Flakes occur, but not so abundantly, in Spain and Portugal. A fragment of a ridged flake of jasper, found in the cave of Albuñol in Spain,[1] is 112 inches long. In one of the Genista Caves[2] at Gibraltar there was found one of the long flakes, but of which a part had been broken off. Another was 612 inches long and 58 inch wide. In Algarve,[3] Portugal, they have been found up to 15 inches in length; some of them are beautifully serrated at the edges.
In Italy they are by no means uncommon, sometimes of great length. One, 7 inches long, is figured by Nicolucci.[4]
Among the Swiss Lake-dwellers considerable use was made of flint flakes, not only as the material for arrow-heads, but for cutting tools. So great was the abundance of flint left on the site of some of their habitations, as at Nussdorf,[5] that in after ages the spot was resorted to for generations, in order to procure flints for use with steel. It was by their being thus known as flint-producing spots that some of the Lake-dwellings were discovered. A flake nearly 7 inches long, from peat, in the Canton de Vaud, has been engraved by De Bonstetten.[6]
A flake 9 inches long from Transcaucasia[7] has been figured.
In Egypt[8] flakes of flint have been found in considerable numbers in certain localities, some of them associated with polished stone hatchets; others are possibly of no extreme antiquity, though undoubtedly of artificial origin, and not of merely natural formation, as has been suggested by Lepsius.[9] That distinguished antiquary has, however, found a number of well-formed ridged and polygonal flakes in Egypt, some of them in a grave which he has reason to assign to about 2500 B.C.
A vast number of discoveries of flint flakes and other forms of worked flints has, of late years, been made in Egypt. It will probably be sufficient to indicate in a note[10] some of the principal memoirs relating to the subject. They are found also in the Libyan[11] desert. The discoveries at Helouan will be subsequently mentioned.
The presence of numerous flakes, scrapers and other forms of flint instruments, has also been noticed in Algeria.[12] They are for the most part rude and small.
Elint flakes and tools are found on Mount Lebanon,[13] and on the Nablus[14] road from Jerusalem there are mounds entirely composed of flint chippings.
- ↑ De Gongora, "Ant. Preh. de Andalusia," p. 49, fig. 60.
- ↑ Trans. Preh. Cong., 1868, pl. viii. 3.
- ↑ "Ant. do Algarve;" da Veiga, 1886, vol. ii. p. 162, pl. viii.
- ↑ "Di alcuni armi ed Utensili in Pietra," 1863, Tav. ii.
- ↑ Keller, "Pfahlbauten," 6 ter, Ber, p. 272.
- ↑ "Supp. au Rec. d'Ant. Suisses," pl. i. 5.
- ↑ Zeitsch. f. Ethn., vol. xvi. p. (105), pl. iii.
- ↑ Rev. Arch., vol. xx. p. 441. Matériaux, vol. v. p. 399 bis; Comptes Rendus, 1869, vol. lxix. p. 1312. Arcelin, "Ind. prim. en. Egypte et en Syrie," 1870.
- ↑ Zeitschrift für Ægypt. Sprache, &c., Juli 1870.
- ↑ Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. iv. p. 215 (Lubbock); vii. p. 290. Zeitsch. f. Ethn., vol. xxi. pl. iv. v. "Die Stein-zeit Afrika's," R. Andrée. Intern. Archiv, vol. iii. p. 81. "Ægypten's vor-metallische Zeit." Much, Würzburg, 1880. Nature, vol. xxxii. p. 161; xxxiii. 311 (Wady Halfa).
- ↑ Tr. Cong. Préh. Stockholm, 1874, p. 76.
- ↑ Comptes Rendus, 1869, vol. lxviii. pp. 196, 345.
- ↑ Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. i. pp. 337, 442.
- ↑ Quart. St. Palest. Expl. Fund, 1874, p. 158.
