For four days in May 1975 the town of Maastricht was once again the host to an International Scientific & Archaeological Symposium on Flint, the most important raw material used by man for 99% of the long period of his existence in Europe, probably at least one million years. The Maastricht Flint Symposium was originated by our hosts, the members of a local branch of the Netherland Geological Association, who were particularly concerned with the occurrence and the character of the unique raw material in the Maastrichtian and other Cretaceous formations in Limbourg, and in its exploitation by Prehistoric Man. One section of the local Geological Association, the Prehistoric Mining Workgroup, specialised in the discovery and investigation of the underground prehistoric flint mines of the Rykholt-St. Geertruid complex. From the beginning in 1969, therefore, the Maastricht Flint Symposium had assumed a truly international character, with the assistance and collaboration of scholars and scientists both from those countries – France, Belgium and Germany – who shared a common frontier with the Netherlands and whose archaeological and geological problems were closely related, and also with countries further afield. As Cretaceous flint is found over most of Europe from England to the Crimea, and from Scandinavia to Morocco, wherever chalk is found, so in 1975 visitors to the Maastricht Symposium came from many countries, and reports and papers represented countries in East Europe, such as Poland and Hungary, as well as a contingent from England. The Netherlands itself was represented at Maastricht both by the most distinguished archaeologists, including Professor Waterbolk and Professor Modderman, and also by an impressive group of physicists and geologists, in addition to local representatives. It was plain that the Maastricht Symposium has been accepted by the scientific and learned institutions as a specialist institution for the study of Flint, like the International Congress of Glass Studies and others of their kind; a suitable place for the exchange of information on the frontiers of knowledge.