DRIFT-IMPLEMENTS. 



3 



of a roundish or elongated form ; and in making their tools the ancient people 

 knocked two of them together, until flattish fragments of suitable size came off, 

 which they brought into the required shape by blows aimed at their circumference. 

 Hence many of the implements are not exactly of oval or spear-like forms, 

 but present shapes intermediate between them. As a rule, the narrower or more 

 pointed end of these instruments is the one adapted for cutting. The tools of 

 the spear-head type usually vary in length from six to eight inches, though larger 

 ones have been found. Many of them seem to have been used with the hand, 

 the end opposite the pointed part being often thick and massive, to facilitate 

 handling ; and in some the lower end is not fashioned at all, but left in its origi- 

 nal state, when the form of the flint presented a suitable handle. Others, which 

 are worked thinner at the lower end, perhaps were fastened to poles, and thus 

 actually served as spear-heads. Arrow-points have not been found in the drift, 

 and hence it appears probable that the drift-people were ignorant of archery. 



It can hardly be supposed that the types of implements here briefly noticed 

 exhaust the stock of tools or weapons used by the early contemporary of the 

 mammoth, for others, made of less durable materials, such as bone and horn, 

 may have decayed in the gravel-beds, leaving no traces to indicate their former 

 presence. None of the latter kind, as far as I know, have been discovered in the 

 drift-deposits. 



Fro. 1. Drift-implement. Saint-Acheul. (35095). 



