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JULY, 1906.]
PYGMY FLINTS.
191
die often either quito unconnected with or, if pear to, are distinct from neolithic stations of the usual kind. The pygmies' are not merely small examples of the ordinary neolithic stock-in-trade. At Scurthorpe and the other sites where their peculiarities are distinctly marked, they form an independent series of special forms of arrow-beads, borers, scrapers, and other tools, which suggest the furniture of a doll's house. The profusion in which these little implements occur is also held to be an indication that they are the work of a separate race. It does not seem likely that the neolithic man accustomed to the use of full-sizer tools, whether chipped or polished, would sit down and manufacture as an extra these tiny implements to such an extent that hundreds are found on the floor of a single hut.
Clearly those arguments are not without force, but they have failed to convince either Sir John Evans or Mr. O. H. Bead. The former authority observes that "curiously "enough, identical forms have been found in some abundance on the Vindhyan Hills and in the Banda "district, India, at Helouan [Helwan), Egypt, and in the district of the Mouse, Belgium. Such an "identity of form at places geographically so remote does not imply any actual communication between "those who inade the tools, but merely sbows that some of the requirements of daily life, and the “means at command for fulfilling them being the same, tools of the same character have been developed, "irrespective of time and space."
Mr. C. H. Read, who has illustrated the 'pygmies' more fully, also alludes to the theories of Messrs. Brown and Gatty with the remark that "the curious persistence of the same forms in all "these countries has led to the conjecture that they are the work of one and the same race; but the "same argument might be used to prove that the barbed stone arrow-heads of Europe, Japan, and "North America were the productions of a single people. However, it may be explained, the "similarity of form is sufficiently striking to deserve careful attention."
Thege criticisms, although sound enough so far as they go, do not completely satisfy the mind. A barbed arrow-head is an implement of manifest utility in all countries, and the form is one whicb must inevitably suggest itself to all races of men. But the supposed independent inventions in India, Egypt, and England of all the four characteristic forms of the pygmy flints' is a different case, which does not seem to be explained adequately by the observations of Sir John Evans and Mr. Read. The theory of the migration from India to Europe of a peculiar rece specially addicted to the manufacture of pygmy flints,' which settled only in certain widely scattered localities, obviously is at best equally open to objection and it is difficult to work out that theory in a plausibly coherent form so as to give a probable explanation of the puzzling facts.
The question of the people who made these tiny implements is to some extent mixed up with the question of the uses to which the implements were applied. All sorts of guesses have been hazarded. Various writers have suggested that the little tools may have been used for engraving bone, tattooing, trepanning and such occasional purposes. But, manifestly, such explanations are properly applicablo only to a very small namber' of objects. The pygmies,' of course, might have been used for any or all the purposes named, and probably actually were so used ; because when people had nothing but flint to make tools and weapons of, flint implements had to be turned to every purpose for which they could be utilized. But sach casual user will not explain the facts that Carlleyle found five hundred of the pygmies' in a single small cave, and that Mr.-Gatty collected more than two hundred from the floor of a single hat at Scunthorpe. Implements made in such profusion must have been manufactured to satisfy somne general want, and not merely as the special tools of experts employed occasionally. The need of sewing clothes is such a general want, and I have no doubt that the pointed forms were employed as needles and awls, in addition probably to other uses. It seems likely, as has been suggested, that thu delicate little implements of the
pygmy' olass were the handiwork of the women. Possibly, this may be the explanation in part of their very localized distribution. It may be that in. neolithic times the women of some tribes
Ancient Stone Implements, and ed., p. 395.
• Guide to the Antiquities of the Stone Ago, p. 110.
