Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/301

 EARLY MAN And so with the arrow-heads. Of these there are three main varieties : the leaf-shaped ; the lozenge-shaped ; and the barbed and tanged. Two great divisions met with elsewhere are almost wholly wanting : the tanged without barbs, and the barbed without tang — the hollow-based. The former is common in Italy and Egypt ; the latter in Ireland, Denmark, Egypt, and Japan. The types present in Suffolk may be divided into many sub-types, and they occur in very large numbers. They are frequently of the greatest beauty, and the variety of material is as great as in the case of the scrapers. One may repeat of the arrow-heads what was said of the scrapers, that a picked collection is worthy to rank with a collection of jewels. Space prevents the consideration of all the many varieties of neolithic implements so richly represented in Suffolk : the javelin-heads and spear-heads, the knife-daggers, and knives of many sorts ; the ' fabricators ' and chisels ; the axe-hammers and hammer-heads. Suffice it to say that for the most part they yield in nothing to those found elsewhere. There is, however, one class of implement found in great abundance in certain places in the county which must not be passed over in silence. This is the ' midget ' or ' pigmy ' flints. Those who have followed the course of prehistoric archaeology during the past few years will be aware of the great importance which the study of these tiny implements has assumed. They seem to occur almost everywhere where neolithic man was firmly established ; though it is especially in sandy places that the majority have been found — probably from the much greater ease with which they can be discovered in wind-blown sand than in heavy agricultural ground. Their first discovery in England was made not in sand, but under a thick coating of peat, by Dr. CoUey March, on the Lancashire moors. In Suffolk, however, it has been on sandy heaths that they have been chiefly found ; and the same is true of the great find at Scunthorpe in Lincolnshire, and in other places in England. Out of England they have been found in Belgium, in many parts of France, in Italy, Algiers, Tunis, Egypt ; whilst one of the most notable finds was that of the late Mr. A. C. Carlyle in caves in the Vindhya Hills of Central India, whence have come the most beautiful of any that have been anywhere found. Many types occur, but the strange thing is the resemblance of the types from all these widely scattered places. And the types are not simple, but highly evolved and worked out with great deUcacy and precision. This resemblance is so striking that it seems impossible that they should not have had a common origin. Not only are the implements highly finished, but they are almost always made of flint or other varieties of silica specially selected for their beauty ; indeed, those from India are largely made of precious stones ; jasper, chalcedony of the finest quality, agate, moss-agate, cornelian, and many other beautiful stones. In size they are astonishingly small ; a highly-finished little implement will be no larger than the paring of a little finger nail. Little is known about them. They are neolithic, probably belonging to some early phase of the period. Wherever found, they usually occur in large numbers, and they are rarely mixed with the larger and more generally recognized neolithic implements. As to their use, many suggestions have been hazarded ; but it is doubtful whether any of these suggestions have much probability of truth in them. Though their neoUthic origin seems certain, yet minute implements, not very dissimilar, occur in certain palaeo- 255