Full text of "The ancient stone implements, weapons and ornaments, of Great Britain"

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* * * . . . 

A benefactor of the FitzTTJlliam 

Museum at Ccimbridge has announcefl 
his intention of presenting to the 
museum throe banners taken in 1857 
from the Palace of Delhi, -where thej' 
hung b'-'side Bchadur Shah's throne in 
the Hall of Audience. — Midland Mail. 

■ * • * * 

A beautiful series of f!int implements, 

such as were used by pre-historic man in 
Great Britain, have just, bicen plac-ed on 
view in th/^ Cen-tr-al Hall of the Natural 
History Mu!5.?um at South Kensington. 
» These roprosent 'the rude i-onls of these 
\^ prim.itivc men, and w.?-re fp.shio-ned into 
scra.pers, borers. hamnMr-hcaiis, arrow- 
heads, axe-heads, knives, aJid so on. The 
earlier, m.ore crudely fvi-shioncd of these 
tools have long been known as " Palaeo- 
lithic " implements, while beautifully 
wroug'ht tools of later generations of 
theso savage and ancient people are 
known as " Neolithic." But Sir Ray 
V y Lankester, to whom this s-eLection is due, 
V ^^s pointed out that the stone imple- 
m.onts from ihe high plateau gravels of 
the South of England arc far older than 
, "V th-e gravel terr-a-oes of existing river 
• ^ grave>1.3 whprein the PaJaiolithic imple- 
ments are found, and. accordingly, he 
suggests that the-y r,hould henceforth be 
> =^cnown las Protero'liths, sinoe they m.ust 
^5 have been fa-shioned by peonies more 
'^ n.n<'ient than th-e users of thio Palreoliths. 
•vjj^his fine a-nd most insftructive series re- 
\**^ pre^,nts Sir Ray Lankester's last legacy 
^V to the museum, his last T>\'^ce of ndminis- 
■-^ trative work before relinquishing the 
div.xrtorship of the institution which he 
has guided so successfully during the 
past d-eoade. — Daily Graphic. 



" London Opinion " Curio V/orld 
section every week. Immense and in- 
creasing circulation* 



IVicnL Joii 



^t e 





ANCIENT STONE IMPLEMENTS, 

ETC., 
OF 

GEEAT BEITAIN. 



THE ANCIENT 



STONE IMPLEMENTS, 



WEAPONS AND ORNAMENTS, 



GREAT BRITAIN. 



SECOND EDITION, REVISED. 



SIR JOHN EYAJN^S, K.C.B., 

D.C.L., Sc.D., LL.D., 

F.R.S., F.S.A., F.G.S., etc., etc. 

COEEESPONDAUT DE l'iNSTITXTT DE FEANCE. 



LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

39, PATERNOSTEH EOW, LONDON 

AND BOMBAY 

1897 

fAll ri(jhts reserved.) 



LONDON : 

PRINTED BY J. S. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED. 

CITV ROAD. 



THE GETT/ RESEARCH 
INSTITUTE LIBRARY 



PREFACE 

TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



In presenting this work to the public I need say but little by way 
of preface. It is the result of the occupation of what leisure 
hours I could spare, during the last few years, from various 
and important; business, and my object in undertaking it is 
explained in the Introduction. 

What now remains for me to do is to express my thanks to 
those numerous friends who have so kindly aided me during the 
progress of my work, both by placing specimens in their col- 
lections at my disposal, and by examination of my proofs. Fore- 
most among these must be ranked the Rev. William Greenwell, 
F.S.A., from whose unrivalled collection of British antiquities I 
have largely drawn, and from whose experience and knowledge I 
have received much assistance in other ways. 

To Mr. A. W. Franks, F.S.A. ; Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S. ; Mr. 
W. Pengelly, F.R.S. ; Colonel A. Lane Fox, F.S.A. ; Mr. E. T. 
Stevens, of Salisbury ; Messrs. Mortimer, of Fimber ; Mr. Joseph 
Anderson, the Curator of the Antiquarian Museum at Edinburgh ; 
and to numerous others whose names are mentioned in the 
following pages, my thanks must also be expressed. 

The work itself will, I believe, be found to contain most of the 
information at present available with regard to the class of 
antiquities of which it treats. The subject is one which does 
not readily lend itself to lively description, and an accumulation 
of facts, such as is here presented, is of necessity dull. I have, 
however, relegated to smaller type the bulk of the descriptive 



Tl PREFACE. 

details of little interest to tlie ordinan^ reader, who will probably 
find more than enough of dry matter to content him if he confines 
himself to the larger type and an examination of the illustrations. 

Whatever may be the merits or defects of the book, there are 
two points on which I feel that some credit may be claimed. The 
one is that the woodcuts — the great majority of which have been 
specially engraved for this work by Mr. Swain, of Bouyerie Street 
— give accurate representations of the objects ; the other is, that 
all the references have been carefully checked. 

The Index is divided into two parts ; the first showing the 
subjects discussed in the work, the second the locaKties where 
the various antiquities have been found. 

Now that 80 much more attention than formerly is being 
bestowed on this class of antiquities, there will, no doubt, be 
numerous discoveries made, not only of forms with which we 
are at present unacquainted, but also of circumstances calculated 
to throw light on the uses to which stone implements and weapons 
were applied, and the degree of antiquity to be assigned to the 
various forms. 

I will only add that I shall gladly receive any communications 
relative to such discoveries. 

JOHN EVANS. 

Nash Mills, Heinel IIem})stead, May, 1872. 



PREFACE 

TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



The undiminished interest taken by many archaeologists in tho 
subject to which this book relates seems to justify me in again 
placing it before the public, though in an extended and revised 
form. I am further warranted in so doing by the fact that the former 
edition, which appeared in 1872, has now been long out of print. 

In revising the work it appeared desirable to retain as mucb of 
the original text and arrangement as possible, but having regard 
to the large amount of new matter that had to be incorporated in 
it and to the necessity of keeping the bulk of the volume within 
moderate bounds, some condensation seemed absolutely compulsory. 
This I have eifected, partly by omitting some of the detailed 
measurements of the specimens, and partly by printing a larger 
proportion of the text in small type. I have also omitted several 
passages relating to discoveries in the caverns of the South of 
France. 

I have throughout preserved the original numbering of the 
Figures, so that references that have already been made to them 
in other works will still bold good. The new cuts, upwards of 
sixty in number, that have been added in this edition are dis- 
tinguished by letters affixed to the No. of the Figure immediately 
preceding them. 

The additions to the text, especially in the portion relating to 
the Pakcolithic Period, are very extensive, and I hope that all the 
more important discoveries of stone antiquities made in this country 
during the last quarter of a century are here duly recorded, and 
references given to the works in which fuller details concerning 
them may be found. In some cases, owing to the character of the 



■nil PREFACE. 

objects discovered being insufficiently described, I have not thought 
it necessary to cite them. 

I am indebted to numerous collectors throughout the country 
for having called my attention to specimens that they acquired, 
and for having, in many cases, sent them to me for examination. 
I may take this opportunity of mentioning that while the whole of 
the objects found by Canon Greenwell during his examination of 
British Barrows has been most liberally presented to the nation, 
the remainder of his fine collection of stone antiquities, so 
frequently referred to in these pages, has passed into the hands 
of Dr. TV. Allen Sturge, of Nice. 

The two Indices have been carefuUj^ compiled by my sister, Mrs. 
Hubbard, and are fuller than those in the former edition. They 
will afford valuable assistance to any one who desires to consult 
the book. 

For the new woodcuts that I have had engraved I have been so 
fortunate as to secure the services of Messrs. Swain, who so skil- 
{lUy cut the blocks for the original work. I am indebted for the 
loan of numerous other blocks to several learned Societies, and 
especially to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and to the 
Geological Society of London. Mr. Worthington Smith has also 
most liberally placed a number of blocks at my disposal. 

It remains for me to express my thanks to those who have 
greatly aided me in the preparation of this edition, the whole of 
the proofs of which have been kindly read by Mr. C. H. Eead, 
F.S. A., of the British Museum, as well as by some members of my 
own family. Dr. Joseph Anderson, of the National Museum at 
Edinburgh, has been good enough to read the parts relating to 
Scotland, while Professor Boyd Dawkins has gone over the 
chapter on Cave Implements, and Mr. AYilliam Whitaker has 
corrected the account of the discoveries in the River-drift. To 
each and all I am grateful, and as the result of their assistance I 
trust that, though not immaculate, the book may prove to be fairly 
free from glaring errors and inconsistencies. 

JOHN EVANS. 

li'aah Mills, Uemel Hempstead, May, 1897. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. . 

INTRODUCTORY. 

PACK 

The Iron, Bronze, and Stone Ages — Bronze in use before Iron — Persistence oi 
Religious Rites — Use of Stone in Religious Ceremonies — Stone Autiquities 
not all of the same Age — Order of Treatment 1 

CHAPTER II. 

ON THE MANTJFACTTJRE OF STONE IMPLEMENTS IN PREHISTORIC TIMES. 

Pyrites and Flint used for striking Fire— Strike -a-light Flints — The Gun- 
flint Manufacture — Gun-flint Production — Modes of producing Flakes — 
Pressigny Nuclei — Rough-hewing Stone-hatchets— Ancient Mining for 
Flint — Flint-mines at Grime's Graves and Spiennes— Production of Arrow- 
heads — Flaking Arrow-heads — Arrow-flakers — Grinding Stone Implements 
— Methods of 8awing Stone — Methods of Boring Stone — Boring by means 
of a Tube— Progress in Modes of Manufacture .14 

IMPLEMENTS OF THE NEOLITHIC PERIOD. 
CHAPTER III. 

CELTS, 

Belief in their Meteoric Origin — Regarded as Thunderbolts — Celt with Gnostic 
Inscriptions — Their Origin and Virtues — How regarded by the Greeks and 
Romans o5 

CHAPTER IV. 

CHIPPED OR ROUGH-HET\T^ CELTS. 

The Kjiikken-MiJdding Type — Some possib'y Agricultural Implements— Some 
carefully Chipped — The Common Forms — Their abundance— Discoveries 
at Cissbury — Found in company with Polished Celts — Their probable Age 67 

CHAPTER V. 

CELTS GROUND AT THE EDGE ONLY. 

Pointed at the Butt-end— Of Elongated Form— Expanding at the Ends— Of 

Peculiar Forms — Their Occurrence in Foreign Countries . . . .87 

CHAPTER VI. 

POLISHED CELTS. 

A Type common in the Eastern Counties— With the Siirface ground all over — 
Expanding at the Edge— Of other Materials than Flint — The Thin and 
Highly-polished Type— With Flat Sides— With Flat Sides and Narrow 
Butt- With Flat Sides and Pointed Butt -Of Rectangular Section— 
Chisel-like and of Rectangular Section — Of Oval Section — Of Oval Section 
with Conical Butt — Of a Form common in France — Of Oval Section 
pointed at the Butt — With a Cutting Edge at each End— Sharp at both 
Ends — Polished Celts narrowing in the iNIiddle — Used in the Hand without 
Rafting— Polished Celts of Abnormal types— Polished Celts with Depres- 
sions and Flutings — Circumstances under which they have been Found — 



X CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Their Discovery with Objects of Later Date— Their Range in Time — 
Accompanying Interments— Manner in which Hat'ted — In their original 
Handles— Inserted in Sockets in the Hafts— Ilafted with Intermediate 
Sockets — Compared with Axes of modern Savages — Mounted in Forked 
Hafts— Mounted on Wooden Hafts— Compared with Adzes of modem 
Savages— ^lounted in Withes and Cleft Sticks — Modem methods of Hafting 
Axes .98 

CHAPTER VII. 

PICKS, CHISELS, GOrCES, ETC. 

Small Hand Chisels — Gouges rare in Britain — Bastard Gouges . . .173 

CHAPTER YIII. 
PERFORATED AXES. 
Sharp at both Ends— Expanding at one End— Pointed at one End— Adze-like 
in Character— Cutting at one End only — Used as Battle-axes— Ornamented 
on the Faces— Large and Heavy— A Large Form common in the North 
— Fluted on the Faces — Boring, the last Process— Axe-hammers hollowed 
on the Sides — Axe-hammers ornamented on the Faces — Frequently found 
in Barrows — But little used by modern Savages . . . . .183 

CHAPTER IX. 

PERFORATED AND GEOOVED HAMMERS. 

Of Peculiar Forms— Some of them Weapons, not Tools— Conical, Rounded at 
each End— Made from Pebbles with Natural Holes— Of an Ornamented 
Character— Made from Quartzite Pebbles — Purposes to which Applied 
—Mauls for Mining Purposes— Of Wide Range — Net-sinkers . . .217 

CHAPTER X. 

HAMMER-STONES, ETC. 

With Depressions on the Faces— With Cup-shaped Depressions— Ridged at 
the End— Made of Flint and Quartzite— Saddle-querns— Pestles and 
Mortars— From Shetland and Orkney — Various forms of Mortars — Hand- 
mills or Querns •••........ 238 

CHAPTER XI. 

GRINDING-STONES AKD WHETSTONES. 

Uses for Sharpening Celts— Found in Barrows— Found with Interments 

Pebbles with Grooves in them . . . . . . . . .261 

CHAPTER XII. 

FLINT FLAKES, CORES, ETC. 

The Cone and Bulb of Percussion- Classification of Flakes— Polygonal Cores- 
Numerous in Ancient Settlements— Localities where Abundant— Not 
Confined to the Stone Period— The Roman Tribulum— In other parts of 
the World— The Uses of Flakes— Flakes ground at the Edg-e- Hafted 
Flakes— Flakes made into Saws— Serrated, as the Armature of Sickles . 272 

CHAPTER XIII. 

SCRAPERS. 

Used in Dressing Hides— Horseshoe-shaped— Kite-shaped and Duok-bill- 
shaped- Some like Oyster Shells in Form- Double-ended and Spoon- 
shaped— Found with Interments— Evidences of Wear upon them- Found 
with Pyrites— The Modern form of Strike-a-light— Used with Pyrites for 
producing Fire— The Flat and Hollowed Forms 298 



CONTENTS. XI 

CHAPTER XIV. 

BOEERS, AWLS, OR DRILLS. 

I'AGi; 

Fouuil ill (litferetit Countries —Of Minute Dimensions ..... 321 

CHAPTER XV. 

TRIMMED FLAKES, KNIVES, ETC. 

From different Countries — Some Trimmed Flakes, probably Knives — Knives 
from Barrows— Some pos.sibly Lauoe-heads — Knives with one Edii:e blunt 
— Of Oval Form — Sharpened by Grindingr— Of Circular Form— Of Semi- 
circular and Trianprular Form— The so-called "Plots' Knives"— Like those 
of the Eskimos— Daggers or Lance-heads— With Notches at the Sides — 
Kound in other Countries — Curved and Crescent-shaped Blades — Curved 
Knives, probably Sickles— Ripple-marked Egyptian Blades . . . 326 

CHAPTER XVI. 

.TAVELIN AND ARROW HEADS. 

Their earliest occurrence — Thought to fall from the Heavens— Superstitions 
attaching to them — Worn as Amulets — An Egyptian Aitow- Jaxelin- 
heads— Leaf -shaped Arrow-heads — Leaf-shaped Arrow-heads pointed at 
both Ends — Lozenge-shaped Arrow-heads — Stemmed- Arrow-heads- 
Stemmed and Barbed Arrow-heads— Unusual Forms— Found in Scotland 
— Localities where found — The Triansi:ular Form— Single-barbed Arrow- 
heads—The Chisel-ended Type — Found in Barrows — Irish and French 
Types — From various Countries— African and Asiatic Types— South 
American Types— How attached to their Shafts— Bows in Early Times . 3G0 

CHAPTER XVII. 

FABRICATORS, FLAKIXG TOOLS, ETC. 
Their probable Uses— Used for working in Flint 412 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

SLING-STOXES A^TD BALLS. 

Sling-stones Roughly Chipped from Flint— Ornamented Balls principally from 

Scotland — The use of •' Bolas " . . . . . .117 

CHAPTER XIX, 

BRACERS, AND ARTICLES OF BONE. 

Wrist-guards or Bracers of Stone— The use of Arm-guards — Bone Lance- 
heads and Pin.s — Needles of Bone — Hoes of Stag's Horn .... 425 

CHAPTER XX. 

SPINDLE-WnORLS, DISCS, SLICKSTONES, WEIGHTS, AND CUPS. 

Superstitions attaching to Whorls— Uses of Perforated Discs— Use of Slick- 
stones- Stones as Burnishers and M' eights — Stone Cups — Cups turned in 
a Lathe— Amber Cup — Vessels made of Stone 436 

CHAPTER XXL 

PERSONAL ORNAMENTS, AMULETS, ETC. 

Buttons of Jet, Shale, and Stone — Buttons found in Barrows — Necklaces of 
Jet — Necklaces — Beads, Pendants, and Bracelets— Rings of Stone — 
Pebbles found in Burrows— Lucky Stones and Amulets — Conclusions as to 
the Neolithic Period ........... 4,52 



XU CONTENTS. 

IMPLEMEXTS OF THE PALAEOLITHIC PERIOD. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

CAVE IJMPLEMENTS. 

PACK 

Compared with those from the River-drift — Formation of Caverns — Deposition 
of Stalagmite — Different Ages of Caverns— Chronological Sequence of 
Caverns — Fauna of the Caves — Dean Buckland's Researches— Kent's 
Cavern, Torquay— Alteration in Structure of Flint- Trimmed Flakes from 
Kent's Cavern — Scrapers from Kent's Cavern — Cores and Ilamnu-rs from 
Kent's Cavern — Bone Harpoon-heads from Kent's Cavern — Fauna of 
Kent's Cavern — Animal Remains associnted with Works of Art — Corre- 
lation of Kent's Cavern with Foreign Caves — Brixham Cave — Trimmed 
Flakes from the Brixham Cave — -The Wookey Hysena Den — The Gower 
and other Welsh Caves — The Caves of Creswell Crags— General Con- 
siderations ............ 473 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

IMPLEMENTS OF THE KIVEE-DRIFT PERIOD. 

The Discoveries at Abbeville and Amiens — Discoveries on the Continent and 
in India — In the Valley of the Ouse— Biddenham, Bedford — Hitchin, Herts 
—Valleys of the Cam and the Lark — Bury St. Edmunds — Icklingham — 
High Lodge, Mildenhall— Eedhill, Thetford — Saiiton Downham— Brome- 
hiU, Weeting— Gravel Rill, Brandon— Lakenheath— Shrub Hill, Feltwell 
— Hoxne, Suffolk — Saltley, Warwickshire — Possibility of their occurrence 
in the North of England — Gray's Inn Lane, London — Highbury, London 
— Lower Clapton, Stoke Newington, &c. — Ealing and Acton — West 
Drayton, Burnham, Reading — Oxford and its Neighbourhood — Pease- 
marsh, Godalming — Valleys of the Gade and Colne — Caddington — No 
Man's Land, "Wheathampstead — Valley of the Lea— Valley of the Cray — 
Swanscomb and Milton Street — Ightham, Sevenoaks— Limpsfield, Surrey — 
Valley of the Medway — Reculver — Thanington, Kent — Canterbury and 
Folkestone — Southampton — Hill Head, Southampton Water- The Fore- 
land, Isle of Wight — Bemerton, Salisbury — Finherton and Milford Hill, 
Salisbury — Bournemouth and Barton Cliff— Valley of the Axe . . . 526 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

FORMS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF IMPLEMENTS FROM THE RITER-DRIFT. 

Flint Flakes — Trimmed Flakes — Pointed Implements— Sharp-rimmed Imple- 
ments — Differ from those of Neolithic Age — Their occurrence in other 
parts of the World — Found in Africa and Asia— Their probable Uses — 
The Civilization they betoken — Characteristics of their Authenticity . 640 

CHAPTER XXV. 

ANTIQUITY OF THE RIVER-DRIFT. 

Hypothetical case of River-action— Origin of River Systems — Amount of 
Solid Matter in Turbid Water — Nature of Flood-deposits- Effects of 
Ground-ice — Deposits left on the Slopes of Valleys during Excavation — 
Solvent power of Carbonic Acid — The results of the Deepening of Valleys 
— Actual Phenomena compared with the Hypothetical — The Denudation 
of the Fen Country — The Valley of the Waveney — The Vallej^ of the 
Thames — Deiiosits in the South of England — Deposits near Salisbury — 
The Origin of the Solent — Deposits at Bournemouth — Breach through the 
Chalk-range South of Bournemouth — The Question of Climate — Evidence 
as to Climate — Association of Implements with a Quaternary Fauna — 
Scarcity of Human Bones in the River-drift — Attempts to formulate 
Chronological Data — Data from Erosion — Conclusion .... 662 



WOODCUT ILLUSTRATIONS. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 



1. Egypt 



CHAPTER II. 

ON THE MANUFACTURE OF STONE 

IMPLEMENTS IN PREHISTORIC 

TIMES. 

2. Flint Core with Flakes replaced 

upon it 20 

2a. Gun Flint, a vlona, Albania . 21 

3. Nucleus — Pressigny .... 29 



4. 



G. 


Flake 




7. 






8. 


Eskimo 


Arrow -flaker 


9. 


* 


)> »> 


10. 




>> >> 



30 
30 
31 
31 
38 
38 
38 



CHAPTER III. 

CELTS. 
11.* Celt with Gnostic Inscription . 61 



CHAPTER IV. 

CHIPPED OR ROUGH-HEWN CELTS. 

12. Near Mildenhall 68 

13. „ „ 68 

14. NearThetford 69 

15. Oving, near Chichester ... 70 

16. Near Newhaven 71 

17. Near Dunstable 72 

18. Burwell Fen 72 

19. MildenhaU 73 

20. Bottisham Fen '■'> 

21. Near Bournemouth . . 



FIG. I'AGK 

22. Thetford 74 

23. Reach Fen, Cambridge ... 75 

24. Scamridge, Yorkshire ... 76 
25.* Forest of Bere, near Horndean 76 
25a.* Isle of Wight 77 

26. Cissbury 81 

27. „ 81 

28. „ 82 

29. „ 82 



CHAPTER V. 

CELTS GROUND AT THE EDGE ONLY. 

30. Downs near Eastbourne ... 88- 

31. Culford, Suffolk 88 

32. Near Mildenhall. Suffolk . . 88 

33. Saw don, North Yorkshire . . 89 

34. Weston, Norfolk 90 

35. Mildenhall 91 

35a. Reach Fen 92 

36. Burwell Fen 93 

37. Thetford 93 

38. Undley Common, Lakenheath . 94 
38a. East Dean 95- 

39. Ganton 95- 

40. Swaffham Fen 95 

41. Grindale, BridUngton ... 96 

42. North Bui-ton 9& 



CHAPTER VI. 



POLISHED CELTS. 



43. Santon Downham, Suffolk 



99 



44. Coton, Cambridge 101 

45. Reach Fen, Cambridge . . . 102 

46. Great Bedwin, Wilts . . . .102 

47. Burradon, Northumberland . 103 

48. Coton, Cambridge . . . .104 

49. Ponteland, Northumberland . 105 

50. Fridaythorpe, Yorkshire . .105 

51. Oulston 106 



... 74 I 52. Burwell Fen 107 

' The cuts marked with an asterisk have been borrowed from various sources, ■which are duly- 
acknowledged in the body of the book. 



JSIV 



WOODCUT ILLUSTRATIONS. 



FIO. TAGE 

52a.* Ber'wickshire 108 

53. Botesdalc, Suffolk . . . .111 
64. Lackford. Suflblk . . . .112 

55. Dalmeny, Linlithprow . . .113 

56. Sproustou, near Kelso . . .114 

57. Nunningtxm. Yorkshire . .115 

58. Burradon, Northuiuberlaud . 116 

59. Livermere. Sufifolk . . . .116 

60. Ildertcn, Northumberland . .117 

61. Near Pendle, Lancashire . .118 

62. Ness 119 

63. Gilling 120 

64. Swinton, near Malton . . . 121 

65. Scamridpre Dykes, Yorkshire . 121 

66. WTiitwell, Yorkshire . . .122 

67. Thames, London 123 

68. Near Bridlington . . . .124 

69. Lakenheath, Suffolk . . .125 

70. Seamer, Yorkshire . . . .126 

71. Guernsey 127 

72. Wareham 127 

73. Forfarshire 128 

74. Bridlington 129 

75. Caithness 129 

76. Gilmerton, East Lothian . . 131 

77. Stirlingshire 132 

78. Harome 133 

79. Daviot, near Inverness . . .134 

80. Near Cottenham 135 

81. Near Malton 135 

82. Mennithorpe, Yorkshire . .136 

83. Middleton Moor 137 

83a. Keystone 137 

84. Near Truro 138 

84a.* Slains 138 

85. Near Lerwick 139 

86. Weston, Norfolk 139 

87. AcklamWold 140 

88. Fimber 140 

89. Duggleby 141 

90. Guernsey 141 

90a. Wereham 142 

91.* Solway Moss 151 

92. Cumberland 153 

93.* Monaghan 154 

94. Axe from the Rio Frio . . .155 
95.* War-axe — Gaveoii Indians, 

Brazil '. 156 

96. Axe of Montezuma II. . . . 157 

97. Axe — Nootka Soimd . . . 158 

98. Axe in Stag's-hom Socket — 

Concise 159 

99. Axe — Robenhausen . . . .159 

99a. Penhouet 161 

99b.* New Guinea 161 

99c.* „ „ Adze. . . . 162 

100. Axe — Robenhausen .... 163 

101. Schraplau 163 

102.* Adze— New Caledonia . . 164 

103.* Adze— Clalam Indians . . 165 

104.* South-Sea Island Axes . 16G 

105.* Axe— Northern Australia . 168 

106.* Hatchets Western Australia 170 



CHAPTER VII. 
PICKS, CHISELS, GODGES, ETC. 

FIG. PACK 

107. Great Easton 173 

108. Bury St. Edmunds .... 174 

109. Burwell 175 

110. Near Bridlington 175 

111. Dalton, Yorkshire .... 176 

112. Helperthorpe 177 

113. New Zealand Chisel . . .178 

114. Burwell 179 

114a. Westleton Walks .... 179 

115. Eastbourne 180 

116. Willerby Wold 181 

117. Bridlington 181 

CHAPTER VIII. 

PERFORATED AXES. 

lis. Hunmanby 185 

119.* Hove 186 

120. Llanmadock 188 

121. Guernsey 189 

122. Firebum Mill, Coldstream . . 190 

123. Burwell Fen 191 

124. Stourton 192 

125. Bardwell 193 

126. Potter Brompton Wold . . .194 

137. Rudstone 195 

128. Borrowash .196 

129.* Crichie, Aberdeenshire . .197 

130. Walsgrave-upon-Sowe . . . 199 

131. Wigton 201 

132. WollatonPark 203 

133. Buckthorpe 204 

134. Aldro' . 205 

135. Cowlam 206 

136. Seghill . 207 

136a.* Wick, Caithness .... 208 

137. Kirklington 209 

138.* Winterboum Steepleton . . 210 

139. Skelton Moors 211 

140. Selwood Barrow 211 

140a.* Longniddry 212 

141. Upton Lovel 213 

142. Thames, London 213 

143. Pelynt, Cornwall . . . .214 

CHAPTER IX. 

PERFORATED AKD GROOVED 
HAMMERS. 

144. Balmaclellan 219 

145. Thames, London 219 

145a.* Kirkinner 220 

146. Scarborough 221 

147. Shetland 221 

148.* Caithness 222 

149. Leeds 222 

150. Rockland 223 

151. Heslerton Wold 224 



WOODCUT ILLUSTRATIONS. 



XV^ 



FIG. PAGE 

152. Birdoswald 22.5 

153. Maesmore, Corvven .... 226 

154. Normanton, Wilts .... 227 

155. Redgrave Park 228 

156. Redmore Fen 228 

157.* Stifford 229 

158. Sutton 231 

169.* Ambleside 236 

CHAPTER X. 

HAMMER-STONES, ETC. 

160. Helmslev 239 

161. Winterboum Bassett . . .240 
161 A.* Goldcuoch 241 

162. St. Botolph's Priory .... 242 
Bridlington 242 

243 

243 

Scamridge 246 

167 & 168. Yorkshire Wolds . .248 

168a.* Culbin Sands 249 

169. Bridlington 249 

170.* Holyhead .251 

Ty Mawr 253 

Holyhead 254 

Pulborough 254 

Shetland 256 

256 

256 

256 

256 

257 



163. 
164. 
165. 
166. 



171.' 
172.^ 
173.* 
174.* 
175.* 
176.* 
177.* 
178.* 
179.* 
180.* 



Balmaclellan 260 



CHAPTER XI. 



GRINDING-STOXES AND WHETSTONES. 

180a.** Lamberton Moor .... 264 

181. Dorchester 265 

182. Rudstone 265 

183. Fimber 266 

184. Cowlam 267 

185. Amesbury 2G7 

186.* Hove 268 

187.* TyMawr 270 

CHAPTER XII. 

FLINT FLAKES, CORES, ETC. 

188. Artificial Cone of Flint . . .274 

189. Weaverthorpe 276 

190. Newhaven 278 

191. Redhill, Reigate 278 

192. Icklingham 278 

193. Seaford 278 

194.* Tribulum from Aleppo . . 285 
195.* Admiralty Islands '. . . . 288 
196. Charleston 291 



FIG. PAOR 

197. Nussdorf 292 

198. Australia 293 

199. WillerbyWold 295 

200. Yorkshire Wolds 295 

201. Scamridge 296 

202. West Cranmore 296 



CHAPTER XIII. 

SCRAPERS. 

203.* Eskimo Scraper 298 

204. Weaverthorpe 300 

205. Sussex Downs 301 

206. Yorkshire 302 

207. Helpcrthorpe 302 

208. Weaverthorpe 302 

209. Sussex Downs 303 

210. Yorkshire 303 

211. ,, Wolds 303 

212. „ „ 304 

213. Sussex Downs 304 

214. Yorkshire Wolds 304 

215. Sussex Downs 305 

216. „ ,, 306 

217. ,, ,, 306 

218. Bridlington 307 

219. ,, 307 

220. Yorkshire Wolds 307 

221 ,. ,, 308 

222. French " Strike-a-light " . . 314 

223. Rudstone 316 

224. Method of using Pyrites and 

" Scraper*' for striking a 
light 317 

225. Yorkshire Wolds 319 

226. ,, ,, 319 

226a. North of Ireland .... 320 



CHAPTER IV. 

BORERS, AWLS, OR DRILLS. 

227. Yorkshire Wolds 322 

228. BridUngton 322 

229. Yorkshire Wolds 323 

230. Bridlington 323 

231. Yorkshire Wolds .... 324 

232. „ „ 324 

232a. Hastings 325 

232b. ,, 325 

2320. ,, 325 

232D.* Vindhya Hills 325 

232e.* „ ,, 325 

232F.* „ „ 326 

CHAPTER XY. 

TRIMMED FLAKES, KNIVES, ETC. 

233. Cambridge (?) 326 

234. Yorkshire Wolds 328 



XVi 



WOODCUT ILLUSTRATIONS. 



iFlG. PAUK 

235. Yorkfiliire 328 

236. Bridlington 329 

237. Yorkshire 329 

238. Bridlington 329 

239. Ca-stle Girrock 329 

240. Ford, Northumberland . . 330 

210a.* Etton 330 

2-tl. Weaverthorpe 331 

242. AVvkebam Moor 331 

243. Potter Bromptou Wold . . 332 

244. Snainton Moor 333 

245. Ford 333 

24G. Bridlington 334 

247. Cambridge Fens 334 

248. Scamridge 335 

249. BurwellFen 336 

250. Saffron Walden 33G 

251. Fimber 337 

252. Argyllshire 338 

253. Glen Urquhart 338 

254. Bridlington 339 

255. Overton 339 

256. Kempston 340 

256a. Eastbourne 341 

257. Kintore 342 

258. Newhaven, Derbyshire . . 342 

259. Harome, Yorkshire .... 343 

260. „ „ .... 344 

261. Crambe 345 

262. Walls, Shetland 346 

263. „ „ 347 

264. Lambourn Down 349 

265. Thames 350 

266. Burnt Fen 350 

267. Arbor Low 352 

267a. Sewerby 355 

268. Fimber 356 

269. Yarmouth 356 

270. Eastbourne 357 

CHAPTER XVI. 
JAVELIN AND ARROW HEADS. 

271.* Elf Shot 365 

272. Egypt 369 

273. Winterboum Stoke . . . .371 

274. „ „ , . . . 371 

275. „ ,,.... 371 
276.* Calais Wold Barrow . . .372 
-II. ,, ,, ,, . . . <J( -. 
278.* „ „ „ ... 372 
279.* , , ... 372 

280. Icklingham . " 373 

281.* Gunthorpe 373 

282. Yorkshire Wolds 373 

283. „ „ 374 

284. Little Solsbury Hill . . .374 

2S5. Yorkshire Wolds 374 

286. Bridlington 374 

287 & 288. Yorkshire Wolds . . 375 

2S9. Lakenheath 375 

2^0 & 291. Yorkshire Wolds . .376 



FIG. PAGE 

292 & 293. Yorkshire Wolds . . 376 
294. „ ,, . . 376 
295.* Fyfield 377 

296. Bridlington 378 

297. Newton Ketton 378 

298 & 299. Yorkshire Wolds . .378 

300. Yorkshire Wolds 379 

301. Amotherby 379 

302. Iwerne Minster 379 

303. Yorkshire Wolds 380 

304. ,, ., 380 

305. Pick Rudge Farm . . . .380 
305a. Ashwell 381 

306. Sherburn Wold 381 

307. Yorkshire Wolds 381 

308. ,, ,, 381 

309. „ „ 381 

310. „ ,, 381 

311. „ 381 

31'' 381 

313 & 314. Yorkshire Wolds .' .' 382 

314a. Icklingham 382 

315. Eddlesborough 383 

316. Reach Fen 383 

317. Isleham 383 

318. Rudstone 384 

318a. Dorchester Dykes . . . .384 

319. Lambourn Down .... 384 

320. Fovant 384 

321. Yorkshire Moors 385 

322 & 323. Yorkshire Wolds . . 385 

323a.* Brompton 386 

324.* Isle of Skye 387 

325. Urquhart 387 

326. Aberdeenshire 387 

327. Glenlivet 387 

327a.* riiiliphaugh 388 

328. Icklingham 390 

329. Langdale End 390 

330. Amotherby 390 

331. AVeaverthorpe 391 

332. Lakenheath 391 

333. Yorkshire Wolds 391 

334. „ 392 

335. „ , 392 

336. Bridlington 392 

337. ,, 392 

338. Fimber 393 

339. Hungry Bentlev 394 

340.* Caithness . ." 394 

341. Lakenheath 395 

342. Urquhart 395 

342a.* Fyvie, Aberdeeusliire . . 408 

343. Switzerland 408 

344. Fiinen, Denmark 409 

345.* Modern Stone Arrow-head . 409 

CHAPTER XVII. 

FABRICATORS, FLAKING TOOLS, ETC. 

346. Yorkshire Wolda 412 

346a.* Corennie 413 



WOODCLT ILLUSTRATIONS. 



XVU 



PIG. PACK 

347. Bridlington 413 

348. Sawdon 415 

349. Acklam Wold 415 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
SLING-STONES AND BALLS. 

350. Yorkshire Wolds 419 

351.* Dumfriesshire 420 

352.* Towie 421 

CHAPTER XIX. 

BRACERS, AND ATITICLES OF BONE. 

353. IsleofSkye 425 

354. Evantown 426 

355. Devizes 42t> 

356.* Isle of Skye 428 

CHAPTER XX. 

SPINDLE-WHORLS, DISCS, SLICK- 
STONES, WEIGHTS, AND CUPS. 

