On some rostro-carinate flint implements and allied forms

Abstract

The specific type of flint implement which was discovered by Mr. Reid Moir, of Ipswich, in 1909, and described by me as the “rostro-carinate” type, has been found and recognised by various observers since that date. The importance of these implements arises from two facts. The first is that they exhibit a design, or “sculptural form,” distinct from that of the previously known palaeolithic flint implements. They do not belong to the platessiform tongue-shaped Chellean and Acheuillian types, nor to the amygdaloid somewhat smaller type of the same age. They cannot be grouped with the Moustierian pointed flakes and the numerous scrapers, knives and borers of various Palaeolithic ages; nor can they be referred to any recognised Neolithic type of implement. The second fact is that several specimens of this novel type—the rostrocarinate—have been found in the detritus-bed (bone-bed) of Suffolk, underlying the Red Crag, and in the remarkable “stone-bed” or “flint-bed ” underlying the Norwich Crag in Norfolk. In those deposits flint implements of the large types familiar in the terrace gravels of our river valleys are unknown.