FLOWER FLINT IMPLEMENTS. 47 



the river, and at the distance of nearly a mile from it, the hills 

 are in several places capped with coarse flint-gravel, resembling 

 that in which the implements are fonnd, and containing some large 

 nodnles. On the right bank of the river a terrace of siliceous and 

 ferruginous sands, irregularly laminated, and containing layers of 

 flint-gravel, is found resting upon the Chalk. This terrace commences 

 about a quarter of a mile below the town ; it extends along the 

 course of the river for about a mile and a half, and is on the average 

 about forty yards distant from the bank, and rises about eight or ten 

 yards above it. The base of this bed, to the extent of four or five 

 feet in thickness, is composed of large nodules of subangular flint, 

 with some chalk-pebbles and calcareous sand ; and it is in this coarse 

 gravel, at a spot known as Eed Hill, near the second stanch in the 

 river below Thetford, that nearly all the flint implements have been 

 found, usually at from twelve to fifteen feet below the surface, and 

 within a foot or less of the chalk. Some specimens (like those at 

 Pisherton described by Dr. Blackmore) were found in pot-holes in 

 the chalk. On the left bank the terrace does not generally rise more 

 than twenty feet above the river, and the gravel here is deposited 

 much more irregularly. It is of a darker colour, showing no traces 

 of lamination, and in some other particulars differs from that on the 

 right bank, until the river reaches a small farm at Santon Downham. 

 At this place the ferruginous sands and gravels of the right bank 

 reappear, and in them at least one flint implement has been found. 



As regards the general form of the implements, most of them bear 

 a close, and, indeed, almost perfect resemblance to those discovered 

 in similar deposits in France and in other parts of England ; and the 

 accurate description which Mr. Evans has given of the St. Acheul 

 specimens, in his paper read before the Antiquarian Society, will 

 apply to nearly all of those found at Thetford. It would seem as if 

 there were two predominating types, the ovoid and the pointed, ex- 

 amples of both of which are given in the accompanying figures. As 

 formerly it was said that the wood which would not make a shaft 

 might serve for a bolt, so the stone which was not sufficient for a 

 pointed;' implement was doubtless worked into an oval; and occa- 

 sionally it would be found convenient to fashion those intermediate 

 varieties which are often met with. 



There are one or two slight peculiarities in these implements, 

 whether French or English, which seem to deserve notice, as they 

 may tend to explain the uses to which they were put. Thus in 

 several of those of the pointed form the point is seen to be slightly 

 recurved ; and in many of them we find that a flat space or sui'face 

 has been left or formed, exactly adapted to receive the thumb of the 

 right hand, which, if it had been constantly pressed upon a sharp or 

 rugged surface, would soon have become sore and inflamed. I have 

 never shared the opinion that these things were either weapons of 

 war or of the chase ; and the peculiarities alluded to (coupled with 

 the circumstance that the pointed end is almost always found to be 

 broken and blunted) tend to support the belief that they were used 

 as hand-spades or dibbles, perhaps for digging roots. 