357. Scampston 438 

358.* Holyhead 438 

359.* ,, 438 

360.* „ 438 

361.* „ 442 

362.* Scotland 444 

363.* Sutherlandshire 444 

364.* Faroe Islands 445 

365.* Broad Down or Honiton . . 446 

366.* Rillaton 448 

367.* Hove 449 

368.* Ty Mawr 450 

CHAPTER XXI. 

PERSONAL ORNAMENTS, AMULETS, 
ETC. 

369. Buttervrick 453 

370. „ 453 

371. Rudstone 454 

372. ,, 454 

373. Crawfurd :\loor 454 

374.* Calais Wold Barrow . . . 455 

375.* Assynt, Ross-shire .... 457 

376.* Pen-y-Bonc 458 

377.* Probable Arrangement of the 

Jet Necklace found at Pen- 
y-Bonc, Holyhead. . . . 459 

378.* Fimber 461 

379.* Yorkshire 462 

380.* „ 462 

381. Hungry Bentley 464 

381a.* Heathery Bum Cave . . .464 

382.* Jet — Guernsey 464 

383.* Bronze — Guernsey .... 464 



FIG. PAOB 

384. Kent's Cavern 465 

385.* Ty Mawr 466 

CHAPTER XXII. 

CAVE IMPLEMENTS. 



386. Kent's Cavern 

387. 

388. ,, „ 

388a.* ,, 

389. 

390. 

391. 

392. 

393. 

394. 

395. ,, ,, 

396. „ 

397. „ „ 
398. 

;399. „ „ 

400. 

401. ,, 

402. „ ,, 
403. 

404. „ „ 

405. ,, ,, 

406. ,, 
407. 
408. 

409. Brixham Cave 
410. 
411. 
412. 
413.* 
413a, 
413b. 
413c. 
413d 
413e, 
413f, 

413g.* Church Hole Cave 
413h.* „ 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



Wookey Hyaena Den 
* Robin Hood. Cave. 



493 
493 
494 
495 
496 
496 
498 
499 
499 
500 
500 
501 
501 
502 
502 
602 
503 
503 
505 
505 
505 
506 
506 
506 
514 
515 
515 
516 
518 
522 
523 
523 
523 
523 
524 
524 
524 



IMPLEMENTS OF THE RIVER-DRIFT 
PERIOD. 

414. Biddenham, Bedford . . .532 

415. ,, ,, ... 533 

416. „ „ ... 534 

417. ,, „ ... 534 

418. „ ,, ... 535 
418a. Hitchin 537 

419. Maynewater Lane, Bury St. 

Edmunds 540 

419a. Grindle Pit, Bury St. Ed- 
munds 541 

419b. Bury St. Edmunds . . . 642 
419c. Nowton, near Bury St. Ed- 
munds 543 



WOODCUT ILLUSTRATIONS. 



FIG. 

419d 

420. 

421. 

422. 

423. 

424. 

425. 

426. 

426.\. 

427. 

42S. 

429. 

430. 

431. 

432, 

433. 

434. 

43.5. 

436. 

437. 

438. 

439. 

440. 

441. 

442. 

443. 

444. 

445. 

446. 

447. 

448. 

449. 

4a0. 

4.50a. 

4.51. 

452. 

453. 



Westley, near Bury St. Ed- 
mund!* 

Rampart Hill, Icklingham 

Ickliuarham 



High Lodge 
Redhill, Thetford 



^VTiitehill, Thetford 
Santon Downham 



Bromehill, Brandon 
Gravel Hill, 



Valley of the Lark, or 

Little Ouse . 
Shrub HiU, Feltwell 



Hoxne 



Saltley . . . . 
Gray's Inn Lane . 
Hackney Down . 
Highbury New Paik 



of 



544 
545 
.546 
.546 
547 
548 
548 
549 
549 
552 
5.53 
554 
555 
555 
556 
557 
558 
559 
560 
561 
562 
563 
564 
564 
565 
.566 



the 



.567 
570 
570 
571 
571 
575 
576 
579 
.582 
583 
585 



KIO. 

453a 

453b. 

453c. 

4o3d 

454. 

455. 

4o5a. 

455b. 

455c. 

455d 

455e 

455f. 

455g. 

455h 

456. 

456a. 

457. 

458. 

459. 

460. 

461. 

462. 

463. 

464. 

464a. 

464b. 

465. 

466. 

467. 

468. 

469. 

470. 

471. 

472. 

473. 

474. 

475. 

476. 

477. 



PAOK 

,* Lower Clapton 587 

* Stamford HiU 588 

* Stoke Newiugton Common . 688 

* M „ ,. . 689 

Ealing Dean 590 

Peasemarsh, Godalming . . 595 

* Caddington 599^ 

599 

600 

GOO 

601 

601 

601 

.* Wheathampstead .... 601 

Dartford Heath 606 

Bewley, Ightham . . . .009 

Reculver 612 

Near Reculver 614 

fil-^ 

Eeculver 616 

61& 

StudhiU 618 

Thanington 619 

Canterbury 620 

* ,, 621 

Folkestone 622 

Southampton 623 

Hill Head 625 

The Foreland, Isle of Wight . 627 

Lake 628 

Bemerton 629 

Highfield 629 

Fishertou 630 

Milford Hill, SaUsbury . . .633 

Fordingbridge 634 

Boscombe, Bournemouth . . 635 
„ . . 636 

Bournemouth 637 

Broom Pit, Axminster . . . 638 




CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



TN the following pages I purpose to give an account of the 
-■- various forms of stone implements, weapons, and ornaments of 
remote antiquity discovered in Great Britain, their probable uses 
and method of manufacture, and also, in some instances, the cir- 
cumstances of their discovery. "While reducing the whole series 
into some sort of classification, as has been done for the stone 
antiquities of Scandinavia by TVorsaae, Montelius, and Sophus 
Miiller, for those of France by Messrs. Gabriel and Adrien de 
Mortillet, and for those of Ireland by Sir William Wilde, I hope 
to add something to our knowledge of this branch of Archaeology 
by instituting comparisons, where possible, between the antiqui- 
ties of England and Scotland and those of other parts of the 
world. Nor in considering the purposes to which the various 
forms were applied, and the method of their manufacture, must I 
neglect to avail myself of the illustrations afforded by the practice 
of modern savages, of which Sir John Lubbock and others have 
already made such profitable use. 

But before commencing any examination of special forms, there 
are some few general considerations on which it seems advisable 
to enter, if only in a cursory manner ; and this is the more neces- 
sary, since notwithstanding the attention which has now for 
many years been devoted to Prehistoric Antiquities, there is 
seemingly still some misapprehension remaining as to the nature 
and value of the conclusions based upon recent archaeological and 
geological investigations. 

At the risk therefore of being tedious, I shall have to notice 
once more many things already well known to archaeologists, but 
which, it would appear from the misconceptions so often evinced, 
even by those who speak and write on such matters, can hardly 
be too often repeated. 

Not the least misunderstood of these subjects has been the 



2 INTRODUCTORY. [CHAP. 1. 

classification of the antiquities of "Western Europe, first practically 
adopted by the Danish antiquaries, under periods known as the 
Iron, Bronze, and Stone Ages ; the Iron Age, so far as Denmark 
is concerned, being supposed to go back to about the Christian era, 
the Bronze Age to embrace a period of one or two thousand years 
previous to that date, and the Stone Age all previous time of man's 
occupation of that part of the world. These difierent periods have 
been, and in some cases may be safely, subdivided ; but into this 
question I need not now enter, as it does not affect the general 
sequence. The idea of the succession is this : — 

1. That there was a period in each given part of ^Vestern 
Europe, say, for example, Denmark, when the use of metals for 
cutting-instruments of any kind was unknown, and man had to 
depend for his implements and weapons on stone, bone, wood, and 
other readily accessible natural products. 

2. That this period was succeeded b}' one in which the use of 
copper, or of copper alloyed with tin — bronze — became known, and 
gradually superseded the use of stone for certain purposes, though 
it continued to be employed for others ; and 

3. That a time arrived when bronze, in its turn, gave way to 
iron or steel, as being a superior metal for all cutting purposes ; 
which, as such, has remained in use up to the present day. 

Such a classification into different ages in no way implies any 
exact chronology, far less one that would be applicable to all the 
countries of Europe alike, but is rather to be regarded as significant 
only of a succession of different stages of civilization ; for it is 
evident that at the time when, for instance, in a country such as 
Italy, the Iron Age may have commenced, some of the more 
northern countries of Europe may possibly have been in their 
Bronze Age, and others again still in their Stone Age. 

Neither does this classification imply that in the Bronze Age 
of any country stone implements had entirely ceased to be in use, 
nor even that in the Iron Age both bronze and stone had been 
completely superseded for all cutting purposes. Like the three 
principal colours of the rainbow, these three stages of civilization 
overlap, intermingle, and shade off the one into the other ; and yet 
their succession, so far as Western Europe is concerned, appears 
to be equally well defined with that of the prismatic colours, 
though the proportions of the spectrum may vary in different 
countries.* 

1 Some interesting remarks on the succession of the three periods and the 



THE IRON, 15R0NZE, AND STONE AGES. O 

The late Mr. James Fergusson, in his Rude Stone Monuments/ 
has analyzed the discoveries made by Bateman in his exploration 
of Derbyshire barrows, and on the analysis has founded an argu- 
ment against the division of time into the Stone, Bronze, and 
Iron Ages. He has, however, omitted to take into account the 
fact that in many of the barrows there were secondary interments 
of a date long subsequent to the primary. 

I have spoken of this division into Periods as having been first 
practically adopted by the Danish school of antiquaries, but in fact 
this classification is by no means so recent as has been commonly 
supposed. Take, for instance, the communication of Mahudel to 
the Academie des Inscriptions of Paris^ in 1734, in which he points 
out that man existed a long time in different countries using im- 
plements of stone and without any knowledge of metals ; or again, 
the following passage from Bishop Lyttelton's^ " Observations on 
Stone Hatchets," written in 1766 : — " There is not the least doubt 
of these stone instruments having been fabricated in the earliest 
times, and by barbarous people, before the use of iron or other metals 
was known, and from the same cause spears and arrows were 
headed with flint and other hard stones." A century earlier. Sir 
William Dugdale, in his " History of Warwickshire," ^ also speaks 
of stone celts as " weapons used by the Britons before the art of 
making arms of brass or iron was known." We find, in fact, that 
the same views were entertained, not only by various writers^ within 
the last two centuries, but also by many of the early poets and 
historians. There are even biblical grounds for argument in favour 
of such a view of a gradual development of material civilization. 
For all, including those who invest Adam with high moral attri- 
butes, must confess that whatever may have been his mental con- 
dition, his personal equipment in the way of tools or weapons 
could have been but inefficient if no artificer was instructed in brass 
and iron until the days of Tubal Cain, the sixth in descent 
from Adam's outcast son, and that too at a time when a gen- 
eration was reckoned at a hundred years, instead of at thirty, 
as now. 

possibility of abnormal variations from it will be found in a lecture to tbe 
Archaeological Institute delivered by the late Mr. E. T. Stevens in 1872. [Arch. 
Journ., vol. xxix., p. 393.) 

' 1872, p. 11, et seq/j. • Mem., vol. xii., 163. 

■' Arclueologia, vol. ii. p. 118. * p. 778. 

^ I would especially refer to an excellent article by the Rev. Jolm Ilodfrson in 
Vol. I. of the Arc/tceohffia ^lUliana (a.d. 1816), entitled "An inquiry into the iera 
when brass was used in purposes to which iron is now applied." 

B 2 



4 INTRODUCTORY. [cHAP. I. 

Turning, however, to Greek and Roman authors, we find 
Hesiod,^ about it.c. 850, mentioning a time when bronze had not 
been superseded by iron : — 

ToTc 5' Tjv xaXxta fiiv rtvxta, \a\Kioi Ss ri oiKOi 
XuXkui S' lipyd^ovTo, fi'sXag 5' ouk iax^ (jiStjpof;. 

Lucretius ^ is even more distinct in his views as to the successive 
Periods : — 

" Anna antiquii laanus, iing'ues, dentesque fuerunt 
Et lapides, et item sylvarum fragniiua rami — 
Posterius ferri vis est serisque reperta ; 
Sed prior tens erat quain f eni cognitus usus — 
JEre solum ten-ie tractabant, tereque belli 
jMiscebant fluctus et vulnera vasta ferebant." 

So early as the days of Augustus it would appear that bronze 
arms were regarded as antiquities, and that emperor seems to have 
commenced the first archccological and geological collection on 
record, having adorned one of his country residences " rebus 
vetustate ac raritate notabilibus, qualia sunt Capreis immanium 
belluarum ferarumque membra prsegrandia quae dicuntur gigan- 
tum ossa et arraa heroum." ^ 

We learn from Pausanias* what these arms of the heroes were, 
for he explains how in the heroic times all weapons were of 
bronze, and quotes Homer's description of the axe of Pisander 
and the arrow of Meriones. He also cites the spear of Achilles in 
the temple of Pallas, at Phaselis, the point and ferrule of which 
only were of bronze ; and the sword of Memnon in the temple of 
jEsculapius, at Nicomedia, which was wholly of bronze. In the 
same manner Plutarch^ relates that when Cimon disinterred the 
remains of Theseus in Scjtos he found with them a bronze spear- 
head and sword. 

There is, indeed, in Homer constant mention of arms, axes, and 
adzes of bronze, and though iron is also named, it is of far less 
frequent occurrence. According to the Arundelian marbles,^ it 
was discovered only 188 years before the Trojan war, though 
of course such a date must be purely conjectural. Even Virgil 
preserves the unities, and often gives bronze arms to the heroes of 
the -^neid, as well as to some of the people of Italy — 

" iEratteque micant peltje, mieat iereus ensis." ' 

> " Op. et Di.," I., 1.50. 2 <i De Rerum Nat.," v. 1282. 

' Suetoniufl, Vit. Aug., cap. Ixxii. M. Salomon Reinach has disputed my views 
as to the meaning of this passage, but I see no reason for changing my opinion as 
to the "anna heroum" refening to "res vetustate notabiles." (See Mtim. de 
VAcad. dcs Itmr., 14th Dec, 1888.) 

* "Laconica," cap. 3. ^ Qp., ed. 1624, vol. i., p. 17. 

« Wilkinson, " Anc. Egypt.," vol. iii, p. 241. ' ^n., 1. vii. 743. 



BRONZK IN USK BEFORE IRON. 



The fact that m the Greek ^ language the words ')^aXKev^ and 
■)(ci\Keven^ remained in use as significant of working in iron affords 
a very strong, if not an irrefragable argument as to bronze having 
been the earlier metal known to that people. In the same way 
the continuance in use of bronze cutting implements in certain 
religious rites — as Avas also the case with some stone implements 
which I shall subsequently mention — affords evidence of their 
comparative antiquity. The Tuscans'" at the foundation of a city 
ploughed the pomocrium with a bronze plough-share, the priests 
of the Sabines cut their hair with bronze knives, and the Chief 
Priest of Jupiter at Rome used shears of the same metal for 
that purpose. In the same manner Medea has attributed to her 
both by Sophocles and Ovid^ a bronze sickle when gathering her 
magic herbs, and Elissa is represented by Virgil as using a similar 
instrument for the same purj)ose. Altogether, if history is to 
count for anything, there can be no doubt that in Greece and 
Italy, the earliest civilized countries of Europe, the use of bronze 
preceded that of iron, and therefore that there was in each case a 
Bronze Age of greater or less duration preceding the Iron Age. 

It seems probable that the first iron used was meteoric, and 
such may have been that " self-fused " mass which formed one of 
the prizes at the funeral games of Patroclus,* and was so large 
that it would suffice its possessor for all purposes during five years. 
Even the Greek word for iron {aicijpo^) may not improbably'- be 
connected with the meteoric origin of the first known form of the 
metal. Its affinity with daT/jp, often used for a shooting star or 
meteor, with the Latin " sidera " and our own "star" is evident. 

Professor Lauth,^ moreover, interprets the Coptic word for 
iron, BENiriG, as "the stone of heaven" (Stein des Himmels) 
which implies that in Egypt also its meteoric origin was 
acknowledged. 

Among the Eskimos^ of modern times meteoric iron has been 
employed for making knives. Where an excess of nickel is 
present, the meteoric iron cannot well be forged,^ but Dana seems 
to be right in saying, as a general rule it is perfectly malleable. 

Some, however, are of opinion that during the time that bronze 
was employed for cutting instruments, iron was also in use for 

^ XaXKivtiv Si Kal TO (Ji5i]pivnv iXtyov, Kai x^^i^^^Q roi'C rbv aioijpov tpya^o- 
^tvox'g, Jul. Pollux, " Onomasticon," lib. vii. cap. 24. 

- Macrobius, " Saturnal.," v. 19. Ehodiginus, " Antiq. Lect.," xix. c. 10. 
=> Met., lib. vii. 2-28. •» Homer, 11., xxiii. 826. 

* Zeitsch.f. ^l-Ajijpt. Spmche, &e. 1870, p. 114. o Qong. Preh. BrnxeUes, 1872, p. 242. 
' See a valuable paper by Dr. L. Beck, Arch.f. Anth., vol. xii. (1880) p. 293. 



6 INTRODUCTORY. [CHAP. I. 

other purposes.* At the first introduction of iron the two metals 
were, no doubt, in use together, but we can hardly suppose them 
to have been introduced simultaneously ; and if they had been, the 
questions arise, whence did they come ? and how are we to account 
for the one not having sooner superseded the other for cutting 
pui poses? 

Another argument that has been employed in favour of iron 
having been the first metal used, is that bronze is a mixed metal 
requiring a knowledge of the art of smelting both copper and tin, 
the latter being only produced in few districts, and generally 
having to be brought from far, while certain of the ores of iron 
are of easy access and readily reducible,^ and meteoric iron is also 
found in the metallic state and often adapted for immediate use. 
The answer to this is, first, that all historical evidence is ag-ainst 
the use of iron previously to copper or bronze ; and, secondly, that 
even in Eastern Africa, where, above all other places, the con- 
ditions for the development of the manufacture of iron seem most 
favourable, we have no evidence of the knowledge of that metal 
having preceded that of bronze ; but, on the contrary, we find in 
Egypt, a country often brought in contact with these iron-pro- 
ducing districts, little if any trace of iron before the twelfth 
dynasty,^ and of its use even then the evidence is only pictorial, 
whereas the copper mines at iMaghara are said to date back to the 
second dynasty, some eight hundred years earlier. Agatharchides,^ 
moreover, relates that in his time, circa b.c. 100, there were found 
buried in the ancient gold mines of Egypt the bronze chisels 
(XaroiJLue^ y^ciXkcii) of the old miners, and he accounts for their 
being of that metal by the fact that at the period when the mines 
were originally worked the use of iron was entirely unknown. 
Much of the early working in granite may have been eflfected by 
flint tools. Admiral Tremlett has foimd that flakes of jasper 
readily cut the granite of Brittany.^ 

To return, however, to Greece and Italy, there can, as I have 
already said, be little question that even on historical grounds 
we must accept the fact that in those countries, at all events, the 
use of bronze preceded that of iron. We may therefore infer 
theoretically that the same sequence held good with the neighbour- 

^ See De Rougemont, "L'Age du Bronze," p. 159. 
- See Percy's " Metallurgy," vol. i. p. 873. 

* De Rougemont, op. cit., p. 168. See " Ancient Bronze Imps.," p. 6, .seqq. 

* Photii " Bibliotheca," ed. 16o3, col. 1343. 
■'' Jour. Anth. Inst., vol. xx. p. 330. 



PERSISTEN'CE OF REIJGIOUS RITES. 7 

ing and more barbarous nations of Western Europe. Even in the 
time of Pausani.is^ (after a.d. 174) the Sarmatians are mentioned as 
being unacquainted with the use of iron ; and practically we have 
good corroborative archiDological evidence of such a sequence in the 
extensive discoveries that have been made of antiquities belonging 
to the transitional period, when the use of iron or steel was grad- 
ually^ superseding that of bronze for tools or weapons, and when 
the forms given to the new metal were copied from those of the 
old. The most notable relics of this transitional period are those 
of the ancient cemetery at Hallstatt, in the Salzkammergut, 
Austria, where upwards of a thousand graves were opened by 
Kamsauer, of the contents of which a detailed account has been 
given by the liaron von Sacken.^ The evidence afforded by the 
discoveries in the Swiss lakes is almost equally satisfactory ; but I 
need not now enter further into the question of the existence and 
succession of the Bronze and Iron Ages, on which I have dwelt 
more fully in my book on Ancient Bronze Implements.^ 

I am at present concerned with the Stone Age, and if, as all 
agree, there was a time when the use of iron or of bronze, or of both 
together, first became known to the barbarous nations of the West 
of Europe, then it is evident that before that time they were un- 
acquainted with the use of those metals, and were therefore in that 
stage of civilization which has been characterized as the Stone 
Age. 

It is not, of course, to be expected that we should discover 
direct contemporary historical testimony amongst any people of 
their being in this condition, for in no case do we find a knowledge 
of writing developed in this stage of culture ; and yet, apart from 
the material relics of this phase of progress which are found from 
time to time in the soil, there is to be obtained in most civilized 
countries indirect circumstantial evidence of the former use of stone 
implements, even where those of metal had been employed for cen- 
turies before authentic history commences. It is in religious cus- 
toms and ceremonies — in rites which have been handed down from 
generation to generation, and in which the minute and careful 
repetition of ancient observances is indeed often the essential 
religious element — that such evidence is to be sought. As has 
already been observed by others, the transition from ancient to 
venerable, from venerable to holy, is as natural as it is universal ; 

1 Lib. i. c. 21. 

^ " Das Grabfcld von Hallstatt iind dessen Alterthiimer." Vienna, 1868, 

3 London, 1881. 



8 INTRODUCTORY. [cHAP. I. 

and in the same manner as some of tlie festivals and customs of 
Christian countries are directly traceable to heathen times, so no 
doubt many of the religious observances of ancient times were 
relics of what was even then a dim past. 

Whatever we may think of the etymology of the word as given 
by Cicero/ Lactantius,^ or Lucretius,^ there is much to be said in 
favour of Dr. E. B. Tylor's'* view of superstition being " the 
standing: over of old habits into the midst of a new and changed 
state of things — of the retention of ancient practices for ceremonial 
purposes, long after they had been superseded for the common- 
place uses of ordinary life." 

Such a standing over of old customs we seem to discover among 
most of the civilized peoples of antiquity. Turning to Egypt and 
"vVestern Asia, the early home of European civilization, we hnd 
from Herodotus^ and from Diodorus Siculus,^ that in the rite of 
embalming, though the brain was removed by a crooked iron, yet 
the body was cut open by a sharp Ethiopian stone. 

In several European museums are preserved thin, flat, leaf-shaped 
knives of cherty flint found in Egypt, some of which will be men- 
tioned in subsequent pages. In character of work- 
manship their correspondence with the flint knives or 
daggers of Scandinavia is most striking. Many, 
however, are provided with a tang at one end at the 
back of the blade, and in this respect resemble 
metallic blades intended to be mounted by means 
of a tang driven into the haft. 

In the British Museum is an Egyptian dagger-like 

instrument of flint, from the Ilaj' collection, still 

mounted in its original wooden handle, apparently 

l)y a central tang, and with remains of its skin sheath. 

It is shown on the scale of one-fourth in Fig. 1. 

There is also a polished stone knife broken at the 

handle, which bears upon it in hieroglyphical cha- 

"^ racters the name of Ptahmes, an officer. 

Eu....-i.t,'. 1. Curiously enough the bodies of the chiefs or 

Menceys of the Guanches in Teneriffe^ were also 

cut open by particular persons set apart for the office with knives 

made of sharp pieces of obsidian. 

1 De Nat. Deor., Lib. ii. c. 28. - Lib. iv. c. 28. 3 ^jb. i. v. 66. 

' " Early History of Mankind," p. 218 ; 2nd edit. p. 221, q. r. 
'■ Lib. ii. 86. « Lib. i. 91. 

■J Trans. Etlm. Soe., N. S., vol. vii. 112. 




USE OF STONE IN KELIGIOUS CEREMONIES. 9 

The rite of civcumcision was among those practised by the 
Egyptians, but whether it was performed with a stone knife, as 
was the case with the Jews when they came out of Egypt, is not 
certain. Among the latter people, not to lay stress on the case of 
Zipporah,^ it is recorded of Joshua,'"' that in circumcising the 
children of Israel he made use of knives of stone. It is true that, 
in our version, the words U^yrJ: niinnn are translated sharp knives, 
which by analogy with a passage in Psaltn Ixxxix. 44 (43 e.v.), is 
not otherwise than correct ; but the Syriac, Arabic, Vulgate, and 
Septuagint translations all give knives of stone ;^ and the latter 
version, in the account of the burial of Joshua, adds that they laid 
with him the stone knives (Tct? fxayalpa'; ra? Trerpiva^) with which 
he circumcised the children of Israel — " and there they are imto 
this day." Gesenius (v. r. i^'i) observes upon the passage, " This 
is a circumstance worthy of remark ; and goes to show at least, 
that knives of stone were found in the sepulchres of Palestine, as 
well as in those of north-western Europe."* In recent times the 
Abbe Richard, in examining what is known as the tomb of 
Joshua at some distance to the east of Jericho, found a number of 
sharp flakes of flint as well as flint instruments of other forms.^ 

Under certain circumstances modern Jews make use of a frag- 
ment of flint or glass for this rite. The occurrence of flint 
knives in ancient Jewish sepulchres may, however, be connected 
with a far earlier occupation of Palestine than that of the Jews. 
It was a constant custom with them to bury in caves, and recent 
discoveries have shown that, like the caves of "Western Europe, 
many of these were at a remote period occupied by those unac- 
quainted with the use of metals, whose stone implements are 
found mixed up with the bones of the animals which had served 
them for food.^ 

Of analogous uses of stone we find some few traces among 
classical writers. Ovid, speaking of Atys, makes the instrument 
with which he maimed himself to be a sharp stone, 
" Ille etiam saxo corpus laniavit acuto." 

The solemn treaties among the Romans were ratified by the 

1 Exod. iv. '25. - Josh. v. '2. ^ lb. xxiv. 30. 

* See also Trior's "Early History of Mankind," 2Qd ed., p. 217. The entire 
chapter on the Stone Aj^e, Past and Present, is well worthy of careful perusal, and 
enters more fully into the whole question of the Stone Age throughout the world 
than conies within my province. 

5 C. li. dn Co/Iff. I„t. dcs Sc. A)iih. 1878. Paris 1880, p. 280. Comptes liendus de 
VAcad. des Srienres, vol. Ixiii. August 28, 1871. 

® Comptes llcndns, 1871, vol. Ixxiii. p. .540. 



10 INTRODUCTORY. [cH. 



AP. I, 



Fetialis ' sacrificing a pig with a flint stone, which, however, does 
not appear to have been sharpened. " Ubi dixit, porcuni saxo 
silice percussit." The " religiosa silex"^ of Claudian seems 
rather to have been a block of stone like that under the form of 
which Jupiter, Cybele, Diana, and even Yenus were worshipped. 
Pausanias informs us that it was the custom among the Greeks 
to bestow divine honours on certain unahaped stones, and ZEY2 
KA5I02 is thus represented on coins of Seleucia in Syria, while 
the Paphian Yenus appears in the form of a conical stone on coins 
struck in Cvprus. The Syrian god from whom Elagabalus, the 
Roman emperor, took his name seems also to have been an un- 
hewn stone, possibly a meteorite. 

The traces, however, of the Stone Age in the religious rites of 
Greece and Rome are extremely slight, and this is by no means 
remarkable when we consider how long the use of bronze, and 
even of iron, had been known in those parts of Europe at the time 
when authentic history commences. We shall subsequently see 
at how early a period different implements of stone had a mys- 
terious if not a superstitious virtue assigned to them. I need 
only mention as an instance that, in several beautiful gold neck- 
laces ^ of Greek or Etruscan workmanship, the central pendant 
consists of a delicate flint arrow-head, elegantly set in gold, and 
probably worn as a charm. Nor is the religious use of stone con- 
^ fined to Europe.* In Western Africa, when the god Gimawong 
maizes his annual visit to his temple at Labode, his worshippers 
kill the ox which they offer, with a stone. 

To come nearer home, it is not to be expected that in this 
country, the earliest written history of which (if we except the 
slight account derived from merchants trading hither), comes 
from the pen of foreign conquerors, we should have any records 
of the Stone Age. In Caesar's time, the tribes with which he came 
in contact were already acquainted with the use of iron, and were, 
indeed, for the most part immigrants from Gaul, a country whose 
inhabitants had, by war and commerce, been long brought into 
close relation with the more civilized inhabitants of Italy and 
Greece. I have elsewhere shown ^ that the degree of civilization 
which must be conceded to those maritime tribes far exceeds what 
is accorded by popular belief. The older occupants of Britain, who 

1 Livy, lib. i. c. 24. - Rapt. Proserp. I. 201. 

^ "Horaj FeraleH," p. 136. Arch. Juurn., vol. xi. p. 169. 

* Arch, fib- Anthropol., vol. iii. 16. 

* •' Coins of the Ancient Britons," pp. 42, 263, et alibi. 



STONE ANTIQUITIES NOT AI-L OF THE SAME AGE. It 

had retreated before the Belgic invaders, and occupied the western 
and northern parts of the island, were no doubt in a more 
barbarous condition ; but in no case in which they came in contact 
with their Roman invaders do they seem to have been unac- 
quainted with the use of iron. Even the Caledonians,^ in the 
time of Severus, who tattooed themselves with the figures of 
animals, and went nearly naked, carried a shield, a spear, and a 
sword, and wore iron collars and girdles ; they however deemed 
these latter ornamental and an evidence of wealth, in the same 
way as other barbarians esteemed gold. 

But though immediately before and after the Christian era the 
knowledge of the use of iron may have been general throughout 
Britain, and though probably an acquaintance with bronze, at all 
events in the southern part of the island, may probably date many 
centuries farther back, it by no means follows, as I cannot too 
often repeat, that the use of stone for various purposes to which 
it had previously been applied should suddenly have ceased on a 
superior material, in the shape of metal, becoming known. On the 
contrary, we know that the use of certain stone weapons was con- 
temporary with the use of bronze daggers, and the probability is 
that in the poorer and more inaccessible parts of the country, stone 
continued in use for many ordinary purposes long after bronze, 
and possibly even iron, was known in the richer and more civilized 
districts. 

Sir William Wilde informs us that in Ireland ^ *' stone hammers, 
and not unfrequently stone anvils, have been employed by country 
smiths and tinkers in some of the remote country districts until a 
comparatively recent period." The same use of stone hammers and 
anvils for forging iron prevails among the Kaffirs ^ of the present 
day. In Iceland * also, perforated stone hammers are still in use 
for pounding dried fish, driving in stakes, for forging and other 
purposes ; " knockin'-stones " ^ for making pot-barley, have till 
recently been in use in Scotland, if not still emploj^cd ; and I 
have seen fruit-hawkers in the streets of London cracking Brazil 
nuts between two stones. 

With some exceptions it is, therefore, nearly impossible to say 
whether an ancient object made of stone can be assigned with 

^ Herodian, lib. iii. c. 14. - "Cat. of Stone Ant. in R. I. A. Mus.," p. 81. 

3 Wood's "Nat. Hist, of Man," i. p. 97. 

* Klemm, " Allgemeine Culturwissenschaft," part i. p. 86. Froc. Soc. Ant. 
Scot., vol. X. 360. 

5 Mitchell' .s " Past in the Present," p. 10, 44. Prtc. Soc. Ant. Sc$t., vol. xii. p. 
385, XX. p. 146, xxiii. p. 16. 



12 INTRODrCTORY. [CHAP. I. 

absolute certainty to the Stone Period or no. Much will depend 
upon the circumstances of the discovery, and in some instances 
the form may be a guide. 

The remarks I have just made apply most particularly to the 
weapons, tools, and implements belonging to the period more 
immediately antecedent to the Bronze Age, and extending back- 
wards in time through an unknown number of centuries. For 
besides the objects belonging to what was originally known by 
the Danish antiquaries as the Stone Period, which are usually 
foimd upon or near the surface of the soil, in encampments, on 
the site of ancient habitations, and in tumuli, there are others 
which occur in caverns beneath thick layers of stalagmite, and in 
ancient alluvia, in both cases usually associated with the remains 
of animals either locally or entirely extinct. In no case do we 
iind any trace of metallic tools or weapons in true association with 
the stone implements of the old ossiferous caverns, or with those 
of the beds of gravel, sand, and clay deposited by the ancient 
rivers ; and, unlike the implements found upon the surface and in 
graves, which in many instances are ground or polished, those 
from the caves, and from what are termed by geologists the Qua- 
ternary gravels, are, so far as at present known, invariably' chipped 
only, and not ground, besides as a rule differing in form. 

This difference ^ in the character of the implements of the two 
periods, and the vast interval of time between the two, I pointed 
out in 1859, at the time when the discoveries of M. Boucher de 
Perthes, in the Valley of the Somme, first attracted the attention of 
Fnglish geologists and antiquaries. Since then, the necessity of 
subdividing what had until then been regarded as the Stone 
Age into two distinct stages, an earlier and a later, has been 
universally recognized ; and Sir John Lubbock ^ has proposed 
to call them the Palaeolithic and the IN^eolithic Periods respec- 
tively, terms which have met with almost general acceptance, and 
of which I shall avail myself in the course of this work. In 
speaking of the polished and other implements belonging to the 
time when the general surface of the country had already received 
its present configuration, I may , however, also occasionally make use 
of the synonymous terra Surface Period for the Neolithic, and 
shall also find it convenient to treat of the Palaeolithic Period 
under two subdivisions — those of the River-gravels and of the 

' Phil. Tram., ISGO, p. 311. ^irchaohgia, vol. xxxviii. p. 293. 
* " Prehistoric Times," (186.')), p. 60. 



ORDER OF TREATMENT. 13^ 

Caves, the fauna and implements of which are not in all cases 
identical. 

In passing the different kinds of implements, weapons, and 
ornaments formed of stone under review, I propose to commence 
with an examination of the antiquities of the Neolithic Period, 
then to proceed to the stone implements of human manufacture 
discovered imbedded with ancient mammalian remains in Caverns, 
and to conclude with an account of the discoveries of flint 
implements in the Drift or River-gravels in various parts of 
England. But before describing their forms and characters, it 
will be well to consider the method of manufacture by which th& 
various forms were produced. 



14 



CHAPTER 11. 

ON THE MANUFACTURE OF STONE IMPLEMENTS IN PREHISTORIC 



TIMES. 



In seeking to ascertain the method by which the stone imple- 
ments and weapons of antiquity were fabricated, we cannot, in all 
probability, follow a better guide than that which is afforded us 
by the manner in which instruments of similar character are 
produced at the present day. As in accounting for the vast 
geological changes which we find to have taken place in the crust 
of the earth, the safest method of argument is by referring to 
ascertained physical laws, and to the existing operations of nature, 
so, in order to elucidate the manufacture of stone implements by 
the ancient inhabitants of this and other countries, we may refer 
to the methods employed by existing savages in what we must 
judge to be a somewhat similar state of culture, and to the recog- 
nized characteristics of the materials employed. We may even 
go further, and call in aid the experience of some of our own 
countrymen, who still work upon similar materials, although for 
the purpose of producing different objects from those which were 
in use in ancient times. 

