Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/666

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RIVER-DRIFT IMPLEMENTS.
[CHAP. XXIV.

their chipping and wear seem to me due to natural causes and not to human workmanship. There are some implements which have been made from broad flakes, but which have both faces more or less trimmed, so as to come perhaps more properly under another category. Another form of trimmed flake is that in which the side-edges have received their outline by secondary chipping, as in Fig. 431. Occasionally they are worked to a sharp point, like the Le Moustier type of Mortillet; and when large, and boldly re-chipped on the convex face, merge in what has been termed the shoe-shaped type.

POINTED IMPLEMENTS.

These are very various in form, and present great difficulties in any attempt to classify them. There are, however, some characteristic types, to attain which would seem to have been the aim of those who made the implements, though they were not always successful; and an innumerable variety of intermediate forms has been the result. To one of these types Mr. Stevens has applied the term "pear-shaped," but though the outline may be that of a pear, the section is so different, that the term seems open to objection. I would rather follow the nomenclature of the French quarry-men, who have given the name langues-de-chat to these implements; and term them "tongue-shaped." They are indeed as varied in their forms as the tongues of the different members of the higher orders of the animal creation, including both birds and beasts, and range as widely in their proportions, but they still retain a general resemblance to a tongue. They are either acute, or round, at the point, and the side-edges are usually sharp; but the characteristics of the form are that the greatest thickness of the implement is far nearer to the butt than to the point, and that the butt is more or less truncated. Fig. 428 gives a typical example of a long, narrow, acutely-pointed, tongue-shaped implement, equally convex on both faces, with straight side-edges, and thick truncated butt trimmed into form. Fig. 417, though so different in proportions, is a short implement of the same character. Fig. 427 affords an example of a broader variety, with a rounded point, and Fig. 447 of one broader still.

Figs. 458 and 463 may be described as tongue-shaped implements, with incurved sides; Fig. 433 as kite-like; Figs. 420 and 472 as ovate; and Fig. 423 as sub-triangular; but the general form of the implements is still, in each instance, tongue-shaped.