PRIMEVAL DEXTERITY. 139- 



not in this case intended to serve any particular purpose, but was. 

 rather the accidental result of the method pursued in chipping the 

 flint into its present form."* A similar curvature is seen in a long- 

 pointed implement from Reculver, in the collection of Mr, J. Brent, 

 F.S.A., and again in another large example of this class, from Hoxne, 

 presented to the Society of Antiquaries of London, upwards of eighty 

 years ago. This, as Dr. Evans notes, exhibits the same peculiarity- 

 of the twisting of the edges so markedly, and indeed so closely 

 resembles the specimen in his own collection, that they might have 

 been made by the same hand. Of another example, from Santoa 

 Downham, near Hetford, Suffolk, almond-shaped, and with dendritic 

 markings in evidence of iis palaeolithic date. Dr. Evans remarks : 

 " It is fairly symmetrical in contour, with an edge all round, which 

 is somewhat blunted at the base. This edge, however, is not in one 

 plane, but considerably curved, so that when seen sideways it forms 

 an ogee curve ;" and he adds : " I have other implements of the 

 same, and of more pointed forms, with similarly curved edges, both 

 from France, and other parts of England, but whether this curvature 

 was intentional it is impossible to say. In some cases it is so 

 marked that it can hardly be the result of accident; and the curve is, 

 so far as I have observed, almost without exception ?, and not S. If 

 not intentional, the form may be the result of all the blows by which 

 the implement was finally chipped out having been given on the one 

 face on one side, and on the opposite on the other,"t In other 

 words, the implement-maker worked throughout with the flaker in 

 the same hand ; and that hand, with very rare exceptions, appears 

 to have been the right hand. The evidence adduced manifestly 

 points to the predominance of right-handed men among the palaeoli- 

 thic flint- workers. For if the flint-arrow maker, working apart, and 

 with no motive suggested by the necessity of accommodating him- 

 self to a neighbouring workman, has habitually used the right hand 

 from remote palaeolithic times, it only remains to determine the- 

 cause of a practice too nearly invariable to have been the result of 

 accident. 



Unless there be some organic cause for the preference of one hand 

 rather than the other, no systematic use of either hand would be 

 likely to manifest itself in rude states of society where there is littla 



* Ancient Stone Implements, p. 520. 

 + Ancient Stone Implements,, p. 501. 



