Page:Archaeologia volume 38 part 2.djvu/65

Rh they might also have been mounted as hatchets by insertion in a socket scooped out in a handle.

But all this is conjecture. In point of workmanship, I think it will be perceived that the weapons or implements now under consideration differ considerably from those of the so-called Stone period: of these latter, by far the greater number (with the exception of arrow heads) are more or less ground, and even polished; some with the utmost care all over, but nearly all ground sufficiently to ensure a clean cutting edge. The implements from the drift are, on the contrary so far as has been hitherto observed, never ground, but their edges left in the rough state in which they have been chipped from the flint.

The manner in which they have been fashioned appears to have been by blows from a rounded pebble mounted as a hammer, administered directly upon the edge of the implements, so as to strike off flakes on either side. At all events I have by this means reproduced some of the forms in flint, and the edges of the implements thus made present precisely the same character of fracture as those from the drift.

In instances where (either from having been left accidentally unfinished, or from never having been intended to be ground,) the weapons of the Stone period have remained in their rough-hewn state, it will be observed that, with very few exceptions, they are chipped out with a greater nicety and accuracy, and with a nearer approach to an even surface, than those from the drift, and, rude as they may appear, point to a higher degree of civilisation than that of the race of men by whom these primitive weapons or implements were formed.

There is indeed a class of flint implements, which are stated to have been found in the peat deposits on the banks of the Somme, which in point of rudeness of workmanship appear to equal these more ancient forms from the beds of drift, though for the most part essentially different in shape; I have not, however, given sufficient attention to them to speak with confidence as to their precise character, and will not complicate the question by making further allusion to them.

I think that enough has been said to make it apparent to all who have made a study of the stone implements usually found (those of the so-called Stone period) that the spear-heads and sling-stones, or axes, or by whatever name they are to be called, which are now brought under their notice, have but little in common with the types already well known ; they will therefore be prepared to receive with less distrust the evidence I shall adduce, that they are found under circumstances which show that, in all probability, the race of men who fashioned them must have passed away long before this portion of the earth was occupied by the