The small implements of the early Acheulean included a great variety of designs developing out of the far more primitive tools of Chellean and Pre-Chellean times, namely, the planing tool, the scraper, the borer, and the knife. Each of these types develops its own variety, often fashioned with great care, primitive blades, straight-edged cutting tools, with the back rounded or blunted for the grip of the fingers, scrapers with straight or curved edges, and perçoirs or borers. The scraping and planing tools, doubtless used for the dressing of hides, are now more carefully fashioned. We also observe the racloir and the scraper finished to a point which is the precursor of the graving tool of the Upper Palæolithic.(38) Characteristic of this stage is the systematic use of large 'flakes' or outlying pieces of flint struck off from the core, which were used as scrapers or planes, or developed into small 'haches,' or coups de poing. The _core_ or _centre_ of the flint nodule still constitutes the material out of which the large typical implements are fashioned; but the _flake_ begins to lend itself to a great variety of forms, as witnessed in the evolution of the Levallois knives of the Upper Acheulean and the highly varied flake implements of the Mousterian and Aurignacian industries. The 'pointe,' or point, is a special implement chipped out of a short, sharply convex flake, taking the form of a blunt dart or spear head, pointed at one end and oval or flat at the other. [Illustration: FIG. 85. Large, typical Acheulean implements, chiefly described as _coups de poing_, after de Mortillet. One-quarter actual size. One of these (41) shows at one end a part of the crust of the flint nodule left intact to afford a smooth, firm grip to the hand. Another (43) shows a part of the crust remaining along the left side, for the same purpose. Two of the coups de poing (47 and 48) show, the one a double-curved, the other a straight, lateral edge. Another coup de poing (49), from a submarine deposit near the shore at Havre, is partly covered by acorn shells.] LATE ACHEULEAN CLIMATE The Acheulean industry continued over a very long period, and by the time the late Acheulean culture stage had been reached a decided change of climate ensued in western Europe. Along the borders of the Danube and of the Rhine, in the valley of the Somme, and even in central and southern France there are indications of a cool dry continental climate, similar to that which is now found on the southern steppes of Russia, in the Ural Mountains, and in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea. Indications of this climate have been mentioned above, as seen in the plant life in the _tuf de La Celle-sous-Moret_, near Paris, where there are evidences that trees of a cool temperate climate took the place of the warm temperate forests of early Acheulean times.