Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/525

worn by use, while the long side is unscathed except by accidental breakage. In the instrument not figured, the scraping edge, both at the side and ends, has been on the flat face of the flake. In the other, this has been the case at the ends only, while at the side the scraping edge has been on one of the facets. I am not aware of this form of instrument having as yet been elsewhere noticed, nor indeed, to my knowledge, has observation been called to those like Fig. 399, found in the French caves. One or two specimens, of much the same character as Fig. 399, were, however, found at La Madelaine, and are in the Christy Collection. These bevel-ended flakes also occur in Neolithic times.^[1]

Fig. 401.—Kent's Cavern. (1,970) 1/2

As might be expected, the bulk of the worked flints found in Kent's Cavern are flakes and spalls, more or less perfect, and a very large proportion of them show, on some part of their edges, traces of use. It seems needless to engrave any of these simple forms, as they present no characteristics different from those of the flakes and splinters of any other age. Many of them have been made from rolled pebbles, no doubt derived from the adjacent beach. Some of the cores from which they have been struck have occurred in the cave, of which one (No. 1,970) is represented, on the scale of one-half, in Fig. 401.

Curiously enough, among the animal remains is a portion of a large canine tooth of a bear, with the edges chipped away, so as much to resemble a worked flake.

Fig. 402.—Kent's Cavern. (597) 1/2

Of the stone implements not consisting of flint or chert, perhaps the most remarkable is the hammer-stone (No. 597), shown on the scale of one-half, in Fig. 402. It is formed from a pebble of coarse, hard, red sandstone, the outer surface of which is still retained on the two flatter faces of the stone; but all round, with the exception of a small patch, the edge of the original pebble has been battered away by hammering, until the whole has been brought into an almost cheese-like form. It was found in 1865, between one and two feet deep in the red cave-earth, over which lay an enormous block of limestone, but no stalagmite. MacEnery mentions, among the objects which he discovered, a ball of granite, which was probably of the same class as this. Many such hammer-stones have been found in the French caves. I have one, formed from a micaceous quartzose pebble, which I found in the cave of La Madelaine, explored by Messrs. Lartet and Christy, which almost matches this from Kent's Cavern in size and shape. It seems possible that their use was for pounding some substances, either animal or vegetable, for food. It is, however, hardly probable that any cereals were cultivated by those who handled them. They may have

1. See p. 325 supra.