Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/577

Rh was formed. The point, which is usually brought to a semicircular sharp edge, has been broken in old times either by use or by attrition in the gravel. Most of these shoe-shaped instruments have been formed from large spalls of flint, so that the flat face has been the result of a single blow, though occasionally retouched by subsequent chipping.

The implement shown in Fig. 430 is of this character, but is too thin, in proportion to its size, to represent the typical shoe-shape. It has been formed from a large external flake, the bulb of percussion being at the lower left-hand corner of the figure, but on the opposite face to that shown. The flake has been trimmed into shape by chipping along the edges on both faces, so that not above half of the original inner face remains free from secondary working. The surface is, as usual, stained of a rich ochreous brown.

A considerable number of flint flakes of various sizes and shapes have been found at Redhill, many of them showing signs of use and wear on their edges, and some being worked to a quadrant of a circle or more, at the point, so as to make them almost assume the form of scrapers. I have one external flake in which is worked a curved recess, as if by scraping some hard cylindrical object, such as a round bone. The flake engraved as Fig. 431 was found by myself in December, 1865, and has had both its edges retouched by secondary chipping. The edge thus produced seems to have been worn away by use. I have a rather larger flake, presenting precisely the same characteristics, from the valley gravel of the Somme, at Porte Marcadé, Abbeville.

A little lower down the river, and on the same side as Redhill, is