Primceral Man in the Valley of the Lea. 
123 
from where they are now found. An implement of this class 
is illustrated, one half actual size, at fig. 9 (No. 172 in my 
collection), and was found by me at Wanstead. 
A very important point has now to be especially noticed: 
when these ochreous instruments were originally tossed about 
and buried in the gravel, some of them became chipped, and 
even broken. Now the chipped and broken surfaces of these 
older implements are never ochreous, but invariably of the 
natural colour of the flint, and lustrous. This lustre has 
been acquired since the gravels were laid down, and it exactly 
agrees with the lustre of the sub¬ 
abraded lustrous implements of 
medium age found from 8 to 10 
feet above the ochreous ones. It 
follows, therefore, that the lustrous 
implements, although enormously 
old, can only be as old as the time 
when the ochreous ones were 
bruised and broken in the gravels 
where they are now found. 
Another fact must be mentioned 
here : the men who used the oldest 
known tools sometimes broke them 
in two whilst they were at work with 
them ; the accidentally-fractured 
surfaces of this class are of course 
as old as the tools, and therefore 
always ochreous. Points and butt-ends wholly ochreous are 
of common occurrence : these pieces of tools must have been 
shattered for long ages before the gravels of middle age were 
laid down. 
The men who made and used the rude ochreous tools were 
to a great extent a “whole-handed” race—they had not 
learned the full use of their fingers, but held the weapons as 
one would now hold a heavy stone for smashing. It is 
probable that the more pointed end of the club-shaped 
implements was sometimes grasped in the hand and the butt 
used as a club or hammer. The absence of scrapers indicates 
Fig. 9.—Implement of the 
oldest class. 
