88 By the Rev. G. H. Englekeart,F.S.A. 



meadows, which were probably a shallow lake or swamp in 

 Neolithic times. 



Some of the flints are so very rude and some so finely worked 

 that they probably extend, in their series, over a long period of 

 time. 



It is true that the conditions which apply here at Dinton would 

 only be found in similar localities on the sides of valleys, where 

 the accretion of washed down soil is large. On the uplands, and 

 more particularly on the chalk, the added humus since Neolithic 

 times is very little, and tools then deposited are almost or quite 

 within reach of the plough. 



But the implements dropped on such highlands must be ex- 

 clusive of those dropped by hunters wandering and squatting 

 along the valleys. The downs and hill tops were probably pretty 

 well as bare of cover, and therefore of game, as they are now. It 

 must have been on the wooded slopes above the marshes and below 

 the bare heights — as here along the sides of the Nadder Valley — 

 that most of the flints were lost and broken and discarded over a 

 very long period. Implements used to procure and prepare daily 

 food must form a large proportion of the sum total, and on such 

 soils as that at Dinton all but a very small part must lie on a 

 surface nob ordinarily disclosed. The almost certainty of finding 

 such flints whenever the soil hereabouts is dug deeper than usual 

 is most striking. It occurred to me to search some ground on the 

 opposite side of the valley which has been steam ploughed, and is 

 therefore as exceptional in depth of disturbance as is my double- 

 dug plot on this side. The excess of implements found there over 

 those from land ploughed in the ordinary way proved no less than 

 that recorded from my plot. The same notable excess from steam- 

 ploughed areas has been observed at Tackley, Oxfordshire, whence 

 some remarkable specimens have been added to the Pitt-Rivers 

 Museum in Oxford. 



Most of the implements fall into the classes of knives and scrapers. 

 Distinctly fashioned arrowheads are rare here; possibly, as suggested 

 by Evans, they were usually made of bone in many districts. 

 Flakes with gouge-like notches of varying aperture, perhaps for 



