A remarkable flint implement from selsey bill

Abstract It is desirable that the large rostrate flint implement drawn in figs. 1, 2, and 3, and the hammer-stones drawn in figs. 4 and 5 should be made known without further delay to students of prehistoric archæology. These specimens were placed at my disposal in 1912 by Mr. Edward Heron Allen, F. R. S., and have now been presented to the Department of Ethnology and Mediæval Antiquities of the British Museum. They were briefly mentioned by me in a postscript to my paper on “The Discovery of a novel type of Flint Implements below the base of the Red Crag of Suffolk. These specimens were (as I am informed by Mr. Heron Allen) found in November, 1911, when the shingle was suddenly washed away below the alluvial cliffs and Raised Beach on the west shore of Selsey Bill, exposing a band of yellow clay, about 100 yards long and 4 yards in breadth. Lying on this were large flints, and the first which attracted Mr. Heron Allen’s attention were those described and figured in this communication. Besides these he collected a barrowful of large broken filnts, which he later submitted to my examination. The shape of many was suggestive of preliminary trimming, with a view to chipping as “pointed” implements, but the big rostrate implement and the two hammer-stones here figured, which were in the first instance secured by Mr. Heron Allen, were the only flints among the lot which had been obviously and certainly shaped by man. Subsequently many other large fractured flints—some of two or three pounds in weight—were found accumulated in patches on the sand at low tide, 200 yards further in a south-westerly direction. Though the shape of many of these (which were collected by visitors to the spot) was suggestive, none were discovered the fracturing of which could, at that time, be decisively attributed to human agency. After examining some hundred or more selected by Mr. Heron Allen and other observers, I came to that conclusion. It is, however, of course to be expected that other humanly-worked flints besides the three specimens now described and figured will eventually come to light at this spot.