can be with propriety classed among boring tools, as it is possible that they may have been intended and used for some totally different purpose, such, for instance, as forming the tips of arrows, for which, from their symmetrical form, they are not ill adapted. Though the points of those, like Fig. 231, are much rounded, it maybe that they were mounted like the chisel-edged Egyptian flint arrow-heads, of which hereafter. A number of instruments of this form have been found in Derbyshire and Suffolk, but that here figured came from the Yorkshire Wolds, and has been made from a part of a thin flat flake, one edge of which forms the base opposite to the semicircular point. The side edges, which expand with a sweep to the base, are carefully chipped to a sharp angle with the face of the flake; but in some instances this secondary working extends over a greater or less portion of both faces. Some specimens are also much longer in their proportions. The original edge of the flake, which extends along the base, is usually unworn by use, so that if these objects were boring tools this part may have been protected by being inserted in a notch in a piece of wood, which in such a case would serve as a handle for using the tool after the manner of an auger. A few examples of this kind have been found on the Culbin Sands[1], Elginshire. The same form has been found in the Camp de Chassey[2] (Saône et Loire).
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| Fig. 231.—Yorkshire Wolds. 11 | Fig. 232.—Yorkshire Wolds. 11 |
Fig. 232 is also from the Yorkshire Wolds. Though more acutely pointed than Fig. 231, it seems to have been intended for much the same purpose, and it has been formed in a similar manner. The secondary working is principally on the convex face of the flake, but owing to an irregularity in the surface of the flat face, a portion of it has been removed by secondary chipping along one edge, so as to bring it as nearly as possible in the same plane as the other. For whatever purpose this instrument may have been designed, its symmetry is remarkable.
I have a somewhat similar instrument from Bridlington, but triangular in form, with the sides curved slightly inwards, and the two most highly wrought edges produced by chipping almost equally on both faces of the flake. Such a form approximates most closely to some of those which there appears reason for regarding as triangular arrow-heads. In America, some forms which might be taken for arrow-heads have been regarded as drills.
There is a series of minute tools of flint to which special attention
