SCRAPER (TOOL)

A large flint end-scraper dating from the late Neolithic or early Bronze Age. The scraper is U-shaped in plan, S-shaped in profile and plano-convex in cross-section; it is 76 mm in length, 52 mm in width, 18 mm thick and 73.25 g in weight. Made on a secondary flake of local beach grey-brown flint, mottled with small light grey inclusions, with two small patches of creamy-grey cortex remaining at the distal end. On the dorsal face are two large scars, from the removal of earlier flakes, which end abruptly 20 mm from the distal end where the angle of the surface of the original core curved suddenly downwards. The steep, wide, distal edge of the dorsal face has been carefully modified, removing most of the remaining the cortex at that end by at least 16 invasive pressure flakes, resulting in a sharp edge which is at an angle of about 45 degrees to the ventral surface. There is a large striking platform at the proximal end, with a well-defined point and bulb of percussion and a large bulbar scar on the ventral face. The conchoidal ripples are clearly visible on the ventral face, which curves sharply upwards from about the mid-point to produce a concave face, ideal for the manufacture of a scraper.

Scrapers are one of the most common implements throughout prehistory; the careful selection of the flake and the skilled retouch of its edge suggest that this scraper is of the Neolithic or early Bronze Ages rather than the later industries when flint working technology was declining. Bond (2004) illustrates two similar large end scrapers from the later Neolithic site at Easton Lane, Winchester on p.141, fig.5.127, nos.2 & 11, one large faceted waisted scraper from the Beaker site at Belle Tout, East Sussex on p.145, fig.5.131, no.1, and a scraper from Bronze Age contexts at Mount Pleasant, Dorchester, on p.151, fig. 5.135, no. F111.