So far as relates to the method of production of implements 
formed of silicious materials, there can be no doubt that the 
manufacture of gun-flints, which, notwithstanding the introduction 
of percussion-caps, is still carried on to some extent both in this 
and in neighbouring countries, is that best calculated to afford 
instruction. The principal place in England where the gun-flint 
manufacture is now carried on, is Brandon, on the borders of 
Norfolk and Suff'ulk, where I have witnessed the j)rocess. I have 
also seen the manufacture at Icklingham, in Suffolk, where thirty 
years ago, gun-flint factories existed, which have now I believe 

^ This chapter was for the most part written in 1868, and communicated to the 
International Conj,'-res.s of Prehistoric /\arh;eolosry held at Norwich in that year. 
See Trans. Preh. Co)tf/., 1868, p. 191, where a short abstract is given. 



PYRITES AND FLINT USED FOR STRIKING FIRE. 15 

been closed. They were also formerly manufactured in small 
numbers at Catton, near Norwich. At Brandon, in 1868, I was 
informed that upwards of twenty workmen were employed, who 
were capable of producinj^ among them from 200,000 to 250,000 
gun-flints per week. These were destined almost entirely for 
exportation, principally to Africa. On July 18th, 1890, the 
Daily Neics^ gave the number of workmen at Brandon as thirty- 
five. 

Some other sites of the gun-flint manufacture in former times 
are mentioned by Mr. Skertchly, as for instance. Clarendon near 
Salisbury ; Gray's Thurrock, Essex ; Beer Head, Devon ; and 
Glasgow ; besides several places in Norfolk and Suffolk. 

In France the manufacture of gun-flints is still carried on in 
the Department of Loir et Cher,^ and various other localities are 
recorded by Mr. Skertchly.^ 

In proof of the antiquity of the use of flint as a means of pro- 
ducing fire, I need hardly quote the ingenious derivation of the 
word Silex as given by Vincent of Beauvais : — " Silex est lapis 
durus, sic dictus eo quod ex eo ignis exiliat."^ But before iron 
was known as a metal, it would appear that flint was in use as a 
fire-producing agent in combination with blocks of iron pyrites 
(sulphide of iron) instead of steel. Nodules of this substance 
have beea found in both French and Belg-ian bone-caves belong- 
ing to an extremely remote period ; while, as belonging to Neolithic 
times, to say nothing of discoveries in this country, which will 
subsequently be mentioned, part of a nodule of pyrites may be 
cited which was found in the Lake settlement of Robenhausen, and 
had apparently been thus used.^ In our own days, this method 
of obtaining fire has been observed among savages in Tierra 
del Fuego, and among the Eskimos of Smith's Sound.*^ The 

1 N. and Q. 7th S., vol. x. p. 172. 2 jYat. 3me S., vol. ii. (I880) p. 61. 

3 Op. cit., p. ;iS. * Spec. Naturae, lib. ix. sect. 13. 

* Morlot in liev. Arch., vol. v. (18G2), p. 216. Geologist, vol. v. p. 192. 
Engelhardt found several similar pieces of pyrites at Thorsbjerg, with iron and 
other antiquities of about the fourth century of our era. He says that steels for 
striking fire are not at present known as belonging to the Early Iron Age of Den- 
mark. This late use of pyrites affords strong e^ddence of iron and steel having 
been unknown to the makers of flint implements, for had they made use of iron 
hammers, the superior fire-giving properties of flint and iron would at once have 
been evident, and pyrites would probably soon have been superseded, at all events 
in countries where flint abounded. — Engelhardt, "Thorsbjerg Mosefund," p. 60 ; 
p. 65 in the English edit. The quartz pebbles with grooves in them which 
belong to the Iron Age seem, however, to have been used for producing fire by 
means of a pointed steel. 

^ Weddell, " Voyage towards the South Pole," p. 167; Tvlor, "Early History 
of Mankind," 2nd edit., p. 249. Wood's " Nat. Hist, of Man," vol. ii. p. 522. 



16 MANUFACl'URE OF STONE IMPLEMENIS. [CHAP. 11. 

Fueo-ian tinder, like the modern German and ancient Roman, 
consists of dried fungus, which when lighted is wrapped in a 
ball of dried grass and whirled round, the head till it bursts into 
flames. Achates, as will shortly be seen, is described by Virgil 
as following the same method. 

The name of pyrites (from Trvp) is itself suflacient evidence of 
the purpose to which this mineral was applied in early times, and 
the same stone was used as the fire-giving agent in the guns with 
the form of lock known as the wheel-lock. Pliny ^ speaks of a 
certain sort of pyrites, "pluriniuni habens ignis, quos vivos appel- 
lamus, et ponderosissimi sunt." These, as his translator, Holland, 
says, " bee most necessary for the espialls belonging unto a campe, 
for if they strike them either with an yron spike or another stone 
they will cast forth sparks of fire, which lighting upon matches 
dipt in brimstone (su/phiiratis) drie puff's (fungis) or leaves, will 
cause them to catch fire sooner than u man can say the word." 

Pliny also'"^ informs us that it was Pyrodes, the son of Cilix, 
who first devised the way to strike fire out of flint — a myth which 
seems to point to the use of silex and pyrites rather than of steel. 
The Jews on their return to Jerusalem, under Judas Maccaboeus, 
"made another altar and striking stones they took fire out of 
them and offered a sacrifice."^ How soon pyrites was, to a great 
extent, superseded by steel or iron, there seems to be no good 
evidence to prove ; it is probable, however, that the use of flint 
and steel was well known to the Romans of the Augustan age, 
and that Virgil'* pictured the Trojan voyager as using steel, 

when — 

" silici scintillam excudit Achates, 
Suscepitque ignem foliis atque arida circuin 
Nutrimenta dedit, rapuitqtie in fomite flaoiniam." 

And again, where — 

" quperit pars semina Hammas 
Abstrusa in venis silicis." "' 

In Claudian'' we find the distinct mention of flint and steel — 

" Flagrat anhela silex et amicam saucia sentit 
Materiem, placidosque clialybs agnoscit amores." 

AtTJnter Uhldingen' a Swiss lake station where Roman pottery 
was present, was found what appears to be a steel for striking a 

' Hist. Nat., lib. xxxvi. cap. 19. - Lib. vii. cap. 5G. 

3 II. Mace. X. 3. * ^neid, i. v. 174. 

* yEneid, vi. v. 6. See also (Georg. I. 135) — "Ut silicis venis abstrusum 
excuderet ignem." Ou this passage Fosbroke remarks (Enc. Ant. i. 307), " A stone 
with a vein was chosen as now." 

« Eidyllia, v. 42. ' Keller, "Lake-dwellings," p. 119. 



STRIKE-A-LIGHT FLINTS. 17 

Hg-ht. However the case may have been as to the means of pro- 
curing fire, it vi^as not until some centuries after the invention of 
gunpowder that flints were applied to the purpose of discharging 
fire-arms. Beckmann/ in his "History of Inventions," mentions 
that it w;is not until the year 1687 that the soldiers of Brunswick 
obtained guns with flint-locks, instead of match-locks, though, no 
doubt, the use of the wheel-lock vrith pyrites bad in some other 
places been superseded before that time. 

I am not aware of there beiug any record of flints, such as were 
in use for tinder-boxes,^ having been in ancient times an article of 
commerce : this, however, must have been the case, as there are 
so many districts in which flint does not naturally occui', and into 
which, therefore, it would have by some means to be introduced. 
Even at the present day, when so many chemical matches are in 
use, flints are still to be purchased at the shops in country places 
in the United Kingdom ; and artificially prepared flints continue 
to be common articles of sale both in France and Germany, and 
are in constant use, in conjunction with German tinder, or pre- 
pared cotton, by tobacco-smokers. At Brandon^ a certain number 
of " strike-a-light " flints are still manufactured for exportation, 
principally to the East and to Brazil — they are usually circular 
discs, about two inches in diameter. These flints are wrought 
into shape in precisely the same manner as gun-flints, and it 
seems possible that the trade of chipping flint into forms adapted 
to be used with steel for striking a light may be of considerable 
antiquity, and that the manufacture of gun-flints ought con- 
sequently to be regarded as only a modification and extension 
of a pre-existing art, closely allied with the facing and squaring of 
flints for architectural purposes, which reached great perfection at 
an early period. However this may be, it would seem that when 
gun-flints were an indispensable munition of war, a great mystery 
was made as to the manner in which they were prepared. Beck- 
mann'* says that, considering the great use made of them, it will 
hardly be believed how much trouble he had to obtain information 
on the subject. It would be ludicrous to repeat the various 
answers he obtained to his inquiries. Many thought that the 
stones were cut down by grinding them ; some conceived that 

» Vol. ii. p. 536. Bohn's edit., 1846. 

* An interesting paper on tinder-boxes will be found in The Reliquary, vii. p. 65. 
See also Mitchell's " Past in the Present," p. 100, and Arch. Camb., 5th 8., vol. vii. 
p. 294. 

» Stevens'. " Flint Chips," p. 5<S8. * Op. cit., vol. ii., p. 537. 

C 



18 MANUFACTURE OF STONE IMPLEMENTS. [cHAP. 11. 

they were formed by means of red-hot pincers, and many asserted 
that they were made in mills. The best account of the manufac- 
ture with which he was acquainted, was that collected by his 
brother, and published in the Ilauoreridu Magazine for the year 
1772. At a later date the well-known mineralogist Dolomieu ^ 
gave an account of the process in the Mimoircs de I'lnstitut 
National dets Sciences, and M. Hacquet," of Leopol, in Galicia, 
published a pamphlet on the same subject. The accounts given 
by both these authors correspond most closely with each other, and 
also with the practice of the present day, though the French pro- 
cess differs in some respects from the English.^ This has been 
well described by Dr. Lottin.'* The flints best adapted for the 
purpose of the manufacture are those from the chalk. They must, 
however, be of fair size, free from flaws and included organisms, 
and very homogeneous in structure. They are usually procured 
by sinking small shafts into the ground until a band of flints of 
the right quality is reached, along which low horizontal galleries, 
or " burrows," as they are called, are worked. For success in the 
manufacture a great deal is said to depend upon the condition of 
the flint as regards the moisture it contains, those which have 
been too long exposed upon the surface becoming intractable, and 
there being also a diflSculty in working those that are too moist. 
A few blows with the hammer enable a practised flint-knapper to 
judge whether the material on which he is at work is in the 
proper condition or no. Some of the Brandon workmen, however, 
maintain that though a flint which has been some time exposed to 
the air is harder than one recently dug, yet that it works equally 
well, and they say further, that the object in keeping the flints 
moist is to preserve the black colour from fading, black gun-flints 
being most saleable. 

A detailed account, by Mr. Skertchly, of the manufacture of 
gun-flints, with an essay on the connection between Neolithic 
art and the gun-flint trade, forms an expensive memoir of the 
geological survey, published in 1879 ; but it seems well to retain 
the following short account of the process. 

The tools required are few and simple : — 

1. A flat-faced blocking, or quartering hammer, from one to 

' " Classe Mathematique et Physique," t. 3, an. ix. An abstract of this account 
is given in Kees' Encyclop., s. v. Gun-flint. 

2 ' Physische und technische Boschreibung der Flintensteine," &c., von Hacquet. 
Wien, 1792, 8vo. A nearly similar account is given in Winckell's " Handbuch fiir 
.liiger," &c., 1822, Theil iii. p. 54G. 

3 Skertchly, op. cit., p. 78. * Mat., 3me, s. ii., 1885, p. 61. 



THE GUN-FLINT MANUFACTURE. 19 

two pounds in weight, made either of iron or of iron faced with 
steel. 

2. A well-hardened steel flaking hammer, bluntly pointed at 
each end, and weighing about a pound, or more ; or in its place 
a light oval hammer, known as an " English " hammer, the 
pointed flaking hammer having been introduced from France. 

3. A square-edged trimming or knapping hammer, which may 
either be in the form of a disc, or oblong and flat at the end, 
made of steel not hardened. In England, this hammer is usually 
made from a portion of an old flat file perforated to receive the 
helve, and drawn out at each end into a thin blade, about J^ of 
an inch in thickness ; the total length being about 7 or 8 inches. 

4. A chisel-shaped *' stake " or small anvil set vertically in a 
block of wood, which at the same time forms a bench for the 
workman. In England, the upper surface of this stake is about 
5 inch thick, and inclined at a slight angle to the bench. 

The method of manufacture ^ is as follows : — A block of flint 
is broken by means of the quartering hammer in such a manner 
as to detach masses, the newly-fractured surfaces of which are as 
nearly as possible plane and even. One of these blocks is then 
held in the left hand, so that the edge rests on a leathern pad tied 
on the thigh of the seated workman, the surface to be struck 
inclining at an angle of about 45°. A splinter is then detached 
from the margin by means of the flaking hammer. If the flint 
is of good quality, this splinter may be three or four inches in 
length, the line of fracture being approximately parallel to the 
exterior of the flint. There is, of course, the usual bulb of 
percussion, or rounded protuberance at the end,^ where the blow 
is given, and a corresponding depression is left in the mass of 
flint. Another splinter is next detached, by a blow given at a 
distance of about an inch on one side of the spot where the first 
blow fell, and then others at similar distances, until some portion 
of the block assumes a more or less regular polygonal outline- 
As the splinters which are first detached usually show a portion 
of the natural crust of the flint upon them, they are commonly 

^ An account of the process of making gun-flints, written by the late Mr. James 
Wyatt, F.G-.S., has been published in Stevens' " Flint Chips," p. 578. A set of 
gTin-flint makers' tools is in the ftlusee de St. Germnin, and the process of manu- 
facture has been described by IM. G. de I\Iortillet (" Promenades," p. 69). An 
account of a visit to Brandon is given by Mr. E. Lovelt in Pi or. Soc. Ant. Scot., 
xxi p. 206, and an article on " Flint-Knapping," by Mr. H. F. Wilson, is in the 
Mat/dzine of Art, 1887, p. 404. 

"^ See pas tea p. 273. 

c2 



20 



MANUFACTURli OF STONE IMPLEMENTS. [CHAP. 11. 



thrown away as useless. The second and succeeding rows of flakes 
are those adapted for gun-flints. To obtain these, the blows of 
the flaking hammer are administered midway between two of the 
projecting angles of the polygon, and almost immediately behind 
the spots where the blows dislodging the previous row of flakes or 
splinters were administered, though a little to one side. They 
fall at such a distance from the outer surface as is necessary for 
the thickness of a gun- flint. By this means a succession of flakes 
is produced, the section of which is that of an obtuse triangle with 
the apex removed, inasmuch as for gun- flints, flakes are required 
with the face and back parallel, and not with a projecting ridge 
running along the back. 

Fig. 2, representing a block from which a number of flakes 
adapted for gun-flints have been detached and subsequently 




Fig. 2. — Flint-coie with flakes repla 



returned to their original positions around the central core or 
nucleus, will give a good idea of the manner in which flake after 
flake is struck ofi". Mr. Spurrell and Mr. Worth ington Smith 
have succeeded in building up flakes of Palaeolithic date into the 
original blocks from which they were struck. The former has 
also replaced ancient Egyptian flakes,^ the one upon the other. 
Mr. F. Archer has likewise restored a block of flint from Neolithic 
flakes'^ found near Dundrum Bay, county Down. 

To complete the manufacture of gun- flints, each flake is taken 

in the left hand, and cut off into lengths of the width required, by 

means of the knapping hammer and the stake fixed in the bench. 

The flake is placed over the stake at the spot where it is to be cut, 

> Petrie, "Medum," 1892, PL xxix., p. 18, 34. « Nature, vol. xxv. p. 8. 



GUN-FLINT PRODUCTION. 



21 



and a skilful ^vorkman cuts the flake in two at a single stroke. 
The sections of flakes thus produced have a cutting edge at each 
end ; but the finished gun-flint is formed by chipping off the 
edge at the butt-end and slightly rounding it by means of the 
fixed chisel and knapping hammer, the blows from which are 
made to fall just within the chisel, so that the two together cut 
much in the same manner as a pair of shears. Considerable skill 
is required in the manufacture, more especially in the production 
of the flakes ; but Hacquet^ says that a fortnight's practice is 
sufficient to enable an ordinary workman to fashion from five 
hundred to eight hundred gun-flints in a day. According to 
him, an experienced workman will produce from a thousand to 
fifteen hundred per diem. Dolomieu estimates three days as the 
time required by a " caiUoidenr^^ to produce a thousand gun-flints; 
but as the highest price quoted for French gun-flints by Hacquet 
is only six francs the thousand, it seems probable that his calcula- 
tion as to the time required for their manufacture is not far wrong. 
Some of the Brandon flint-knappers are, however, said to be 
capable of producing sixteen thousand to eighteen thousand gun- 
flints in a week. Taking the lowest estimate, it appears that a 
practised hand is capable of making at least three hundred flint 
implements of a given definite form, and 
of some degree of finish, in the course of 
a single day. If our primitive forefathers 
could produce their worked flints with 
equal ease, the wonder is, not that so 
many of them are found, but that they 
do not occur in far greater numbers. 

An elegant form of gun-flint, showing 
great skill in surface flaking, is still pro- 
duced in Albania. A specimen, purchased 
at Avlona^ by my son, is shown in 
Fig. 2a. Some gun-flints and strike-a- 
lights are formed of chalcedony or agate, 
and cut and polished. 

The ancient flint-workers had not, 
however, the advantages of steel and 
iron tools and other modern appliances at 
their command ; and, at first sight, it would appear that the pro- 







Fig. 2a.— Oiin-flint, Avlona, 
Albania. i 



1 P. 52. 

* "Bosnia and Herzegovina," 2nd ed. (1877), p. 153, B.A. Rep. 1885, p. 1216. 



22 MANUFACTURE OF STONE IMPLEMENTS. [cHAP. II. 

duction of flakes of flint, without havinf^ a pointed metallic hammer 
for the purpose, was a matter of great difliculty, I have, however^ 
made some experiments upon the subject, and have also employed a 
Suffolk flint- knapper to do so, and I find that blows from a rounded 
pebble, judiciously administered, are capable of producing well- 
formed flakes, such as, in shape, cannot be distinguished from 
those made with a metallic hammer. The main difficulties consist 
— first, in making the blow fall exactly in the proper place ; and, 
secondly, in so proportioning its intensity that it shall simply 
dislodge a flake, and not shatter it. The pebble employed as a 
hammer need not be attached to a shaft, but can be used, without 
any preparation, in the hand. Professor Nilsson tried the same 
method long ago, and has left on record an interesting account of 
his experience.^ 

In the neighbourhood of the Pfahl-bauten of Moosseedorf, in 
Switzerland, have been found numerous spots where flint has been 
worked up into implements, and vast numbers of flakes and 
splinters left as refuse. Dr. Keller^ says, that "the tools used 
for making these flint implements do not seem to have been of 
the same material, but of gabbro, a bluish-green and very hard 
and tough kind of stone. Several of these implements have been 
met with ; their form is very simple, and varies between a cube 
and an oval. The oval specimens were ground down in one or 
two places, and the most pointed part was used for hammering." 
There were nearly similar workshops at Wauwyl ^ and Bodmann, 
not to mention places where flint was dug for the purposes of 
manufacture. 

Closely analogous sites of ancient flint-workshops have been 
discovered both in France "* and Germany ^ as well as in Great 
Britain; such, for instance, as that at the confluence^ of the 
Leochel and the Don, in Aberdeenshire, where, moreover, flint is 
not native in the neighbourhood ; but proper attention has not, in 
all cases, been paid to the hammer- stones, which, in all probability, 
occur with the chippings of flint. 

The blow from the hammer could not, of course, be always 
administered at the right spot ; and I have noticed on some 
ancient flakes, a groove at the butt- end, the bottom of which is 
crushed, as if by blows from a round pebble, which, from having 

1 "Stone Age," p. 6. 2 " Lake-dwellinge," p. 36. 

3 /. c. pp. 86 and 97. •* Comptes liendus, 1867, vol. Ixv. p. 640. 

^ Troyon, "Mod. de I'Antiquite," p. 52. 

* Pruc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. iv. p. 385. 



MODES OF PRODUCING FLAKES. 23 

fallen too near the edge of tbe block, had at first merely bruised 
the flint, instead of detaching the flake. 

There are, moreover, a certain number of small cores, or nuclei, 
both English and foreign, from which such minute and regular 
flakes have been detached, that it is difficult to believe th^it a 
mere stone hammer could have been directed with sufl&cient skill 
and precision to produce such extreme regularity of form. I may 
cite as instances some of the small nuclei which are found on the 
Yorkshire wolds, and some of those from the banks of the 
Mahanuddy,^ in India, which, but for the slight dissimilarity in 
the material (the latter being usually chalcedony and the former 
flint), could hardly be distinguished from each other. Possibly 
in striking off the flakes some form of punch was used which 
was struck with the hammer as subsequently described. There are 
also some large nuclei, such as those from the neighbourhood of 
the Indus,^ in Upper Scinde, and one which I possess from 
Ghlin, in l^elgium, which are suggestive of the same difl&culty. 
In form they much resemble the obsidian cores of Mexico, and it 
seems not improbable that they are the result of some similar 
process of making flakes or knives to that which was in use 
among the Aztecs. 

Torquemada^ thus describes the process he found in use : — 
" One of these Indian workmen sits down upon the ground, and 
takes a piece of this black stone " (obsidian) " about eight inches 
long or rather more, and as thick as one's leg or rather less, and 
cylindrical ; they have a stick as large as the shaft of a lance^ 
and three cubits or rather more in length ; and at the end of it 
they fasten firmly another piece of wood, eight inches long, to give 
more weight to this part ; then, pressing their naked feet together, 
they hold the stone as with a pair of pincers or the vice of a 
carpenter's bench. They take the stick (which is cut off smooth 
at the end) with both bauds, and set it well home against the edge 
of the front of the stone [y ponenio avesar con el canto de la frente 
de la piedra), which also is cut smooth in that part ; and then they 
press it against their breast, and with the force of the pressure 
there flies off a knife, with its point, and edge on each side, as 
neatly as if one were to make them of a turnip with a sharp knife, 

^ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd series, vol. iii. p. 38. 

2 Geol. May., vol. iii. (1866) p. 433. 

3 " Monarquia Indiana," lib. xvii. cap. 1, Seville, 1615, translated by E. B. 
Tylor, "Auahuac,"' p. 331. See a correction of Mr." Ty lor' s translation in the 
Cumptes Ittnclxs, vol. Ixvii. p. 1296. | 



24 



MANUFACTURE OF STONE IMPLEMENTS. [cHAP. II. 



or of iron in the fire." Hernandez^ gives a similar account of the 
process, but compares the wooden instrument used to a cross-bow, 
80 that it would appear to have had a crutch-shaped end to rest 
against the breast. So skilful were the ^ilexicans in the manu- 
facture of obsidian knives, that, according- to Clavigero, a single 
workman could produce a hundred per liour. 

The short piece of heavy wood was probably cut from some of 
the very hard trees of tropical growth. I much doubt whether 
any of our indigenous trees produce wood sufficiyntly hard to be 
used for splintering obsidian ; and flint is. I believe,' tougher and 
still more difficult of fvacLure. We have, however, in this 
Mexican case, an instance of the manufacture of flakes by sudden 
pressure, and of the employment of a flaking tool, which could be 
carefully adjusted into position before the pressure or blow was 
given to produce the flake. 

Mr. G. E. Sellers, in the Smithsonian Report for 1 885,^ has 
published some interesting " observations on stone chipping," and 
from the reporb of Mr. Catlin, who sojourned long among the 
Indians of North America, gives sketches of crutch-like flaking 
tools tipped with walrus tooth or bone which he had seen in use. 
He also describes a method of making flint flakes by the pressure 
of a lever. The whole memoir is worthy of study. 

The subject of the manufacture of stone implements is also 
discussed by^ Sir Daniel Wilson in an essay on the Trade and 
Commerce of the Stone Age. 

There appears to have been another process in use in Central 
America, for Mr. Tylor^ heard on good authority that somewhere 
in Peru the Indians still have a way of working obsidian by 
laying a bone wedge on the surface of a piece and tapping it till 
the stone cracks. Catlin^ also describes the method of making 
flint arrow-heads among the Apaches in Mexico as being of the 
same character. After breaking a boulder of flint by me'ans of a 
hammer formed of a rounded pebble of horn-stone set in a handle 
made of a twisted withe, flakes are struck off, and these are 
wrought into shape while held on the palm of the left hand, by 
means of a punch made of the tooth of the sperm whale, held in 
the right hand, and struck with a hard wooden mallet by an 
assistant. Both holder and striker sing, and the strokes of the 

' Tylor's " Anahuac," p. 332. * P. 871 

I ^7"'- ^"^- '^'''^- ^''««'^«' 1889, p. 59. i Tylor'8 "Anahuac," p. 99 

• , Last Kambles amongst the Indians," 1868, p. 188. The whole passage is re- 
printed in "Flint Chips," p. 82. 



MODES OF PRODUCING FLAKES. 25 

mallet arc given in time with the music, the blow being sharp and 
rebounding, in which the Indians say is the great medicine or 
principal knack of the operation. 

The Cloud Eiver^ Indians at the present day use a punch made 
of deer's- horn for striking off obsidian flakes from which to make 
arrow-heads. 

Such a process as this may well have been adopted in this 
country in the manufacture of flint flakes ; either bone or stag's- 
horn sets or punches, or else small and hard pebbles, may have 
been applied at the proper spots upon the surface of the flints, and 
then been struck by a stone or wooden mallet I have tried some 
experiments with such stone sets, and have succeeded in producing 
flakes in this manner, having been first led to suppose that some 
such system was in use by discovering, in the year 1864, some 
small quartz pebbles battered at the ends, and associated with 
flint flakes and cores in an ancient encampment at Little Solsbury 
Hill, near Bath, of which I have already given an account else- 
where." I am, however, inclined to think that the use of such 
a punch or set was in any case the exception rather than the rule ; 
for with practice, and by making the blows only from the elbow 
kept fixed against the body, and not with the whole arm, it is 
extraordinary what precision of blow may be attained with merely 
a pebble hold in the hand as a hammer. 

The flakes of chert from which the Eskimos manufacture their 
arrow-heads are produced, according to Sir Edward Belcher,^ who 
saw the process, by slight taps with a hammer formed of a very 
stubborn kind of jade or nephrite. He has kindly shown me one 
of these hammers, which is oval in section, about 3 inches long 
and 2 inches broad, and secured by a cord of sinew to a bone 
handle, against which it abuts. The ends are nearly flat. This 
hammer is now in the Christy Collection at the British Museum 
and is figured by Ilatzel.'' Another from Alaska,^ and several 
siich hammers made of basalt from the Queen Charlotte Islands,^ 
have also been figured. It seems doubtful whether the proper use 
of these hammers was not for crushing bones.^ 

Among the natives of North Australia a totally different method 

' B. B. Redding in Am. Xataralist, Nov., 1880. Nature, vol. xxi. p. 613. 

"* ^Transactions of the Ethnological Society, N. S., vol. iv. p. 242. 

3 Op. cit., N. S., vol. i. p. 138. 

* " Volkerkundo," vol. ii. .1888), p. 748. •' Zeitsch. f. EthnoL, vol. ivi. p. 222. 

« Rep. of U.>S. Nat. Mus., 1888, Niblack, PI. xxii. 

' Hep. of Bureau of Ethn., 1887-8, p. 95. 



26 MANUFACTURE OF STONE IMPLEMENTS. [cHAP. lU 

appears to have been adopted, the flakes being struck off the stone 
which is used as a hammer, and not off the block which is struck. 
In the exploring expedition, under Mr. A. G. Gregory, in 1855-6, 
the party came on an open space between the cliffs along one of 
the tributary streams of the Victoria Eiver, where the ground was 
thickly strewn with fragments of various stones and imperfectly- 
formed weapons. The method of formation of the weapons, accord- 
ing to Mr. Baines,^ was this," The native having chosen a pebble of 
agate, flint, or other suitable stone, perhaps as large as an ostrich 
egg, sits down before a larger block, on which he strik( s it so as to 
detach from the end a piece, leaving a flattened base for his subse- 
quent operations. Then, holding the pebble with its base down- 
wards, he again strikes so as to split off a piece as thin and broad as 
possible, tapering upward in an oval or leaf-like form, and sharp 
and thin at the edges. His next object is to strike off another 
piece nearly similar, so close as to leave a projecting angle on the 
stone, as sharp, straight, and perpendicular as possible. Then, 
again taking the pebble carefully in his hand, he aims the decisive 
blow, which, if he is successful, splits off another piece with the 
angle running straight up its centre as a midrib, and the two 
edges sharp, clear, and equal, spreading slightly from the base, and 
again narrowing till they meet the midrib in a keen and taper 
point. If he has done this well, he possesses a perfect weapon, 
but at least three chips must have been formed in making it, and it 
seemed highly probable, from the number of imperfect heads that 
lay about, that the failures far outnumbered the successful results. 
In the making of tomahawks or axes, in which a darker green 
stone is generally used, great numbers of failures must ensue ; and 
in these another operation seemed necesisaiy, for we saw upon the 
rocks several places were they had been ground, with a great ex- 
penditure of labour, to a smooth round edge." 

In the manufacture of flint flakes, whether they were to serve as 
knives or lance-heads without any more preparation, or whether 
they were to be subjected to further manipulation, so as eventually 
to become arrow-heads, scrapers, or any other of the more flnished 
implements, the form of the nucleus from which they were struck 
was usually a matter of no great importance, the chips or flakes 
being the object of the operator and not the resulting core, which 
was in most cases thrown away as worthless. But where very long 

' Anihrop. Rev., vol. iv. p. civ. Mr. Baine»? has hIso conimunicated an iuterest- 
ing letter od this subject, with illustrations, to Mackie's "Geol. Reperloiy," vol. i. 
p. 258. 



PRESSIGNY NUCLEI. 27 

flakes were desired, it became a matter of importance to produce 
nuclei of a particular form, specially adapted for the purpose. I 
have never met with any such nuclei in England, but the well- 
known livres-de-beurre chiefly found in the neighbourhood of Pres- 
signy-le-grand (Indre et Loire), France, are typical instances of 
the kind. I have precisely similar specimens, though on a rather 
smaller scale, and of a somewhat different kind of flint, from 
Spiennes, near Mons, in Belgium ; and a few nuclei of the same 
form have also been found in Denmark. The occurrence of flints 
wrought into the same shape, at places so far apart, might at first 
appear to countenance the view of this peculiar form being that 
of an implement intended for some special purpose, and not merely 
a refuse block. This, however, is not the case. I have treated 
of this question elsewhere,^ but it will be well here to repeat a 
portion, at least, of what I have before Avritten on this point. 

These large nuclei or Uvres-de-heurre are blocks of flint, usuallv 
10 or 12 inches long and 3 to 4 inches wide in the broadest part, 
the thickness being in most cases less than the width. In general 
outline they may be described as boat-shaped, being square at one 
end and brought to a point — more or less finished — at the other. 
The outline has been given by striking a succession of flakes from 
the sides of a mass of flint, until the boat-like contour has been 
obtained, with the sides slightly converging towards the keel, and 
then the upper surface corresponding to the deck of the boat has 
been chipped into form by a succession of blows administered at 
right angles to the first, and in such a manner that the deck, as 
originally formed, was convex instead of flat. After this convex 
surface was formed, one, two, or even more long flakes were dis- 
lodged along its whole length, or nearly so, by blows administered 
at the part represented by the stern of the boat, thus leaving one 
or more channels along what corresponds to the deck. In rare 
instances, these long flakes have not been removed, in others of 
more frequent occurrence, one of the flakes has broken off short 
before attaining its full length. 

Strange as this boat-shaped form may at the outset appear, yet 
on a little consideration it will be seen that the chipping into such 
a form is in fact one of the necessities of the case for the production 
of long blades of flint. Where flakes only 8 or 4 inches long are 
required, the operator may readily, with his hammer, strike off 
from the outside of his block of flint a succession of chips, so as to 

' Archcpologia, vol. xl. p. 381. See also Prof. Steeii!=trup and Sir John Lubbock 
im tli3 Trans. Ethnol. Soc, N. S., vol. v. p. 221. 



^8 MANUFACTURE OF STONE IMPLEMENTS. fcHAP. II. 

give it a polygonal outline, tlie projections of which will serve for 
the central ridges or back-bones of the first series of regular flakes 
that he strikes off. The removal of this first series of flakes 
leaves a number of projecting ridges, which serve as guides for 
the formation of a second series of flakes, and so on until the block 
is used up. 

But where a flake 10 or 12 inches in length is required, a 
different process becomes necessary. For it is nearly impossible 
with a rough mass of flint, to produce by single blows plane sur- 
faces 10 or I'i inches in length, and arranged at such an angle as 
to produce a straight ridge, such as would serve to form the back- 
bone, as it were, of a long flake ; and without such a back-bone, 
the production of a long flake is impossible. It is indeed this 
ridge (which need not, of course, be angular, but may be more or 
less rounded or polygonal) that regulates the course of the fissure 
by which the flake is dislodged from the matrix or parent flint ; 
there being a slight degree of elasticity in the stone, which enables 
a fissure once properly commenced in a homogeneous flint to pro- 
ceed at right angles to the line of least resistance in the dislodged 
flake, while at the same time exerting a nearly uniform strain, so 
that the inner surface of the flake becomes nearly parallel to the 
outer ridge. It was to obtain this outer ridge that the Pressigny 
cores were chipped into the form in which we find them ; and it 
appears as if the workmen who fashioned them adopted the readiest 
means of obtaining the desired result of producing along the block 
of flint a central ridge whenever it became necessary, until the 
block was so much reduced in size as to be no longer serviceable. 
For, the process of chipping the block into the boat-like form 
could be repeated from time to time, until it became too small 
for further use. The same process of cross-chipping was practised 
in Scandinavia in early times, and the obsidian cores from the 
Greek island of Melos, Crete, and other ancient Greek sites prove 
that it was also known there. The blocks are found in various 
stages, rarely with the central ridge still left on, as Fig. 3, and 
more commonly with one or more long flakes removed from them, 
like Figs. 4 and 5. The sections of each block are shown beneath 
them. Two of the flakes are represented in Figs. 6 and 7. All 
the figures are on the scale of one-half linear measure. 

The causes why the nuclei were rejected as useless are still sus- 
ceptible of being traced. In some cases they had become so thin 
that they would not bear re-shaping ; in others a want of unifor- 



PRESSIGNY NUCLEI. 



2^ 



mity in the texture of tlie flint, 
probably caused by some in- 
cluded organism, had made its 
appearance, and caused the 
flakes to break off short of their 
proper length, or had even 
made it useless to attempt to 
strike them off. In some rare 
instances, when the striking off 
long flakes had proved unsuc- 
cessful on the one face, the 
attempt has been made to pro- 
cure them from the other. The 
abundance of large masses of 
flint near Pressigny — some as 
much as two or three feet across 
— has, however, rendered the 
workmen rather prodigal of 
their materials. The skill 
which has been brought to bear 
in the manufacture of these 
long flakes is marvellous, as the 
utmost precision is required in 
giving the blow by which they 
are produced. Generally speak- 
ing, the projecting ridge left 
at the butt-end of the nucleus 
between the depressions, whence 
two of the short flakes have 
been struck off in chipping it 
square, has been selected as the 
point of impact. Thej'^ appear 
to me to have been struck off 
by a free blow, and not by the 
intervention of a set or punch. 
No doubt the face of the flint 
at the time of the blow being 
struck was supported on some 
elastic body. A few flints which 
bear marks of having been used 
as hammer-stones are found at 
Pressigny. 




Section. *" 
Fig. 3.— Nucleus— Pressigny. 



30 



MANUFACTLRE (iF STONE IMPLEMENTS. [CHAP. II, 



An interesting lecture on the Flint Industry of Touraine Avas 
given on the occasion of the annual meeting of the Societe 




bectiOn. 
i i'ig.4. 



N uclei— Presagny . 



Section. 

Fig. 5. i 



Archeologique de Touraiae, in 1891, by M. J, de Saint- Venant. 



