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FLINT IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS

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Originally appearing in Volume V10, Page 524 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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FLINT IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS . The excavation of these remains of the prehistoric races of the globe in See also:river-See also:drift See also:gravel-beds has marked a revolution in the study of See also:Man's See also:history (see See also:ARCHAEOLOGY). Until almost the See also:middle of the 19th See also:century no suspicion had arisen in the minds of See also:British and See also:European archaeologists that the momentous results of the excavations then proceeding in See also:Egypt and See also:Assyria would be dwarfed by discoveries at See also:home which revolutionized all previous ideas of Man's antiquity. It was in 1841 that See also:Boucher de See also:Perthes observed in some See also:sand containing mammalian remains, at Menchecourt near See also:Abbeville, a flint, roughly worked into a cutting See also:implement. This " find " was rapidly followed by others, and Boucher de Perthes published his first See also:work on the subject, Antiquites celtiques et antediluviennes: memoire stir l'industrie See also:primitive et See also:les arts a leur origin (1847), in which he proclaimed his See also:discovery of human weapons in beds unmistakably belonging to the See also:age of the Drift. It was not until 1859 that the See also:French archaeologist convinced the scientific See also:world. An See also:English See also:mission then visited his collection and testified to the See also:great importance of his discoveries. The " finds " at Abbeville were followed by others in many places in See also:England, and in fact in every See also:country where siliceous stones which are capable of being flaked and fashioned into implements are to be found. The implements occurred in beds of See also:rivers and lakes, in the tumuli and See also:ancient See also:burial-mounds; on the sites of settlements of prehistoric man in nearly every See also:land, such as the See also:shell-heaps and See also:lake-dwellings; but especially embedded in the high-level gravels of England and See also:France which have been deposited by river-floods and See also:long See also:left high and dry above the See also:present course of the stream. These gravels represent the Drift or See also:Palaeolithic See also:period when man shared See also:Europe with the See also:mammoth and woolly-haired See also:rhinoceros. The worked flints of this age are, however, unevenly distributed; for while the river-gravels of See also:south-eastern England yield them abundantly, none has been found in See also:Scotland or the See also:northern English counties. On the See also:continent the same partial See also:distribution is observable: while they occur plentifully in the See also:north-western See also:area of France, they are not discovered in See also:Sweden, See also:Norway or See also:Denmark.

The association of these flints, fashioned for use by chipping only, with' the bones of animals either See also:

extinct or no longer indigenous, has justified their reference to the earlier period of the See also:Stone Age, generally called Palaeolithic. Those flint implements, which show signs of polishing and in many cases remarkably See also:fine workmanship, and are found in tumuli, See also:peat-bogs and lake-dwellings mixed with the bones of See also:common domestic animals, are assigned to the See also:Neolithic or later Stone Age. The Palaeolithic flints are hammers, flakes, scrapers, implements worked to a cutting edge at one See also:side, implements which resemble See also:rude axes, See also:flat ovoid implements worked to an edge all See also:round, and'a great quantity of See also:spear and arrow heads. None of these is ground or polished. The Neolithic flints, on the other See also:hand, exhibit more variety of See also:design, are carefully finished, and the particular use of each weapon can be easily detected. Man has reached the See also:stage of culture when he could socket a stone into a wooden handle, and See also:fix a flaked flint as a handled See also:dagger or See also:knife. The workmanship is See also:superior to that shown in any of the stone utensils made by See also:savage tribes of historic times. The manner of making flint implements appears to have been in all ages much the same. Flint from its mode of fracture is the only See also:kind of stone which can be chipped or flaked into almost any shape, and thus forms the See also:principal material of these earliest weapons. The blows must be carefully aimed or the flakes dislodged will be shattered: a See also:gun-flint maker at See also:Brandon, See also:Suffolk, stated that it took him two years to acquire the See also:art. For accounts of the gun-flint manufacture at Brandon, and detailed descriptions of ancient flint-working, see See also:Sir See also:John See also:Evans, Ancient Stone Implements (1897), See also:Lord See also:Avebury's Prehistoric Times (1865, 1900) ; also See also:Thomas See also:Wilson, Arrow-heads, Spear-heads and Knives of Prehistoric Times,'' in Smithsonian See also:Report for 1897; and W. K.

Moorehead, Prehistoric Implements (1900).

End of Article: FLINT IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS

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