218 Rev. 0. Fisher — Works of Prehidoric Man. 



V. — Some Handiworks of Early Men of various ages. 



By the Eev. 0. Fisher, M.A., F.G.S. 



(WITH FOUE TEXT-FIGUKES.) 



IN the following notes I propose to clironicle a few works of early 

 luan other than chipped flints in this country, which during 

 a long life have come under my own observation. They shall be 

 arranged in order of antiquity, and, as might be expected, the earliest 

 will be the most doubtful. Nevertheless, in antici[)ation of its being 

 possibly confirmed by future discoveries it shall not be passed over. 



1. When digging for fossils in the Eocene of Barton Cliii I found 

 a piece of a jet-like substance about Q-g- inches square and 2^ inches 

 thick. There was a large oyster-shell attached to the upper surface. 

 It bore on at least one of its sides what seemed to me to be marks of 

 the cliopping which had formed it into its accurately square shape. 

 This specimen is now in the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge. 



2. The next in antiquity was the cut bone from the Crag, which 

 I first saw in the collection of Mr. Whincopp, of Woodbriilge, and 

 which he called a bludgeon. It afterwards passed into the hands 

 of Sir Joseph Prestwich, and is now in the British Museum. It was 

 described by me and is figured in this Magazine^ (Fig. 1). 



Fig. 1. Piece of a fossil rib, partially sawn across at both ends. From the 

 Red Crag. Part of the late Mr. Whincopp's collection. Scale 2 inches to 

 a foot. 



The suggestion that man could have existed in Pliocene times was 

 of course received with due scepticism; but the recent discovery of 

 worked flints from the Crag^ is in remarkable accordance with the 

 supposition that the thing was the weapon of a human being of that 

 period. The two finds confirm one another. 



3. The next in order of time is a work of a different character. 

 I refer to the elephant trench at Dewlish in Dorsetshire. This trench 

 was excavated in chalk and was 12 feet deep, and of such a width 

 that a man could just pass along it. It is not on the line of 

 anjr natural fracture, and the beds of flint on each side correspond. 

 The bottom was of undisturbed chalk, and one end, like the sides, was 

 vertical. At the other end it opened diagonally on to the steep side of 

 a valley. It has yielded abundant remains of JElephas nieridiofialis, but 

 no other fossils. I have described it with two photographic views in 

 the Journal of the Geological Society,^ and it may be noticed that in 

 one narrow place the sides mutually approach one another, a feature 



^ 1905, p. 575. 2 Moir, Proc. Prehistoric Soc. of East Anglia, 1911. 



' Q.J.G.S., vol. Ixi, pp. 35-7, 1905. 



