Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/522

500 scraping tool it is difficult to say. The material is black flint, now weathered grey, and is much heavier than the white flint, and apparently more cherty. Other examples of semilunar implements were also found.

Some of the large flakes found in the cavern appear to have been utilized with very little secondary trimming. That shown in Fig. 395 (No. 56) is of cherty flint, with a sharp edge along one side, while the other side is blunt for half its length from the butt-end, where it is half an inch thick and nearly square with the face, something like the back of the blade of a knife. The edge on the left side of the figure has been trimmed by secondary chipping, mainly on the outer face of the flake, except for about an inch near the butt, where the trimming has been on the inner face, the evident object having been to bring the edge into one plane. The tool is well adapted for being held in the hand, with the thick side resting against the forefinger, leaving the straight edge free for cutting or sawing along its entire length. Part of the right edge near the point seems to have been used for scraping some hard substance, such as bone. It was found in 1865, between one and two feet deep in the cave-earth in the entrance chamber. There is considerable analogy between these large boldly chipped flakes trimmed at the edge, and some of those found in the River-drifts and in the cave of Le Moustier.

A few of the round-ended instruments, to which the name of scraper has been given, were also found in the cave-earth. One of these (No. 2,183) is shown, full size, in Fig. 396. It has been formed from an external flake, struck off a flint from the chalk, the end and one of the sides of which have been re-chipped to a bevelled edge. This, however, at the side becomes nearly at right angles to the face. The butt-end has been also chipped almost to a point. The edge shows