Instruments of the same character date back to very remote times, as numbers have been found in the cave deposits of the Reindeer Period of the South of France, as well as in a few in our English bone caves, as will subsequently be mentioned. A somewhat similar form occurs, though rarely, among the implements found in the ancient River Gravels.
Besides being used for scraping hides, and preparing leather, it has been suggested, by Canon Greenwell,[1] that they might have served for making pins and other small articles of bone, and also for fabricating arrow-heads and knives of flint. As to this latter use I am doubtful, but before entering into the question of the purposes which implements of the "scraper" form were in ancient times intended to serve, it will be well to examine the evidence of wear afforded by the implements themselves. This evidence is various in its character, and seems to prove that the implements were employed in more than one kind of work.
Among some hundreds of scrapers, principally from the Yorkshire Wolds, I have met with between twenty and thirty which show decided marks of being worn away along the circular edge, by friction. In some, the edge is only worn away sufficiently to remove all keenness or asperity, and to make it feel smooth to the touch, and this perhaps along one part only of the arc. In others, the whole edge is completely rounded, and many of the small facets by which it was originally surrounded, entirely effaced. The small striæ, resulting from the friction which has rounded the edge, are at right angles to the flat face of the implement, and the whole edge presents the appearance of having been worn away by scraping some comparatively soft substance—such, for instance, as leather. When we consider what an important part the skins of animals play in the daily life of most savage tribes, and especially of those exposed to a cold climate; and when we remember the amount of preparation, in the way of dressing and scraping, the hides require before they can be available for the purposes of clothing, or even tent making, it becomes evident that some instruments must have been in use by the ancient occupants of the country for the purpose of dressing skins; and the probability of these scrapers having been devoted to this purpose is strengthened by their being worn in just such a manner as they would have been, had they been in use for scraping some greasy dressing off not over-clean leather. The scrapers thus worn away are for the most part of the horseshoe form. There are some,
- ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xxii. p. 101.