ROUGH-HEWING STONE-HATCHETS. 



31 



I have hitherto been treating of the production of flint flakes 
for various purposes. In such cases the flakes are everything, and 
the resulting core, or nucleus, mere refuse. In the manufacture of 
celts, or hatchets, the reverse is the case, the flakes are the refuse 
(though, of course, they might occasionally be utilized) and the 
resulting block is the main object sought. To produce this, how- 
ever, much the same process appears to have been adopted, at all 
events where flint was the material emplo^'^ed. The hatchets seem 
to have been rough-hewn by detaching a succession of flakes, chips, 




Fig. 6.— Flake— Pressigny. 




■Flake— Prcssigny. 



or splinters, from a block of flint, by means of a hammer-stone, 
and these rough-hewn implements were subsequently worked into 
a more finished form by detaching smaller splinters, also probably 
by means of a hammer, previously to their being ground or 
polished, if they were destined to be finished in such a manner. In 
most cases, one face of the hatchet was first roughed out, and then 
by a series of blows, given at proper intervals, along the margin 
of that face the general shape was given and the other face chipped 
out. This is proved by the fact that in most of the roughly- 



32 MAJs'UFACTURE OF STONE IMPLEMENTS. [cHAP. II. 

chipped hatchets found in Britain, the depressions of the bulbs of 
percussion of the flakes struck oft' occur in a perfect state only on 
one face, having been partly removed on the other face by the 
subsequent chipping. There are, however, exceptions to this rule, 
and more especially among the implements found in our ancient 
river gravels. In some cases (see postea, Fig. 12) the cutting 
edge has been formed by the intersection of two convex lines of 
fracture giving a curved and sharp outline, and the body of the 
hatchet has been subsequently made to suit the edge. The same 
is the case with the hatchets from the Danish kjokken-moddings 
and coast-finds, though the intersecting facets are at a higher angle, 
and the resulting edge straighter, than in the specimens which I 
have mentioned. The edge is also, like that of a mortising chisel, 
at the extremity of a flat face, and not in the centre of the blade. 
The cutting edge has, however, in most of the so-called celts of the 
ordinary form, been fashioned by chipping subsequent to the 
roughing out of the hatchet ; and even in the case of polished 
hatchets, the edge when damaged was frequently re-chipped into 
form before being ground afresh. 

There hardly appears to be sufiicient cause for believing that 
any of the stone hatchets found in this coimtry were chipped out 
by any other means than by direct blows of a hammer; but in the 
case of the Danish axes with square sides, and with their corners 
as neatly crimped or puckered as if they had been made of pieces 
of leather sewn together, it is probable that this neat finish was 
produced by the use of some kind of punch or set. The hammer- 
stones used in the manufacture of flint hatchets appear to have 
been usually quartzite pebbles, where such are readily to be 
obtained, but also frequently to have been themselves mere blocks 
of flint. Many such hammer-stones of flint occurred in the Ciss- 
bury pits^ — of which more hereafter — and I have found similar 
hammer- stones ou the Sussex Downs, near Eastbourne, where also 
flint implements of various kinds appear to have been manufac- 
tured in quantities. Not improbably, these hammers were made of 
flints which had been for some time exposed on the surface, and 
which were in consequence harder than the flints recently dug 
from the pits. We have already seen that the gun-flint knappers 
of the present day are said to work most successfully on blocks of 
flint recently extracted, and those, too, from a particular layer in 

1 Arch., vol. xlii. p. 68. Arch. Jour., vol. xxv. p. 88. Sms. Arch. Coll., vol. 
xxiv. p. 145. Joiir. Anth. Inst., vol. v. p. SS? ; vi. p. 263, 430 ; vii. p. 413. 



ANCIENT MINING FOR FLINT. 33 

the chalk ; and it seems probable that the ancient flint-workers 
were also acquainted with the advantages of using the flints fresh 
from the quarry, and worked them into shape at the pits from which 
they were dug, not only on account of the saving in transport of 
the partly-manufactured articles, but on account of the greater 
facility of working the freshly-extracted flints. This working the 
flints upon the spot is conclusively shown by the examination of 
the old flint-quarry at Cissbury, Sussex, by General Pitt Rivers 
(then Colonel A. Lane-Fox) and others. A very large number of 
hatchets, more or less perfectly chipped out, were there found, as 
will subsequently be mentioned. That they were in some cases at 
great pains to procure flint of the proper quality for being chipped 
into form, and were not content with blocks and nodules, such as 
might be found on the surface, is proved by the interesting explo- 
rations at Grime's Graves, near Brandon, carried on by Canon 
GreenweU, F.R.S.^ 

In a wood at this spot, the whole surface of the ground is studded 
with shallow bowl-shaped depressions from 20 to 60 feet in dia- 
meter, sometimes running into each other so as to form irregularly 
shaped hollows. They are over 250 in number, and one selected 
for exj^loration was about 28 feet in diameter at the mouth, 
gradually narrowing to 12 feet at the bottom, which proved to be 
39 feet below the surface. Through the first 13 feet it had been 
cut through sand, below which the chalk was reached, and after 
passing through one layer of flint of inferior quality, which was 
not quarried beyond the limits of the shaft, the layer known as 
the " floor-stone," from which gun-flints are manufactured at the 
present day, was met with at the bottom of the shaft. To procure 
this, various horizontal galleries about 3 feet 6 inches in height were 
driven into the chalk. The excavations had been made by means 
of picks formed from the antlers of the red-deer, of which about 
80 were found. The points are worn by use, and the thick bases 
of the horns battered by having been used as hammers, for break- 
ing ofi portions of the chalk and also of the nodules of flint. 
Where they had been grasped by the hand the surface is polished 
by use, and on some there wasacoatingof chalky matter adhering, 
on which was still distinctly visible the impression of the cuticle 
of the old flint-workers. The marks of the picks and hammers 
were as fresh on the walls of the galleries as if made but yesterday. 

' Journ. Etliuol. Soc, N. S., vol. ii. p. 419. See also Proc. Soc. A»i. Scot., 
vol. viii. p. 419. 



34 MANUFACnjRE OF STONE IMPLEMENTS. [cHAP. II. 

It is to be observed that such picks as these formed of stag's horn 
have been found in various other places, but have not had proper 
attention called to their character. I have seen one from the 
neighbourhood of Ipswich/ Suffolk. Canon Greenwell mentions 
somewhat similar discoveries having been made at Eaton and 
Buckenham, Norfolk. One was also found by him in a grave 
under a barrow he examined at Rudstone, near Bridlington,^ and 
others occurred near Weaverthorpe and Sherburn. A polished 
hatchet of basalt had also been used at Grime's Graves as one of 
the tools for excavation, and the marks of its cutting edge were 
plentiful in the gallery in which it was discovered. There were 
also found some rudely -made cups of chalk apparently intended 
for lamps ; a bone pin or awl ; and, what is very remarkable, a 
rounded piece of bone 4| inches long and 1 inch in circumfer- 
ence, rubbed smooth, and showing signs of use at the ends, which, 
as Canon Greenwell suggests, may have been a^ punch or instru- 
ment for taking off the lesser flakes of flint in making arrow-heads 
and other small articles. It somewhat resembles the pin of rein- 
deer horn in the Eskimo arrow-flaker, shortly to be mentioned. 
The shaft had been filled in with rubble, apparently from neigh- 
bouring pits, and in it were numerous chippings and cores of 
flint, and several quartzite and other pebbles battered at the ends 
by having been used as hammers for chipping the flints. Some 
large rounded cores of flint exhibited similar signs of use. On the 
surface of the fields around, numerous chippings of flint, and more 
or less perfect implements, such as celts, scrapers, and borers 
were found. 

At Spiennes (near Mons, in Belgium), where a very similar 
manufacture but on a larger scale than that of Cissbury or even 
of Grime's Graves, appears to have been carried on, flints seem to 
have been dug in the same manner. Since I visited the spot, now 
many years ago, a railway cutting has traversed a portion of the 
district where the manufacture existed, and exposed a series of ex- 
cavations evidently intended for the extraction of flint. Mons. A. 
Houzeau de Lehaie, of Hyon, near Mons, has most obligingly fur- 
nished me with some particulars of these subterranean works, a 
detailed account of which has also been published.^ From this 

' Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. i. p. 73. 

^ Pennant describes a flint axe as having been found stuck in a vein of coal 
exposed to the day in Craig y Pare, Monmouthshire. 

' " Rapport BUT les Decouvertes Geologiques et Archeologiques faites a Spiennes 
en 1867." Par A. Briart, F. Comet, et A. Houzeau de Lehaie. Mons, 1868. 



FLINT-MINES AT SPIENNES. 35 

account it appears that shafts from 3 feet to 3 feet 6 inches in 
diameter were sunk throjgh the loam and sand above the chalk to 
a depth of 30 or even 40 feet ; and from the bottom of the shafts 
lateral galleries were worked, from 5 to 6 feet in height and 
about the same in width. Stag's horns which had been used as 
hammers, were found in the galleries, but it is doubtful whether 
they had been used as pick-axes like those in Grime's Graves. 
Among the rubble in the galleries, as well as on the surface of 
the ground above, were found roughly- chipped flints and splinters, 
and more or less rudely-shaped hatchets by thousands. There is 
one peculiar fe;iture among these hatchets which I have not noticed 
to the same extent elsewhere, viz., that many of them are made from 
the nuclei or cores which, in the first instance, had subserved to 
the manufacture of long flint flakes, the furrows left by which 
appear on one of the faces of the hatchets. Sometimes, though 
rarely, the Pressigny nuclei have been utilized in a similar manner. 

In France, pits for the extraction of flint have been discovered 
at Champignolles, Serifontaine (Oise) ^ and at Mur de Barrez 
(Aveyron).^ 

Professor J. Buckman ^ has recorded a manufactory of celts and 
other flint instrimients near Lyme Kegis. 

In these instances, especially at Cissbury and Grime's Graves 
in England, and at Pressigny and Spiennes on the Continent, 
and, indeed, at other places also,^ there appears to have been an 
organized manufactory of flint instruments by settled occupants 
of the different spots ; and it seems probable that the products 
were bartered away to those who were less favoured in their supply 
of the raw material, flint. At Old Deer,^ Aberdeenshire, thirtj'- 
four leaf-shaped flints, roughl}^ blocked out, were found together. 

The chipping out of celts and some other tools formed, not of 
flint, but of other hard rocks, must have been eflected in the same 
manner. The stone employed is almost alwaj^s of a more or less 
silicious nature, and such as breaks with a conchoidal fracture. 

Mnlaise, Bull. deV Ac. Roy. deBelg., 2" S. vols. xxi. and xxv., and Geol. Mag., vol. iii. 
p. 310. See also Cong. Preh. Bruxelles, 1872, p. 279 ; V Anthropologic, vol. ii. p. 326. 
Mat. 3me s. vol. i. (1884), p. G5, likewise ^«W. de la Soc. d'Anthrop. deBruxelles, torn, 
viii. 1889-90, PI. I. C. Engelhardt has described Spiennes and Grime's C4raves in 
the Aarb. for Oldhjnd., 1871, p. 327. What appears to have been a neolithic 
flint mine at Crayford, Kent, has been described by Mr. Spurrell, ^in-A Joum.. 
vol. xxxvii. p. 332. The Deneholes were probably dug for the extraction of chalk 
and not of flint. 

1 V Anthropologie, vol. ii. (1891) 445. " j^^t., 3me s. vol. iv. (1887) p. 1. 

^ Arch. Assoc. Joum., vol. xxviii. 220. 

* Cochet, "Seine Inf.," pp. 1(3, 528. Archivio per VAntropol., ^c, vol. i. 
p. 489. s Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xxx. (1896) p. 346. 

d2 



36 MANUFACTURE OF STONE IMPLEMENTS. [cHAP. II. 

Dr. F. A. ForeP ckipped out a hatchet of euphotide or gabbro 
with a hammer formed of a fragment of saussurite. The process 
occupied an hour and ten minutes, and the subsequent grinding 
three hours more. He made and ground to an edge a rude 
hatchet of serpentine in thirty-five minutes. 

To return, however, to the manufacture of the flint implements 
of this country, and more especially to those which are merely 
flakes submitted to a secondary process of chipping. We have 
seen that in the gun-flint manufacture the flakes are finally shaped 
by means of a knapping or trimming hammer and a fixed chisel, 
whicli act one against the other, somewhat like the two blades of a 
pair of shears, and the process adopted by the ancient flint- workers 
for many purposes must have been to some extent analogous, 
though it can hardly have been precisely similar. One of the 
most common forms of flint implements is that to which the name 
of "scraper" or "thumb-flint" has been given, and which is found 
in abundance on the Yorkshire Wolds, on the Downs of Sussex, 
and in many other parts of England and Scotland. The normal 
form is that of a broad flake chipped to a semicircular edge, 
usually at the end farthest from the bulb of percussion, the edge 
being bevelled away from the flat face of the flake, like that of a 
round-nosed turning-chisel. The name of "scraper" or '^grattoir" 
has been given to these worked flints from their similarity to an 
instrument in use among the Eskimos ^ for scraping the insides 
of hides in the course of their preparation ; but I need not here 
enter upon the question of the purpose for which these ancient 
instruments were used, as we are at present concerned only with 
the method of their manufacture. I am not aware of any evidence 
existing as to the method pursued by the Eskimos in the chipping 
out of their scraping tools : but I think that if, at the present time, 
we are able to produce flint tools precisely similar to the ancient 
" scrapers " by the most simple means possible, and without the 
aid of any metallic appliances, there is every probability that 
identically the same means were employed of old. Now, I have 
found by experiment that, taking a flake of flint (made, I may 
remark, with a stone hammer, consisting of a flint or quartzite 
pebble held in the hand), and placing it, with the flat face up- 
wards, on a smooth block of stone, I can, by successive blows of 
the pebble, chip the end of the flake without any difficulty into 
the desired form. The face of the stone hammer is brought to 

1 Mat., vol. X. (1875) p. 521. • Lartet and Christy's Eel, Aquit., p. 13. 



PRODUCTION OF ARROAV-HEADS. 37 

bear a slight distance only within the margin of the flake, and, 
however sharp the blow administered, the smooth block of stone 
on which the flake is placed, and which of course projects beyond 
it, acts as a stop to prevent the hammer being carried forward so 
as to injure the form, and brings it up sharply, directly it has done 
its work of striking off a splinter from the end of the flake. The 
upper face of the flake remains quite uninjured, and, strange as 
it may appear, there is no difficulty in producing the evenly 
circular edge of the scraper by successive blows of the convex 
pebble. 

Some of the other ancient tools and weapons, having one flat 
face, seem to have been fashioned in much the same manner. In 
the case of arrow-heads and lance-heads, however, another process 
would appear to have been adopted. It is true that we know not 
exactly how 

" the ancient arrow-maker 
Made his arrow-heads of sandstone, 
Arrow-heads of chalcedony, 
Arrow-heads of flint and jasper, 
Smooth and sharpened at the edges, 
Hard and polished, keen and costly." 

And yet the process of making such arrow-heads is carried on 

at the present day by various half-civilized peoples, and has been 

witnessed by many Europeans, though but few have accurately 

recorded their observations. Sir Edward Belcher ^ who had seen 

obsidian arrow-heads made by the Indians of California, and 

those of chert or flint by the Eskimos of Cape Lisburne, states 

that the mode pursued in each case was exactly similar. The 

instrument employed among the Eskimos, which may be termed 

an " arrow-flaker," usually consists of a handle formed of fossil 

ivory, curved at one end for the purpose of being firmly held, 

and having at the other end a slit, like that for the lead in our 

pencils, in which is placed a slip of the point of the horn of a 

reindeer, which is found to be harder and more stubborn than 

ivory. This is secured in its place by a strong thong of leather or 

plaited sinew, put on wet, which on drying becomes very rigid. 

A representation of one of these instruments, in the Blackmore 

Museum at Salisbury, is given in Fig. 8. Another in the 

Christy Collection ^ is shown in Fig. 9. Another form of instru- 

' Trans. Ethnol. Soc, N.S., vol. i. p. 139. See also Sev. Arch., vol. iii. (1861) 
p. 341. 

^ ** Rel. Aquit.," p. 18. For the loan of this cut I am indebted to the executors of 
the late Henry Christy. The same specimen has been engraved by the Rev. J. G. 
Wood. " Nat. Hist, of Man," vol. ii. p. 717. Another example from Greenland 
is figured in Mat., vol. vi. p. 140. 



38 



MANUFACTURE OF STONE IMPLEMENTS. [cHAP. II. 



ment of this kind, but in which the piece of horn is mounted in a 
wooden handle, is shown in Fig. 10, from an original in the same 
collection from Kot/ebue Gulf. The bench on which the arrow- 




Fig. 8. — Eskimo Arrow-flaker. 



heads are made is said to consist of a log of wood, in which a 
spoon-shaped cavity is cut ; over this the flake of chert is placed. 




Fig. 9.— Eskimo Arrow-flaker 



and then, by pressing the " arrow-flaker " gently along the mar- 
gin vertically, first on one side and then on the other, as one would 




Fig. 10. — Eskimo Arrow-llakfr. 



set a saw, alternate fragments are splintered off until the object 
thus properly outlined presents the spear or arrow-head form, 
with two cutting serrated sides. 



FLAKING ARROW-HEADS. 39 

Sir Edward Belcher some years ago kindly explained the process 
to me, and showed me both, the implements used, and the objects 
manufactured. It appears that the flake from which the arrow- 
head is to be made is sometimes fixed by means of a cord in a 
split piece of wood so as to hold it firmly, and that all the 
large surface flaking is produced either by blows direct from 
the hammer, or through an intermediate punch or set formed 
of reindeer horn. The arrow- or harpoon-head thus roughly 
chipped out is afterwards finished by means of the "arrow- 
flaker." 

The process in use at the present day among the Indians of 
Mexico in making their arrows is described in a somewhat 
different manner by Signor Craveri, who lived sixteen years in 
Mexico, and who gave the account to Mr. C. H. Chambers.^ He 
relates that when the Indians wish to make an arrow-head or other 
instrument of a piece of obsidian, they take the piece in the left 
hand, and hold grasped in the other a small goat's horn ; they set 
the piece of stone upon the horn, and dexterously pressing it 
against the point of it, while they give the horn a gentle move- 
ment from right to left, and up and down, they disengage from 
it frequent chips, and in this way obtain the desired form. M. 
F. de Pourtales^ speaks of a small notch in the end of the bone 
into which the edge of the flake is inserted, and a chip broken off 
from it by a sideways blow. Mr. T. R. Peale^ describes the 
manufacture of arrow-heads among the Shasta and North Cali- 
fornia Indians, as being effected by means of a notched horn, as a 
glazier chips glass. This has also been fully described and 
illustrated by Mr. Paul Schumacher^ of San Francisco. Major 
Powell confirms this account. 

The Cloud River Indians^ and the Fuegians,^ also fashion their 
arrow-heads by pressure. Mr. Cushing^ has described the process 
and claims to be the first civilized man who flaked an arrow-head 
with horn tools. This was in 1875. I had already done so and 
had described the method at the Norwich Congress in 1868. 

The late Mr. Christy,^ in a paper on the Cave -dwellers of 

' Gastaldi's " Lake Habitations of Northern and Central Italy," translated and 
edited by C. H. Chambers, M.A. (Anth. Soc., 1865), p. 106. 
- Mortillet, Mat. pour I' Hist, de I'Homme, vol. ii. p. 517. 
'■' "Flint Chips," p. 78. 

* Arch.f. Anth., vol. vii.;p. 263. Bull. U.S. Geol. and Geog. Siirvetj, vol. iii. p. 547. 
•'■ Nat., vol. xxi. p. 615. "^ Nat., vol. xxii. p. 97. 

^ Amer. Anthrop., 1895, p. 307. Nat., vol. xx. p. 483. 
" Tram. Ethnol. Soc, N. S., vol. iii. p. 365. "Eel. Aquit.," p. 1". 



40 MANUFACTURE OF STONE IMPLEMENTS. [cHAP. II. 

Southern France, gave an account, furnished to him by Sir 
Charles Lyell, of the process of making stone arrow-heads by the 
Shasta Indians of California who still commonly use them, which 
slightly differs from that of Mr. Peale. This account by Mr. 
Caleb Lyon runs as follows: — "The Indian seated himself upon 
the floor, and, laying the stone anvil upon his knee, with one 
blow of his agate chisel he separated the obsidian pebble into two 
parts, then giving a blow to the fractured side he split off a slab 
a quarter of an inch in thickness. Holding the piece against his 
anvil with the thumb and finger of his left hand, he commenced 
a series of continuous blows, every one of which chipped off frag- 
ments of the brittle substance. It gradually seemed to acquire 
shape. After finishing the base of the arrow-head (the whole 
being little over an inch in length), he began striking gentle 
blows, every one of which I expected would break it in pieces. 
Yet such was his adroit application, his skill and dexterity, that 
in little over an hour he produced a perfect obsidian arrow-head. 
.... No sculptor ever handled a chisel with greater precision, 
or more carefully measured the weight and effect of every blow 
than did this ingenious Indian ; for even among them, arrow- 
making is a distinct profession, in which few attain excellence." 
Dr. Rau^ has, however, pointed out that this account of the 
manufacture requires confirmation ; but Mr. "Wyeth^ states that 
the Indians on the Snake River form their arrow-heads of 
obsidian by laying one edge of the flake on a hard stone, and 
striking the other edge with another hard stone ; and that many 
are broken when nearly finished and are thrown away. 

Captain John Smith,^ writing in 1606 of the Indians of 
Virginia, says, " His arrow-head he maketh quickly with a little 
bone, which he ever weareth at his bracert,^ of any splint of stone 
or glasse in the form of a heart, and these they glew to the end 
of their arrowes. With the sinewes of deer and the tops of deers' 
horns boiled to a jelly, they make a glue which will not dissolve 
in cold water." 

Beyond the pin of bone already mentioned, as having been 
found in one of the pits at Grime's Graves, I am not aware of 
any bone or horn implements of precisely this character, having 

' " Articles on Anth. Sub.," 1882, p. 9. 
- Schoolcraft, " Ind. Tribes," vol. i. p. 212. 

" Sixth voyage, "Pinkerton'e Travels," vol. xiii. p. 36, quoted also in "Flint 
Chips," p. 79. 

* Jiracer. a girdle or bandage. 



ARROW-FLAKERS. 41 

been as yet discovered in Europe ; but hammers of stag's horn 
and detached tines have frequently been found in connection with 
worked flints, and may have served in their manufacture. I 
have, moreover, remarked among the worked flints discovered in 
this country, and especially in Yorkshire, a number of small tools, 
the ends of which present a blunted, worn, and rounded appear- 
ance, as if from attrition against a hard substance. These tools 
are usually from 2 to 4 inches long, and made from large thick 
flakes, with the cutting edges removed by chipping ; but occa- 
sionally, they are carefully finished implements of a pointed oval 
or a subtriangular section, and sometimes slightly curved longi- 
tudinally. Of these, illustrations will be given at a subsequent 
page. They are usually well adapted for being held in the hand, 
and I cannot but think that we have in them some of the tools 
which were used in the preparation of flint arrow-heads and 
other small instruments. I have tried the experiment with a 
large flake of flint used as the arrow- flaker, both unmounted 
and mounted in a wooden handle, and have succeeded in pro- 
ducing with it very passable imitations of ancient arrow-heads, 
both leaf-shaped and barbed. The flake of flint on which I have 
operated has been placed against a stop on a flat piece of wood, 
and when necessary to raise the edge of the flake I have placed a 
small blocking piece, also of wood, underneath it, and then by 
pressure of the arrow-flaker upon the edge of the flake, have 
detached successive splinters until I have reduced it into form. 
If the tool consists of a rather square- ended flake, one corner may 
rest upon the table of wood, and the pressure be given by a 
rocking action, bringing the other corner down upon the flake. 
In cutting the notches in barbed arrow-heads, this was probably 
the plan adopted, as I was surprised to find how easily this 
seemingly diflScult part of the process was effected. Serration of 
the edges may be produced by the same means. 

The edges of the arrow-heads made entirely with these flint 
arrow-flakers are, however, more obtuse and rounded than those 
of ancient specimens, so that probably these flint tools were used 
rather for removing slight irregularities in the form than for the 
main chipping out. This latter process, I find experimentally, can 
be best performed by means of a piece of stag's horn, used much in 
the same way as practised by the Eskimos, By supporting the 
flake of flint which is to be converted into an arrow-head against 
a wooden stop, and pressing the horn against the edge of the 



42 MANUFACTURE OF STONE IMPLEMENTS. [f'HAP. II. 

flake, the flint enters slightly into the body of the horn ; then 
bringing the pressure to bear sideways, minute splinters can be 
detached, and the arrow-head formed by degrees in this manner 
without much risk of breaking. Not only can the leaf-shaped 
forms be produced, but the barbed arrow-heads, both with and 
without the central stem. The leaf-shaped arrow-heads are, how- 
ever, the most easy to manufacture, and this simple form was 
probably that earliest in use. The counterfeit arrow-heads made 
by the notorious Flint Jack are of rude work, and were probably 
made with a light hammer of iron. Of late years (1895) a far 
more skilful workman at Mildenhall has produced imitations 
which can hardly be distinguished from genuine arrow-heads. 
He keeps his process of manufacture secret. 

Among many tribes* of America, arrow-making is said to have 
been a trade confined to a certain class, who possessed the traditional 
knowledge of the process of manufacture ; and it can hardly be 
expected that a mere novice like myself should be able at once to 
attain the art. I may, therefore, freely confess that, though by 
the use of stag's horn the ordinary surface-chipping characteristic 
of ancient implements may be obtained, yet the method of pro- 
ducing the even fluting, like ripple-marks, by detaching parallel 
splinters uniform in size, and extending almost across the surface 
of a lance- or arrow-head is at present a mystery to me ; as is also 
the method by which the delicate ornamentation on the handles 
ef Danish flint daggers was produced. It seems, however, 
possible that by pressing the flint to be operated upon on some 
close-fitting elastic body at the time of removing the minute 
flakes, the line of fracture may be carried along a considerable 
distance over the surface of the flint, before coming to an end by 
reason of the dislodged flake breaking off or terminating. It is 
also possible that the minute and elegant ornaments may have 
been produced by the use of a pointed tooth of some animal as a 
punch. Mr. F. C. J. Spurrell,^ in an interesting article, has sug- 
gested that the final flaking was efiected after the blades had been 
ground to a smooth surface, in the same manner as the flaking on 
some of the most symmetrical Egyptian blades. His view appears to 
be correct, at all events so far as certain parts of some Danish blades 
are concerned. It seems, however, very doubtful whether any 
such general practice prevailed, I have seen a delicate lance-head 

1 Schoolcraft, "Indian Tribes," vol. iii. p. 81 ; see also 467. 
^ Arch. Journ., vol. liii. 1896, p. .51. 



GRINDING STONE IMPLEMENTS. 43 

6 inclies long, of triangular section, with the broad face polished 
and the two other faces exquisitely fluted. In this case also the 
faces may have been ground before fluting. This blade was 
found in a cavern at Sourdes, in the Landes, and was in the 
collection of M. Chaplain-Duparc. 

With regard to the process of grinding or polishing flint and 
other stone implements not much need be said. I may, however, 
refer the reader to Wilde's Catalogue^ of the Museum of the 
Royal Irish Academy, for an account of the different processes. 
In all cases the grindstone on which they were polished was fixed 
and not rotatory, and in nearly all cases the striae running along 
the stone hatchets are longitudinal, thus proving that they were 
rubbed lengthways and not crossways on the grinding-bed. This 
is a criterion of some service in detecting modern forgeries. The 
grinding- stones met with in Denmark and Scandinavia are gene- 
rally of compact sandstone or quartzite, and are usually of two 
forms — flat slabs, often worn hollow by use, and polygonal prisms 
smallest in the middle, these latter having frequently hollow facets 
in which gouges or the more convex-faced hatchets might be 
ground, and sometimes rounded ridges such as would grind the 
hollow part of gouges. From the coarse striation on the body of 
most flint hatchets, especially the large ones, it would appear that 
they were not ground immediately on such fine-grained stones, 
but that some coarse and hard grit must have been used to assist 
the action of the grindstone. M. Morlot^ thought that some 
mechanical pressure was also used to aid in the operation, and 
that the hatchet to be ground was weighted in some manner, 
possibly by means of a lever. In grinding and polishing the 
hollowed faces of different forms of stone axes, it would appear 
that certain rubbers formed of stone were used, probably in 
conjunction with sand. These will be more particularly described 
in a subsequent page. The surface of hard rocks or of large 
boulders fixed in the ground was often used for the purpose 
of grinding stone implements. Instances will be given hereafter. 

Closely allied to the process of grinding is that of sawing stone. 
It is however rarely, if ever, that in this country any of the stone 
implements show signs of having been reduced into shape by this 
process. Among the small hatchets in fibrolite, so common in 
the Auvergne and in the south of France, and among the green- 
stone, and especially the nephrite celts found in the Swiss Pfahl- 

1 P. 46. - Mortillet, Materiaux, vol. iL p. 353. 



44 MANUFACTURE OF STONE IMPLEMENTS. [CHAP. II. 

bauten,* many show evident traces of having been partially fashioned 
by means of sawing. I have also remarked it on a specimen from 
Portugal, and on many librolite hatchets from Spain.^ Dr. Keller 
has noticed the process, and suggests that the incisions on the flat 
surface of the stone chosen for the purpose of being converted into 
a celt were made sometimes on one side, and sometimes on both, by 
means of a sharp saw-like tool. He has since ^ gone more deeply 
into the question, and has suggested that the stone to be sawn 
was placed on the ground near a tree, and then sawn by means of 
a splinter of flint fixed in the end of a staff, which at its other end 
was forked, and as it were hinged under one of the boughs of the 
tree sufficiently flexible to give pressure to the flint when a weight 
was suspended from it. The staff was, he supposed, to have been 
grasped in the hand, and moved backwards and forwards while 
water was applied to the flint to facilitate the sawing. The 
objection to this suggestion is, that in case of the flint being 
brought to the edge of the stone it M'ould be liable to be driven 
into the ground by the weight on the bough, and thus constantly 
hinder the operation ; nevertheless some such mechanical aids in 
sawing may have been in use. 

M. Troyon* considered that the blade of flint was used in 
connection with sand as well as water. This latter view appears, 
at first sight, far more probable, as the sawing instrmnent has in 
some instances cut nearly f of an inch into the stone, which, it 
would seem, could hardly have been accomplished with a simple 
flint saw ; and the sides of the saw-kerf or notch show, moreover, 
parallel striaj, as if resulting from the use of sand. The objection 
that at first occurred to my mind against regarding the sawing 
instrument as having been of flint was of a negative character 
only, and arose from my not having seen in any of the Swiss 
collections any flint flakes that had indisputably been used for 
sawing by means of sand. At one time I fancied, from the 
character of the bottom and sides of the notches, that a string 
stretched like that of a bow might have been used with sand in 
the manner in which, according to Oviedo,^ the American Indians 
sawed in two their iron fetters, and I succeeded in cutting off the 

1 " Pfahlbauten, Iter Bericht," p. 71. " Lake-d-wellings," pp. 18, 125. See also 
Linden schmit, " Hohenz. Samml.," taf. xxvii. 

2 Froc. Ethnol. Soc, N. S., vol. vii. p. 47. 

3 Anzeigerfiir Schweiz. jilterth., 1870, p. 123. 

* "Habit. Lacust.," p. 19. 

* See Comptes Itendus, vol. Ixvii. p. 1292, where a suggestion is made of some 
stone implements from Java haiing been sawn in this manner. 



METHODS OF SAWING STONE. 45 

end of an ancient Swiss hatchet of hard steatite by this means. 
I found, however, that the bottom of the kerf thus formed was 
convex longitudinally, whereas in the ancient examples it was 
slightly concave. It is therefore evident that whatever was used 
as the saw must have been of a comparatively unyielding nature, 
and probably shorter than the pebble or block of stone it was used 
to saw, for even the iron blades used in conjunction with sand and 
water by modern masons become concave by wear, and, therefore, 
the bottom of the kerf they produce is convex longitudinally. I 
accordingly made some further experiments, and this time upon a 
fragment of a greenstone celt of such hardness that it would 
readily scratch window-glass. I found, however, that with a flint 
flake I was able to work a groove along it, and that whether I 
used sand or no, my progress was equally certain, though it must 
be confessed, very slow. I am indeed doubtful whether the flint 
did not produce most effect without the sand, as the latter to 
become effective requires a softer body in which it may become 
embedded ; while by working with the points and projections in 
the slightly notched edge of the flake, its scratching action soon 
discoloured the water in the notch. What was most remarkable, 
and served in a great measure to discredit the negative evidence 
to which I before referred, was that the edges of the flake when 
not used with sand showed but slight traces of wear or polish. 

On the whole, I am inclined to think that both the Swiss anti- 
quaries are in the right, and that the blocks of stone were sawn 
both with and without sand, by means of flint flakes, but princi- 
pally of strips of wood and bone used in conjunction with sand.^ 
The reader may consult Munro's Lake-Dwellings, 181)0, p. 505. 

Professor Flinders Petrie, in addition to the flint implements 
of the " New Pace," which he discovered near Abydos, found a 
number of stone implements at Kahun, and Mr. F. C. J. Spurrell 
has contributed to his^ book an interesting chapter on their 
character and the method of their manufacture. 

Most of the jade implements from New Zealand and N.W. 
America have been partially shaped by sawing, and in the British 
Museum is a large block of jade from the former country deeply 
grooved by sawing, and almost ready to be split, so as to be of the 

1 An article by Dr. Rudolf Much on the preparation of Stone Implements is in 
the Mitth. d. Anth. Ges. in Wieii, 2d. S., vol. ii. (18S;5;, p. S2 ; and one by Mr. J. D. 
McGuire, in the Amcr. Anthrnp., vol. v., 1892, p. 165. He has also Avi-itten on 
the Evolution of the Art of Working in Stone, in a manner that has called forth a 
reply from Mr. C. H. Read, F.S.A., Amcr. Anthrop., 1893, p. 307 ; 1894. p. 997. 

* " lUahun, Kahun, and Gurob," 1891, p. 51. 



46 MANTTFACTTRE OF STONE IMPLEMENTS. [cHAP, II. 

ri^ht thickness for a mere. The natives ^ use stone hammers for 
chipping, flakes of trap or of some other hard rock for sawing, and 
blocks of sandstone and a micaceous rock for grinding and polishing. 
Obsidian is said to be used for boring jade. I have a flat piece of 
jade, apparently part of a thin hatchet, on one face of which two 
notches have been sawn converging at an angle of 135° and 
marking out what when detached and ground would have formed 
a curved ear-ring. It was given me by the late Mr. H. N. 
[Moseley, who brought it from New Zealand. 

There is another peculiarity to be seen in some of the green- 
stone hatchets and perforated axes, of which perhaps the most 
characteristic examples occur in Switzerland, though the same 
may occasionally be observed in British specimens. It is that the 
blocks of stone have been reduced into form, not only by chipping 
with a hammer, as is the case with flint hatchets, but by working 
upon the surface with some sort of pick or chisel, which was not 
improbably formed of flint. In some instances, where the hatchets 
were intended for insertion into sockets of stag's horn or other 
materials, their butt-end was purposely roughened by means of a 
pick after the whole surface had been polished. Instances of this 
rouD-hening are common in Switzerland, rare in France, and rarer 
still in England. The greenstone hatchet found in a gravel-pit 
near Malton^ (Fig. 81) has its butt-end roughened in this 
manner. The shaft-holes in some few perforated axes appear to 
have been worked out by means of such picks or chisels, the hole 
having been bored from opposite sides of the axe, and generally 
with a gradually decreasing diameter. In some rare instances 
the perforation is oval. The cup, or funnel-shaped depressions, 
in some hammer-stones seem to have been made in a similar 
manner. The inner surface of the shaft holes in perforated axes 
is also frequently ground, and occasionally polished. This has in 
most cases been effected by turning a cylindrical grinder within 
the hole ; though in some few instances the grinding instrument 
has been rubbed backwards and forwards in the hole after the 
manner of a file. M. Franck dc Truguet,^ of Treytel, in 
Switzerland, thinks he has found in a lake-dwelling an instru- 
ment used for finishing and enlarging the holes. It is a frag- 
ment of sandstone about 2| inches long, and rounded on one face, 
which is worn by friction. 

