138 
Primaeval Man in the Valley of the Lea. 
handles (and so not resembling Neolithic celts); they were 
always used in the naked hand; when asperities were present 
on the flint, the hand was protected in some way, possibly by 
a piece of hide, or by rushes or other vegetable material. I 
have an implement with remains of vegetable stems still 
adherent. The implements were used for anything and 
everything the primaeval men wanted to do—cutting, hacking, 
and scraping with the edges, piercing and stabbing with the 
point, and no doubt hammering with the butt, the pointed part 
being sometimes held in the hand after the style of a hammer- 
handle. Nothing is more common than to see unquestionable 
marks of use on implements and flakes. The implements 
were frequently broken whilst being used as choppers and 
wedges ; this accounts for the occurrence of so many damaged 
points and butt-ends, and free butts and points. The edges 
of implements are commonly worn away by use, the result of 
such use being manifest in a concave depression often of 
considerable size in the cutting-edg6. Flakes, often being 
naturally knife-like in form, were commonly used as knives 
for cutting and scraping, and many flakes have a crescent¬ 
shaped depression worn out of what was once the keenest 
part of the edge. 
The rougher implements were probably not much esteemed, 
and possibly little care was taken in their preservation, for 
as they were often made with twenty blows or less it would 
not be a very arduous task to make good any losses with new 
examples. Some of the implements, however, I believe, were 
greatly prized and carefully preserved; some show such 
extreme care and manipulative skill in their manufacture 
that it is impossible to conceive of such objects being lightly T 
esteemed by their makers. Indeed I am inclined to believe 
that some very large and ornate examples were held as 
badges of office or as distinguishing marks of some sort of 
personal superiority or chieftainship in the maker or owner. 
It is impossible to believe with Prof. Boyd Dawkins (‘ Early 
Man,’ p. 163) that the Palaeolithic men threw their implements 
away when done with. What were the men to do with their 
implements when they had finished a job"? They had no 
