138 Primaeval Man in the Valley of the Lea.
handles (and so not resembling Neolithic celts); they were
always used in the naked hand; when asperities were present
on the flint, the hand was protected in some way, possibly by
a piece of hide, or by rushes or other vegetable material. I
have an implement with remains of vegetable stems still
adherent. The implements were used for anything and
everything the primaeval men wanted to do—cutting, hacking,
and scraping with the edges, piercing and stabbing with the
point, and no doubt hammering with the butt, the pointed part
being sometimes held in the hand after the style of a hammer-
handle. Nothing is more common than to see unquestionable
marks of use on implements and flakes. The implements
were frequently broken whilst being used as choppers and
wedges ; this accounts for the occurrence of so many damaged
points and butt-ends, and free butts and points. The edges
of implements are commonly worn away by use, the result of
such use being manifest in a concave depression often of
considerable size in the cutting-edge. Flakes, often being
naturally knife-like in form, were commonly used as knives
for cutting and scraping, and many flakes have a crescent-
shaped depression worn out of what was once the keenest
part of the edge.
The rougher implements were probably not much esteemed,
and possibly little care was taken in their preservation, for
as they were often made with twenty blows or less it would
not be a very arduous task to make good any losses with new
examples. Some of the implements, however, I believe, were
greatly prized and carefully preserved; some show such
extreme care and manipulative skill in their manufacture
that it is impossible to conceive of such objects being lightly
esteemed by their makers. Indeed I am inclined to believe
that some very large and ornate examples were held as
badges of office or as distinguishing marks of some sort of
personal superiority or chieftainship in the maker or owner.
It is impossible to believe with Prof. Boyd Dawkins ('Early
Man,' p. 163) that the Palaeolithic men threw their implements
away when done with. What were the men to do with their
implements when they had finished a job ? They had no