they were wanted, throwing them away 

 after they had been used. In this manner the large 

 numbers which have been met with in certain spots, such 

 as Brandon in Suffolk, and Thetford, may be accounted j 

 for. Man at this time appears before us as a nomad ; 

 hunter, poorly equipped for the struggle of life, without 

 knowledge of metals, and ignorant of the art of grinding 

 his stone tools to a sharp edge. 



Range of River-drift Man on the Continent. 



The researches of Boucher de Perthes and Rigollot 

 in the fluviatile strata of the valley of the Somme at 



