in which the flint happened to break during the process of manufacture. Though, therefore, I have here attempted a somewhat detailed classification, it must not be supposed that I consider each form of implement to have been specially made to serve some special requirement, as is the case with many of the tools and weapons of the present day. I am far more ready to think that only two main divisions can be established, though even these may be said to shade off into each other; I mean pointed implements for piercing, digging, or boring, and sharp-edged implements for cutting or scraping.
The discoidal implements are described by Mr. Stevens[1] as very coarsely worked; in typical specimens, nearly circular, very thick in the centre, and brought to an edge all round. He thinks they may have been used as missiles. The same may be said of polygonal blocks of flint, from the whole surface of which broad flakes have been dislodged by blows given in various directions. They may, however, possibly be only cores. In form they much resemble the blocks or "knuder" from the Danish kjökken-möddings.
I have never seen any of the long prismatic cores from the River-drift, though some are of rather regular form. A few hammer-stones, such as must have been used in fashioning the flint implements, have been found, and some have been already mentioned. It is, however, difficult, among a mass of rolled and waterworn pebbles, to recognize with certainty such as have served as hammers.
If, to the more regular types embraced in the foregoing classification, we add a considerable number of roughly-chipped, unsymmetrical, but, generally speaking, pointed forms of implements, and a few abnormal shapes, as, for instance, that shown in Fig. 444, we shall have a good idea of the character of the stone implements hitherto discovered in the River-drift, whether of England or the Continent.
A glance at the figures will at once show how different in character they are, as a whole, from those of the Surface or Neolithic Period, excepting, of course, mere flakes, and implements made from them, and simple blocks and hammer- stones. So far as we at present know, not a single implement from the River-drift has been sharpened by grinding or polishing, though, of course, it would be unsafe to affirm that such a process was
- ↑ "Flint Chips," p. 41.
