Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/668

646 Another form of pointed implement has a sharp edge along one side and at the point only, the other side heing left thick, and occasionally with the natural crust of the flint upon it. Such thick-backed single-edged implements appear to have served as knives of the rudest kind. Fig. 10 in Plate I. shows a specimen of this character. Others, like Fig. 419, present a more chopper-like form, and were probably used as hatchets held in the hand without hafts. The form is not uncommon in the Le Moustier cave.

In other cases, the end of a long nodule of flint has been chipped to a pointed form, as in Fig. 418; or a flint has been converted by half a dozen blows into a rude pointed implement, probably to serve some temporary purpose. If, after being used, such tools were thrown away, as not being worth preserving, their abundance in some gravels is the less remarkable.

There is yet another large subdivision of the pointed implements, in which the butt is chipped to a sharper edge than in those to which the name of tongue-shaped more properly applies. They pass imperceptibly from the tongue-shaped at one end of the series into the oval or almond-shaped implements, presenting a cutting edge all round, at the other. For these latter I would propose the name of

These are usually almost equally convex on the two faces, but vary in form, being most frequently ovate—that is to say, rounded at both ends, but having one end broader than the other—oval, with the two ends similar or nearly so, and almond-shaped, or ovate-lanceolate, with one end pointed. Barer forms of the same character are heart-shaped, sub-triangular, lozenge-shaped, and lunate. To these must be added the form to which the term "perch-backed" has been given, from its resemblance to that fish; and that to which Mr. Stevens has applied the term discoidal.

The ovate sharp-rimmed implements vary considerably in size and also in general proportions. Specimens of the type may be seen in Figs. 456 and 467.

In some of these ovate specimens a flat place has been intentionally left on one of the sides towards the broad end, apparently to facilitate its being held in the hand and used as a knife. In some of the implements, which, like several of those from Hoxne,