FLINT IMPLEMENTS. 
343 
certain test, for some tribes may have been more able than others 
in the manufacture of temporary tools. No highly artistic 
weapons are to be found as a rule there, for the wandering 
families would retain with them their more valuable implements; 
and these ancient camping grounds were occupied apparently 
only for the brief halts necessary for rest and repose, so that the 
duration of the stay would be too brief to admit of much careful 
work. 
Polishing and skilful finishing of tools is the result of time 
and continuous labour. Even if better implements of bronze, 
or iron, or polished stone were carried by a nomad tribe, these 
would be all too valuable, too precious, to be used for the ordi- 
nary occupations of life. “Surface finds” may belong to the 
Neolithic, bronze, or even iron ages ; for the travelling bands or 
families halting for the night at some favoured place would be 
able, in most localities, to find rough flints, out of which rough 
flakes for knives, rough tools for work, rough 4C strike-a-lights ” 
for fires might easily be made. If there were any doubt in the 
mind of the head of the household, a very few flint stones 
carried by the women or children thereof, would enable the 
necessary implements to be fashioned when the camp was 
pitched. So that scattered in patches over vast areas of country, 
on the old lines of road or communication, the sites of old camp 
fires may be marked by flint-chips and even rough implements. 
In the southern part of the valley of the Thames, between the 
river itself and the Guildford hills on the one side, and the two 
great cities of Londinium and Silchester (both prehistoric sites 
of occupation, one being the capital the other the centre of 
tribute of South-eastern England in Eoman times), on the other 
the traces of successive occupation are common. In the valley 
of the Thames are remains of animals, long since extinct, buried 
in gravel beds marking different levels of the river. Elephant 
and cave bear, hyena, and the great Bos primigenius drank of 
its waters in old time. In its higher-level gravels have been 
found, in places, true Palaeolithic implements. Over this area, 
crossed as it is by Eoman roads, marking old lines of communi- 
cation, prehistoric tribes, tribes of Saxons, and Eoman legions 
have passed and left their trace. 
Upon Easthampstead plain is a tumulus that contained 
implements of polished stone and rough pottery. On the Hart- 
ford Bridge flats is another. Near it was found a fine polished 
celt, now in the possession of Mr. Eaikes Currie. At Wickham 
bushes, near Broadmoor Asylum, are fragments of old tiling, old 
pottery of Eomano-British or Saxon work. On the road be- 
tween York Town and Frimley, at the foot of Prance Hill, were 
dug out at a few feet below the surface, Eomano-British 
cinerary urns. In the gravel of Eeading, at the junction 
