Reviews — Grimes Graves. 523 



both in all probability domesticated. The articles of human work- 

 manship, except for the red deer antler picks, are described, with 

 a fine series of "minimum shading" line drawings, by Mr. H. A. 

 Smith. 



It is an astonishiug feature of this lengthy discussion that nowhere 

 is there any indication of the most abundant type of implement 

 found, and that it is largely concerned with rare or unique forms. 

 Working, as this author was, with an enormous mass of refuse from 

 a factory, it is curious that he makes no attempt to discuss the method 

 of manufacture of any type, and that he remarks that "it is to be 

 hoped that ' prehistorians ' will no longer countenance the ridiculous 

 notion that the majority of the Grimes Graves flints are nothing but 

 celts in various stages of manufacture". Why such a notion should 

 be ridiculous he does not explain ; any personal experience of work- 

 shops in countries till recently inhabited by stone-using savages, 

 be it in North America, South Africa, or Australia, will show that 

 an extraordinary lack of finished tools and an enormous abundance of 

 incompletely finished ones, is eminently characteristic of such sites. 



Judging solely from the figures and description in this work under 

 review, the commonest type is that which under slightly different 

 forms is represented in figs. 24, 25, 26, 29, 36, 55, 57, 61, 66, 75 ; 

 this type is also the commonest at Cissbury, judging from specimens 

 in collections. Two other types described by Mr. Smith, represented 

 by figs. 54 (70?) and 74, which are said to be common, must be 

 discussed in connexion with them. No. 54 is a thin, well-chipped 

 blade exactly like the butt of the celt-like form in 24. No. 74 is 

 a thin well-chipped flint with a broad cutting-edge. Both these 

 * implements ' terminate in a slightly oblique fracture. Both are 

 well l-epresented in the Cissbury series at the Manchester Museum, 

 which indeed contains one of each, which fit together and form 

 a single complete celt-like form ! That the break in this is an 

 ancient one is shown by the fact that the implement so completed is 

 particoloured, one face of the butt and the other face of the edge 

 being white patinated. 



That this implement is not only celt-like, but really is a celt, is 

 certain. Unaltered examples do occur as surface finds in South- 

 Eastern England, and specimens with a variable amount of grinding 

 are not at all uncommon, that vary from axes in which the whole 

 plan of the flaking is quite visible, little but the actual edge being 

 ground, to nearly smooth examples which retain the unsymmetrical 

 section common with rough blanks. Some of the other forms figured 

 by Mr. Smith are of course not celts nor even blanks for their 

 manufacture. 



The remarkable specimen, fig. 23, which resembles the tapering 

 portion of a Chelles ficron, is exactly paralleled by a much more 

 remarkable specimen in Manchester, in which the tool is completed 

 beyond the abrupt end of Mr. Smith's example, which is of course 

 nothing but a break, by a thick portion which is ground and polished 

 to the typical segmental edge of a neolithic axe ; chipped and polished 

 portions alike are covered by the same white patina. 



There seems to be absolutely no escape from the conclusion that 



