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A Series of Mineralised Bone Implements of a Primitive Type from Below the Base of the Red and Coralline Crags of Suffolk

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2013

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Extract

The object of this paper is to describe and illustrate a series of heavily mineralised bone implements of a primitive type which (in the case of the Red Crag) have been found associated with numerous humanly-fashioned flints during diggings conducted in the detritusbed below the base of the Red and Coralline “Crags” of Suffolk.

The author is fully aware of his heterodoxy in claiming that bone was utilised in implement-making at such a remote period as that to which any pre-Crag remains must be referred, but having conducted a number of experiments in which mineralised and unmineralised bones were subjected to the effects of fortuitous blows and pressure, and after having fractured numerous modern shank bones of the bullock by striking and cutting them with flints and other stones held in the hand with a view of thus shaping them to the forms of the sub-Crag examples, he is compelled to regard these latter specimens as undoubted works of man.

Type
Original Papers
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1915

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References

page 117 note * Dawson, C. and Dr.Smith-Woodward, A.. ‘A bone implement from Piltdown, Sussex”. Nature, Dec. 17th, 1914Google ScholarPubMed.

page 117 note † Fisher, O.. Geological Magazine, May, 1912, p. 218Google Scholar.

page 122 note * The dotted lines which are continued from one or other edge of the specimens depicted indicate approximately part of the original outline of the bone from which the implement was made. The edges from which dotted lines are not continued are those which have been produced by artificial means. The direction of the grain of the bone is clearly shown in each drawing.