Page:VCH Bedfordshire 1.djvu/201

 EARLY MAN A skilfully made ochreous ovate and slightly abraded implement is illustrated in fig. 31. It is now in the collection of Sir John Evans. A more finished ochreous example, now in the British Museum, is shown in fig. 32. Specimens still ruder are frequent in the contorted drift. The same deposit at Caddington produced the original of fig. 33, an instrument of the highest possible finish. It is nearly perfect in shape, and its cutting edges are designedly incurved. Some of the flakes that were detached in its manufacture were minute and as thin as writing paper. It is slightly abraded and chocolate-brown in colour. From the same deposit and close by in the same pit at Caddington an implement of the rudest class has been found, in precisely the same mineral con- dition, of precisely the same colour and abraded to precisely the same extent. The original of fig. 34, a pointed implement probably made in haste, by a few well directed blows, was also found in the same deposit as the last, and at the same place. The elaborate inplement was not, during the stay of primeval man in what is now Bedfordshire, evolved from the rude forms. Both were made at the same time, by men of the same race, and many examples by the same man. The original of fig. 33 seems to have been made with more care than was actually necessary for any work that a savage might have ever wished to execute. The rude tools had as much work ex- i57