The palæolithic implements to which Boucher de Perthes directed attention so early as 1840, were recovered from drift-gravel beds, where amorphous flint nodules, both whole and fractured, abound in countless numbers; and this tended to suggest very reasonable doubts as to the artificial origin of the rude implements lying in close proximity to them. Nor was this incredulity lessened by the significance assigned by him to other contents of the same drift-gravel. For so far was Boucher de Perthes from overlooking the endless variety of fractured pieces of flint recoverable from the drift beds, that his narrative is supplemented by a series of plates of _L’Industrie Primitive_, the larger number of which present chipped flints so obviously the mere products of accidental fracture or of weathering, that they contributed in no slight degree to discredit the book on its first appearance. Others of them, however, show true flakes, scrapers, and fragments probably referable to smaller implements of the same class, such as would be recognised without hesitation as of artificial origin if found alongside of undoubted flint implements in a cave deposit, or in any barrow, cist, or sepulchral urn. In so far as they belong to the true Drift, and not to the Neolithic or the Gallo-Roman period, they tend to confirm the idea that the large almond and tongue-shaped implements are not the sole relics of palæolithic art.
But now that adequate attention has been given to the stone implements of the Drift-folk, or the men of the Mammoth and Reindeer ages, it becomes apparent that they are by no means limited to such localities. On the contrary, sites of native manufactories of flint implements, with abundant remains of the fractured debris of the ancient tool-makers’ workshop, some of which are described on a later page, have been discovered remote from any locality where the raw material could be procured. Until the gun flint was superseded by the percussion cap, the material for its manufacture was procured by sinking shafts through the chalk until the beds of flint suited for the purpose were reached. In this the modern flint-worker only repeated the practice of the primitive tool-maker. A group of ancient flint pits at Cissbury, near Worthing, has been brought into prominent notice by the systematic explorations of Colonel A. Lane Fox. They occur in and around one of the aboriginal hill-forts of Sussex, the name of which has been connected with Cissa, the son of Ella, who is referred to by Camden as “Saxon king of those parts.” But any occupation of the old hill-fort as a Saxon stronghold belongs to very recent times when compared with that of the flint-workers, whose pits have attracted the notice of modern explorers. Colonel Lane Fox describes Cissbury Hill Fort as a great flint arsenal. Here within its earthen ramparts the workmen who fashioned the arms of the Stone age excavated for the beds of native flint in the underlying chalk, and industriously worked it into every variety of weapon. “In one place a collection of large flakes might be seen, where evidently the first rough outline of a flint implement had been formed. In another place a quantity of small flakes showed where a celt had been brought to perfection by minute and careful chipping.”[21] In other excavations the pounders, or stone hammers, were found, with a smooth rounded end by which they were held in the hand, and the other bruised and fractured in the manufacture of the flint implements that abound on the same site.[22] Twenty-five pits were explored; and from these hundreds of worked flints were recovered in every stage of workmanship: chips, flakes, cores, balls, and finished knives; drills, scrapers, spear heads, and axes or celts. In fact, Colonel Lane Fox sums up his general statement of details with the remark that “Cissbury has produced specimens of nearly every type known to have been found among flint implements, from the Drift and Cave up to the Surface period.”[23] But this “Woolwich” of the flint age occupied an altogether exceptional position, with the raw material immediately underlying the military enclosure, not improbably constructed on purpose to defend the primitive arsenal and workshop, and so render its garrison independent of all foreign supplies.
