136 Primaeval Man in the Valley of the Lea.
Whether the Palaeolithic men ever used "anvil-stones," as
some persons believe the Neolithic men did, seems uncertain,
but my impression is they certainly did. Massive blocks of
flint showing distinct marks of hammering are by no means
uncommon in Paleolithic gravels. One found by myself on
the "Palaeolithic Floor" is here illustrated (fig. 21); the
vertical arrows show the direction of vertical hammering,
and the horizontal arrows the direction of blows delivered on
the block in a horizontal direction. "With the exception
of the bruised and splintered edge seen between the two sets
of arrows, all the other edges of the block are sharp. I was
present when the block was
exposed on the "Floor";
many sharp flakes were found
near it, and several quartzite
hammer-stones; — that is,
quartzite pebbles with the
ends abraded off by ham-
mering; one of these pebbles,
illustrated half actual size at
fig. 22 (formerly No. 18 in my
collection), is now in the pos-
session of Mr. John Evans.
The dotted parts show where

Fig. 22.—Quartzite Hammer-
stone, one half actual size.
the pebble is abraded away.
This brings us to the ques-

tion of what is an artificial
flint flake, of which hundreds of thousands exist in the Lea
Valley, a hundred or more flakes to every implement. A
flake of good character is generally a somewhat thin piece or
slice of flint, with several facets on one side and none on the
other; the perfectly plain side is furnished at its base with a
cone or bulb of percussion, a small conchoidal swelling ex-
tending into a conchoidal curve. This cone and its extension
to a curve is peculiar to a flint artificially fractured with a
round-headed hammer. Outside flakes are very common ;
these are the first flakes struck from the parent block of
flint; one side shows the natural crust, and the other side is