Page:Prehistoric Britain.djvu/145

Rh of very large dimensions made of this material, some being beautifully chipped and others finely polished, A few specimens found in Britain assume the form of a modern adze, notably one from Aberdeenshire. It is made of grey flint, finely polished, and finished to a curved adze-like edge at both ends. A few chisels are also to be noted, their characteristics being a short cutting edge and a long slender body.

The perforated axes are worked with care, being nearly all polished, and sometimes ornamented with linear grooves along the margins of the perforated surfaces. They are for the most part made of metamorphic or volcanic rocks, and vary in size from a few inches to ten or eleven inches. They may have a single or double cutting edge running parallel to the axis of the handle. In the former case the blunt end may be used as a hammer, and then the implement becomes an axe-hammer. When the cutting edge is at right angles to the handle the implement is called an adze—a very rare form in Britain.

Knives, saws and scrapers are all made of flint flakes by secondary chipping, and assume a great variety of forms, according to the shape of the flake. Originally the knife-flake and the saw were one and the same, but their specialization into separate tools dates as far back as Palæolithic times, as we find saws among the relics of the reindeer caves of France and the rock-shelter of the Schweizersbild in Switzerland.