PALAEOLITHIC TOOLS

Taranaki Daily News, 13 December 1932, Page 11

PALAEOLITHIC TOOLS

DISCOVERY IN GLASGOW. . FIND OF IMPORTANCE. When digging recently in sand for building purposes at a depth of 15ft. under grass in a gravel-pit near Cadder, Glasgow, Mr. James. Dick exposed part of the thigh hone of a rhinoceros (says a correspondent of the London Observer). J ■ Mr. Gibson, foreman of the pit, at oqce telephoned to me and I was then, able, to visit the place without delay and to obtain the relic before it was dried up and wasted. ■ ' The bone, when whole, measured 17 inches in length and had a maximum girth of 15 inches. The rounded end, or condyle, is slightly worn. The interior of the bone is white and spongy, and the outside is covered with black stains. It was covered in a layer of sharp brown sand, 'under a layer of coarse gravel. The grit has now" been Washed from the surface of the bone, which is being saturated with a strong ' solution, of gum dammar and benzol to harden

it. ■ ’ . , Within a few feet of it, and in the same layer, there were found a few days before some water-rolled stone implements of the Palaeolithic, or older Stone Age. These implements have been chipped out, often most symmetrically, from pieces of gneiss, granite, porphyry, gabbro, basalt, ironstone, hard sandstones, conglomerates, quartz and quartzite. No flint occurs. Almost all the tools may be matched identically with early Paleaolithic relics in flint found in the South of England and France. While the spade of the modern’workman has slightly injured the bone, it would seem that it was anciently cut obliquely half-Way down the shaft as if to make it into a shoe-hom-like implement. The most easily handled and adaptable portion of the thigh-bone has been utilised by the tool-maker. One of the extremities being hemispherical presents a comfortable .firm grip for the hand, and seems to have been slightly dressed and narrowed. Its length and width agree with the ancient standards of measure. It is very rare to find that a bone of one of the great extinct mammals has been- fashioned by Palaeolithic man into an implement. It may be recalled that the famous Piltdown skull found in a Sussex gravel pit seems to have been associated with an implement like the blade of a cricket bat made out of the thigh-bone of a mammoth. • ,A short time ago, in the same Caader gravel pit, there were found remains of both mammoth and rhinoceros. It is clear that the stone implements have been washed down from old land surfaces higher up country, and that they have travelled in company with the bones, tusks and teeth of the great mammalia.Since the gravels of this, pit were laid down, the topography, of the country has greatly changed. The land then was submerged 90 feet, which testifies to the enormous antiquity of the deposits, which can scarcely be younger than 40,000 years. , . The discovery of a toe-bone, in an adjoining gravel pit, and that of the tooth of a rhinoceros, quite close to the place of the present find, comprise the only authentic records’ of rhinoceros remains in Scotland. ■