138 The Pcdceolithic Implements and Gravels of Knowle, Wilts. 



made, there are more of the older than of the newer types. 



The large number of implements found has suggested to some 

 authors that Knowle was the site of a camping ground, but we see 

 no reason for inferring this. Many characteristic flint-flakes have 

 been obtained from the pit, some exhibiting well-defined scratches, 

 but there is no evidence whatever that man lived at Knowle, or 

 that the implements found were worked on the spot. The compo- 

 sition of the gravel shows that it must have been the de'hris of a 

 large district of denuded chalk, mixed with the few foreign 

 rocks which are usually found in such gravels and an abundance 

 of man's implements. 



To return to the .scratches themselves. They are in many cases 

 deep and noticeable enough, and as a rule the larger flints exhibit 

 larger scratches in proportion. The fact that depressions have 

 escaped scratching is very worthy of notice. It has been objected 

 that the scratches are not so straight or parallel as might be 

 expected if they were of glacial origin. Scratches in different 

 directions are, however, characteristic of all such glaciated stones, 

 and are naturally due to their ever-varying position, as they are 

 borne along the bed of the glacier. 



The gravel at Knowle is not unique in providing scratched flints. 

 The so-called eoliths of Mr. Benjamin Harrison, from the plateau 

 gravels of Kent, show not infrequently very well-marked scratches, 

 of a similar character, as do also certain undoubted pal?eoliths from 

 those gravels, described by one of us before the Geological Society 

 some few years ago. The nature of these as glacial scratches was 

 at that time allowed to pass quite unchallenged. If then we may 

 be fairly justified in considering the Knowle scratches as produced 

 by glacial action, we have a long train of evidence to show that 

 man lived upon the earth in the pre- or inter-glacial period, and 

 in so far as certain extremely well-made implements from Knowle 

 exhibit such markings, we have evidence that even, then man was 

 no novice in the art of striking flakes. 