But, besides the mode of chipping out the shaft-hole in per- 

' Fiecher in Arch.f. Anth., vol. xv., 1884, p. 4G3. 

2 The Reliquary, vol. viii. p. 184. ^ Mattriaux, vol. iv. p. 293. 



METHODS OF BORING STONE. 47 

forated implements, several other methods were employed, 
especially in the days when the use of bronze was known, to 
which period most of the highly- finished perforated axes found 
in this country are to be referred. In some cases it would 
appear that, after chipping out a recess so as to form a guide for 
the boring tool, the perforation was effected by giving a rotatory 
motion, either constant or intermittent, to the tool. I have, 
indeed, seen some specimens in which, from the marks visible in 
the hole, I am inclined to think a metallic drill was used. But 
whether, where metal was not employed, and no central core, as 
subsequently mentioned, was left in the hole, the boring tool was 
of flint, and acted like a drill, or whether it was a round stone 
used in conjunction with sand, as suggested by the late Sir Daniel 
"Wilson ^ and Sir W. "Wilde,^ so that the hole was actually ground 
away, it is impossible to say. I have never seen any flint tools 
that could unhesitatingly be referred to this use ; but Herr 
Grewingk, in his "Steinalter der Ostseeprovinzen," ^ mentions 
several implements in the form of truncated cones, which he 
regards as boring- tools [Bohrstcmpel) , used for perforating stone 
axes and hammers. He suggests the employment of a drill-bow 
to make them revolve, and thinks that, in some cases, the boring 
tools were fixed, and the axe itself caused to revolve. Not having 
seen the specimens, I cannot pronounce upon them ; but the fact 
that several of these conical pieces show signs of fracture at the 
base, and that they are all of the same kinds of stone (diorite, 
augite, porphyry, and syenite) as those of which the stone axes of 
the district are made, is suggestive of their being merely the 
cores, resulting from boring Avith a tube, in the manner about to 
be described, in some cases from each face of the axe, and in 
others where the base of the cone is smooth, from one face only. 
One of these central cores found in Lithuania is figured by 
Mortillet,^ and is regarded by him as being probably the result of 
boring by means of a metal tube ; others, from Switzerland, pre- 
sumably of the Stone Age, are cited by Keller.^ Bellucci ^ thinks 
that he has found them in Northern Italy. 

Worsaae^ has suggested that in early times the boring may 
have been effected with a pointed stick and sand and water ; and, 

' "Prehist. Ann. of Scotland," 2nd edit., vol. i. p. 193. 

2 "Cat. Stone Ant. Mus. R. I. A.," p. 78. ^ p_ 26. 

* Materiaux, vol. i. p. 463 ; vol. iii. p. 307. 

5 Am.f. Schweiz. Alt., 1870, pi. xii. 18—20. 

® Archivio per I'Ant. e la Etn., vol. xx. 1890, p. 378. 

' "Primeval Ants, of Denmark," p. 16. 



48 MANUFACTURE OF STONE IMPLEMENTS. [cHAP. II. 

indeed, if any grinding process was used, it is a question whether 
some softer substance, such as wood, in which the sand or abra- 
sive material could become imbedded, would not be more effective 
than flint. By way of experiment I bored a hole through the 
Swiss hatchet of steatite before mentioned, and I found that in 
that case a flint flake could be used as a sort of drill ; but that for 
grinding, a stick of elder was superior to both flint and bone, 
inasmuch as it formed a better bed for the sand. 

Professor Rau, of New York, has made some interesting experi- 
ments in boring stone by means of a driRing-stock and sand, 
which are described in the " Annual Report of the Smithsonian 
Institute for 1868."^ He operated on a piece of hard diorite an 
inch and three-eighths in thickness, and employed as a drilling 
agent a wooden wand of ash, or at times, of pine, in conjunction 
with sharp quartz sand. Attached to the wand was a heavy 
disc, to act as a fly-wheel, and an alternating rotatory motion 
was obtained by means of a bow and cord attached at its centre 
to the apex of the drilling-stock, and giving motion to it after the 
manner of a "pump-drill," such as is used by the Dacotahs' and 
Iroq^iois ^ for producing fire by friction, or what is sometimes 
called the Chinese drill. So slow was the process, that two hours 
of constant drilling added, on an average, not more than the 
thickness of an ordinary lead-pencil line to the depth of the hole. 

The use of a drill of some form or other, to which rotatory 
motion in alternate directions was communicated by means of a 
cord, is of great antiquity. We find it practised with the ordi- 
nary bow by the ancient Egyptians ; ^ and Ulysses is described by 
Homer ^ as drilling out the eye of the Cyclops by means of a stake 
with a thong of leather wound round it, and pulled alternately at 
each end, "like a shipwright boring timber." The " fire-drill," 
for producing fire by friction, which is precisely analogous to the 
ordinary drill, is, or was, in use in most parts of the world. 
Among the Aleutian Islanders the thong-drill, and among the 
New Zealanders a modification of it, is used for boring holes in 
stone. Those who wish to see more on the subject must consult 
Tylor's "Early History of Mankind"^ and a "Study of the 
Primitive Methods of Drilling,"' by Mr. J. D. McGuire. 

1 P. 392. Archirfiir A)tthrop., vol. iii. p. 187. 

- Schoolcraft, " Ind. Tribes," vol. iii. pp. 228, 466. 

3 Tylor, "Early Hist, of Mankind," p. 248. 

* Wilkinson, " Anc. Egyptians," vol. ii. pp. 180, 181 ; vol. iii. pp. 144, 172. 

^ Odyss., ix. 384. * 2nd ed., pp. 341 et aeqq. ; see also " Flint Chips," p. 96. 

' Rep. U. S. Nat. Mm. fcr 1894, p. G23. 



BORING BY MEANS OF A TUBE. 49 

Professor Carl Vogt ^ has suggested that the small roundels of 
stone (like Worsaae, " Af b." No. 86) too large to have been used as 
spindle-whorls, which are occasionally found in Denmark, may 
have been the fly-wheels of vertical pump-drills, used for boring 
stone tools. They may, however, be heads of war-maces. 

In the case of some of the unfinished and broken axes found in 
the Swiss lakes, and even in some of the objects made of stag's 
horn,^ there is a projecting core ^ at the bottom of the unfinished 
hole. This is also often seen in^ Scandinavian and German 
specimens. Dr. Keller has shown that this core indicates the 
employment of some kind of tube as a boring tool ; as indeed had 
been pointed out so long ago as 1832 by Gutsmuths,^ who, in his 
paper " Wie durchbohrte der alte Germane seine Streitaxt? " 
suggested that a copper or bronze tube was used in conjunction 
with powdered quartz, or sand and water. In the Klemm collec- 
tion, formerly at Dresden, is a bronze tube, five inches long and 
three quarters of an inch in diameter, found near Camenz, in 
Saxony, which its late owner regarded® as one of the boring tools 
used in the manufacture of stone axes. This is now in the 
British Museum, but does not appear to me to have been employed 
for such a purpose. The Danish antiquaries ^ have arrived at the 
same conclusion as to tubes being used for boring. Von Estorfi'* 
goes so far as to say that the shaft-holes are in some cases so regular 
and straight, and their inner surface so smooth, that they can only 
have been bored by means of a metallic cylinder and emery. Linden- 
schmit^ considers the boring to have been effected either by means 
of a hard stone, or a plug of hard wood with sand and water, or 
else, in some cases, by means of a metallic tube, as described by 
Gutsmuths. He engraves some specimens, in which the com- 
mencement of the hole, instead of being a mere depression, is a 
sunk ring. Similar specimens are mentioned by Lisch.^*^ Dr. 
Keller's translator, Mr, Lee, cites a friend as suggesting the 

' " Guide ill. du Mas. des Ant. du Nord," 2nd edit. p. 8. 

* Ameigerf. Schweiz. Alt., 1870,pl. xii. 24. Monro's "Lake D\v.," fig. 24, No. I'i. 
' Keller's " Lake-dwelling.s," p. 22. Iter Bericht, p. 74. See also Anzeiger fiir 

Schweiz. Alterth., 1870, p. 139. 

* Aarsb. Soc. Nor. Ant., 1877, pi. i. 5. Montelius, "Ant. Sued.," 1874, fig. 34. 
5 Morgenblatt, No. 253. 

* "Allgemeine Culturwissenscliaft," vol. i. p. 80. See also Preusker, "Blicke iu 
die Vaterltindische Vorzeit," vol. i. p. 173. 

'' Mem. de la Soc. des Ant. du Nord, 1863, p. 149. 

" " Heidnisclie Alterthiimer," p. 66. 

3 " Alterthiimer, u. h. V.," vol. i. Heft \'iii. Taf. i. 

*" " Frederico-Fraiu'iscpum," p. 111. 



50 MANUFACTURE OF STONE IMPLEMENTS. [cHAP. II. 

employment of a hollow stick, such as a piece of elder, for the 
boring tool. My experience confirms this ; but I found that the 
coarse sand was liable to clog and accumulate in the hollow part 
of the stick, and thus grind away the top of the core. If I had 
used finer sand this probably would not have been the case. 

Mr. Rose^ has suggested the use of a hollow bone ; but, as 
already observed, I found bone less effective than wood, in conse- 
quence of its not being so good a medium for carrying the sand. 

Mr. Sehested,^ however, who carried out a series of interesting 
experiments in grinding, sawing, and boring stone implements, 
found dry sand better than wet, and a bone of lamb better than 
either elder or cow's-horn for boring. 

Most of the holes drilled in the stone instruments and pipes of 
North America appear to have been produced by hollow drills, 
which Professor Rau^ suggests may have been formed of a hard 
and tough cane, the Arundinaria macro&perma, which grows abun- 
dantly in the southern parts of the United States. He finds 
reason for supposing that the Indian workmen were acquainted 
with the ordinary form of drill driven by a pulley and bow. The 
tubes of steatite, one foot in length, found in some of the minor 
mounds of the Ohio Valley,* must probably have been bored with 
metal. 

Dr. Keller, after making some experiments with a hollow bone 
and quartz-sand, tried a portion of ox-horn, which he found 
surprisingly more effective, the sand becoming embedded in the 
horn and acting like a file. He comments on the absence of any 
bronze tubes that could have been used for boring in this manner, 
and on the impossibility of making flint tools for the purpose. 
The perishable nature of ox -horn accounts for its absence in the 
Lake settlements.^ On the whole this suggestion appears to me 
the most reasonable. Experiments have also been made in boring 
v.'ith stag's-horn.^ 

M. Troyon^ considered that these holes were not bored by 
means of a hollow cylinder, inasmuch as this would not produce so 
conical an opening, and he thought that the axe was made to 
revolve in some sort of lathe, while the boring was effected by 

1 Journal of the Anthrop. Snc, vol. vi. p. xlii. 

- " Arcliaiol. Undersot^el.ser," 1884. 

3 " Smithson. Report,'' 18G8, p. 399. "Drilling in Stone without Metal." 

^ Schoolcraft, " Indian Tribes," vol. i. p. 93. 

•'' Anzeiyer f. iSchiveiz. Alt., 1870, p. 143. 

" Milth. d. Anth. Ges. in Wien, vol. vii. (1878), p. 96. 

' " Habitations Lacustres," p. C6. Rev. Arch., 1860, vol. i. p. 39. 



METHODS OF BORING STONE. 51 

means of a bronze tool used in conjunction with sand and water. 
He mentions some stone axes found in Bohemia, and in the col- 
lection of the Baron de Neuberg, at Prague, which have so little 
space left between the body of the axe and the central cores, that 
in his opinion they must have been bored by means of a metal 
point and not of a hollow cylinder. Mortillet^ thinks that some of 
the Swiss axes were bored in a similar manner. The small holes 
for suspension, drilled through some of the Danish celts, he thinks 
were drilled with a pointed stone.^ Not having seen the specimens 
cited by M. Troy on, I am unable to offer any opinion upon them ; 
but it appears to me very doubtful whether anything in character 
like a lathe was known at the early period to which the perforated 
axes belong, for were such an appliance in use we should probably 
_find it extended to the manufacture of pottery in the shape of the 
potter's wheel, whereas the contemporary pottery is all hand-made. 
M. Desor,^ though admitting that a hollow metallic tube would have 
afforded the best means of drilling these holes, is inclined to refer 
the axes to a period when the use of metals was unknown. He 
suggests that thin flakes of flint may have been fastened round a 
stick and thus used to bore the hole, leaving a solid core in the 
middle. I do not however think that such a method is practicable. 
In some of the Swiss ■* specimens in which the boring is incom- 
plete there is a small hole in advance of the larger, so that the 
section is like that of a trif oliated Gothic arch. In this case the 
borer would appear to have somewhat resembled a centre-bit or pin- 
drill. In others ^ the holes are oval, and must have been much 
modified after they were first bored. The process of boring holes 
of large diameter in hard rocks such as diorite and basalt by means 
of tubes was in common use among the Egyptians. These tubes are 
supposed to have been made of bronze, and corundum to have been 
employed with them. Professor Flinders Petrie ^ has suggested 
that they had jewelled edges like the modern diamond crown 
.drill, and that they could penetrate diorite at the rate of one 
inch in depth for 27 feet of forward motion. I think, how- 
ever, that this is an over-estimate. Saws of the same kind were 
. also used. 

Kirchner,'^ the ingenious but perverse author of " Thor's Don- 
nerkeil," considers that steel boring tools must have been used 

' Materiaux, vol. iii. p. 264. - Ibid., vol. iii. p. 294. 

^ "Les Palafittes," p. 19. * Keller, " Lake Dwellings," xxv. 1, 7, p. 91. 

* Op. cit., xxvii. 11, 21, p. 110. 6 Brit. Assoc. Hep., 1881, p. 698. 

^ "Thor'sDonnerkeil,"p. 13. 

E 2 



52 MANUFACTURE OF STONE IMPLEMENTS. [CHAP. II. 

for the shaft-holes in stone axes ; and even Nilsson/ who com- 
ments on the rarity of the axes with the central core in the holes, 
is inclined to refer them to the Iron Age. He '"^ considers it an 
impossibility to bore " such holes " with a wooden pin and wet 
sand, and is no doubt right, if he means that a wooden pin would 
not leave a core standing in the centre of the hole. 

The drilling the holes through the handles of the New Zealand^ 
meres is stated to be a very slow process, but effected by means of 
a wetted stick dipped in emery powder. I have seen one in which 
the hole was unfinished, and was only represented by a conical 
depression on each face. 

In some stones, however, such holes can be readily bored with 
wood and sand ; and in all cases where the stone to be worked 
upon can be scratched by sand, the boring by means of wood is 
possible, given sufficient time, and the patience of a savage. 

To what a degree this extends may be estimated by what 
Lafitau ^ says of the North American Indians sometimes spending 
their whole life in making a stone tomahawk without entirely 
finishing it ; and by the years spent by members of tribes on the 
Rio Negro * in perforating cylinders of rock crystal, by twirling a 
flexible leaf-shoot of wild plantain between the hands, and thus 
grinding the hole with the aid of sand and water. The North 
American^ tobacco-pipes of stone were more easily bored, but for 
them also a reed in conjunction with sand and water seems to 
have been employed. 

On the whole, we may conclude that the holes were bored in 
various manners, of which the principal were — 

1. By chiselling, or picking with a sharp stone. 

2. By grinding wdth a solid grinder, probably of wood. 

3. By grinding with a tubular grinder, probably of ox-horn. 

4. By drilling with a stone drill. 

5. By drilling with a metallic drill. 

Holes produced by any of these means could, of covirse, receive 
their final polish by grinding. 

With regard to the external shaping of the perforated stone 
axes not much need be said. They appear to have been in some 

' "Stone Age," p. 79. The boring-tool ia, in the English edition, niistakenljr 
called a centre-bit. 

•^ " Stone Age," p. 80. » Wood, "Nat. Hist, of Man," vol. ii. p. 167. 

* " Mceurs des Sauv. Amer.," 1724, vol. ii. p. 110. " Flint Chips." p. 525. 

^ Tylor, "Early Hist, of Mankind," 2nd edit., p. 191. Wallace! "Travels on 
the Amazon and Eio Negro," p. 278. 

' C. C. Abbott in Nature, vol. xiv. p. 154. 



PROGRESS IN MODES OF MANUFACTURE. 53 

cases wrouglit into shape by means of a pick or chisel, and sub- 
sequently ground ; in other cases to have been fashioned almost 
exclusively by grinding. In some of the axe- hammers made 
of compact quartzite, the form of the pebble from which they 
have been made has evidently given the general contour, 
in the same manner as has been observed on some fibrolite 
hatchets, which have been made by sawing a flat pebble in two 
longitudinally, and then sharpening the end, or ends, the rest 
of the surface being left unaltered in form. This is also the case 
with some stone hatchets, to form which a suitable pebble has 
been selected, and one end ground to an edge. 

Such is a general review of the more usual processes adopted in 
the manufacture of stone implements in prehistoric times, which I 
have thought it best should precede the account of the implements 
themselves. I can hardly quit the subject without just mention- 
ing that here, as elsewhere, we find traces of improvement and 
progress, both in adapting forms to the ends they had to subserve, 
and in the manner of treating the stubborn materials of which 
these implements were made. Such progress may not have been, 
and probably was not, uniform, even in any one country ; and, 
indeed, there are breaks in the chronology of stone implements 
which it is hard to fill up ; but any one comparing, for instance, 
the exquisitely made axe-hammers and delicately chipped flint 
arrow-heads of the Bronze Age, with the rude implements of the 
PalaBolithic Period — neatly chipped as some of these latter are — 
cannot but perceive the advances that had been made in skill, and 
in adaptation of means to ends. If, for the sake of illustration, 
we divide the lapse of time embraced between these two extremes 
into four Periods, it appears — 

1. That in the Palaeolithic, River-gravel, or Drift Period, im- 
plements were fashioned by chipping only, and not ground or 
polished. The material used in Europe was, moreover, as far as 
at present known, mainly flint, chert, or quartzite. 

2. That in the Reindeer or CavernPeriod of Central France, though 
grinding was almost if not quite unused, except in finishing bone 
instruments, yet greater skill in flaking flint and in working up 
flakes into serviceable tools was exhibited. In some places, as at 
Laugerie - haute, surface-chipping is found on the flint arrow- 
heads, and cup-shaped recesses have been worked in other hard 
stones than flint, though no other stones have been used for cutting 
purposes. 



54 MANUFACTURE OF STONE IMPLEMENTS. [cHAP. II. 

3. That in the Neolithic or Surface Stone Period of "Western 
Europe, other materials besides flint were largely used for the 
manufacture of hatchets ; grinding at the edge and on the surface 
was generally practised, and the art of flaking flint by pressure 
from the edge was probably known. The stone axes, at least in 
Britain, were rarely perforated. 

4. That in the Bronze Period such stone implements, with the 
exception of mere flakes and scrapers, as remained in use, were, 
as a rule, highly finished, many of the axes being perforated and 
of graceful form, and some of the flint arrow-heads evincing the 
highest degree of manual skill. The subsequent manufacture of 
stone implements in Roman and later times needs no further 
mention. 

Having said thus much on the methods by which the stone 
implements of antiquity were manufactured, I pass on to the 
consideration of their different forms, commencing with those 
of the Neolithic Age, and with the form which is perhaps the 
best known in all countries — the celt. 



55 



IMPLEMENTS OF THE NEOLITHIC PEEIOD. 



CHAPTER III. 

CELTS. 

The name of Celt, which has long been given to hatchets, adzes, 
or chisels of stone, is so well known and has been so universally 
employed, that though its use has at times led to considerable 
misapprehension, I have thought it best to retain it. It has been 
fancied by some that the name bore reference to the Celtic people, 
by whom the implements were supposed to have been made ; and 
among those who have thought fit to adopt the modern fashion 
of calling the Celts " Kelts '* there have been not a few who have 
given the instruments the novel name of " kelts " also. In the 
same manner, many French antiquaries have given the plural 
form of the word as Celtce. Notwithstanding this misappre- 
hension, there can be no doubt as to the derivation of the word, it 
being no other than the English form of the doubtful Latin word 
Ccltis or Celtes, a chisel. This word, however, is curiously enough 
almost an uTra^Xeyofxevov in this sense, being best known through 
the Vulgate translation of Job,^ though it is repeated in a forged 
inscription recorded by Gruter and Aldus.^ The usual derivation 
given is d ccelando, and it is regarded as the equivalent of cwlum. The 
first use of the term that I have met with, as applied to antiqui- 
ties, is in Beger's " Thesaurus Brandenburgicus," ^ 1696, where 
a bronze celt, adapted for insertion in its haft, is described under 
the name of Celtes. 

I have said that the word celte, which occurs in the Vulgate, is 

^ Oap. xix. V. 24. It also occurs in a quotation of tlie passage by St. Jerome, ia 
his "Epist. ad Pammachium." See Athenteum, June 11, 1870. 
- P. 329, 1. 2:5. -0 Vol. iii. p. 418. 



56 CELTS. [chap. III. 

of doubtful authenticity. Mr. Knight Watson/ in a paper com- 
municated to the Society of Antiquaries, has shown that the 
reading in many MSS. is certe, and the question has been fully 
discussed by Mr. J. A. Picton,^ Mr. E. Marshall,^ Dr. M. Much," 
and others. X. v. Becker^ suggests that the error in writing celtc 
for certe originated between a.d. 800 and 1400, and he points out 
that Conrad Pickel, the poet laureate, who died in 1508, latinized 
his surname by Celtes. Treating the subject as one of probability, 
it appears much more unlikely that a scribe should place a new- 
fangled word cdte in the place of such a well-known word as certe, 
than that certe should have been substituted for a word that had 
become obsolete. I am, therefore, unwilling absolutely to con- 
demn the word, especially having regard to there being a recog- 
nized equivalent in Latin, Ccvhim. 

It has been suggested that there may originally have been 
some connection between the Latin celtis and the British or Welsh 
cellt, a flint ; but this seems rather an instance of fortuitous 
resemblance than of aflinity.^ A "Welsh triad says there are three 
hard things in the world — Maen Cellt (a flint stone), steel, and a 
raiser's heart. 

The general form of stone celts is well known, being usually 
that of blades, approaching an oval in section, with the sides more 
or less straight, and one end broader and also sharper than the 
other. In length they vary from about two inches to as much as 
sixteen inches. I do not, however, propose to enter at once into 
any description of the varieties in their form and character, but 
to pass in review some of the opinions that have been held con- 
cerning their nature and origin. 

One of the most universal of these is a belief, which may almost 
be described as having been held " semper, tdiqiie et ah omnibus," 
in their having been thunderbolts. 

" The country folks ^ of the West of England still hold that the 
'thunder-axes ' they find, once fell from the sky." In Cornwall® 
they still have medical virtues assigned to them ; the water in 
which " a thunderbolt," or celt, has been boiled being a specific 

1 Proe. Soc. Ant., 2nd S. vol. vii. p. 395. - N. and Q., oth S. vol. ix. p. 463. 

* Op. eit., X. p. 73. * Mitth. d. Antfi. Ges. in Wlen, vol. xxiv. (1894) p. 84. 
5 Arch. J. Anth., vol. x. (1876) p. 140. 

* Barnes, "Notes on Ancient Britain," 1858, p. 15. 

' Tylor, " Early Hist, of Man.," 2nd ed. p. 226, whicli also gee for many of the 
facts here quoted. See al-so Tvlor's "Prim. Culture," vol. ii. p. 237, &e. 

» Halliwell, " Rambles in West Cornwall," 1861, p. 205. Mev. Celt., 1870, p. 6. 
Polwhele's "Traditions, &c.," 1826, vol. ii. p. 607. Folk-lore Juiirn., vol. i. p. 191. 



BELIEF IN THEIR METEORIC ORIGIN. 57 

for rheumatism. In the North of England, and in parts of 
Scotland, they are known as thunderbolts,^ and, like flint arrow- 
heads, are supposed to have preservative virtues, especially against 
diseases of cattle. In Ireland the same superstition prevails, and 
I have myself known an instance where, on account of its healing 
powers, a stone celt was lent among neighbours to place in the 
troughs from which cattle drank. 

In the British Museum is a thin highly polished celt of jadeite, 
reputed to be from Scotland, in form like Fig. 52, mounted in a 
silver frame, and with a hole bored through it at either end. 
It is said to have been attached to a belt and worn round the 
waist as a cure for renal affections, against which the material 
nephrite was a sovereign remedy. 

In most parts of France," and in the Channel Islands, the stone 
celt is known by no other name tlian " Coin de/oudre," or "Pierre 
de tonnerre "; and Mr. F. C. Lukis ^ gives an instance of a flint 
celt having been found near the spot where a signal-staff had 
been struck by lightning, which was proved to have been the bolt 
by its peculiar smell when broken. M. Ed. Jacquard has written 
an interesting paper on " Ceraunies ou pierres de tonnerre."^ 

In Brittany ^ a stone celt is frequently thrown into the well 
for purifying the water or securing a continued supply ; and in 
Savoy it is not rare to find one of these instruments rolled up 
in the wool of the sheep, or the hair of the goat, for good luck, or 
for the prevention of the rot or putrid decay. 

In Sweden ^ they are preserved as a protection against light- 
ning, being regarded as the stone-bolts that have fallen during 
thunderstorms. 

In Norway they are known as Tonderkiler, and in Denmark 
the old name for a celt was Torden-steen.^ The test of their being 
really thimderbolts was to tie a thread round them, and place 
them on hot coals, when, if genuine, the thread was not burnt, 
but rather rendered moist. Such celts promote sleep. 

In Germany ^ both celts and perforated stone axes are regarded 

' Sibbald mentions two perforated cerauiiicc found in Scotland. " Pro<l. Nat. 
Hist. Scot.," ii. lib. iv. p. 49. See also Froc. Soc. A)it. Scot., vol. xxiv. p. 370. 

2 Comptes Rejidus, 1864, vol. li.x. p. 713. Cochet, "Seine Inf.," v. 15. B. de 
Perthes, "Ant. Celt, et Anted.," vol. i. p. 522, &c. 

3 F. C. Lukis, F.S.A., in Rcliqunry, viii. p. 208. 

* Bull., Soc. deBorda, Dn.r, 1894, p. 159. See also De Nadaillac, " Les Premiers 
Hommes," vol. i. p. 12; Cartailhac, "La France preh.," p. 4. ' Ibid. 

« Nilsson, " Stone Age," pp. 199-201. 
' "MuB. Wormianum," p. 74. 

* Preu.sker, " Elicke in die Vatcrliindische Vorzeit," vol. i. p. 170. 



58 CELTS. [chap. III. 

as thunderbolts (Dontierkeile or Thorskeile) ; and, on account of 
their valuable properties, are sometimes preserved iu families for 
hundreds of years. I possess a specimen from North Germany, 
on which is inscribed the date 1571, being probably the year in 
which it was discovered. The curious perforated axe or hammer 
found early in the last century, now preserved in the Museum of 
Antiquities at Upsala,^ seems to have been a family treasure of 
the same kind. It bears upon it, in early Runes, an inscription 
thus interpreted by Professor Stephens — " Owns Oltha this Axe." 
Another, with four ^ Runic characters upon it, was found in Den- 
mark, and it has been suggested that the letters on it represent 
the names of Loki, Thor, Odin, and Belgthor.^ The appearance 
of the American inscribed axe from Pemberton,^ New Jersey, 
described by my namesake. Dr. J. C. Evans, and published by 
Sir Daniel Wilson, is not calculated to inspire confidence in its 
authenticity. 

The German belief is much the same as the Irish. Stone celts 
are held to preserve from lightning the house in which they are 
kept. They perspire when a storm is approaching ; they are good 
for diseases of man and beast ; they increase the milk of cows ; 
they assist the birth of children ; and powder scraped from them 
may be taken with advantage for various childish disorders. It 
is usually nine days after their fall before they are found on the 
surface. 

In the ruins of a Cistercian nunnery, Martha's Hof, at Bonn,* 
a large polished celt of jadeite, like Fig. 52, was found, which 
had been presumably brought there as a protection against light- 
ning. It had been placed in the roof of a granary. 

In Bavaria ^ and Moravia ^ stone axes, whether perforated or 
not, are regarded as thunderbolts. 

In Holland,^ in like manner, they are known as donder-beitels, 
or thunder- chisels. 

In Spain they are known as raijos or centellos, and are 
regarded as thunder- stones, while among the Portuguese' 

1 " Old Northern Runic Monuments," p. 205. Ant. Tidsskr., 1852-54, p. 258. 
Sjoborg, " Samlingar for Nordens Fomalskara," vol. iii. p. 163. 

2 Ant. Tidsskr., 1852-54, p. 8. Mem. de la Soc. des Ant. du Nord, 1850-GO, p. 28. 

* Arch. Journ., vol. xxv. p. 116. * " Preh. Man," vol. ii. p. 185. 

5 Jahrb. d. V. v. Alth. am Rheinl., Heft Ixxvii. 1884, p. 216, Ixxix. 1885, p. 280. 

" Arch.f. Anth., vol. xxii. 1894, Corr. Bl. p. 102. 

' Mitth. d. Anth. Ges. in JVien, 1882, p. 159. Zeitsck.f. Eth., vol. xii. 1880, p. 252. 

* Notes and Queries, 2nd S., vol. viii. p. 92. 
9 Tylor, " Early Hist, of Man.," p. 227. 



REGARDED AS THUNDERBOLTS. 59^ 

and in Brazil ^ the name for a stone axe-blade is corisco, or 
lightning. 

In Italy ^ a similar belief that these stone implements are 
thunderbolts prevails, and Moscardo^ has figured two polished 
celts as Saette o Fulmini ; and in Greece'* the stone celts are 
known as Astropeiekia, and have long been held in veneration. 

About the year 1081 we find the Byzantine emperor, Alexius 
Comnenus,^ sending, among other presents, to the Emperor 
Henry III. of Germany, aoTpoireXeKW ceceimevov fxera y^pvcracpiov, 
an expression which appears to have puzzled Ducange and Gibbon, 
but which probably means a celt of meteoric origin mounted in 
gold. About 1670 " a stone hatchet was brought from Turkey 
by the French Ambassador, and presented to Prince Francois de 
Lorraine, bishop of Verdun. It stiU exists in the Musee Lorrain 
at Nancy. 

Nor is the belief in the meteoric and supernatural origin of 
celts confined to Europe. Throughout a great part of Asia the 
same name of thunderbolts or lightning-stones is applied to 
them. Dr. Tylor^ cites an interesting passage from a Chinese 
encyclopaedia of the seventeenth century respecting lightning- 
stones, some of which have the shape of a hatchet. 

In Japan ^ they are known as thunderbolts, or as the battle-axe 
of Tengu,^ the Guardian of Heaven. They are there of great use ^° 
medicinally ; in Java ^^ they are known as lightning-teeth. The 
old naturalist Rumph,^^ towards the end of the seventeenth century, 
met with many such in Java and Amboyna, which he says were 
known as " Dondersteenen." 

In Burma ^^ and Assam ^"^ stone adzes are called lightning- 
stones, and are said to be always to be found on the spot where a 
thunderbolt has fallen, provided it is dug for, three years after- 
wards. When reduced to powder they are an infallible specific 

1 Ann. for Nord. OJdk., 1838, p. 159. Klemm., "C. G.," vol. i. p. 2G8. Prinz 
Neuwied, ii. p. 35. 

* Nicolucci, "di Aloune Anni, kc, in Pietra," 1863, p. 2. 
3 "Mus. Mosc," 1672, p. 144. 

* Rev. Arch., vol. xv. p. 358 ; xvi. p. 145. Finlay, *' TTpotirr. 'Ap^aioX.," p. 5. 

* Alexius, Lib. iii. p. 93, etscqq., quoted by Gibbon, " Dec. and Fall," c. 56. 
^ Cartailhac, p. 4. 

■^ "Early Hist, of Mankind," p. 211. Klemm, " CultTU--Ge8chichte," vol. vi. p. 467. 
3 Tylor, op. cit. 214. » Franks, Trans. Freh. Cong., 1868, p. 260. 

'" Mev. Arch., vol. xxvii. 1895, p. 326. 

" Notes and Queries, 2nd S., vol. viii. p. 92. Arch. Journ., vol. xi. p. 121. 
^"^ Arch, fur Anthrop., vol. iv. Corr. Blait, p. 48. Rumphius, " Curios. Amboin.,"^ 
p. 215. 

^^ Proc. Soe. Ant., 2d S., vol. iii. p. 97. 

" Proc. Ethnol. Soc, 1870, p. Ixii. Joxr. Anth. Inst., vol. i. p. Ixi. 



60 CELTS. [chap. III. 

for ophthalmia. They ^ also render those who carry them invul- 
nerahle, and possess other valuable properties. The same is the 
case in - Cambodia. 

Among the Malays ^ the idea of the celestial origin of these stones 
generally prevails, though they are also supposed to have been 
used in aerial combats between angels and demons * ; while in 
China they are revered as relics of long-deceased ancestors. 

I am not aware whether they are regarded as thunderbolts in 
India, ^ though a fragment of jade is held to be a preserva- 
tive against lightning.^ Throughout the whole of Hindostan, 
however, they appear to be venerated as sacred, and placed 
against the Mahadeos, or adorned with red paint as Mahadeo. 

It is the same in Western Africa.'^ Sir Hichard Burton® has 
described stone hatchets from the Gold Coast, which are there 
regarded as " Thunder-stones." Mr. Bowen, a missionary, states 
that there also the stones, or thunderbolts, which Saugo, the 
Thunder god, casts down from heaven, are preserved as sacred 
relics. Among the Niam-Niam,^ in central Africa, they are 
regarded as thunderbolts. An instructive article by Richard 
Andree on the place of prehistoric stone weapons in vulgar 
beliefs will be found in the Mittheihmgen of the Anthro- 
pological Society of Yienna,^^ and an article ^^ by Dr. A. Bastian on 
" Stone Worship in Ethnography " in the Archie fur Anthro- 
pologie. 

The very remarkable celt of nephrite (now in the Christy collec- 
tion), procured in Egypt many years ago by Colonel Milner, and 
exhibited to the Archaeological Institute in 1868 ^^ by the late Sir 
Henry Lefroy, F.R.S., affords another instance of the superstitions 
attaching to these instruments, and has been the subject of a very 
interesting memoir by the late Mr. C. W. King,^^ the well-known 
authority on ancient gems. In this case both faces of the celt have 
been engraved with gnostic inscriptions in Greek, arranged on one 

' Proc. As. Soc. Bcng., July, 18G9. I^'aturc, vol. ii. p. 104. 

- Nonlet, " L'age de la pierre en Cambodge," Toulouse, 1877. 

^ Morlot, Actes de la Soc. jurass. d'Emul., 1863. Earl, "Native Races of the 
Indian Archip.," vol. v. p. 84.— Von Siebold, Nature, vol. xxxiv. 1886, p. 52. 

■• Nature, vol. xxxii. 1885, p. 626. 

* Proc. As. Soc. Bengal, 1861, p. 81. Do., 1862, p. 325. 

« "Ausland," 1874, p. 82. 

