c.400,000 B.C. A good Lower Palaeolithic "Clactonian" flint steep sided scraper flake tool found on the foreshore of the River Orwell, Ipswich, Suffolk and from a old Suffolk collection. Fashioned from a large thick flake of dark black and brown flint, cortex remaining on gripping side of tool, a large percussion scar on top surface where the right thumb sits nicely affording a good grip of the tool for use, a steep blade edge which has then been reworked to further enhance it. The tool would most likely have been used for scraping fat from animal hides to make clothing. [The Clactonian culture derives it name from a collection of prehistoric material originally found on a site close to Clacton-On-Sea in Essex, England. At the famous site of Swanscombe, Kent, the deposit known as the Lower Gravels contained large amounts of distinctive Clactonian style tools, suggesting that a Clactonian tribe had established a riverside campsite in the area over 400,000 years ago. The Clactonian tribe made distinctive tools from flint pebbles and flakes struck from larger nodules. Some of these tools were quite crude, just simple worked pebbles, but others show a higher standard of craftsmanship, particularly flint cores worked to a rough edge for use as choppers or chopping tools]. Good condition with a nice old colouration and surface ageing, a pleasant early stone age tool, 77mm long x 53mm wide x 18mm thick.
