Flint Implements and Weapons of the primitive peoples of prehistoric times are commonly found in the graves or on the sites of settlements of the earlier inhabitants of almost every country in Europe. They also occur not only in the surface soil or humus and in peat-bogs, beds of rivers and lakes, but naturally imbedded in such superficial or quaternary deposits as the old terraces of river-valleys. These terraces, which are formed of gravel and sand deposited by the river, are the marginal remains of the old river-bed, which, having been gradually deepened by the erosion of the current, has left here and there portions of the fringes of earlier deposits on the slopes of the valley. Flint implements, however, are not universally distributed through the diluvial drifts; for, while they occur pretty generally over the south-eastern area of England, they have not been found in the northern and western areas, nor in Scotland. Similarly, on the Continent, although they are found somewhat abundantly in the north-western area of France, they do not occur in Denmark, Sweden, or Norway. The types of flint implements found in these river-gravels closely resemble those from the caves of Perigord in France, and from Kent's Cavern and other caves in England. Besides possessing similar typical forms, the flint implements from the river-drifts and caves are in both cases found associated with the remains of animals which either are extinct or are no longer indigenous. For this reason, and also because the flint implements found in these associations are fashioned by chipping alone, they have been assigned to the earlier part of the Stone Age (q.v.). On the other hand, the flint implements, whether fashioned by clipping alone or finished by grinding and polishing, which are found in the surface soil, or in graves, or in lake-dwellings, &c., and in association with remains of the common domestic animals, are assigned to the later part of the age of stone. The types characteristic of these two divisions being thus distinguished by their form and finish, as well as by their associations, are classified by archaeologists as palæolithic and neolithic implements.
The palæolithic implements of rudely clipped flint are reducible to three classes. The first or best finished is an oval, sharp-rimmed implement, with a cutting-edge all round, the second a long, pointed implement, and the third a tongue-shaped implement. They differ from the neolithic types most markedly in this, that they do not obviously reveal their special uses and purposes, and that their conceivable uses or purposes are few in comparison with those so obviously disclosed by the more specialised forms and the more elaborate finish of the neolithic types, which a glance suffices to classify as arrow and spear heads, daggers, knives, saws, borers, scrapers, chisels, axes, &c. Most of the neolithic implements are finely shaped and carefully finished, while some varieties, such as the long thin knife-blades and the handled dagger-blades of Denmark and Sweden, which are finished by clipping only, are perfect marvels of workmanship—so skilfully executed that experienced lapidaries and scientists can only speak of the process of their manufacture as a lost art. No modern savages or barbarous tribes of the historic period have produced anything approaching to the masterpieces of prehistoric flint-working. Flint, from its conchoidal fracture, is the only kind of stone that is capable of being readily worked into a variety of shapes by flaking and clipping, and this is probably the chief reason why the palæolithic implements have been formed almost exclusively of this material. The methods of manufacture appear to have been in all ages pretty much the same, and in general they seem to have been analogous to those employed in the manufacture of gun-flints and strike-lights of flint still carried on at Brandon (q.v.) in Suffolk, the principal differences being that steel tools are now used instead of tools of stone and bone, and that the finer processes of surface clipping and flaking are not now practised. Detailed descriptions of the various processes of flint-working, and of the ancient and modern methods of manufacture, are given in the first part of Mr Evans's work on the Ancient Stone Implements, &c. of Great Britain (Lond. 1872); and, for the finer forms of flint implements, see Madsen, Afbeeldninger af Danske Oldsager (Copen. 1869), and Montelius, Civilisation of Sweden in Heathen Times (Lond. 1889).