' Rev. T. J. Bowen, " Gram, and Diet, of Yoruba Language." "Smithsonian 
Contr.," vol. i. p. xvi., quoted by Dr. E. B. Tylor, Trans. Preh. Cong., 1868, p. 14. 

" Jour. Anth. Inst., vol. xii. p. 450. 

' Arch, per V Ant. e la Etn., vol. xiv. (1884\ p. 371. 

1" 1882, p. 111. 'ii Vol. iii. 1868, p. 1. 

'* Arch. Journ., vol. xxv. p. 151. '^ Ibid. p. 103. 



CELT WITH GNOSTIC INSCRIPTIONS. 61 

face in the form of a wreath ; and it was doubtless regarded 
as in itself possessed of mystic power, by some Greek of 




Fig. 11.— Celt with Gnostic Inscription. (The upper figure actual size, the lower enlarged.) 

Alexandria, where it seems to have been engraved. It is 
shown in Fig. 11, here reproduced from the Arcliavloyicnl 
Journal. Another celt not from Egypt, but from Greece proper, 



l62 CELTS. [chap. hi. 

with three personages and a Greek inscription engraved upon it, 
is mentioned by Mortillet.^ It seems to reproduce a Mithraic'^ 
scene. A perforated axe, with a Chaldoean ^ inscription upon it, 
is in the Borgia collection, and has been figured and described by 
Lenormant. 

Curiously enough, the hatchet appears in ancient times to have 
had some sacred importance among the Greeks. It was from a 
hatchet that, according to Plutarch,* Jupiter Labrandeus received 
that title ; and M. de Longperier ^ has pointed out a passage, 
from which it appears that Bacchus was in one instance, at all 
events, worshipped under the form of a hatchet, or TreXeKU^. He 
has also published a Chaldaean cylinder on which a priest is repre- 
sented as making an offering to a hatchet placed upright on a 
throne, and has shown that the Egyptian hieroglyph for Nouter, 
God, is simply the figure of an axe. 

In India the hammer was the attribute of the god Indra ^ as 
Vagrakarti. A similar worship) appears to have prevailed in the 
North. Saxo Grammaticus mentions that the Danish prince 
Magnus Nilsson, after a successful expedition against the Goths, 
brought back among his trophies some Thor's hammers, " malleos 
joviales," of unusual weight, which had been objects of veneration 
in an island in which he had destroyed a temple. In Brittany the 
fig-ures of stone celts are in several instances engraved on the 
large stones of chambered tumuli and dolmens. 

There are two ^ deductions which may readily be drawn from 
the facts just stated ; first, that in nearly, if not, indeed, all 
parts of the globe which are now civilized, there was a period 
when the use of stone implements prevailed ; and, secondly, that 
this period is so remote, that what were then the common 
implements of every-day life have now for centuries been 
regarded with superstitious reverence, or as being in some sense 
of celestial origin, and not the work of man's hands. 

Nor was such a belief even in Europe, and in comparatively 
modern times, confined to the uneducated. On the contrary, 
Mercati,^ physician to Clement VIII., at the end of the sixteenth 

' Materii/uz, vol. iv. p. 9. - Mat., vol. xi. p. 538. 

^ Mat., vol. xiv. p. 274. Bull, della Comni. Arch. Comunal. di Jloma, 1870. 

* "Quffist. Grific," ed. 1624, p. 301. 

* Congres Intern. d^Anth. et d' Arch. Prch., 1867, pp. 39, 40. 

^ Kruse, " Necroliv.," Nachtrag, p. 21. Journ. As. Soc. Beng., vol. v. p. 34. 
' See also Tylor, ;. c, p. 228. 

" " Metallotheoa Vaticana," p. 242. De Rossi, " Scoperte Paleoetnol.," 1867, p. 
11. Mat., vol. X. p. 49. 



THEIR ORIGIN AND VIRTUES. 63 

century, appears to have been the first to maintain that what were 
regarded as thunderbolts were the arms of a primitive people 
unacquainted with the use of bronze or iron. Helwing^ at 
Konigsberg in 1717 showed the artificial character of the so- 
called thunderbolts, and in France, De Jussieu in 1723, and 
Mahudel,^ about 1734, reproduced Mercati's view to the Academic 
des Inscriptions. In our own country, Dr. Plot, in his " History 
of Staffordshire " ^ (1686), also recognized the true character of 
these relics ; and, citing an axe of stone made of speckled flint 
ground to an edge, says that either the Britons or Romans, or 
both, made use of such axes ; and adds that " how they might be 
fastened to a helve may be seen in the Museum Ashmoleanum, 
where there are several Indian ones of the like kind fitted up in 
the same order as when formerly used." Dr. Plot's views were 
not, bowever, accepted by all his countrymen, for in the Philo- 
sopliical Transactions of the Royal Society,'^ we find Dr. Lister 
regarding unmistakeable stone weapons as having been fashioned 
naturally and without any artifice. Some of the old German ^ 
authors have written long dissertations about these stone hatchets 
and axes under the name of Cerauniae, and given representations of 
various forms, which wereknown a.s Malkits fulmineus, Cuneusful- 
?nims, Donnerstein, Strahlhammer, &c. Aldrovandus says that 
these stones are usually about five inches long and three wide, of 
a substance like flint, some so hard that a file will not touch them. 
About the centre of gravity of the stone is usually a hole an inch 
in diameter, quite round. They all imitate in form a hammer, a 
wedge, or an axe, or some such instrument, with a hole to receive 
a haft, so that some think them not to be thunderbolts, but iron 
implements petrified by time. But many explode such an opinion, 
and relate how such stones have been found under trees and 
houses struck by lightning ; and assert that trustworthy persons 
were present, and saw them dug out, after the lightning had 
struck.^ Kentmann informs us how, in the month of May, 
1561, there was dug out at Torgau such a bolt projected by 

' " Lithographia Angerburgica," cited in Mat., vol. x. 297. 
- "Hist. etMcm.," vol. xii. p. 163. Mat., toI. x. U6. 
' P. 397. * No. '201. 

* Aldrovandus, " Mus. Met.," 1648, p. 607—611. Gesner, " de Fig. Lapid.," 
p. 62—64. Boethius, "Hist. Gem.," lib. ii. c. 261. Besler, " Gazophyl. Rer. 
Nat.," tab. 34. Wormius, "Musseum," lib. i. sec. 2, c. 12, p. 75. Moscardi, 
"Musaeo," 1672, p. 14S. Lachmund, "de foss. Hildeshem.," p. 23. Tolliiis 
" Gomm. et lapid. Historia," Li-iden, 1647, p. 480. De Laet, " deGomm. ct lapid.," 
Leiden, 1047, p. I.J.'). 

* Gesner, " de Fossilibus," p. 62 vemo. 



64 CELTS. [chap, in. 

thunder. It was five inches long, and of a stone harder than 
basalt, which in some parts of Germany was used instead of 
anvils. He also relates how near Jiilich another stone was driven 
by thunder through an enormous oak, and was then dug up. 
Aldrovandus gives a highly philosophical view as to the forma- 
tion of these stones. He regards them as due to an admixture of 
a certain exhalation of thunder and lightning with metallic 
matter, chiefly in dark clouds, which is coagulated by the circum- 
fused moisture and conglutinated into a mass (like flour with 
water), and subsequently indurated by heat, like a brick. 

Georgius ^ Agricola draws a distinction between the Brontia 
and the Ceraania. The former, he says, is like the head of a 
tortoise, but has stripes upon it, the latter is smooth and without 
stripes. The Brontia seems to be a fossil echinus, and the 
Ceraunia a stone celt, but both are thunderbolts. Going a little 
further back, we find Marbodaeus,^ Bishop of Hennes, who died 
in the year 1123, and who wrote a metrical work concerning 
gems, ascribing the following origin and virtues to the 
Ceraunms : — 

" Ventomm rabie cum turbidus aestuat aer, 

Cum tonat horrendum^, cum fulgurat igneus aether, 
Nubibus elisus coelo cadit ille lapillus. 
Cujus apud Grsecos extat de fulmine nomen : 
niis quippe locis, quos constat fuhnine tactos, 
Iste lapis tantum reperiri posse putatur, 
XJnde KtpavvioQ est Graeco sermone vocatus : 
Nam quod nos fulmen, Grseci dixere Kipavvbv. 
Qui caste gerit hunc a folmine non ferietur, 
Nee domus aut villae, quibus afEuerit lapis ille : 
Sed neque navigio per flumina vel mare vectus, 
Turbine mergetur, nee fulmine percutietur : 
Ad causas etiam, vincendaque praeUa prodest, 
Et dulces somnos, et dulcia somnia praestat." 

It was not, however, purely from the belief of his own day that 
Marbodaeus derived this catalogue of the virtues of the Cerauniae, 
but from the pages of writers of a much earlier date. Pliny,^ 
giving an account of the precious stones known as Cerauniae, 
quotes an earlier author still, Sotacus, who, to use the words of 
Philemon Holland's translation, " hath set downe two kinds more 
of Ceraunia, to wit, the blacke and the red, saying that they do 
resemble halberds or axeheads. And by his saying, the blacke, 

' " De re metallica," Basel, 1657, pp. 609, 610. 

- "Marbodaei GaUi Csenomanensis de gemmarum lapidumque pretiosorum 
formis, &c. " (Cologne, 1539), p. 48. 

* ' ' Hist. Nat., ' ' Ub. xxxvii. c, 9. For a series of interesting Papers on "La Foudre,^ 
&c., dans I'Antiquite," see M. Henri Martin in the Rev. Arch., vol. xii. et $eqq. 



HOW REGARDED BY THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. 65 

such especially as bee round withall, arc endued with this vertue, 
that by the rneanes of them, cities may be forced, and whole 
navies at sea discomfited ; and these (forsooth) be called ' Betuli, 
whereas the long ones be named properly Ceraunioe." Pliny 
goes on to say, " that, there is one more Ceraunia yet, but very 
geason " it is, and hard to be found, which the Parthian magi- 
cians set much store b}^, and they only can find it, for that it 
is no where to bee had than in a place which hath been shot with 
a thunderbolt." There is a very remarkable passage in Suetonius^ 
illustrative of this belief among the Pomans. After relating one 
prodigy, which was interpreted as significant of the accession of 
Galba to the purple, he records that, "shortly afterwards light- 
ning fell in a lake in Cantabria and twelve axes were found, a by 
no means ambiguous omen of Empire." The twelve axes were re- 
garded as referring to those of the twelve lictors, and were therefore 
portentous ; but their being found where the lightning fell would 
seem to have been considered a natural occurrence, except so 
far as related to the number. It appears by no means improbable 
that if the lake could be now identified, some ancient pile settle- 
ment might be found to have existed on its shores. 

The exact period when Sotacus, the most ancient of these autho- 
rities, wrote is not known, but he was among the earliest of Greek 
authors who treated of stones, and is cited by Apollonius 
Dyscolus, and SoHnus, as well as by Pliny. We cannot be far 
wrong in assigning him to an age at least two thousand years 
before our time, and yet at that remote period the use of these 
stone " halberds or axeheads " had so long ceased in Greece, that 
when found they were regarded as of superhuman origin and 
invested with magical virtues. We have already seen that flint 
arrow-heads were mounted, probably as charms, in Etruscan neck- 
laces, and we shall subsequently see that superstitions, almost 
similar to those relating to celts, have been attached to stone 
arrow-heads in various countries. 

To return from the superstitious veneration attaching to them, 
to the objects themselves. The materials'* of which celts in Great 
Britain are usuall}' formed are flint, chert, clay-slate, porphyry, 

' An interesting paper on " Baetuli " by Mr. G. F. Hill, is in the Reliquary and 
Illustrated Archreoloyisty vol. ii. 1896, p. 23. 

2 Geason, Scarce. "Scant and geason," Harrison's "England,"— Halliwell, 
Diet, of Archaic Words, s. v. 

^ "Nee multo post in CaiitalTia^ lacumfulmen decidit, ropertsequo sunt duodeciin 
secures, baud ambiguum sumn i imperii signum," Galba, viii. c. 4. 

* See Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. iii. p. 127, and "Wilde's " Cat. R. I. A.," p. 72. 

F 



66 CELTS. [chap. III. 

quartzite, felstone, sei"pentine, and various kinds of greenstone, 
and of metamorphic rocks. M. A. ])amour,^ in liis "Essays on 
the Composition of Stone Hatchets, Ancient and Modern," gives 
the following list of materials : quartz, agate, flint, jasper, 
obsidian, fibrolite, jade, jadeite, chloromelanite, nniphibolite, 
aphanite, diorite, saussurite, and staurotidv ; but even to these 
many other varieties of rock might be added. 

The material most commonly in use in the southern and eastern 
parts of Britain was flint derived from the chalk ; in the north and 
west, on the contrary, owing to the scarcity of flint, different hard 
metamorphic and eruptive rocks were more frequently employed, 
not on account of any superior qualities, but simply from being 
more accessible. So far as general character is concerned, stone 
celts or hatchets may be divided into three classes, which I pro- 
pose to treat separately, as follows : — 

1. Those merely chipped out in a more or less careful manner, 
and not ground or polished ; 

2. Those which, after being fashioned by chipping, have been 
ground or polished at the edge only ; and 

3. Those which are more or less ground or polished, not only 
at the edge, but over the whole surface. 

In describing them I propose to term the end opposite to the 
cutting edge, the butt-end ; the two principal surfaces, which are 
usualh' convex, I shall speak of as the faces. These are either 
bounded by, or merge in, what I shall call the sides, according as 
these sides are sharp, rounded, or flat. In the figures the celts are 
all engraved on the scale of half an inch to the inch, or half linear 
measure, and are presented in front and side-view, with a section 
■beneath. 

' Comptes RcnclKf^ de V Ac. des Sci., 1865, vol. Ixi. pp. 313, 357; 18(3G, Ixiii. p. 1038. 



67 



CHAPTER IV. 

CHIPPED OR ROUGH-HEWN CELTS. 

Oei.ts which have been merely chipped into form, and left un- 
<^round, even at the edge, are of frequent occurrence in England, 
especially in those counties where flint is abundant. They are 
not, however, nearly so common in collections of antiquities as 
those which have been ground either wholly or in part ; and this, 
no doubt, arises from the fact that many of them are so rudely 
chipped out, that it requires a practised eye to recognize them, 
when associated, as they usually are, with numerous other flints 
of natural and accidental forms. No doubt many of these 
chipped celts, especially where, from the numbers discovered, 
there appears to have been a manufactory on the spot, were 
intended to be eventually ground ; but there are some which are 
roughly chipped, and which may possibly have been used as 
agricultural implements without further preparation ; and others, 
the edges of which are so minutely and symmetrically chipped, 
that they appear to be adapted for use as hatchets or cutting-tools 
without requiring to be farther sharpened by grinding. There 
are others again, as already mentioned at page 32, the edges of 
which have been produced by the intersection of two facets only, 
and are yet so symmetrical and sharp, that whetting their edge 
on a grindstone would be superfluous. 

Of this character I possess several specimens from Suffolk, of which 
one from Mildenhall is engraved in Fig. 12. As will be observed, 
the edge is nearly semicircular, but it is nevertheless formed merely by 
the intersection of two facets, eacli resulting from a single chip or 
tiake of flint having been removed. I have in my collection another 
hatchet from the same place, which is so curiously similar to this in 
all respects, that it was probably made by the same hand. I am not, 
however, aware whether the two were found together. 

There is in these implements a peculiar curvature on one face, as 
shown in the side view, which, I think, must be connected with the 
method by which they were attached to their handles. From the form, 

I- 2 



68 



CHIPPED OR ROUGH-HE'W'N CELTS. 



[chap. IV 



it seems probable that they vrere mounted as adzes, -with the edge 
transversely to the line of the handle, and not as axes. I have a more 
roughly-chijiped specimen of the same type, found near Wanlud's 
Bank. Luton, Beds, by Mr. W. "Whitaker. F.E.S., in which the same 
curvature of one of the faces is observable. It is not so conspicuous 
in a larger implement of the same class, also from Mildenhall (Fig. 13), 
but this likewise is slightly curved longitudinally. In the Christy Col- 
lection is another, found at Burwell, Cambridgeshire, of the same type. 
It is rounded at the butt, but nearly square at the cutting edge, which 
is formed by the junction of two facets, from which flakes have been 
struck off. I have seen others of the same character from near the 





Fig. 12.— Near Mildenhall. J 



Fig. 13.— X^ar Mildenhall. J 



Bartlow Hills, Cambs, and from Sussex. Others, from 4| to 6 inches 
in length, from Burwell, Wicken, and Bottisham Fens, are preserved 
in the museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, and in my own 
collection. In the Greenwell collection is a specimen 7J inches long, 
from Burnt Fen. I have also a French implement of this kind from 
the neighbourhood of Abbeville. 

Implements with this peculiar edge, are found in Denmark. Indeed, 
the edges of the common form of Kjokken-modding axes' are usually 
produced in the same manner, by the intersection of two facets, each 
formed by a single blow, though the resulting edge is generally almost 
straight. 

Closely approaching this Danish form, is that of a celt of brown 



' Madsen, " Afbild. 
1861, Fig. 1. 



pi. iii. 1 to 3. Kgl. Danske Videnth, Seltkabs Forhand., 



THE KJOKKEN-MODDING TYPE. 



m 




Fig. 14.— NearThetford. 



flint, shown in Fig. 14, and found near Tliotford by the late Mr. J. "W. 
Flower, F.G.S., with one face nearly flat, and the edge formed by a 
single transverse facet. The implements, 
however, of this type, with the chisel edge, 
are rarely met with in this country ; and, 
generally speaking, axes similar to those 
which occur in such numbers in the 
Danish Kjokken-moddings and Coast- 
finds are of very rare occurrence else- 
where. I have, however, a small nearly- 
triangular hatchet of the Danish type, 
and with the sides bruised in the same 
manner (probably with a view of prevent- 
ing their cutting the ligaments by which 
the instruments were attached to their 
handles, or, possibly, to prevent their 
cutting the hand when held), which I 
found in the circular encampment known 
as Maiden Bower, near Dunstable. 

Hatchets of this type have also been 
found in some numbers in the valley of 
the Somme, at Montiers, near Amiens, 
as well as in the neighbourhood of 
Pontlevoy (Loir et Cher), in the Camp de Catenoy (Oise), and in 
Champagne.^ I have also specimens from the neighbourhood of 
Pressigny-le-Grand and of Chatellerault. It would therefore 
appear that this form of implement is not confined to maritime 
tlistricts, and that it can hardly be regarded as merely a weight for a 
fishing-line,' as has been suggested by Professor Steenstrup.^ 

A few of the large Polynesian adzes of basalt have their edges pro- 
duced by a similar method of chipping and are left unground. 

Capt. G. V. Smith* has experimented in Jutland with the Kjiikken- 
miiddingaxes, and has cut down fir-trees of seven inches diameter with 
them. The trees for Mr. Sehested's^ wooden hut were cut down and 
trimmed with stone hatchets ground at the edge. 

In the British Museum are several roughly-chipped flints that seem 
to present a peculiar type. They are from about 4 to 6 inches long, 
nearl}^ Hat on one face, coarsely worked to an almost semicircular 
bevel edge at one end, and with a broad rounded notch on each side, 
as if to enable them to be secured to a handle, possibly as agricultural 
implements. They formed part of the Durden collection, and were 
found in the neighbourhood of Blandford. 

Another and more common form of roughly-chipped celt is that of 
which an example is given in Fig. 15, from my own collection. It was 
found at Oving, near Chichester, and was given me by Professor W. 
Boyd Dawkins, F.R.S. The edge, in this instance, is formed in the 
same manner, by the intersection of two facets, but the section is nearly 

1 De Bayc, "TArch. prc'hiwt.," p. 55. - Lubbock, Preb. Times, 4tb ed., p. 100. 
3 Effl. Danske Vtdensk. Seh/cabs Fork., 1861, p. 342. 

* Aarb. for. Nord. Oldlc, 1891, p. 383. See also S. Miiller, Mem. des Ant. du 
Xtrd, 1884-89, p. 371 ; Aarb., 1888, p. 238. 

* " Arobaeol. Undersogelser, " 1884, p. 3. 



70 



CHIPPED OK ROIGH-HEWX CELTS. 



[chap. IV. 



triangular. If attaclied to a handle it was probably after the manner 
of an ad/e rather tlian of an axe. I have a smaller specimen of the 

same type, and another, flatter 
and more neatly chipped, 
7f inches long, from the 
Cambridge Fens. 

I have seen implements of 
much the same form which 
have been found at Bemerton, 
near Salisbury (Blackmore 
^[useum) ; at St. Mary Bourne, 
Andover ; at Santon Down- 
ham, near Thetford ; at Litrle 
Dunham. Norfolk ; near 
Ware ; and near Canterbury ; 
but the edge is sometimes 
t'jrmed by several chips, in 
the same manner as the sides, 
and not merely by the junc- 
tion of two planes of fracture. 
There are also smaller rough 
celts with the subtriangidar 
section, of which I have a 
good example, 4^ inches long, 
found by Mr. W. Whitaker, 
F.E.S., near Maiden Castle, 
Dorsetshire. It is curiously 
similar to one that I found 
near Store Lyngby, in Den- 
mark. 

The same form occurs in 
France. 

Other roughly-chipped im- 
plements are to be found 
in various parts of Britain, 
lying scattered over the fields, 
some of them so rude that 
they may be regarded as merely flints chipped into form, to serve some 
temporary purpose ; as wasters thrown away as useless by those who 
were trying to manufacture stone implements which were eventually 
destined to be ground ; or as the rude implements of the merest savage. 
Certainly some of the stone hatchets of the Australian natives are 
quite as rude or ruder, and yet we find them carefidly provided with 
handles. In Hertfordshire, I have myself picked up several such 
implements ; and they have been found in considerable numbers in 
the neighbourhood of Ickhngham in Suffolk, near Andover, and in 
other places. An adze-like celt of this kind (4^, inches) is recorded 
from Wishmoor,' Surrey. "Were proper search made for them, there 
are probably not many districts where it would be fruitless. In 
Ireland they appear to be rare ; but nimierous roughly-shaped imple- 




Umi--. i.L-.ir L„i'_ui;ster. 



* Jour. Anih. Intt., vol. ii., p. oG8, pi. x.-ti. 



SOME POSSIBLY AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 



71 



ments of this class have been found in Poitoii and in other parts of 
France. They are also met with in Belgium and Denmark. 

As has already been suggested, it is by no means improbable 
that some of these ruder un])olished implements were employed in 
agriculture, like the so-called shovels and hoes of flint of North 
.America, described by Profess( r Rau. I have a flat celt-like imple- 
ment about 6\ inches long and 3 inches broad, found in Cayuga 
County, New York, which, though unground, has its broad end 
beautifully polislied on both faces, apparently by friction of the silt}' 
soil in which it has been used as a hoe. It is, as Professor Rau has 
pointed out in other cases, slightly striated in the direction in which 
the implement penetrated the ground.' I have also an Egyptian 
chipped flint hoe from Qui-nah, polished in a precisely similar manner. 
It is doubtful whether many of the rough implements from the neigh- 
bourhood of Thebes are Neolithic or Palteolithic.- 

The implement represented in Fig. 16, rude as it is, is more sym- 
metrical and more carefully chipped than many of this class. I found 
it, with several other worked 
flints, on the surface of the soil in 
a field between Newhaven and 
Telseombe, Sussex, where had 
formerh' stood a barrow, one of 
a group of four, the positions of 
which are shown on the Ordnance 
Map, though they are now all 
levelled to the ground. It is, of 
course, possible that such an im- 
plement may have been merely 
blocked out, with the intention of 
finishing it b}^ subsequent cliip- 
ping and grinding, and that it 
was not intended for use in its 
present condition ; or it may pos- 
sibly have been deposited in the 
tumulus as a votive offering, or 
in compliance with some ancient 
custom, as suggested hereafter. 
(See p. 282.) It will be observed 
that the original crust of the 
block of flint from which it was 
fashioned is left at the butt end. 
A somewhat similar specimen, 
from the neighbourhood of Hast- 
ings, and another from a tumulus 
at Seaford are figured in the 
Sussex ArchcBological Collection!^ ^ ; and I have one from the Thames 
at Battersea, and others from Suffolk and from the Cambridge Fens. 
The late Sir Joseph Prestwich, F.P.S., found one of the same character 
at Shoreham, near Sevenoaks, and the late Mr. J. F. Lucas had 

' Stnithsoninn Report, 1863, p. 379 ; 1868, p. 401. " Flint Chips," 445. 
- Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v., p. 331. 
2 Vol. xix., 53 ; xxxii., 173. 




^.'fM^.. 



Fig. 10. — Xear Nowhavtn. J 



72 



CHII'1'ED OR ROUGH-HEWN CELTS. 



[chap. IV 



another, 4 inches long, from Arbor Low, Derbysliire. A small 
chipped celt was found in a barrow at Pelynt,' Cornwall. 

Fig. 1 7 shows an implement found by my eldest son, at the foot of 
the Downs, near Dunstable. It has been chipped from a piece of 
tabular flint, and can hardly have been intended to be ground or 




Fig. 17.— Near Dunstable 



polished. It is more than usually oval in form, and in general 
character approaches very closely to the ovate implements from the 
Eiyer gravels ; from the manner in w hieh it is fashioned, and from its 
being found in company with worked flints unquestionably belonging 
to the Surface Period, I regard it, however, as of Neolithic and not of 
Palfeolithic age.= Another implement of much the same form, found 
near Grime's Graves, in Norfolk,^ has been tigured by Canon Green- 
well, F.Pt.S. Others were found at Cissbury," Sussex, and at Dunmer,* 
and near Ellisfield Camp, Hants. Mr. C. Monkman had another, 5f 
inches long, and rather narrower in its proportions, found at Bempton, 
Yorkshire. I have implements of much the same shape, though 
larger, from some of the ancient flint-implement manufactories of 
Belgium. 

The next specimen (Fig. 18) is from Burwell Fen, Cambridge, and 
I "Naenia Comubiae," p. 194. 3 /o„^_ ^^/j gg^^ j^- g _ y^]^ jj^ pj j-j-y^y 7 

^ The di-scoveries of Mr. Worthington Smith at Caddington, a few miles from 
Dunstable, suggest the possibility of this specimen being, after all, paleolithic. 
* Arch., vol. xlii., pi. viii. 10, 11. * Arch. Assoc. Jour., vol. xlv., p. 114. 



SOME CAREFULLY CHIPPED. 



73 




Fig. 19— MildenhaU. J 



is in my own collection. It is of beautiful workmanship, most skil- 
fully and symmetrically chipped, and thinner than is usual with im])le- 
ments of this class. The edge is perfectly regular, and has Leen 
formed by delicate secondary chipping. So 
sharp is it, that I should almost doubt its ever 
having been intended to be ground or polished. 
That a sufficient edge for cutting purposes 
could be obtained by careful chip]jing with- 
out grinding, seems to bo evinced by the fact 
that some stone celts, the whole body of which 
has been polished, are found with the edge 
merely chipped and not ground. No doubt 
when these blades were new, they were 
polished all over; but as the edge became 
broken away by wear, it would appear as if 
the owners had contented themselves by 
chipping out a fresh edge, without taking 
the trouble of grinding it. Still it must be 
borne in mind, that a vast amount of labour 
in grinding was saved by the implement being 
brought as nearly to the required shape as possible by chipping only, 
80 that the circumstance of polished celts having unground edges may 
be due to merely accidental causes. 

These neatly-chipped flint celts are 
found also in Ireland. I liave one of 
the same section as Fig. 18, but longer 
and narrower. It was found in Ulster. 
I have also specimens from Poitou. 

They are of occasional but rare occur- 
rence with this section in Denmark. 

A neatly-chipped flint hatchet of small 
size and remarkably square at the edge 
is shown in Fig. 19. It was found at 
Mildenhall, Suffolk, and is in the Green- 
well collection, now Dr. Sturge's. There 
are traces of grinding on some portions 
of the faces. In the same collection is 
another hatchet of the same character 
from Ganton Wold, Yorkshire, the edge 
of which is ground. I have an unground 
example of this type from Lakenheath. 

The original of Fig. 20 is in the 
Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian 
Society, and was found in Bottisham 
Fen. In neatness of workmanship it 
much resembles the last ; but it is 
slightly curved longitudinally, and has 
the inner face more ridged than the 
outer. It was probably intended to be moimted as an adze. 

I have a beautiful implement of the same general form, but nearly 
flat on one face, found in Burwell Fen. It has been manufactured 
from a large flake. 




Fig. 20.— Bottisham Fen 



74 



CHIPPED OR ROUGH-HEWN CELTS. 



[chap. IV. 



The hatchet engraved as Fig. 21. was found in ploughing near 
Bournemouth, and ^vas kiudl}- brought under my notice by the late 
Ml-. Albert Way, F.S.A. Its priucipal peculiarity is the inward 
cm-vature of the sides, rendering it somewhat narrower in the middle 
than at either end. Its greatest expansion is, however, at what 
appears to have been intended for the cutting edge, so that at this end 
its outline much resembles that of one of the Scandinavian forms. 
The sides, however, instead of being square are sharp. The specimen 
from Burwell Fen, Fi<r. 36, exhibits nearly the same form, but has the 
edge ground. A thinner specimen, also from Burwell Fen, and in the 
Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, is unground. It is 






Fig. 21. — Near Uoumemouth. 



Fig. 22.— Thetford. 



5f inches long, 2^ inches broad at one end and 1^ inches at the other, 
but only l^ inches broad towards the middle of the blade. Mr. T, 
Layton, F.S.A., possesses a celt foxind in the Thames, that presents 
this peculiarity in a still more exaggerated manner. It is 6;! inches 
long, 2f inches broad at one end and 2^ inches at the other, but only 
1^ inches in width at the middle of the blade. 

A remarkably elegant specimen of similar character is shown in 
Fig. 22. It was found on the surface at Thetford Warren, Suffolk, 
and was formerly in the collection of Mr. J. VV. Flower, F.G.S., but 



THE COMMON FORMS. 



<{> 



now in mine. It in of grey flint, and has been formed from a large 
flake, a con.siderable portion of the flat face of which has been left 
untouciied by the subsequent working. All along the sides, however, 
as well as at the ends, it has been chipped on both faces to a sym- 
metrical form. The outer surface of the original flake has almost 
entirely disappeared during the process of manufacturing the adze, 
for such it appears to have been rather than an axe. The form is 
suggestive of the tool having been copied from one in metal, and is 
very like that of the flat bronze celts. It may belong to the transi- 
tional period, when bronze was coming into use, but was still too scarce 
to have superseded flint. 

TJie commonest form of tiie symmetrically-chipped but uuground 
celts is that shown in Fig. 2.3. The particular 'specimen engraved is 
in my own collection ; and. like 
so many other antiquities of 
this class, came from the Fen 
district, having been found in 
Eeach Fen in 1852. 

It is eqimlly convex on both 
faces, and, from its close re- 
semblance in form to so many 
of the polished celts, it was 
I^robably destined for grinding. 
I have another of the same 
form. 6i inches long, from the 
neighbourhood of Thetford. 

A magnificent specimen of 
this class, but wider in propor- 
tion to its length, found near 
Mildenhall, is preserved in the 
Christy Collection. 

I have a very fine specimen 
9 inches long, from the Thames, 
and others 6^ and 5^^ inches 
long, of a wider form, and 
delicately chipped all round, 
from Burwell Fen. The late 
Mr. James Carter, of Cam- 
bridge, had one of the narrower 
kind, 9 inches long, found at 
Blunt's II ill, near Witham, 
Essex. The same form, with 
numerous modifications, -was 
found in the pits at Cissbury,^ which will shortly be described. One 
about 81 inches long, in outline like Fig. 20, was found in Angle- 
sea.^ Another 9^ inches long, was found near Farnham,'' Dorset. 

One of the most remarkable discoveries of celts of this character, is 
that of which I have seen a MS. memorandum in the hands of the late 
Mrs. Dickinson,* of Hurstpierpoint, Sussex, who herself had four of the 




Fig. 23. — Reach Fen, Cambridge. 



' Arch., vol. xlii., pi. viii. 17. * Arch. Jour., vol. xxxi., p. 

•* " Eic. on Cranborne Chase," vol. ii., pi. xc. 
* See alflo Chichester vol. of Arch. Inst., p. 61. 



301. 



76 



CHIPPED OR KOUGH-HKWN CELTS. 



[CIIAV. IV 



Fig. 24. — Scaniridge, 
Yorkshire. 



implements. According to this account, a man digging- flints on, 

Clayton Hill, on the South Downs, Sussex, in 

^jj^ ^ 1803, found near the windmill, just beneath the 

/-. -5k % sod, and lying side by side, eight celts of grey 

flint, chipped into form and not ground. One 

.^ a^ of these was as much as 13 inches long. Those 

r.-T^ in Mrs. Dicldnson's collection were — (1) llf long 

f -, ^ £ ■ by 3i broad and 2^ thick, (2) 9^ by SJ by IJ, 

mUH r • (■^) H "by 3i by 2^. and (4) 6^ by 3 by If. Four 

^^^^^1 C iB ^uch. 7^ to 9 inches long, chipped only, were 

^^^^^B \m found buried in a row at Teddington.' 

^^^^^V |V These deposits seem to have been intentional. 

^^^^ V <<in the Hervey Islands- it was customary on 

the eve of battle to burj- the stone adzes of the 

family in some out-of-the-way place. Beds of 

these (in heathen times) priceless treasures are 

still occasionally discovered. About a dozen 

adzes, large and small, were arranged in a circle, 

the points being towards the centre. Tlie knowledge of tlie localities 

where to find them was care- 
fully handed down from one 
generation to another." At 
Northmavine,^ Orkney, seven 
celts were found, arranged 
in a circle with the points 
towards the centre. From 
two to eight flint axes are 
sometimes found together in 
Denmark, and by Dr. Sophus 
Miiller* are regarded as 
funeral oft'erings or ex-votos. 
Such roughly-chipped celts 
have been found in immense 
numbers in the neighbour- 
hood of Eastbourne. A large 
collection of them is in the 
- M^HKJ Museum at Lewes. I have 
U ^i^HBT/f seen a large celt of this sec- 
tion, but with flatter edge* 
and straighter sides, which 
was found in peat at Thatch- 
am, near Newbury, Berks. 
Of the same class is a celt 

1 Prnc. Soc. Ant. ,2nd S.,to1. x., 

- iiev. W. W. GUI, LL.D., Hep. 
Austral. Assoc, for tht Adv. of 
^ Science, vol. ir., 1892, p. 613. 

\^Rf ^ Low's Tour., quoted in Folk- 

lore Jour., vol. i., p. 191. 

*■ Aarb.f. Xord. OMk., 1886, p. 
Fie. 25.— Forest of Bere, near Homdeau. h 200 : Mem. Soc. Ji. des Ant. du Xord, 

1886-91, p. 227; Mat., 3rd. S., 
Froe. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iv., p. 521. vol. v., 1888, p. 105. 




if; 



m.'''f 



THEIll ABUNDANCE. 



77 



found near Norwich, engraved in the Geologist} I have seen several 
other specimens from Norfolk, as well as from Wilts, Cambridgeshire, 
Dorsetshire, and other counties. Some si^ecimens from the neighbour- 
hood of Grime's Graves, Norfolk, have been figured.- Flint celts of 
this class are occasionally found in Yorkshire, but the edge is usually 
less round in outline than Fig. 23. In some cases it is straight, like 
Fig. 19. Some of those from Yorkshire are extremely small, as will be 
seen by Fig. 24, from Scamridge, in the North Riding. I have other 
specimens, 2 and 2^ inches long and about 1^ inches broad, from the 
Yorkshire Wolds. I have also one of the ordinary form from Lough 
Neagh, Ireland ; but it has been slightly ground near the edge. 

