Welsh Journals

A PLANO-CONVEX KNIFE FROM CRAIG Y PISTYLL Fig. VIII, 19 The purpose of this brief note is to place on record the discovery of a fine flint implement from Craig y Pistyll reservoir (O.S. SN 720 857 approx.) during the dry summer of 1976 by Bryn Thomas. Mr. Thomas has kindly lent the artifact to the Ceredigion Museum where it is accessioned number 980. Dr. J. Owen and Mr. C. H. Houlder kindly drew the artifact to the writer's attention, and acknowledgment is due to Dr. Owen and Mr. Thomas for permission to publish it and to Mr. G. A. Ward for the illustration (Fig. 19). The implement (Fig 19) is a plano-convex knife which is difficult to date precisely. The type has been found in both Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age contexts so that its lifespan might have been from as early as, say 3,000 B.C. to around 1,500 B.C. or even later. The knife is 8.7 cm long, 2.4 cm wide and 1.05 cm thick and is made from opaque grey to dark grey banded flint with the slightest hint of a chalky cortex at the striking platform. It is almost sickle-shaped, fashioned by skilful pressure-flaking with a blunted edge along the curved ventral part of the tool. The dorsal edge remains serrated and a little sharp. The source of the chalk flint was probably coastal drift deposits or even unmapped inland glacial drift which was fairly close to hand. C. S. BRIGGS Aberystwyth lj. G. D. Clark, The date of the Piano-Convex flint-knife in England and Waels,' Antiquaries Jaum. xii (1932), pp. 157-162.