256 



tion of tlie moutlis of these ancient pits may here and there 

 be traced. The old hollows are now filled up with quantities 

 of debris, masses of chalk-rock, broken and worked flints, 

 together with earth and sand, and mingled with these mate- 

 rials have been found the bones of a considerable number of 

 animals formerly inhabiting the neighbourhood, such as the 

 deer, elk, goat, short-horned ox, badger, polecat, otter, dog, 

 cat, brown bear, hedgehog, hare,' and rabbit, besides a few 

 human bones and fragments of coarse pottery bearing no 

 traces of having been thrown on a wheel of any kind. Many 

 of the antlers of the deer have evidently been made use of as 

 hammers or picks. 



But it is not in these old workings alone that implements 

 are obtained ; lying upon the surface, or turned up in the 

 course of agricultural operations, as well as in the thick talus 

 of debris along the edge of the plateau between Spiennes and 

 the railway, large numbers of worked flints have at different 

 times been found. These implements are all made of the 

 local grey-coloured chalk flint, and are met with in every 

 stage of manufacture. Many of the specimens are most care- 

 fully chipped into shape; yet, well made as they are, none of them 

 present the wonderfully-elaborated forms and the delicacy of 

 the Neolithic weapons of the Danish tumuli, and they probably 

 belonged to an earlier stage of the Prehistoric period, and 

 were made by a less highly cultured people. Another point 

 to be observed is that polished implements are very rarely met 

 with at Spiennes; and it has been surmised, with much proba- 

 bility, that the makers of these implements were not in the 

 habit of polishing them, that they sold or bartered them in 

 the rough form, and that the buyer would, if he pleased, spend 

 his time in putting on that polish characteristic of the Pre- 

 historic or Neolithic age, but which was, perhaps, after all, a 

 matter of " individual luxury .^^ 



With regard to the forms of the Spiennes implements we 

 find a considerable variety of both small and large. There 

 are, first, the large nuclei from which were struck flakes, to be 

 fashioned by more delicate chipping into knives, scrapers, and 

 arrow-heads. Many of the long narrow flakes, as well as the 

 broader Hat ones so common wherever implements occur in 

 any quantity, are picked up on the surface of the fields. The 

 nuclei themselves are often elaborated into " haches " or axes, 

 often called '^ celts," of various shapes. Some of the nuclei 

 (figs. 1 and 2) are somewhat boat-shaped, with flakes struck 

 off more or less at right angles to the keel, whilst others are 

 longitudinally flaked. Smaller nuclei (fig. 3) are found 

 pyramidally fractured ; and some of these latter, as well as 



