44 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF YORK AND DISTRICT 



blade pygmies. The two industries have each been subdivided into an 

 earlier series, characterised by angle and true gravers, and a later, often 

 patinated, series distinguished by the typical Tardenoisian micro-graver. 

 Important sites have been located on Warcock Hill, Marsden, where the 

 stratigraphy has been ascertained ; White Hill and Lominot with broad 

 blade pygmies ; March Hill (1,340 ft.), which has yielded more than 

 6,000 flints and 500 tools of a narrow blade industry ; Cupwith Hill, with 

 100 micro-gravers ; and Dean Clough, with typical small pear-shaped 

 points. The Eastern Moorland sites have furnished Chatelperron points, 

 angle-gravers, and other implements with Aurignacian affinities. 



The more or less contemporaneous Baltic Maglemose culture is repre- 

 sented by two bone harpoons and typical flint hand-axes from Hornsea 

 and Skipsea in Holderness. Armstrong described these at the Hull 

 meeting of the British Association in 1922, when their authenticity was 

 challenged by Sheppard (3, 36). Their genuineness is now generally 

 accepted. A perforated reindeer antler and boar tooth implement found 

 in 1889 in the Elland Cave on Malham Moor, W.R., must also belong to 

 the same culture,^ such tools being frequent in the Baltic region. 



A bone harpoon found many years ago in the Victoria Cave, Settle, and 

 regarded as Neolithic by Boyd Dawkins, is now known to belong to the 

 Mesolithic Azilian culture.^ 



Neolithic Age. 



The period between the end of the Mesolithic Age and the beginning 

 of the Bronze Age is obscure, despite the statement that ' Yorkshire 

 possesses a vast amount of evidence upon which the story of man during 

 this important period can be constructed ' (13). The truth is exactly the 

 reverse ; there is little or no evidence of a lengthy period of pastoral 

 and agricultural life without a knowledge of copper or bronze. This 

 so-called Neolithic Age is based chiefly on the doubtful evidence of flint 

 and stone implements, many of which we now know to have been made 

 and used in the Bronze Age, such as tanged flint arrow-heads, perforated 

 stone battle-axes, and even ground and polished axes, usually regarded as 

 typical Neolithic implements. 



Some axes may be earlier, notably the type with conical butt, rounded 

 section, and slightly incurved sides, so abundant near Bridlington, where 

 there was an extensive axe-manufacturing industry (38). Made of basalt 

 or greenstone from the local drift, they are often much weatherworn, 

 a condition bespeaking a considerable antiquity — an inference supported 

 by their resemblance to axes from the upper levels of the Danish shell- 

 mounds. From Bridlington they were conveyed to other parts ; examples 

 are known from Aldborough, Sheffield, Cleveland, Durham, the Cam- 

 bridge region, and elsewhere. 



As a class the Yorkshire axes await systematic study to throw light on 

 their ages and origins. Many further examples have been found and 

 recorded since 1906. Elgee has discussed the distribution of those in 



" Now lost, but represented by a cast in Manchester Museum. 

 8 In Giggleswick School Museum. 



