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TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION EH. 923 
temperate than in unexplored tropical regions, yet that under more favourable 
conditions more Paleolithic implements were found in Somaliland than in Egypt, 
and in Egypt than in Europe. He infers that Africa may have been the prim- 
eval home of man, and notes the fact that Somaliland is about midway between 
the sources of the Nile and the Persian Gulf, two sites which have been suggested 
for the ‘Garden of Eden.’ 
[Cf. Besides the references given above :— 
Spron-Karr, Jowr. Anthr. Inst., No. 94, p. 271, ff. Pl. xix.-xxi.; No. 96. p. 65 ff. 
FLInDuRs Pereig, Lilahun, p. 51, Tell-el-Amarna, p. 37 ; Koptos (forthcoming). 
Archeological Journal, xlix. p. 49 (Egyptian Flints of the Fourth Dynasty), and 
p. 53 (Early Sickles in Egypt). 
DL’ Anthropologie, vol. vi. No. 4.] 
3. The Older Flint Implements of Ireland. By W. J. Kxrow.es, WRIA. 
Locality.—Large rudely made implements have been observed by the author 
in a raised beach of sand and gravel on the N.E. coast of Ireland. Good sections 
occur at the Curran near Larne, along the harbour railway, &c. Cores and imple- 
ments occur at all depths to 16 ft. to 20 ft. in the gravel, and even in the estuarine clay, 
below sea level, at 28 ft. (in a shaft cut for the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club). 
Similar implements are found in débris from this gravel on the shores of Belfast, 
Lough, Larne, and Island Magee.” 
Weathering.—The implements have a thick deeply stained crust, and have 
undergone protracted weathering and rolling. This weathering results from 
atmospheric exposure; for flints from peat bogs and boulder clay retain their 
broken surfaces fresh. Successive layers of weathering seem to indicate repeated 
arrest of the process, ¢.e. repeated burial. Neolithic implements very rarely have 
any such weathered surface crust, and those actually found on this raised beach 
show no signs of it. 
At Ballyrudder, seven miles north of Larne, a glacial gravel with shells, over- 
lain by 30 ft. of boulder clay, yield flints fresh, slightly and deeply weather- 
stained. 
At Whitepark Bay, co. Antrim, neolithic settlers have carried away, to sites 
among the sandhills, the weathered cores and flakes from the raised beach, and 
worked them up into fresh implements, which still show the older flaked surfaces. 
Their new surfaces, however, are still fresh.* 
Similar old cores and flakes in a reworked condition have been found by the 
author at Portstewart, co. Derry; Dundrum, co. Down; Glenluce, Scotland ; and 
elsewhere. 
Forms.—tThree types of implement found, besides flakes :— 
1. Chipped all over; usually triangular in section, with a blunt point at each 
end. 
2. Split pebbles (a) chipped to a point, (6) dressed to a circular shape as 
knives or scrapers. 
3. Partially and irregularly dressed to a pear shape, with extreme economy of 
labour ; but certainly intended, in the author's opinion, as striking weapons. 
Age.—The raised beach has yielded a mammoth tooth; and as, according to 
Professor Boyd Dawkins,‘ it is highly probable the mammoth is preglacial in 
Ireland, the associated implements may be so too. Some bear strise which haye 
been pronounced to be glacial. 
1 Annual Report, 1889-90, p. 205. The Clubs’ Committee call the objects found 
in the estuarine clay ‘flint-chips,’ bearing a considerable resemblance to flakes. 
2 Proceedings Royal Trish Academy, 2nd series, vol. ii., No.5. Polite Lit. and 
Antigq. p. 209.‘ Belfast Nat. Field Club Report,’ 2nd series, vol. ii. p. 541. 
— § Journal Royal Historical and Archeological Association, vol. vii. pp. 124-125. 
4 Karly Man in Britain, p. 152. 
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