Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/191

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The Palæolithic implements in the late Pleistocene river-beds are rude and simple. They consist of the flake, the chopper or pebble roughly chipped to an edge on one side, the hâche, or oval pointed implement intended for use without a handle (Figs. 33, 37, 39), an oval or rounded form with a cutting edge all round, which may have been used in a handle, a scraper for preparing skins, and pointed flints used for boring. These are the principal implements in the late Pleistocene river- deposits, and although they imply that their possessors were savages like the native Australians, they show a considerable advance on the simple flake left behind as the only trace of man of the mid Pleistocene age. In this stage of culture man lived by hunting, and had not yet learned to till the ground, or to seek the materials out of which his implements were made by mining. He merely fashioned the stones which happened to be within his reach—flint, quartzite or chert—in the shallows of the rivers, as they were wanted, throwing them away after they had been used. In this manner the large numbers which have been met with in certain spots, such as Brandon in Suffolk, and Thetford, may be accounted for. Man at this time appears before us as a nomad hunter, poorly equipped for the struggle of life, without knowledge of metals, and ignorant of the art of grinding his stone tools to a sharp edge.

The researches of Boucher de Perthes and Rigollot in the fluviatile strata of the valley of the Somme at