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[[Margin]] [[Underlined]] SLATE IMPLEMENTS [[/Margin]] [[/Underlined]] Along with the purchase of inscribed bone fragments at Shiao Tun, I accepted a number of worked slate implements of doubtful purpose and origin which were said by the villagers to have been found with the bones. I satisfied myself that they represented no tool familiar to the present generation and brought them home for study. In general they are narrow shales of slate, slightly over a quarter of an inch thick and from five to seven inches long. One of the long edges is sharpened by beveling on both sides. The opposite long edge is flattened, and the sides are rubbed smooth. As the edge is so straight and long, without tendency to wear rounded at either end, and as there is no suggestion of hafting, it is obvious that these tools were for use in the hand and that they were not struck by mallets or hammers. Also from the nature of the slate they could have been useful against only a soft material. On the whole they seem best fitted for scrapers of hides or possibly as vegetable strippers. I have as yet seen no parallels for them among stone implements of other countries, nor have I come across any other examples in China.
       In a fuller treatment of this matter, which I plan to submit as an appendix to this report, I intend to offer a list of the characters inscribed on the bones collected by me with a transliteration into modern Chinese and an English translation where this is possible, and also to provide a list of the animals from which these bones have been taken, an analysis of the three different scripts already noticed and such parallels from the arch^[[a]]eology of other nations as may seem pertinent.