136 Primaeval Man in the Valley of the Lea. 
Whether the Palaeolithic men ever used “ anvil-stones,” as 
some persons believe the Neolithic men did, seems uncertain, 
but my impression is they certainly did. Massive blocks of 
flint showing distinct marks of hammering are by no means 
uncommon in Palaeolithic gravels. One found by myself on 
the “Palaeolithic Floor” is here illustrated (fig. 21); the 
vertical arrows show the direction of vertical hammering, 
and the horizontal arrows the direction of blow^s delivered on 
the block in a horizontal direction. With the exception 
of the bruised and splintered edge seen between the tw T o sets 
of arrows, all the other edges of the block are sharp. I was 
present when the block was 
exposed on the “Floor”; 
many sharp flakes were found 
near it, and several quartzite 
hammer-stones ; — that is, 
quartzite pebbles with the 
ends abraded off by ham¬ 
mering; one of these pebbles, 
illustrated half actual size at 
fig. 22 (formerly No. 18 in my 
collection), is now in the pos¬ 
session of Mr. John Evans. 
The dotted parts show where 
the pebble is abraded away. 
This brings us to the ques¬ 
tion of what is an artificial 
flint flake, of which hundreds of thousands exist in the Lea 
Valley, a hundred or more flakes to every implement. A 
flake of good character is generally a somewdiat thin piece or 
slice of flint, with several facets on one side and none on the 
other; the perfectly plain side is furnished at its base with a 
cone or bulb of percussion, a small conchoidal swelling ex¬ 
tending into a conchoidal curve. This cone and its extension 
to a curve is peculiar to a flint artificially fractured with a 
round-headed hammer. Outside flakes are very common ; 
these are the first flakes struck from the parent block of 
flint; one side shows the natural crust, and the other side is 
Fig. 22.—Quartzite Hammer- 
stone, one half actual size. 