Though rare in Ireland, flint celts of this form and character are of 
common occurrence in France ^ and Belgium. Many such have been 




■h 



^^W 



25a.— Isle of Wight. 



found at Spiennes, near Mons, where there appears to have been a 
manufactory, as already mentioned ; and I have specimens from 
Amiens (including one from Montiers, 10 inches), from various parts 
of Poitou, and from the Seine, at Paris. A broad, thin instrument of 
this class, made of Silurian schist, and found in the dolmen of Bernac, 
Charente,* is engraved by I)e Rochebruno. 

They occur also in Denmark and Sweden in considerable numbers. 

A slightly different and narrower form of implement is shown in 
Fig. 25, which first appeared in the Archceological Journal, vol. x.k., p. 
371. The original is of yellow flint, and was found in the Forest of 
Bere, Hampshire. I may add that I have picked up several in the 

' Vol. vi., p. iii. - Jour. Etli. Soc, vol. ii., pi. xxviii. 4, .5. 

^ Watelet, '' Asje tic PieiTe du Dep. de I'Aisne," &c. 
* '"Restes de I'lnd., &c.," pi. xiii. 1. ^ 



78 CHIPPED OR ROUGH-HEWN CELTS. [CHAP. IV. 

parish of Abbot's Langley, Herts. One like Fig. 2o, but smaller, found 
at Bedmond,' has been figured. A narrow specimen (6 inches, like Fig. 
25) from Aldboume, Hungerford, is in the collection of Mr. J. W. 
Brooke, of Marlborough. 

Many of the other forms of polished celts occur in the unground 
condition, of the same shape, for instance, as Fig. 35. It is needless to 
multiply illustrations, though I must mention a remarkable instru- 
ment of this character preserved in the Greenwell collection. It 
is of flint 6^ inches long, and in outline closely resembling Fig. 35. 
It is, however, much curved longitudinally, the curve being more rapid 
towards the butt-end, which is also somewhat thickened. The chord 
of the rather irregular arc thus produced is ^ an inch. Such a tool 
can only have been mounted as an adze or hoe with the concave face 
towards the helve. It was found at Kenny Hill, Mildenhall. 

A singular instrument cliipped out of flint, like three celts conjoined 
into one, so as to form a sort of tribrach, is said to have been found 
in the Isle of Wiglit. It is shown in Fig. 25a, kindly lent by the Society 
of Antiquaries.- In form it is of much the same character as some 
of the implements from Yucatan,' and from Vladimir,* Russia. It may 
be compared with some examples of strange forms from Honduras.* 

I have already spoken of the method in which these and other 
allied forms of stone implements were manufactured ; but, before 
quitting the subject of chipped or rough-hewn celts, I must 
devote a little space to the interesting discovery made by General 
Pitt Rivers, F.Il.S., on the site of an ancient manufactory of flint 
implements, among which celts predominated, within the entrench- 
ment known as Cissbury, near Worthing, where Colonel Ayre, 
R.A.,^ found, some years ago, a A'ery perfect flint celt. The en- 
trenchment has now been proved to be of more recent date than 
the pits shortly to be mentioned. 

Accounts of the investigations of General Pitt Rivers and of 
some subsequently carried on by Mr. Ernest Willett are given in 
the Archceologia,'' from which most of the following particulars 
are abstracted. Canon Greenwell, F.R.S., also assisted at a part 
of the exploration, and some of my illustrations are taken from 
specimens in his collection. The earthwork, of irregularly oval 
form, surrounds the summit of a chalk hill, near Worthing, in 
Sussex, on the western slope of which, within the rampart, are 
some fifty funnel or cup-shaped depressions, some of small size, 
but others about seventy feet in diameter and twelve feet in depth. 
At the base of these there seem to have been originally shafts 

1 Trans. Herts Nat. Hist. Soc, vol. viii., 1896, pi. xi. 1. 

'^ See I'roe. &nc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v., p. 113; Arch. Jour., vol. xxx., p. 28. 

3 Zeitsch.f. Eth., vol. xii., p. 237. •• Cong. Prch. Moscou, 1893, p. 249. 

* I'roc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v., p. 94 ; Arch. Jour., vol. xxx., p. 35. 

« Suss. Arch. Coll., vol. ii., p. 268. ' Vol. xlii., p. 53 ; xlv., p. 337. 



DISCOVERIES AT CISSBURY. 79 

sunk into the chalk, and similar shafts have now been found 
beneath the rampart. Many of these were opened, and were 
found to contain, amongst the rubble with which they were par- 
tially filled, well-chipped celts and ruder implements, quantities 
of splinters and minute chippings of flint ; flakes, 8ome worked on 
one or both faces ; some few boring-tools and scrapers ; and many 
stones that had been used as hammers. Most of the flints had 
become quite white on the surface, as is often the case when 
they rest in a porous soil. Parts of antlers of red deer, remains 
of horse, goat, boar, and ox [Bos lonyifrons), oyster and a few 
other marine shells and snail-shells, as well as fragments of 
charcoal and rude pottery, were also found. At the base of one 
of the pits explored by Mr. Willett, galleries were found of pre- 
cisely the same character as those at Grime's Graves, near Brandon, 
and at Spiennes, near Mons, in Belgium, which I have already 
described, and it is evident that they were excavated for the purpose 
of procuring flint, to be chipped into the form of implements 
upon the spot. It does not appear certain that the portions of 
antler which were found had been used, as in the other cases, as 
picks for digging in the chalk ; but, possibly, some of the roughly- 
chipped flints, adapted for being held in the hand,^ and not unlike 
in form to the chopper-like flints from the far older deposit in 
the cave of Le Moustier, Dordogne,^ may have been thus used, or 
as wedges to split the chalk. This is by no means inconsistent 
with their having been originally flints partially trimmed into 
shape, in order to be made into celts, and used for a secondary 
purpose when it was found that they were not adapted for what 
they were at first intended to be. In chipping them out, the 
part of the nodule best suited for being held in the hand would be 
thus grasped, and the opposite edge be trimmed by the hammer, 
and in this manner the semblance of a chopper would be produced 
in what was merely an inchoate celt. I have found flints on the 
♦Sussex Downs, with one side trimmed in much the same manner 
as the Cissbury specimens, but which, from their form, can hardly 
have been intended for "choppers." 

Looking at a series of the worked flints from Cissbury, exclu- 
sive of flakes and mere rough blocks, the general fades is such as 
to show that the ordinary forms of celts, or hatchets, were those 
at which, in the main, the workmen aimed. A small proportion 
of them are highly finished specimens, not improbably hidden 

' Arch., vol xlii., pi. viii. 1. - " Reliq. Aquit.," A., pi. t. 



80 CHIPPED OR ROUGH-HEW.V CELTS. [cHAP. IV. 

away in the loose chalk when chipped out and accidentally left 
there. Others are broken ; not, I think, in use, but in the process 
of manufacture. A great proportion are very rude, and ill- 
adapted for being groimd. They are, in fact, such as may be 
regarded, if not as wasters, yet, at all events, as unmarketable ; 
for it seems probable that at Cissbury, as well as at other manu- 
factories of flint implements, they were produced, not for imme- 
diate use by those who made them, but to be bartered away for 
some other commodities. In Central America,^ at the present 
day, the natives use cutting instruments of flint, which must, 
apparently, have been brought from a distance of four hundred 
miles ; while, among the aborigines of Australia,' flints were 
articles of barter between distant tribes ; and some of the chalce- 
dony implements in the early Belgian caves are made of material 
presumed to have come from the south of France. Mr. W. H. 
Holmes,^ has described an ancient quarry in the Indian territory, 
Missouri, from which chert was obtained and roughed out on the 
spot. Some of the rude forms exactly resemble the " turtle 
backs" of Trenton, by many regarded as paliTeolithic. The antiquity 
of the quarry does not, however, exceed two hundred years. Only 
a single fragment of a polished celt was found by General Pitt 
Rivers within the inclosure ; though another was found by Lord 
Northesk in a pit that he subsequently opened. They are equally 
rare in proportion at Spiennes. This fact, and the absence of 
grinding-stones, also seem to show that the process of grinding 
was carried on elsewhere, in cases where a ground edge was 
required. 

General Pitt Rivers suggests a question, whether the imple- 
ments found at Cissbury belong to the Neolithic or Palseolithic 
age, and seems almost to regard the distinction between the imple- 
ments of those two ages as founded merely on the minor point of 
whether they are chipped simply, or also polished. The associated 
fauna in this case is however purely Neolithic or, as Professor 
Boyd Dawkins would call it, Pre-historic ; and whatever may bt 
the case with a few of the specimens which resemble in form 
implements from the River Drift, the greater number are unmis- 
takeably of forms such as are constantly found polished, and are 
undoubtedly Neolithic. Indeed, as already stated, a portion of at 
all events one polished specimen has been found in one of the 

' Jour. Anth. Soc, 1869, p. cxii. - Trans. Ethnol. Soc., Is. S., vol. iii., p. 269. 
3 Smiths. Ir.st. Rep., 1894. 



DISCOVERIES AT CISSBURY. 



81 



pits. I need not, however, dwell longer on the circumstances of 
thia discovery, nor on the speculations to which it ma}' give rise, 
but will proceed to give illustrations of a few of the forms of 
implements found at Cissbury, referring for others to the memoirs 
already citorl. A fine series of the implements has been presented 
to the Christy Collection, now in the British Museum. 

One of the most hig'lily-liuislied forms, of which, in all, a con- 
sidei-ablo number were found, is a long, narrow instrument, as shown 
in Fiji^. 26. So narrow and pointed are tlioy, that General Pitt Rivers 
thought tliat they may have been intended to be used with the pointed 
end as spear-heads. Such instruments, however, are occasionally found 
witli the broad end ground to an edge. It is also to be observed that 





Fig. 26— Cissbury. 



FiP. 27.— Cissbury. 



this circular edge is generally more carefully chipped into form than 
the pointed butt, and was therefore considered of more importance. 

Another specimen is figured in the Archceolngia ;'^ and a narrow flint 
celt of this character, b\ inches long, found with a larger celt in a 
barrow in Hampshire/ is in the British Museum. 

Another rough-hewn celt is shown in Fig. 27. Like several others, 
both from Cissbury and Spiennes, the two ends are almost similar in 
form, so that it is difficult to say at which extremity the cutting edge was 
intended to be. Possibly it was found convenient to fashion some of the 



' Vol. xlii., pi. viii. 18. 



Horse Ferales," pi. ii. 3G 



82 



CHIPPED OR ROUGH -HEWN CELTS. 



[chap 



IV. 



implements, in the first instance, into this comparatively regular oval 
contOTir, and subsequently to chip an edge at -whichever end seemed best 
adapted for the purpose. This instrument is not imlike that from the 
Forest of Bere, Fig. 25. Another from Cissbury, with more parallel 
sides, has been figured.' Others from the same place are like Figs. 
16. iV, and 23, and like Fig. 35, though not ground at the edge. 

Others, again, but much f evrer in number, are of a wedge-shaped form, 
with the thin end rounded. The specimen of this kind shown in Fig. 28 




V 



lie. ZS.— CliiCiUTT. 



F - 



is in the Greenwell Collection, and is very symmetrical. The butt-end 
is considerably battered at one part, but not at its extremity; so that this 
bniising may'possibly have been on the block of flint before the imple- 
ment was chipped out. A less symmetrical specimen is figured by 
General Pitt Pavers, having the butt formed of the natural crust of the 
flint. That here engraved appears well adapted for holding in the hand, 
80 as to be used as a kind of chopper ; but the rounded edge is uninjured. 
Can it have been vised as a wedge for sj)litting open the chalk ? or is 
it to be regarded as a" special loi-m of implement ? If so, it seems 
singular that, if such a form was in use in Britain, no specimens have 
hitherto been met with having the edge groimd. I should be more 
satisfied as to the form being intentional and for a certain purpose, had it 
occurred elsewhere than among what is evidently the refuse of a manu- 
f actorv : and yet a somewhat similar hand-tool is in use among the natives 
of AuWralia. A polished implement of analogous form is moreover 
shown in Fig. 83a. Two or three pointed implements, in form Kke 
Fig. 417, were found at Cissbury. Judging from shape alone, they 
might be regarded as being of Palaeolithic age. but their surroundings 
prove them to be NeoHthic. 

I Arch., vol. xlii. pi. viii. 21. 



. . p-OUND IN COMPANY WITH POLISHED CELTS. 83 

Fig. 29 also forms part of the Greenwell Collection, and presents a 
very remarkable form, which, at first sight, has the appearance of 
being a chisel or hatchet, with a large tang, intended for insertion in a 
socket. The lower part is symmetrically chipped, like the cutting end 
of a narrow celt, with sharp sides, such as Fig. 26 ; but at a point a 
little more than half way along the blade, it rapidly expands, so as to 
have an almost circular section. Much as I am tempted to regard this 
as presenting a special type, I am almost convinced that the form is 
due rather to accident than design. It appears to me, that a piece 
of flint, partially chipped into shape for a larger and thicker celt, had 
been broken in the process of manufacture, and a second attempt 
had been made to convert it into a celt, this time of smaller size. The 
lower part of this was successfully chipped out, but on arriving at that 
portion of the blade where the section was nearly circular, the flint 
was either so refractory, or the projections on which blows could be 
administered to detach splinters were so small, that the manufacture 
was abandoned, not, however, before many blows had been fruitlessly 
struck, as the sides and projections of the face of the celt at this part 
are considerably battered. 

Dr. C. B. Plowright has described a number of rough-hewn 
instruments of flint from what seems to have been the site 
of an ancient flint manufactory on Massingham Heath, in West 
Norfolk. He has figured several, including a wedge-formed 
implement like Fig. 28, and one of shoe-shape, not unlike a 
paloDolithic forra.^ 

An interesting instance of the discovery of a flint celt, merely 
chipped out, but associated with polished celts, and other objects, 
is that recorded in the Archceologia,'^ and Hoare's " Wiltshire."^ 
In a barrow opened by Mr. W. Cunnington, in 1802, was a grave 
of oval form, containing a large skeleton lying on its back, and 
slightly on one side, and above it a smaller skeleton in a con- 
tracted posture. At the feet of the larger skeleton were more than 
three dozen perforated pins and other instruments of bone, and 
three celts of white flint, two of which were neatly polished, with 
a fine circular edge ; and the third was " only chipped to the in- 
tended form and size," With these lay what was apparently a 
grinding stone to polish the celts or similar implements ; and some 
grooved sandstones, like Fig. 185. About the legs were several boars' 
teeth perforated, and some cups made of hollow flints ; near the 
breast was a flat circular stone, and a perforated stone axe, shown 
in Fig. 141, and two dozen more of the bone instruments. Some 
jet or cannel-coal beads and a ring of the same substance were also 

^ Trans. Norf. andNorw. Naturalists Soc, vol. v., 1891, p. '2.)0. 
^ Vol. XV., p. 122, pi. ii., iii., iv., v. 
3 « South Wilts," p. 75, pi. v., vi., vii. 

g2 



84 CHIPPED OR ROUGH-HKWN CELTS. [CHAP. IV. 

found, as well as a small bronze awl ; but it is doubtful to which of 
the bodies this belonged. 

It will subsequently be seen that perforated axes similar to that 
in this barrow are frequently associated with bronze daggers, so 
that we seem to have, in this instance, evidence of the contempo- 
raneous use of unground, polished, and perforated stone axes at a 
period when bronze was at all events not unknown in this country. 

If the chipped celt is to be regarded as unfinished, it may be 
that the survivors, in burying it, together with the grinding and 
polishing stones, in company with the original occupant of the 
barrow, entertained a belief that in some future state of existence 
he might be at leisure to complete the process of polishing. 

Very roughly-chipped pieces of flint, apparently blocked-out 
celts, are occasionally found in barrows. Two such, S inches by 3^, 
and 7 by 3^, from a barrow near Alfriston, Sussex, examined by 
Dr. Mantell, are in the British Museum. They may have been 
deposited imder a similar belief, or as votive offerings. Possibly 
this custom of placing roughly-chipped implements, like, for 
instance. Fig. 16, in graves, may be a " survival" from the times 
when warriors or hunters were buried with the arms or weapons 
they had worn when living, and the burials which they accompany 
may belong to a late part of the stone period. It is worthy of 
notice that in the cemetery of Hallstatt, which belongs to a date 
when iron was just coming into use, many of the ornaments appear 
to have been manufactured expressly for funereal purposes, being 
like the gold wreaths in Etruscan tombs, almost too light and 
fragile to be worn by the living. In Denmark, however, the 
weapons of flint which accompanied interments seem usually to 
have been highly finished and perfect. 

Celts, merely chipped into form and unground, occur also in 
other kinds of stone. They are, however, much rarer than those 
of flint. One of iron-stone, from Sussex, 8 inches long and 3j 
wide at the broad end, is in the Blackmore Museum. A very 
fine specimen from Anglesey, formed of felstone, is preserved 
in the Museum of Economic Geology, in Jermyn Street. I have 
a fragment of one in greenstone, found by Mr. R. D. Darbishire, 
F.G.S., at Dwygyfylchi, Carnarvonshire, and another of felstone, 
extremely rude, found by him on Pen-maen-mawr. Some rough 
celts of greenstone, found in barrows near St. Just, Cornwall, are 
in the Truro Museum. 

In Ireland, where flint celts are comparatively rare, those in 



THEIR PROBABLE AGE. 86 

the unpolished condition appear to be relatively more abundant 
in that material than in other rocks. In the large collection of 
the Royal Irish Academy there are but few of either class, and 
I certainly have seen some hundreds of Irish stone celts with 
the edges ground, for one in which it had been left as originally 
chipped out. 

In France the chipped celts of flint are not uncommon, but 
those of other materials are extremely rare. 

In Denmark, and Sweden also, the unpolished celts of flint are 
abundant, but principally of a class not found in Britain, with 
square sides and neatly worked wavy angles. Some of the other 
forms, however, also occur, as has been already mentioned. In 
other materials than flint they are almost unknown. 

In North America the roughly- chipped hatchets are scarce, but 
are more common in flint or hornstone than in other materials. 

In Western Australia, where the hatchets are made of rough 
splinters of basalt and of silicious rocks, grinding seems but little 
practised. Hatchets ground at the edge seem more common 
in Northern Australia. It is, however, by no means improbable 
that in many countries the ruder forms of stone implements have 
to a great extent escaped observation. I much doubt whether the 
stone blades of the Australian hatchets, one of which is engraved 
in Fig. 106, would, if detached from their handles, be thought 
worthy of notice by the large majority of travellers, or even be 
regarded as of human workmanship. 

However this may be, it appears that in Western Europe the 
practice of grinding the edges of hatchets and adzes was more 
universal in the case of those formed of other stones than flint, 
than with those of purely silicious material. This circumstance 
rather strengthens the probability of some of the flint implements 
which are found in the unground condition, having been destined 
for use in that state, as was the case with the North American 
hoe-like implements already mentioned. 

It seems almost demonstrable that some at least of these un- 
polished celts must be among the earliest of the Neolithic imple- 
ments of this country ; for though, in Neolithic times, some 
naturally-shaped stones have been sharpened for use by grinding 
only, yet the art of chipping stone into shape must in all pro- 
bability have preceded that of grinding or polishing its edges. So 
far as at present ascertained, the practice of sharpening stone tools 
on the grindstone was unknown in Palaeolithic times ; and, assum- 



86 CHIPPED OR ROUGH-HEWN CELTS. [cHAP. IV. 

ing the occupation of this country to have been continuous, into 
Neolithic times the transition from one stage of civilization to 
the other has still to be traced. Under any circumstances, we 
have as yet, in Britain, no means at command for assigning with 
certainty any of these roughly-chipped forms to an antiquity 
more remote than that of the carefully finished celts with their 
edges sharpened by grinding, though in all probability some of 
them must date back to a far remoter period. 

We have, on the contrary, good evidence that whatever may 
have been the date when the roughly-chipped implements of this 
form were first manufactured, they continued to be chipped out in 
much the same manner at a time when the practice of sharpening 
by grinding was well known. Though some may have been used 
without being ground, they bear, for the most part, the same rela- 
tion to the finished forms, as the blade of steel rough from the 
forge bears to the polished knife. 



87 



CHAPTER V. 

CELTS GROUND AT THE EDGE ONLY. 

The implements belonging to this class testify to a greater amount 
of pains having been bestowed upon them than on those which 
have been chipped only ; yet the labour in grinding them has been 
far less than with those which are polished over their entire sur - 
face. There are some which occupy an intermediate position be- 
tween those ground at tlie edge only, and those which are polished 
all over ; inasmuch as not only has their edge been sharpened 
by grinding, but the principal asperities both of the sides and 
faces have been removed in a similar manner, yet without polish- 
ing anything like the entire surface. These may be classed among 
polished celts ; and, indeed, any distinction that can be drawn 
between celts partly and wholly polished is imaginary rather than 
real, as it is only a difference in degree. The specimens of this 
class which I have selected for engraving present, as a rule, some 
slight peculiarity either in form or in other respects. 

The first of these, Fig. 30, is remarkable for the extremely rude 
manner in which it is chipped out, and for the small portion of its 
surface wliich is polished. So rude, indeed, is it, that an inexperienced 
eye would hardly accept it as being of human workmanship. The 
edge, however, has unmistakeably been ground. Possibly the imple- 
ment may have been chipped out from a fragment of a larger polished 
celt, of which the edge had been preserved. It is of flint, quite 
whitened by exposure, and was found by myself upon the Downs, near 
Eastbourne, on September 12th, 1852, being the first stone implement 
I over discovered. I have since found a similar but larger celt in a 
field of my own at Abbot's Langley, Herts. It is 4? inches long, and 
the edge has been intentionally blunted by grinding, so that it was 
possibly a battle-axe. I have some other specimens which appear to 
have been made from fragments of larger polished celts. One of 
these, found near Icldingham, 2| inches wide and 2 J inches long, is 
almost pear-shaped in outline, but truncated at the butt, where it is 
about an inch wide. I have several similar implements from France 
and Belgium, the butt-ends of which are battered, as if they had been 
used as wedges. 



88 



CELTS GROUND AT THE EDGE ONLY. 



[chap. 



The original of Fig. 31 is curious iu another aspect, it having been 
shaped, vrith the exception of the edge, entirely by nature, and not by 
■art. The tendency of certain kinds of flint to split up into more or less 
regular prisms by assuming a sort of columnar structure, much like 





Fig. 30. — liowns iiciiT l,aitboume. 



Fig. 31.— Culiord, Suffolk. 



that which is exhibited by starch in drying, is well knxDwn. The 
maker of this implement has judiciously selected one of these prisms, 
which required no more than a moderate amount of grinding at one end 
to convert it into a neat and useful tool. It was found at CuKord, in 

Suffolk, and formerly belonged to Mr. 
Warren, of Ix worth, but is now in my 
own collection. 

The celt represented in Fig. 32 is also 
mine, and was found in the same neigh- 
bourhood, near Mildenhall. It is pointed 
and entirely unpolished at the butt-end, 
which, had that part onlybeen preserved, 
woidd have had all the appearance 
of being the point of an implement of 
the Palaeolithic period. It is, however, 
ground to a thin cLrctilar edge at the 
broad end. Another, nearly similar, 
from Burwell Fen, is in the Museum of 
the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. I 
liave another, rather straighter at the 
edge, but even more sharply pointed at 
the butt, from Eeach Fen, and several 
others from the Eastern Counties. One ' 
of the three celts found in the Upton 
Lovel Barrow was of much the same 
shape, only larger and more rudely 
<;hipped. It had also apparently more of its surface polished. General 
Pitt Eivers has a large Indian celt of this character, but broader in its 

^ Arch., vol. XV., pi. iv. 1. Hoare's " South Wiltshire," pi. v. 1. " Cat. Devizes 
Mus.," No. 94. 




Fig. 32.— Near MildcnhaU, Suffolk. 



roiNTED AT THE BUTT-EMl. 



89 



proportions, fonnrl in TiundGlcund. It is not of flint. I have smallnr 
sp(>C'inions from Madras, but more like Fig'. 33. 

Approaching to the form of Fig. 32, but rather broader at the edge 
and more truncated at tlie butt, where a cavity in the flint has inter- 
fered with the symmetry, is another celt in my own collection, found 
at Suwdon, in the Nortli I^iding of Yorkshii-o, and engraved as Fig. 33. 
It has been skilfully rubbed to a sharp segmental edge, but no labour 
has been wasted in grinding any portion oip the face beyond what was 
necessary to produce the edge. Towards the butt-end some few of the 
facets and projections are, ho\\ ever, highly polished, but by friction 
only, as the surface is still 
uneven and not ground 
down. These polished 
patches, as has been pointed 
out by ] 'rof essor Steenstrup, 
are probably significant of 
the blade having been 
mounted in a horn or wooden 
socket, though not so firmly 
but that there was some little 
motion in it, so that the re- 
sidting friction produced the 
polish. A celt of this class, 
formed of ochreous flint, 
with a semicircular edge, 
the sides straight, and jiartly 
ground away, is in the Fitch 
Collection at Norwich. It 
is 6^ inches long, and was 
found at Martlesham Hill, 
Suffolk. A good example 
found in 1880 at Hinch- 
combe,' Gloucestershire has 
beenfigiired. Another, about 
9 inches long, rounded at 
the sides, and partly ground 
on the faces, was found in a barrow at Hartland, Devon, and is 
preserved in the museum at Truro. One of black flint, 4^ inches long, 
was found at Pen-y-bonc,'' Holyhead Island, in 1873. It is curved, 
and may have been used as an adze. Small specimens of this form 
are occasionally found in Suffolk. In Yorkshire, they occur of still 
smaller size. In the Greenwell Collection is one from Willerby AVold, 
2 inches long and nearly triangular in outline ; and another with an 
oblicjue edge from Helperthorpe, 2| inches long. One from Ganton 
Wold, 2;] inches long, has a straight edge. I have a very rude speci- 
men from the Yorkshire Wolds about 1 f inches long, 1 f inches wide 
at the edge, and 1 inch at the butt. They occur also in Scotland. 
The late Dr. John Stuart showed me a sketch of a flint celt of this 
type, 4f inches long, from Bogingarry, Old Deer, Aberdeenshire. 
Another, If inches by 1 inch, was found near Dundee.^ One very like 

' Arch. Assoc. Jour., vol. xxxvii., 1881, p. 214. 

^ Arch. Jour., vol. xxxi., pp. 296, 301. 

^ Proc. Sr,c. Ant. Scot., vol. xiv., p. 265 ; xxiv., p. 6. 




Fig. 33.— Sawdon, North Yorkshire. 



90 



CELTS GROrXD AT THE EDGE ONLY. 



[chap. V. 



the figure was found at Trquhart,^ Elgin. I have a celt of this char- 
acter (4 inches), from the neighbourhood of Mons, in Belgium. 

Another much more elongated form, but still belonging to the same 
class of implements, is that represented by Fig. 34. The original is of 
grey flint, and was found at Weston, Norfolk. The grinding is con- 
tinued farther along the body of the implement than in the former 
examples, especially on one 'of the faces, and the asperities of the 




^',f^' 







34.— "Weston, Norfolk. 



sides have in places been removed by the same process. About half- 
way along the blade, some of the facets have been polished by 
friction. 

In the Greenwell Collection is a beautiful specimen, 8^ inches long, 
2 inches broad at edge, and f inch at butt, and nowhere more than | 
inch thick. It is most skilfully chipped, and the grinding extends only 
\ inch back from the edge. The sides have been made straight by 

1 Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. ix., p. 258. 



OF F.LONGATKD FORM. 



n 



grinding, and are slightly rounded. It was found at Kinlochew, Ross- 
shire. Another in tlio same collection, 9] inches long, was found at 
Kilham, in the East liiding of Yorkshire. I have seen one 8 inclios 
long frona Leighton Buzzard. One of the same length from F<jrdoun,' 
Kincardineshire, has been figured. 

I have two shorter specimens, about the same breadth as Fig. 34 at 
the cutting edge, from the neighbourhood of Bury St. Edmunds and 
Mildenhall. They do not. however, present any of the polisliod marks. 
Tlie sides of both have to a certain extent been made straight by 
grinding. One of these with the natural crust of the flint still left at 
the butt-end is shown in Fig. o5. I have several otliers from the- 
Eaatern Counties, and two of much the 
same form from Carnaby Moor and King's 
Field, near Bridlington. The Greenweli 
Collection has specimens fomul at Wood- 
hall, near Harbottle, Northumberland, and 
at (Stanford, Norfolk. The latter is sharp 
at the butt. Others have been found in 
the Thames, and are now in the British 
Museum. 1 have a note of one (5 inches 
long from the Priory Valley, Dover. 

(Jthers from I)el)onham, Sufi'olk, from 
l)uuhaiu, Norfolk, and from Thorpe, are 
in the Norwich Museum. 

One of white flint 4.}j inches long, with 
square butt, made straight by grinding. 
and with the faces chipped in such a 
manner r-s to form a central ridge, so that 
the grinding at the edge shows an almost 
triangular facet, was found at Kirbv 
Underdale, and is in the Greenweli Collec- 
tion. The sides in this specimen curve 
slightly inward. 

The two celts found by the late Mr. 
Bateman, in Liflf's Low,^ near Biggin, in 
company with a curious cup, a stag's horn 
hammer, and numerous worked flints, 
including two flakes ground at the edge, 
wore of this form and character. The 
larger of the two is about 7 inches long. 

Mr. Cunnington, E.G. 8., has a small celt of this kind from Morton, 
near Dorchester. Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield, have specimens of the 
same class. One of these (4| inches) is from Garton, Yorkshire ; 
another similar, but less taper (4^ inches), is from Lady Graves, near 
Fimber, where also a ruder celt of the same character was found. I 
have a small celt 3 inches long of the same class, from Seamer, York- 
shire. One of dark flint, slightly curved (5] inches), found at South 
Slipperfield, West Linton, Peeblesshire, is })reserved in the National 
Museum at Edinburgh.'' 

It was the cutting end of a celt of this class, sharp at the sides, and 




Fig. 35.— Mildenhall. 



' Proc. Soc. Atit. Scot., vol. xi., p. 24. 
' Froc. Sue. Aut. Scot.,yo\.\\., p. M^i. 



- " Vest. Ant. Derb.." p. 13. Cat., p. 31. 



«2 



CELTS GROUND AT THE EDGE ONLY. 



[chap. V. 



ground at the edge only, which is said to have been found embedded 
in the skull of a Bot primigenhis,^ in a fen near Cambridge. The skull 
and implement are in the Woodwardian Museum. In the Fitch Col- 
lection is a small flint adze of this character, but rather narrower, and 
very much thinner in proportion. It is 4 J inches long, about 1| inches 
broad, and only j inch thick. It is considerably curved in the direc- 
tion of its length, and bears only slight traces of grinding at the edge, 
which is segmental. It was found at 8anton Downham, Suffolk. I 
have two such thin adzes nearly flat (4J and 4J inches) from West 
Stow, Suffolk, and Thetford. They are both ground to a sharp edge. 
A celt, in form like Fig. 35, found with flint knives and other im- 
plements in some beds of sand near York, has been figured by Mr. C. 
Monkman.- Similar implements are found in Ireland. I have two 
such, almost identical in form with those from Suffolk. They are 
both from Ulster. The same form occurs in Belgium. 

One of these more adze-like implements with a considerable part 
of the convex face polished, was found in Eeach Fen, and is shown in 

Fig. 35a. Fig. 84a, which is polished 
all over, belongs to the same class. 

I have a fine bowed narrow adze 
(7 inches) ground at the edge only, 
from Hampshire. 

The celt represented in Fig. 36 is of 
remarkable form, inasmuch as, like the 
unground specimen, Fig. 21, the sides 
expand at the butt-end. It was found 
in Burwell Fen. and is in the collection 
of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. 
It is formed of chalcedonic flint, and 
the sharp sides are partially smoothed 
by grinding. It is slightly curved in 
the direction of its length, and may 
have been used as an adze. I have 
one of the same character (5f inches) 
from Swaffham, Cambs, and another 
(4f inches) from Oldbury, Ightham, 
given me by ^Ir. B. Harrison, in which 
the narrowing in the middle of the 
blade is even more conspicuous. One 
much like the figure, but with shorter 
sides (5| inches) was found near Dun- 
dee.^ Another smaller, and somewhat 
similar implement, but expanding more 
towards the edge and less at the butt, was found at Bridge Farm, near 
North Tawton, Devon, and was in the possession of Mr. AY. Yicarv. 
F.G.S., of Exeter. 

A few celts expanding at the edge, and polished aU over, will be 
subsequently described. 

' See Cambridge Antiq. Comms., vol. ii., 285, where there is a woodcut of the skull, 
.and Geol. Mag., Dec. II., vol. i. p. 494. 

* Journ. Ethn«l. Soc, 1869, vol. ii., pi. xv., fig. 11. 
■* Froe. Soe. Ant., Scot., vol. xiv., p. 265. 




Fig. 35a.— Roach Fen. 



EXPANDING AT THE ENDS. 



93 



In Fig. 37 is sliown a flint celt, found near Thetford, and formerly 
in the collection of Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.8. It is partial!}' ground 
at the edge and ou the projecting portion of one face, which is curved. 





Fig. 36.— Burwell Fen. 



Fis. 37.— Thetford. 



lengthwise. The other face is rather ogival, and much resembles 
that of the chipped celt from Mildenhall, Fig. 12. I have a shorter 
specimen of the same character from Icklingham. 

Flint celts of the form of Fig. 23, but having the edge ground, fre- 
quently occur. I have specimens from Burwell Fen, Icklingham, and 
other places in the Eastern Counties. One was found at Stifford, near 
Gray's Thurrock, Essex, 6^ inches long.' The late Mrs. Dickinson, of 
Hurstpierpoint, had another, 6 inches long, found at Pycombe Hill, 
Sussex. The late Mr. Durden, of Blandford, had one, now in the Bri- 
tish Museum, from the encampment on Hod Hill, Dorsetshire. I have 
one or two such from the site of the ancient maniifactory at Spiennes, 
near Mons, and others from the North of France. 

The next specimen. Fig. 38, 1 have engraved on account of the peculi- 
arity in its form. The butt-end, for nearly 2i inches along it, has the 
sides nearly parallel, the blade then suddenly expands with a rounded 
shoulder, and terminates in a semicircular edge, which is neatly 

' I'roc. Soe. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 406. 



94 



CELTS GROUND AT THE EDGE ONLY. 



[chap. Y. 



ground, the rest of the celt being left in the statf in which it was 
chipped out. From the form, it would appear as if this implement 
had been intended to be mounted by the insertion of the butt-end in. 
a socket, like that shown in Fig. 98, so that it coidd be used as an axe. 
The axis of the butt is not quite in the same line as that of the rest of 
the blade. It was found at Undley Common, near Lakenheath. and is 
in the Green well Collection. 

A remarkable specimen of an allied kind is shown in Fig. 38a. 
The edge only is ground and a flat surface has been left at the butt- 




Fig. c8. — Undley Common, Lakenheath. J 

end, which is almost circular. It was found on Eingwood Gore Farm, 
East Dean, Sussex, and was given to me by Mr. E. Hilton. 

Another form, apparently intended for use as an adze, is also of rare 
occurrence. The specimen shown in Fig, 39 was found at Ganton, 
Yorkshire, and is in my own collection. It is very much more convex 
on one face than the other, which, indeed, is nearly tiat. The grinding 
is confined to the edge, but some parts of the flat face are polished as 
if by friction. 

The late Dr. John Stuart, F.S.A.Scot., showed me a sketch of a 
large implement of this type, and considerably bowed longitudinally, 
found at Bogingarry, Old Deer, Aberdeenshire. It is of flint, 4i inches 
long, and 2 inches wide. 



