PROCEEDINGS 



THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE, 



SESSION 1885-86. 



PRIMEVAL DEXTERITY. 



BY DANIEL WILSON, LL.D., F.R.S.E., 



President of University College, Toronto. 



[The facts in reference to " The Bohemian Skull" (see ante, page 43) having since the reading 

 ■of the paper been made public elsewhere, Dr. Wilson furnishes the following paper for 

 publication in lieu of it.] 



In a communication made to the Canadian Institute in 1871, and 

 subsequently printed in the Canadian Journal,^ I drew attention to 

 an interesting discovery, supposed to indicate the traces of a left- 

 handed workman of prehistoric times. The Rev. "William Green- 

 well carried out a series of explorations of a number of flint-pits, 

 known as Gi'imes' Graves, near Brandon, in Norfolk ; and in a com 

 munication to the Ethnological Society, of London, on the subject, 

 he states that in clearing out one of the galleries excavated in the 

 chalk by workmen of the remote Neolithic Age in order to procure 

 flint nodules in a condition best adapted for the purpose of the flint 

 tool-maker, it became apparent that, while the pits were still being 

 worked, the roof of the gallery had given way and blocked up its 

 whole width. The removal of this obstruction disclosed three 

 recesses extending beyond the chalk's face at the end of the gallery, 

 which had been excavated by the ancient miners. In front of two 

 of those recesses lay picks made from the antlers of the red deer. 



* Canadian Journal, N. S., Vol. XIII., p. 208. 



