100
THE PALAEOLITHIC PERIOD
During the high-level epoch man does not seem to have been
able to control the shape of the flakes, as they are nearly always
large and somewhat clumsily produced, but by the time the low-
level drifts were deposited he seems to have acquired great
dexterity in the manipulation of flint, for the flakes are now
usually small and neat, while others of designed shape, as for
instance the long narrow flakes with a triangular section, such
as require great skill in their production, are common. A good
example of a designedly-shaped flake is that shown in Fig. 2.
There can be no doubt that this was meant to be used as a knife,
the broad end probably being bound round with vegetable fibre
or animal sinew, after the style of the Australian knife figured
by Sir John Evans,1 and as such one cannot but admire its
effectiveness. Even more eloquent of the ability of the later
Palaeolithic people is the testimony of the spear-heads, one of
which is represented by Fig. 3, for their shape is clearly the
result of the skilful execution of a previously thought-out
pattern. A fine example in the Natural History Department
of the British Museum, in which the point has been artistically
finished by small secondary chipping, bears a close resemblance
to the obsidian spear-heads used by the natives of the Admiralty
Islands.
A rare instrument of this period is the saw. Fig 4 shews
a specimen from the low level drift at Ilford. It is a flake
of slate-black flint, which has been serrated carefully along the
edge. I found this, together with other flakes, in situ, in a bed
of gravel, which yielded bones of rhinoceros and shells of land
and fresh-water molluscs.2
Still more characteristic of the Palaeolithic period are the
peculiar tongue-shaped implements. Eolithic man confined his
work to the edges of the pieces of flint, but the tongue-shaped
implements of Palaeolithic man are skilfully chipped all over,
sometimes into delicate tapering points, and sometimes into thin
flat blades. What these implements were used for is still a
mystery, in spite of the attention that has been paid to them.
Probably the majority were used as javelin or axe-heads, but our
knowledge, meagre though it be, of the uses to which the
1 Sir John Evans, Ancient Stone Implements . . . . of Great Britain.
London: 1872 and 1897.
2 J. P. Johnson, "Palaeolithic Implements from the low-level drift of the Thames
Valley."—Essex Naturalist, vol. xii. (1901).