The Chipping of Flints by Natural Agencies

Extract

In 1884 I was initiated into the study ot flint and its fracture while accompanying Mr. John French, of Felstead, Essex, on his rambles alter “Chipped Flints,” some of which were for many years accepted as Palæolithic implements. From 1887-92 my apprenticeship continued under the late John Allen Brown, F.G.S., who did so much pioneer work among the Thames gravels. From those days to the present I have spent most of my spare time “Flint-hunting” in Essex, East Anglia, and the London District.

From 1896 to 1900 (in view of the geological positions in which they were found), I gradually became dissatisfied with the law laid down by authorities, that facetted flints and bulbous flakes were prıma facie evidence of Man; and I began to wonder whether man had really made them, or whether Nature in her diverse methods had chipped them during the more recent geological formations. These doubts were strengthened in 1906 by the discovery that my treasured Palæos from Felstead were probably derived from the base of the Westleton gravels, which out-cropped near the fields in which we found them. In a pit I found chipped and facetted flints of absolutely meaningless shape.