Note on Le Moustier Flints from Acton, West Drayton and Iver

Abstract

I am exhibiting a number of flakes and implements, which appear to be of Le Moustier date, from Acton on the Taplow Terrace, and West Drayton and Iver on the Boyn Hill Terrace.The Acton specimens are from the immediate vicinity of the working floor discovered by the late Mr. Allen Brown some forty years ago. During recent excavations in Creffield Road, I picked out of the brick-earth, thrown up from a depth of 4 to 6½ feet, seventy humanly struck flints. Forty-six are unpatinated, fresh-looking and unabraded, twenty have a bluey-white patination, amongst which are several with slightly dulled edges, and four are light-ochreous. The freshness of the cortex on several of the unpatinated flints suggests that some of the raw material was derived directly from the chalk. The majority are simple flakes and spalls. The remainder consists of eighteen small Levallois flakes, varying in size from 2 by 1½ to 3½ by 2¼ inches, one small tortoise core, a small flattish core with flaking on one face at right angles to that on the other, a flint pebble which has been used as a hammerstone, one small point and two exceptional pieces. One of these is a fairly typical graver (bee de flûte) with bluey-white patination (Fig. 1); the other may be described as a busked graver, it is made from a thickish external flake and is unpatinated (Fig. 2). A few of the flakes shew slight signs of use.