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FLINT FLAKES, CORES, ETC.
[CHAP. XII.

and near Glenluce.[1] They are also recorded from Forglen,[2] near Banff, and Craigsfordmains,[3] Roxburghshire.

In Ireland, flakes converted into saws are scarce; they occur occasionally, though but rarely, with neolithic interments in France. In the Museum at le Puy is a very good specimen of a flat flake, neatly serrated with small teeth, found with a skeleton near that town. Another, found in a dolmen in Poitou,[4] has been published by M. de Longuemar. Mortillet[5] includes several forms under the general denomination of scies.

Fig. 201.—Scamridge. 1/1 Fig. 202.—West Cranmore. 1/1

Similar saws to those first described, and made from flakes more or less coarsely toothed, have been found in the cave-deposits of the Reindeer Period of the South of France, but in some caves, as, for instance, that at Bruniquel explored by M. V. Brun, they were much more abundant than in others. In the Vicomte de Lastic's cave at the same place but few occurred, and in most of the caves of the Dordogne they appear to be absent. An irregularly-notched flake was probably almost as efficient a saw as one more carefully and uniformly toothed.

Flakes of flint, carefully serrated at the edge, have been found in the Danish kjökken-möddings[6]; in Posen,[7] Prussia; and with relics of the Early Bronze Period in Spain.[8] One is recorded from the Algerian Sahara.[9] It has been suggested that some serrated flints were potters' tools, by which parallel mouldings were produced on vessels.[10]

Among the more highly finished Scandinavian stone implements there is some difficulty in determining exactly which have served the purpose of saws. The flat, straight tapering instrument, with serrated edges, which, from its many teeth at regular distances from each other, Nilsson[11] is disposed to think has probably been a saw, Worsaae[12]
  1. P. S. A. S., vol. xi. p. 584.
  2. P. S. A. S., vol. xii. p. 208.
  3. P. S. A. S., vol. xxviii. p. 337.
  4. Bull. de la Soc. des Ant. de l'Ouest, 4 Trim., 1863, fig. 18.
  5. "Mus. Préh.," pl. xxxiv., xxxv.
  6. Madsen, "Afbildninger," pl. i. 15.
  7. Zeits. f. Ethn., vol. xxviii., p. 348.
  8. H. and L. Siret, "Les premiers Ages du Métal," pl. xiii., xvi. Capelle, "l'Esp. centr.," 1895, p. 70, pl. vi.
  9. Zeitsch. f. Ethn., vol. xvii. p. 93.
  10. Zeitsch. f. Ethn., vol. xiv. p. (483); xv. p. (116).
  11. "Stone Age," p. 80, pl. v. 93.
  12. "Nord. Olds.," No. 56.