...i have had an FLO for the past 4 years but he along with other major bodies in this field failed to recognise a few pieces which i started to find which apparantly hadn't been seen before...hense after the long duration of trying to get them to see sence & with a few heat of the moment choice words we parted company...a shame but when you have an avid passion about something example myself & lithics for the past 12 years, you seem to let the frustration take control when pieces clearly man made are just dismissed as rubbish due to the fact the "experts" haven;t seen a similar prior to me presenting them...i understand it would take a very brave man to put his name to something new but my argument was & still is if apparantly there is still so much undiscovered information lying beneath our feet & so much we dont understand then why have all paths iv taken got me no where regarding getting these pieces investigated?...the reason is finance...if these pieces were accepted as being the latter it would cost government funding quite a few £££'s to compensate for the vast amount i have...unfortunately im stuck now with pieces i know to be new finds until some1 with guts is able to offer their professional opinion without getting cold feet through fear of being proven wrong. Below are some more links to pieces which were deemed as rubish clearly showing Slate being used during what ever era as not known due to lack of acceptance for tool making...apparantly it never was used due to its fragility...but these "experts" all say trial & error...all material was used to find a suitable...too weak not used...harder than the last material was used until an even harder material was discovered (Flint for instance) etc etc etc...this clearly shows Slate was indeed used for tools...wether it lasted or not was not the issue but it was used for trial & error never the less....shown with the Slate piece (which i have around 60 of) are Flint similars with identicle notches (Mesolithic i believe)...too exact to be coincidental in my opinion.....thoughts on this are appreciated :)

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r214/stevehartly/slateimplementwithclearworkednotchM.jpg
http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r214/stevehartly/Neoflintnotchscraperslatenotchscrap.jpg
http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r214/stevehartly/NeoFlintSlateMesoFlintallhousingnot.jpg