A long bludgeon-shaped nodule of flint, from one end of which a succession of flakes had been struck, was found in a grave, with a contracted skeleton, in a barrow near Winterbourn Stoke,[1174] Wilts. Illustrations of cores, and of the manner in which flakes have been struck from them, have been given by various authors.[1175] The existence of flakes involves the necessity of there having been cores from which they were struck; and as silicious flakes occur in almost all known countries, so also do cores. A series of French _nuclei_ is |278| figured by Mortillet,[1176] and a fine example from Olonetz,[1177] Russia, by Worsaae. They have also been found in the Arabian desert.[1178] Those of large size and of regular polygonal form are rare in Britain and Ireland, and, indeed, generally in Europe. Some of the largest and most regular occur in Scandinavia. I have also some good examples from Belgium. Many of the cores from Spiennes, near Mons, were subsequently utilized as celts; and the same was the case to some extent at Pressigny, the large cores from which have already been described. The Mexican[1179] and East Indian[1180] forms, in obsidian and cherty flint, have also been mentioned. They are unsurpassed for symmetry and for the skill exhibited in removing flakes from them. [Illustration: Fig. 190.—Newhaven. 1∕2] [Illustration: Fig. 191.—Redhill. Reigate. 1∕2] [Illustration: Fig. 192.—Icklingham. 1∕2] [Illustration: Fig. 193.—Seaford. 1∕2] It is worthy of remark that cores and flakes of obsidian, almost identical in character with those from Mexico, but generally of small size, have been found in Greece, principally in the island of Melos.[1181] Specimens are in the Christy Collection, and I possess several. Obsidian nuclei are also found in Hungary. Simple flakes and splinters of flint have been found in considerable numbers over almost the whole of Britain. Of the four here shown, Fig. 190 was found near Newhaven, Sussex; Fig. 191 near Reigate, Surrey; Fig. 192 near Icklingham, Suffolk; and Fig. 193 at Seaford, Sussex. At each of these places they occur in great numbers on the surface, and near Reigate some thousands were collected nearly forty years ago by Mr. Shelley,[1182] of whose discoveries I have given an account elsewhere. The counties in which they principally abound are perhaps |279| Cornwall,[1183] Devonshire,[1184] Dorsetshire, Wilts, Hants,[1185] Surrey,[1186] Oxfordshire,[1187] Sussex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Derbyshire, Lancashire,[1188] and Yorkshire; but they may be said to be ubiquitous. In some parts of Devonshire, and especially near Croyde, they occur in great numbers, so great, indeed, as to have led Mr. Whitley[1189] to suppose them to have been formed by natural causes rather than by human agency. Far more rational accounts of them have been given by Mr. Townshend M. Hall,[1190] Mr. H. S. Ellis,[1191] and Mr. C. Spence Bate.[1192]