The natural fracture of flint and its bearing upon rudimentary flint implements / by J. Reid Moir. The occurence of a human skeleton in a glacial deposit at Ipswich / by J. Reid Moir. Description of the Ipswich skeleton / by Arthur Keith.

  • Moir, J. Reid (James Reid), 1879-1944.
Date:
[1912]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The natural fracture of flint and its bearing upon rudimentary flint implements / by J. Reid Moir. The occurence of a human skeleton in a glacial deposit at Ipswich / by J. Reid Moir. Description of the Ipswich skeleton / by Arthur Keith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    myself. This examination and comparison soon showed me that there was a different appearance between the stone from the sack and the others, and that primarily this difference was the angles at which the various flakes had been removed. This difference in the direction of the flakes removed, had, I have heard, been discovered some time before by Mr. W. J. Lewis Abbott, of Hastings. I, however, had heard nothing of his discovery when doing my experiments, and it is very interesting that we should have both arrived at the same conclusion independently of each other. The sack specimen had obviously had its flakes removed at varying angles, as in Plate XXII., Figure 1, the arrows indicating the direction of the blows. This is exactly what one would expect from a series of forhiitous blows, which would naturally impinge at all angles. The other specimens had obviously had their flakes removed along the edges at a constant angle, which is exactly what one would expect from a series of intentional blows, and which is inevitably the case when putting edge-flaking on a flint oneself. To detach flakes at varying angles would be a most troublesome and useless procedure. Having once found a profitable line of study like this, I quickly followed it up and made a series of outlines of various flints from my collection, which in every case showed that the blows on their edges had been delivered at a constant angle—as in Plate XXII., Figure 2. I also continued my sack experiment, and through the kindness of Miss Nina Layard, was enabled to examine a number of edge-flaked flints from Lowestoft beach, where Nature had been at work, and in every single instance I found that the flakes on these stones had been removed at varying angles, as shewn in Figure i. Now the argument of the “ Natural Forces” men has been that a stone in its progress down the course of a swift-running stream would be struck by other stones, and edge flaking result, which would be indistinguishable from man’s work. Well, even supposing we admit that a stone may get edge-flaked by stream action, I do not think that the most enthusiastic backer of Nature would or could believe that she would remove all the flakes at a constant angle along the edge. By various experi- ments I have proved that the great majority of fortuitous blows impinge directly on the edge itself, and in addition to shattering it, remove short flakes quite different from those removed by human blows, which are delivered on the side of the edge. I have been able to exactly imitate the Lowestoft beach specimens by selecting a suitable stone and striking it directly on the edge with another. I, therefore, have confidence in stating that we have here one criterion for differentiating Man’s work and Nature’s.