Knowles — PreJmtoric Remains, SandhiUs, Coast of Ireland. 369 



Age, or considering that where flakes are lying about better things may 

 be looked for, a little interest in searching for implements might be 

 taken, but very few collected the flakes themselves. All the while 

 when they are collected and studied they yield a considerable amount of 

 instruction. Sir John Evans gives a very full account of flakes and 

 their mode of production. He compares the flake produced for various 

 pui-poses with those produced in the manufacture of celts or hatchets. 

 In the former case the flakes are everything, and the resulting core or 

 nucleus mere refuse. In the latter case it is just the reverse, the 

 flakes are the refuse, and the resulting block is the main object sought 

 for ("Stone Implements," 2nd ed., p. 31). He classifies flakes into — 

 ( 1 ) external, or those which have been struck off from an outer surface 

 of a nodule of flint; (2) ridged, or those presenting a triangular section; 

 (3) flat where the external face is nearly parallel with the internal; 

 and (4) polygonal where the external face consists of many facets. 



If we examine carefully a series of flakes that have been struck off 

 in the manufacture of a stone celt we will not fail to observe the 

 constant occurrence of particular forms. The majority will be found 

 to be short, broad flakes with a wing, sometimes of considerable length, 

 to one side, and occasionally to each side of the bulb of percussion. 

 Such flakes might properly be classed as winged flakes. If you com- 

 pare the flakes Agnized on ISo. YI., figs. 27, 28, 29, 30, from Fisher- 

 street, which are waste flakes, produced in the manufacture of stone 

 celts, and also those on IS'o. IX. from other sites I have referred to, it 

 will be seen how large a proportion of them resemble the Mousterien 

 racloirs and pointes of French Antiquaries. I believe that the waste 

 flakes produced in the manufacture of large implements by Palaeolithic 

 man in France and the south of England would be found too good to 

 waste, and they were therefore used for cutting, scraping, etc. When 

 dressed along the edges the original form of the flakes could not have 

 been much altered, as might be judged from the close resemblance in 

 outline of racloirs and pointes to the undressed flakes from county Clare 

 referred to above, and some of the other flakes resulting from the 

 manufacture of celts in jSTo. IX. The custom of using those waste 

 flakes continued into Xeolithic times in Ireland, as we find many 

 of them which have been manufactured into scraping and poiated 

 implements hardly distingtiishable from those referred to of Palaeolithic 

 Age. 



Again at "Whitepark, which I take as a typical station, we find 

 flakes manufactured for the sake of the flake itself. I have elsewhere 

 stated that the flakes which were lying about as waste material at this 



