“By a chain of reasoning, purely zoological, we arrive at the important conclusion that the Neolithic inhabitants of the British Isles belong to the same non-Aryan section of mankind as the Basques, and that in ancient times they were spread through Spain as far south as the Pillars of Hercules, and as far to the north-east as Germany and Denmark.”
The Pygmy Race of Man in Lincolnshire
One of the most recent discoveries regarding Prehistoric Man in Lincolnshire is the finding of some thousands of diminutive flint implements at Scunthorpe, Manton Common, and Scotton, in North Lincolnshire. At the suggestion of the writer of this article, Mr. E. E. Brown made a careful search at Scunthorpe in A.D. 1900, and found some thirty or forty specimens.
Since then the Rev. Reginald Gatty, the Rev. Alfred Hunt, and others have found hundreds of specimens at Scunthorpe.
The Pygmy Flints are of various forms and sizes. Similar forms and shapes have been found in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Bedfordshire, Suffolk, Sussex, and elsewhere in England. On the Continent similar forms of Pygmy Flints have been found in Belgium, France, and Germany. They have also been found in Egypt, Palestine, North and Central Africa, and in great numbers on the Vindhya Mountains, India.
The bodies or bones of these Pygmy people have been found at Sohâgi Ghât, on the Vindhya Mountains, in Germany, and at Bungay, Suffolk, quite recently, by Mr. H. A. Dutt, of Lowestoft.[6]
The Pygmy Flints all show points characteristic of the work of man:—
- 1. The Bulb of Percussion.
- 2. The Conchoidal Fractures running down the flint.
- 3. The Dorsal Ridges on the back of the flint.
- 4. The Secondary Working along one edge.
- 5. The Patina or Skin, the result of weathering.
Their shapes have been described as—
- Crescent-shaped.
- Triangular or Scalene.
- Arrow-head.
- Round-headed and pointed.
- Chisel-shaped.
- Trapezoid or Rhomboidal.
- Flint knives with serrated edges.