A Remarkable Flint Implement from Selsey Bill. 163 



alluvial cliffs and Eaised Beach on the west shore of Selsey Bill, exposing a 

 band of yellow clay, about 100 yards long and 4 yards in breadth. Lying on 

 this were large flints, and the first which attracted Mr. Heron Allen's 

 attention were those described and figured in this communication. Besides 

 these he collected a barrowful of large broken flints, which he later submitted 

 to my examination. The shape of many was suggestive of preliminary 

 trimming, with a view to chipping as " pointed " implements, but the big 

 rostrate implement and the two hammer-stones here figured, which were in the 

 first instance secured by Mr. Heron Allen, were the only flints among the lot 

 which had been obviously and certainly shaped by man. Subsequently many 

 other large fractured flints — some of two or three pounds in weight — were 

 found accumulated in patches on the sand at low tide, 200 yards further in a 

 south-westerly direction. Though the shape of many of these (which were 

 collected by visitors to the spot) was suggestive, none were discovered the 

 fracturing of which could, at that time, be decisively attributed to human 

 agency. After examining some hundred or more selected by Mr. Heron 

 Allen and other observers, I came to that conclusion. It is, however, of 

 course to be expected that other humanly-worked flints besides the three 

 specimens now described and figured will eventually come to light at this 

 spot.* 



The clay on which the flints collected by Mr. Heron Allen were resting is 

 of Bracklesham age. It is overlaid in the low cliff exposed at Selsey by a 

 light-coloured gravel, which has been described by the late Mr. Clement Eeid 

 as Coombe rock. 



The large " worked " flint, the position and finding of which are described 

 above, is represented in figs. 1, 2, and 3. It weighs 5 lb. 12 oz., and is 

 8 inches long and 5| inches broad. It has been shaped by numerous — mostly 

 large and coarse — fractures to the form of a rostro-carinate implement/having 

 a well-marked tapering " rostrum " (fig. 1) and a relatively flat ventral area 

 (fig. 2), corresponding to the ventral plane of a typical " rostro-carinate." But 

 there is no "carina"; that is to say, the essential shaping has not been 

 attained by the removal of large flakes of flint right and left of the mid-dorsal 

 line, so as to leave a median arete or carina. On the contrary, the shaping of 

 the rostral region has been attained by the removal of one very large flake on 

 the left side (fig. 1, A) and by a series of four parallel ribbon-like fractures 



* {Note added March 8, 1921. — Some of the large angular flints from Selsey would 

 re-pay further examination. Mr. Edward Heron Allen has recently sent nie one which, 

 I agree with him, must be admitted as bearing conclusive evidence of flaking by human 

 agency.] 



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