OF PECULIAH FORMS. 



95 



Another form of adze, if sucL. it be, remarkably flat on one face and 
narrow at the butt, is shown in Fig. 40. This specimen was found in 




Fig. 38a.— East Dean. ^ 

Swaffham Fen, Cambridge, and is in my own collection. The flat face 





Fig. 39.— Gunton. J 



Fig. 40.— Swutfham Fen. J 



haabeen produced at a single blow, and has been left almost untouched, 
except where trimmed by chipping to form the edge^ which, however, 



96 



CELTS GROUND AT THE EDGE ONLY, 



[chap. V. 



has been rendered blunt by grinding. The sides are very minutely 
chipped along the angles, and there seems some possibility of the 
instrument having been used as a rimer or boring tool. 

The celts of other materials than flint, and ground only at the edge, 
are of rarer occurrence than those in flint. That eng^-aved as Fig. 41 
was found at Grindale, near Bridlington. It is of felstone, and is re- 
markable as being so much curved in the direction of its length. I 
have another smaller specimen from the same place, but the blade is 
straight. The edge, however, is slightly gouge-like. 

Mr. J. "\V. Brooke has a small adze of flint {2\ inches) in outline 
almost identical with Fig. 41. It came from near Aldboume, AVilts. 

Another of these instruments expanding towards the edge, and 
apparently adapted for insertion in a socket, is shown in Fig. 42. It 
is made of hone-stone, and the flat butt is the result of a natural joint 
in the stone. It was found at North Burton, in the East Riding of 





Fig. 41. — Grindale, Biidlingion. 



Fi?. 42. -North Burton. 



Yorkshire, and is in the GreenweU Collection, where is also a celt of 
gi'eenstone much like Fig. 4 1 . found in a barrow with a burnt inter- 
ment on Seamer Moor, Yorkshire ; and another of the same class, 
3^ inches long and 2J inches wide, also from Seamer Moor. A 
third specimen, rather smaller, was found in a barrow at Uncleby, 
Yorkshire. One of greenstone, 2| inches long, and nearl}" triangular 
in outline, was found near Keswick, and is in the Blackmore Museum. 
A longer adze of greenstone, considerably curved in the blade, 
lay in company with various implements of flint in some sand-beds 
near York.^ In the Mayer Collection at Liverpool is a celt of clay- 
slate, 4 inches long and ground at the edge, found at Toxteth. In the 
collection of the late Mr. J. F. Lucas, of Fenny Bentley Hall, near Ash- 
bourne, were two celts (5^- and 7 inches) of the same type as Fig. 35, 
but more adze-like in character, and formed of felstone. They were 
found on Middleton Moor, and at Wormhill, near Buxton, Derbyshire. 
In my own collection, is a greenstone celt with the sides sharp and 
nearly parallel, 7J inches long and nearly 3 inches broad, with a semi- 
circular edge partly ground, found at Shrub Hill, Feltwell, Norfolk. 
1 Jout-M. Eihnoh Soe., 1869, Tol. ii., fig. 7. 



THEIR OCCURRENCE IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES, 97 

I have also a large specimen in form more resembling- Fig. 23, six 
inches long. It is ground at tlie edge, which is nearly semicircular, and 
along the sides. It was found at Thurston, Suffolk, and is formed of 
a piece of tough mica-scliist, with garnets' in it, a material, no doubt, 
derived from tlie Glacial beds of that district. Anotlier from Troston, 
in the same neighbourhood, is formed from a rough fragment of mica- 
ceous grit ground to an edge at one end. In Scotland some wedge- 
shaped blades of granite, exlii biting traces of a very small amount 
of artificial adaptation, have been found. Two such, from Aberdeen- 
shire, described as axes, have been figured.- The small stone celts 
found in Orkney,' though tolerably sharp at the edge, are described as 
rough on the sides. 

Turiiiug to foreign countries, the discovery of flint instruments 
of this class, ground at the edge only, or on some small portions 
of their surface, is, as has already been observed, not uncommon 
in France and Belgium. In Denmark they are also very abun- 
dant, but the most common Danish form with a thick rectangular 
section does not appear to occur in Britain. Among the North 
American stone hatchets, many present this feature of being 
ground at the edge only, and the same is the case with some of 
the tools of the native Australians, such as that engraved in 
Fig. 105. A rough celt from Borneo, ground at the edge only, 
has been engraved by General Pitt Rivers.* The type also occurs 
in India and Japan. 

In all European countries instruments of this form and charac- 
ter, but made of other materials than flint, are, like those entirely 
unground, of very rare occurrence. This rarity may arise from 
two causes, the one, that the tools or weapons made of these 
materials have not so sharp a cutting edge produced by chipping 
only as those formed of flint ; and the second, that being usually 
somewhat softer than flint it required less time and trouble to 
grind them all over. 

None of the rough celts, uor those ground at the edge only, 
seem so well adapted for use as hand- tools without a haft, as do 
some of those which are polished all over. Looking, however, at 
some of the rough Australian tools which are hafted with gum in 
a piece of skin, and thus used in the hand, it is hardly safe to 
express a decided opinion. The majority were, notwithstanding, 
in all probability, mounted with shafts after the manner of axes 
or adzes. 

^ A large celt formed of " indurated clay-stone with garnets," is mentioned ly 
Mr. F. C. Liikis, F.S.A., as having been found in the Channel Islands [Arch. Assoc, 
Jo'irn., vol. iii. 128). 

- Proc. Soe. Ant. Scot., vol. vii. p. 101. 3 /•, ^, ^, g^ vol. vii. 213. 

■* I'roc. Etiniol. Soc, 1870, p. xxxix. 

H 



98 



CHAPTER Vr. 

POLISHED CELTS 

The last of the three classes into which, for the sake of con- 
venience of arrangement, I have divided these instruments, viz., 
that comprising the celts ground or polished, not only at the 
edge, but over a great portion, or the whole, of their surface, is 
also that which is usually most numerously represented in collec- 
tions of antiquities. Whether this excess in number over the 
other classes arises from the greater original abundance of these 
polished implements, or from their being better calculated to 
attract observation, and, therefore, more likely to be collected and 
preserved than those of a less finished character, is a difficult 
<^uestion. From my own experience it appears that, so far as 
relates to the implements of this character formed of flint, and 
still lying unnoticed on the surface of the soil, the proportions 
which usually obtain in collections are as nearly as may be re- 
versed, and the chipped, or but partially polished, celts are in a 
large majority. 

Among the polished celts there is a great range in size, and 
much variation in form, though the general character is in the 
main, uniform. The readiest method of classification is, I think, 
in accordance with the section presented by the middle of the 
blade, and I, therefore, propose to arrange them as follows : — 

1. Those sharp or but slightly rounded at the sides, and pre- 
senting a pointed oval or vesica piscis in section. 

2. Those with flat sides. 

3. Those with an oval section. 

4. Those presenting abnormal peculiarities. 

In each subdivision there will, of course, be several varieties, 
according as the sides are more or less parallel, the blade thicker 
or thinner, the butt-end more or less pointed, and the edge flat, 
segmental, or oblique. There are also intermediate forms between 
these merely arbitrary classes. 



A TYPE COMMON IN THE EASTERN COUNTIES, 



99 



I commence with those of the first sub-division, in flint. The first 
specimen I have engraved, Fig. 43, is a representative of a common 
type, and was found at Santon Downham, between Brandon and Thet- 
iord, on the borders of Norfolk and Suffolk, where, also, implements 




Fig. 43.— Santon Downham, Suffolk. 



belonging to the Palfoolithic Period have been discovered The sides 
were originally sharp, but have been sHghtly rounded by grind- 
ing. Ihe faces still show, in many places, the surface originaUy pro- 
duced by chipping, but aU projections have been ground away 

H 2 



100 POLISHED CELTS. [cHAP. VI. 

I have also a larger specimen. 9^ inches long, from the same spot, 
and found, I believe, at the same time. 

This form is of common occurrence in tlie Eastern Counties. I have 
specimens from Hilgay Fen, Norfolk {S^ inches), and Botesdale 
(7 inches), Hepworth (6J inches), Undley Hall, near Lakenheath 
(Sf inches), in Suffolk. Some of these are ground over almost the 
entire face. A fine specimen (10 inches) is in the Woodwardian 
Museum, at Cambridge. In the Fitch Collection is a fine series of 
them. One of these, 9J inches long, 3X inches broad, and 2k inches 
thick, -weighing 3 lbs. 6^ ozs.. was found at Narborough, near Swaff- 
ham. Another (9^ inches), weighing 3^ lbs., was found near Ipswich. 
A third {S^ inches) was discovered at Bolton, near Great Yarmouth. 
Others from 5J inches to 7:^ inches long, are from BeachamweU, 
Elsing, Grundisburgh, Aylsham, and Breccles, in the counties of 
Suffolk and Norfolk. That from the last-named locality has one face 
flatter than the other. 

There are others in the Norwich Museum, including one from 
Blofield, 8i inches long. 

There are numerous specimens of this type in the British Museum. 
One from Barton Bendish, Norfolk, is 7| inches long ; another from 
Oxburgh, in the same county, 6f inches. Others, 6A- inches and 5^ 
inches long, are from Market Weston and Kesgrave, Suft'olk. The 
former is semicircular at both ends. 

Mr. A. C. Savin has a well-finished example (6^ inches) from 
Trimingham, five miles south of Cromer. 

The Eev. S. Banks, of Cottenham, had a fine specimen, of white 
flint, 8^ inches long, found at Stow Heath, Suffolk. 

Several celts of this form found in the Fen district are in the Museum 
of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. I have some from the same 
neighbourhood, of which two are unusually wide in proportion to their 
length, and in outline much resemble Fig. 48, though the edge is 
more semicircular. One of these is 7 inches long, 3| inches wide, and 
1|- inches thick ; the other 5| inches long, 2f inches wide, and If inches 
thick. 

I have seen a celt presenting a narrow variety of this form, which 
was found at Albury, near Bishop's Stortford. It is 6f inches long, 
and 1| inches wide, and polished all over. 

The ordinary form, though apparently of most frequent occurrence 
in the East Anglian counties, is not by any means confined to that 
district. One, 8^ inches long, the sides very slightly flattened ; and 
three others, 6 inches and 5 inches long, with the sides more rounded, 
all found in the Thames, at London, are in the British Museum. I 
have one from the Thames, at Teddington (G inches), and thi'ee, 5;^ to 
6 inches long, found together in' Temple Mills Lane, Stratford, Essex, 
in 1882. In the GreenweU Collection is one 7i inches long, found at 
Holme, on Spalding ^loor, Yorkshire. 

A flint celt of this form (61 inches), from Eeigate,- is in the British 
Museum, as well as another (6^ inches), rather obHque at the edge, 
found in a barrow in Hampshire, engraved in the Archaologia.^ 

1 " Man the Primeval Savage," p. 310. 

* See " Hora; Ferale.s," pi. ii. 8. 

^ Vol. xvii., pi. xiv. " Horae Ferales," pi. ii. 10. 



WITH THE SURFACE GROUND ALL OVER, 



101 



Another, 7 inches long, was found near Egham,' Surrey. Two from 
Ash - near Farnhara, andWisley in the same county have been figured. 
I have a short, thick specimen (4i- inches) found at Eynsliam, Oxford- 
shire. It sometimes happens that celts of this general character have 
one side much curved while the other is nearly straight, so that in out- 
line they resemble Fig. 86. One such, 5 inches long and 2 inches 
broad in the middle, foimd at Bishopstow, is in the Blackmore 
Museum. Another (6i inches) with the sides less curved, from 
Stanton Fitzwarren, Wilts, has been engraved by the Archaeological 
Institute.'' Two, 7^ and 5J inches long, were found at Jarrow.* 

The same type as Fig. 43 occasionally occurs in other materials than 
flint. The late Mr. James AVj^att, F.G.S., had a celt of greenstone 9^ 
inches long, 3i inches wide at the 
edge, which is slightly oblique, found 
many years ago in Miller's Bog, Paven- 
ham, Beds. There is an engraving of 
it, on which it is described as of flint, 
but such is not the fact. The form is 
also sometimes found in France and 
Belgium. I have specimens from both 
countries ; and one from Ferigord, 
8 inches long, is in the Museum at Le 
Puy. 

Allied to this f onu, but usually more 
rounded at the sides, and flatter on the 
faces, are the implements of which an 
example is given in Fig. 44. The 
original was found at Coton, Cam- 
bridgeshire, in 1863. The type is the 
same as that of Fig. 35 ; but in this 
case the celt is polished all over. The 
butt-end is ground to a semicircular 
outline, but is, hke the sides, rounded. 
The same is the case with some of the 
thicker celts of the form last described. 
A celt of much the same character, 
but with the sides apparently rather 
flatter (7^ inches), was found at Pans- 
hanger, Herts. ^ One (5 inches), from the Isle of Wight, is in the 
British Museum. The edge is oblique, as is that of another of the 
same length found on the South Downs, and now in the Museum at 
Lewes. Another of grey flint, 7 inches long, tapering from 2 inches 
at edge to 1 inch at butt, ^ inch thick, semicircular at the butt and 
edge, the faces polished nearly all over, but the sides sharp and left 
unground, was found during the Main Drainage "Works for London, and 
is also in the British Museum. Others have been described from Plaj'- 
ford,^ Suffolk (6| inches) and Chalvey Grove,' Eton Wick, Bucks 
(7| inches), and part of one from Croydon.** 

' Arch. Jotirn., vol. xxviii., p. 242. "^ Surr. Arch. Coll., vol. xi. pp. 247, 248. 
■* Arch. Journ., vol. ix. p. 194. " Salisbiiry vol.," p. 112. 

* Arch. AB/ia)ia, vol. v. p. 102. * Arch. Journ., vol. xx. p. 192. 

'' Froc. Soc. Ant., 2nd !S. vol. ix. p. 71. ' Arch. Journ., vol. xxx. p. 284. 

* Anderson's " Croydon : Preli. and Present," pi. ii. 




Fig. 44. — C'otoii, Cambridge. 



102 



POLISHED CELTS. 



[chap 



VI. 



I have seen sjiecimens of the same kind, vnth. the sides straight and 
sharp though slightly rounded, tapering towards the butt which is 
semicircular, and varying in length from 5^ inches to 7;^ inches, found 
at Aldertou, Suffolk ; Thorn IMarsh, Yorkshire; Norton, near ^Malton; 
Westacre Hall, Norfolk ; and elsewhere. The late Mr. J. Brent, F.S.A., 
showed me a drawing of one about 7 inches long, found at Bigborough 
Wood, Tunford. Canterbury. 

The celt shown in Fig. 45 belongs to the same class, though it is 
rather flatter at the sides. It is polished over the greater part of its 
surface, but is on one face quite unpolished at the edge. I have en- 
graved it as an example of the manner in which, after the edge of a 





Fig. 45. — Keach Fen, Cambridge. 



Fig. 46.— Great Bedwin, Wilts 



i 



hatchet of tliis kind had become damaged by use, a fresh edge was- 
obtained by chipping, which, in some instances, the owner of the 
implement was not at the pains to sharpen by grinding. 

Fig. 46 gives another variety of the flint celts with sharp or slightly 
rounded sides. It is slightly ridged along each face, and the faces 
instead of being uniformly convex to the edge have at the lower part 
a nearly flat facet of triangular form, the base of which forms the edge. 
This specimen was found at Great Bedwin, Wilts, and is in the 
Grreenwell Collection. 

I have a nearly similar specimen (6^ inches) from Northwood, Hare- 
field, Middlesex, and another of the same length, found at Hepworth,. 



EXPAXniNG AT 1HK EDGE. 



105 



Suffolk, but the facet at the edge is not quite so distinct. A third from 
Abingdon is only 4^ inches long. 

A long narrow chisel-like celt of this pointed oval section (8 inches) 
from Aberdeenshire ' has been figured. A flint celt from Chiriqui,* 
found with a sort of flint punch and some burnishing pebbles in a 
grave, presumed to be that of one 
of the native workers in gold, is 
remarkably like Fig. 46 in form. 

In the Fitch Collection is a 
large thick specimen (9f inches) 
found at Heckingham Common, 
Norfolk, and a shorter, broader 
one with a faceted edge, from 
Pentney. Another of flint (6i 
inches) with the sides much 
rounded, but with a similar facet 
at the edge, was found at Histon, 
Cambs, and belonged to the late 
Eev. S. Banks. 

It seems probable that these 
instruments when first made did 
not exhibit the facet at the edge, 
but that it has resulted from 
repeated grinding as the edge 
became injured by wear. 

A celt, apparently of this sec- 
tion, but more truncated at the 
butt, and with a narrow facet 
running along the centre of the 
face, was found in Llangwyllog," 
Anglesey. It is not of flint but 
of " white magnesian stone." 

Fig. 47 exhibits a beautiful 
implement of a different cha- 
racter, and of a very rare form, 
inasmuch as it e.xpands towards 
the edge. It is of ochreous- 
coloured flint polished all over, 
and is in the Greenwell Collec- 
tion. It was found at Bur- 
radon, Northumberland, and in 
outline much resembles that 
from Gilmerton, Fig. 76, but this 
latter has the sides flat and a 
cutting edge at each end. 

A celt of similar form, but only 61- inches long, found at Cliff Hill^ 
is in the IMuseum at Leicester. Four flint hatchets, found at Bexley, 
Kent, seem from the description given of them to be nearly of this 
type.^ 

' Froc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xvi. 437. 

2 L. Simonin, " La Vie Souterraine," &c.. 1867. Mortillet, Mat., vol. iii. p. 101. 

2 Arch. Journ., vol. xxvii., pi. x. 1, p. 164. •• Arch. Journ., vol. xhnii. p. 436. 




•Burradon, Xorthumberliind. 



104 



POLISHED CELT.-- 



[chap. VI. 



A few spocimens of this form, both unground and ground merely at 
the edge, have already been mentioned, and .specimens engraved, as 
Figs. 21 and 36. Hatchets expanding towards the edge are of more 
common occurrence in Denmark than in this countr}', though even 
there they are rather rare when the expansion is well-defined. 

In the British iluseum is a magnificent celt of this section, but in 
outline like Fig. 77. It is ground over nearly the whole of its surface, 
but the edge at each end has only been chipped out. It is made of 
some felspathic rock, and is no less than 14 1 inches in length. It 
was found near Conishead Priory, Lancashire. 

The next specimens that I shall describe are also principally made of 
other materials than flint. 

Fig. 48, in my own collection, is of porphyritic greenstone, and was 
found atCoton, Cambridgeshire. It is polished all over, equally convex 

on both faces, and has the sides 
rather more rounded than most of 
those of nearly similar section in 
flint. The butt is rather sharper 
than the sides. I have an analogous 
implement, found at Xunnington, 
York.shire, but with the sides 
straighter and rather more conver- 
ging towards the butt. Othershave 
been found in the same district. 

Other specimens made of green- 
stone have been found in the Fens, 
some of which are in the Museum 
of the Cambridge Antiquarian 
Society. 

Some '• stone " celts from Kate's 
Bridge ■ and Digby Fen have been 
figured in Miller and Skertchly's 
" Fenland." One (7 inches) of 
greenstone, and apparently of this 
type, was found at Hartford, - 
Hunts, and is now in the Ashmo- 
lean Museum at Oxford. 

In the Newcastle Museum is a 
compact greenstone celt of this 
character ^5J inches) with the 
edge slightly oblique, found at Penrith Beacon, Cumberland. Some 
celts of the same general character have been found in Anglesea. 

Implements of this class are frequently more tapering at the butt 
than the one shown in the figure. I have several such from the Cam- 
bridge Fens, and have seen an example from Towcester. One of flint 
(4 inches), so much rounded at the edge as to be almost oval in out- 
line, found near Mildenhall, is in the Christy Collection. One of 
greenstone (4J inches) was found at AVormhill, Buxton. Derbyshire. 

Fig. 49, of dark-grey whin- stone, is of much the same character, but 
has an oblique cutting edge. The butt-end is ground to a blunted 




Fig. 48.— Coton, Cambridge. 



1 Pp. 577, 578. ^ 2 Proc. So 

* Arch. Journ., vol. xxxi. p. 301. 



An(., IniS., vol. v., p. 34. 



OF OTHER MATERIALS THAN FLINT. 



105 



curve. The original is in the Greenwell Collection, and was dug up 
in draining at I'onteland, Northumberland. Another, in the same 
collection, similar, but much rougher (6 inches) was found at Halton 
Chest ers, in the same county. I have one of the same kind (6| inches) 
found near liaby Castle, Durham. 

A flint hatchet of nearly the same form, 4h inches long, was found 
at Kempston, near liediord. The Earl of Uucie, F.E-.S., has another 
of flint (5 inches) from Bembridge, Isle of Wight. A celt, from 
Andalusia, of tliis character, but with the edge straighter, has been 
figured.' 

The celt engraved in Fig. 50 is likewise in the Greenwell Collection, 





Fig. 49. — Pontcland, Northiunberland. 



Fig. SO.^Fridaythorpe, Yorkshire. .J 



and was found at Fridaythorpe, in the East Eiding of Yorkshire. 
It is formed of green hone-stone. Another, similar but thicker, and 
having the sides more convergent and the edge less oblique, was found 
at the same place and is in the same collection, in which also is the 
fragment of a larger imi^lement of the same class from Amotherby, 
near Malton, Yorkshire. With these is another (4f inches) which 
was found in a barrow with a burnt interment on Seamer Moor, 
Yorkshire. It is apparently of clay-slate which has become red by 
biu'ning with the body. 

Messrs. Mortimer have one of this form in greenstone (5| inches) 
found near Malton, and also one in flint (4 J inches) found near Fimber. 
* Arch, Journ. vol. xxvii. p. 238. 



106 



POLISHED CtLTS. 



[chap. VI. 



I hare a well-finislied celt of hone-stone, rather thicker proportion- 
ally than that figured, (of inches^ probably found in Cumberland, it 
having formed part of the Crosthwaite Collection at Keswick. In 
the Greenwell Collecticn is another of basalt, with straight sides, 
tapering from 2 J inches at edge to If at butt, 9^ in length, and If 
thick, from a peat moss at Cowshill-in-Weardale, Durham. 

A thin, flat fonn of celt, still presenting the same character of section, 
is represented in Fig. 51. The original is formed of a hard, nearly 
black cla^'-slate, and was found at Oulston, in the North Eiding of York- 




I 



jmJ 



Fig. 51. — Oulston. 

shire. Like many others which I have described, it is in the Green- 
well Collection. 

One of flint like Fig. .51 (5 inches) was found at Shelley,^ SuflPolk. 

A celt of greenstone (4f inches), of the same character but thicker 
and with straighter sides, from Newton, Aberdeenshire, is in the 
National Museum at Edinburgh, where is also another, in outline 
more like the figure, but broader at the butt-end. and with one side some- 
what flattened. It is 4 1 long, and was found at Eedhall. near Edinburgh. 

Some Irish celts, formed of different metamorphic rocks, present the 
same forms as those of Figs. 48 to 51. As a rule, however, the sides 
of Irish specimens are more rounded. 

Fig. 52 represents qn exquisitely polished celt, of a mottled, pale- 
1 Froc. Soe. Ant., 2nd S., Tol. ix. p. 71. 



THE THIX AND HIGHLY POLISHED TYPE. 



107 



illil 



green colour, found in Bur-s-ell Fen, Cambridge, and, through, the 
kindness of !Mr. Marlborough Pry or, now in my own collection. The 
material appears to be a very 
hard diorite ; and as both faces 
are highly polished all over, 
the labour bestowed in the 
manufacture of such an instru- 
ment musthavebeen immense. 
It is somewhat curved length- 
ways, and on the inner face is 
a slight depression, as if, in 
chipping it out, one of the 
lines of fracture had run in 
too far ; but even this depres- 
sion is polished, and no trace 
of the original chipped surface 
remains. The point is quite 
sharp, and the sides are 
only in tlie slightest degree 
rounded. 

A beautiful example of the 
kind is said to have been found 
in a barrow near Stonehenge.' 
Another of a green-grey colour 
(6i inches) was foimd at Lop- 
ham Ford, near the source of 
the AVaveney, and was sub- 
mitted to me in 1884, by the 
late Mr, T. E. Amj^ot, of Diss. 

The late Mr. J. AV. Flower, 
F.Gr.S., bequeathed to me a 
somewhat larger specimen of 
the same character, found at 
Daviot, Inverness. It is 
slightly broken at the pointed 
butt, but must have been 
about 8 inches long and 3| 
broad. The material may be a diorite, but perhaps more nearly 
approaches -what the French term jadeite. In the Truro Museum is 
another highly polished celt of the same form, and similar material, 
found near Falmouth. 

Mr. J. W. Brooke has a beautifiilly polished specimen, made of a 
green transparent stone, from Breamore, Salisbury. It has lost a small 
piece at the butt-end, but is stiU 8 inches long. It is only 2| inches 
broad at the cutting end. 

Another celt, 7|- inches long, "the edges thin, rising gradually to 
about the thickness of half an inch in the middle," was found in 1791 
near Ilopton, Derbyshire.'- The material is described as appearing 
" to be marble, of a light colour tinged with yellow, and a mixture of 
pale red and green veins." 

In the collection of the late Mr. J. F. Lucas was a celt of this type 



%:, 




Fig. 52. — liurwell Fen. 



' Arch., voL xliii. p. 406. 



- Arch., voL xii. pi. ii. 1. 



108 



POLISHED CELTS. 



[chap. 



VI. 



oi inches long, slightly un symmetrical in outline, owing to the cleav- 
age of the stone. It is said to have been found near Brierlow, Buxton. 
The material is a green jade-like stone, but so fibrous in appearance 
as to resemble fibrolite. 

Another, of "a fine granite stone, highly polished, 9 inches long, 
4 J broad at one end, tapering to the other, its thickness in the middle 
^ of an inch, and quite sharp at the edges all round," was found at 




\l 



» 



crwickshire. 



Mains,' near Dumfries, in 1779. It was discovered in blowing up some 
large stones, possibly those of a dolmen, and is now in the possession 
of Sir E. S. Riddell, Bart., of Strontian. 

Several other specimens have been found in Scotland. A beautiful 
celt from Berwickshire ^ is, through the kindness of the Society of 

^^Arch., vol. \u. p. 414 ; Proe. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. vi. 37. 
^^Troe. Soe. Ant. Scot., vol. xxvi. p. 175 ; xxviii. p. 322. 



THK THIN AND HIGHLY POLISHED TYPE. 109 

Antiquaries of Scotland, shown in Fig. 52a. It is made of green 
quartz and has the edge intentionally blunted. A smaller celt (T^- 
inches) was found at Cunzierton near Jedburgh ' ; another (8 inches) 
at Eattray,' Perthshire ; another (8{ inches), only J inch thick at 
most, near Glenluee,'' Wigtownshire ; and others (8 inches) at Aber- 
feldy,^ Perthshire, and Dunfermline.' 

Severiil of these highly polished jadeite celts have been found in 
dolmens in Brittan3% and tliere are some fine specimens in the museum 
at Vannes. Some of them " have small holes bored through them. 
The various types of Brittany celts have been classified by the Societe 
Polymathique du Morbihan.^ In the Musee de St. Germain is a specimen 
(unbored) 9 inches long, found near Paris,* as also a hoard of fifteen, 
originally seventeen, mostly of jadeite and fibrolite, some perforated, 
found at Bernon,'' near Arzon, Morbihan, in 1893. I have one 7A- 
inches long from St. Jean, Chjiteaudun, and others 5| to 7 inches in 
length, of beautiful varieties of jade-like stone, found at Eu (Seine 
Inferieure), i\Iiannay, near Abbeville (Somme), and Breteuil (Oise). 
The two latter are rounded and not sharp at the sides. One about 6^ 
inches long, fi-om the environs of Soissons, is in the museum at Lyons. 

One of jade, of analogous form to these, and found near Brussels, 
is engraved by Le Hon.'" Another was found at Maffles." 

Five specimens of the same character, of different sizes, the longest 
about 9J inches in length, and the shortest about 4 inches, are said to 
have been foimd with Koman remains at Kiistrich, near Gonsenheim, '- 
and are preserved in the museum at IVfainz. The smallest is of 
greenstone, and the others of chloritic albite. They are said to have 
been buried in a sort of leather case, arranged alternately with the 
pointed and broad ends downwards, and in accordance with their size. 

Eight specimens from museums at AVeimar, Rudolstadt, and Leipzig 
were exhibited at Berlin" in 1880. One from Wesseling,'^ on the Rhine 
(8 inches), is thought to have been associated with Roman remains. 

Both with the English and Continental specimens, there appears to 
be considerable doubt as to the exact localities whence the materials 
were derived from which these celts are formed. 

Instruments for which such beautiful and intractable materials were 
selected, can hardly have been in common use ; but we have not sufficient 
ground for arriving at any trustworthy conclusion as to the purpose for 
which they were intended. I have, however, a short celt, 3^ inches 
long, from Burwell Fen, and made of this jade-like material, which has 
evidently been much in use, and was once considerably longer. It 
appears, indeed, to be the butt-end of an instrument like Fig. 52. 

A detailed account of the jade and jadeite celts in the British 
Museum is given in the Zeitsehrift fur Ethnologie}'" 

1 P.S. A. iS.,vol. xvii. p. 382; xxviii.p. 329. - Op. ri/". , vol. x. p. 600; x\ai. p. 383. 

' Op. cit., vol. ix. p. 346 ; xvii. p. 384. ^ Op. cit., vol. xxiii. p. 272. 

* Ibid. " Bon.stetten, " Supp. au Rec. d'Aut. Suissse.s," pi. ii. 1. 

'' Fioc. Ethnol. Soc, 1870, p. cxxxxni. 

** Mortillet, " Promenades," p. 145 : "Mus. Preli.," No. 459. 

' See the account of the discovery, Itev. Arch., 3rd S., vol. xxiv. (1894), p. 260. 

^" " L'homme Fossile," 2nd Ed., p. 147. ^^ Van Overloop. PI. ix. and x. 

12 Lindenschmit. " Alt. u. H. V.," vol. i., Heft. vol. ii.. Taf. i. 19, &c. 

" Voss. " Phot. Album," vol. y\., sec. \\. " Johrh. d. V. v. Alt. imJi/i., L. p. 290. 

i'' xix. p. 119. See also, for the origin of Jade, FLscher's " Jadeit und Nephrit," 
Westropp in Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. x. p. 359, and liudler in Brit. Assoc. Hep., 
1890, p. 971. 



110 POLISHED CELTS. [cHAP. VI. 

It was formerly supposed that the jade of which many hatchets found 
in Switzerland and other European countries are made, came of 
necessity from the East, and theories as to the early miji:ratiou8 of 
mankind have been based upon this supposition. As a fact, jade has 
now been found in Europe, and notably in Styria' and Silesia." 
lielow^ are given some references to comments on the sources of jade. 
An account of the method of working jade in Western Yun-nan is 
given in Anderson's Report* on the Expedition to that country ; and a 
complete and well-illustrated catalogue of objects in jade and nephrite, 
by Dr. A. B. Meyer, forms part of the publications of the Royal 
Ethnographical Museum, at Dresden, for 1883. 

I now come to the second of the subdivisions under which I 
have arranged this class of implements, viz., those having the 
sides flattened. The flat sides, of course, taper away to a point 
at the cutting edge of the celts, and usuallj^ diminish much in 
width toward the butt-end, which is commonly ground to a semi- 
circular blunted edge. The iaiplements of this kind are generally 
A'ery symmetrical in form. 

I have selected a large specimen for engraving in Eig. 53. It is of 
grey mottled flint, ground all over to such an extent, that hardly any 
traces of the original chipping remain. It was found at Botesdale, 
Suffolk, and was formerly in the collection of Mr. Warren, of Ixworth, 
1)ut is now in my own. I have another (4f inches) from Redgrave, 
Suffolk, and a third (5^ inches) from Bottisham Lode, Cambs. 

One of the same form, found near Stowmarket, is engraved in the 
Ardmologia.^ If the account there given be correct, it was lif inches 
long. A specimen from Cardiff, now in the British Museum (4^ 
inches), has lost a considerable portion of its original length by use, 
and is ground so that the edge bounds a facet on the face. The sides 
at the butt-end are somewhat rounded, but near the edge they are 
flat and J inch wide. 

A fine specimen of this cliuracter, formed of ochreous flint (9 inches), 
found in Swaffham Fen, Cambridgeshire, is in the Christy Collection, 
as well as one from Mildenhall (Si inches), the butt-end of which is 
sharper than is usual. 

In the Fitch Collection is a flint celt of this tj-pe, 7i inches long and 
2^ broad at the edge, which however, has been broken otf. It is said 
to have been found in a tumulus at Swannington, Norfolk, in 1855. 
In the Northampton Museum is a specimen (G inches) of oehi-eous flint, 
foimd at Gilsborough, Northamptonshire. The late !Mr. James Wyatt, 
F.G.S., had a beautiful implement of this type, but narrower in 
proportion to its length, being 7 inches long and onlv If wide at the 
edge, found in the Thames at Coway Stakes, near Egham. I have 
one (C inches) from the Thames at Hampton Coiu-t. A fine specimen, 
9^ inches long, and 3 wide at the edge, with the sides quite flat, but 

J Mitth. d.Ant. Ges. in Wien, N. S., vol. iii. 1883, p. 213-216. 
2 Op. cit., N. S., vol. v. 1885, p. 1. 

^ Jonrii. Anth. Inst., vol. x., p. 359 ; xx, p. 332 ; xxi., pp. 319, 493; Aarh'vg. 
f. Oldkynd., 1889, p. 149. 

* Calcutta, 1871. ^ Vol. xvi., pi. Iii. p. 361. 



WITH FLAT SIDES. 



HI 



less than ^ iach wide, of oclireous fliut, polished all over, was found at 
Crudwell, Wilts. 

Others, in flint, have been found at Sutton, Sufi'cjlk (8 inches) ; 
Wishford, Great Bedwin, Wilts' (7 inches); Portsmouth;- Cherbury 




Fig. 53.— Botesdale, Sufioli. J 

Camp, Pusey, Faringdon^ (5^ inc hes long, edge faceted), and Eampton, 
Cambridge.* I have seen one (5^ inches) that was found near Lough- 
borough. Mr. Gr. F. Lawrence has a fine specimen (7| inches) from 
the Lea Marshes. 



1 Canon Greenwell, F.R.S. 
s Mr. Frank Buckland, F.Z.S. 



* Mr James Brown. 
« Rev. S. Banks. 



112 



POLISHED CELTS. 



[chap. VI. 



In the Xational Museum at Ediaburgh is one of vrhite flint 
(10 inches'' from Fochabers/ Elginshire, and another from the same 
place (7^ inches}. They are in shape much like Fig. 61. There is 
another of grey flint, from Skye {7^ inches). One ok inches long, in the 
same museum, from Eoxburghshire, has the middle part of the faces 




Fig. 54.— Laekford, Sullolk. i 

ground flat, so that the section is a sort of compressed octagon ; the 
edge is nearly straight. 

Much the same form occurs in other materials than flint. I have 
a specimen, formed of flinty clay-slate, with one side less flat than 
the other, lOj inches long, 3 vdde, and If thick, said to have been 
found with four others in a cairn on Druim-a-shi, Culloden, Inverness. 
I have another of whin-stone (9 J inches) from Kirkcaldy, Fife. 

The fijie celt from GiLmerton, Fig. 76, is of the same class, but has 
a cutting edge at each end. Some Cumberland and Westmorland 
specimens partake much of this character. 

1 Froe. Soc. Ant. Scot., voU x\-i. p. 40S. 



WITH FLAT SIDES. 



113 



Implements of nearly similar form to that last described, but having 
the edge oblique, are also met with. That engraved in Fig. 54 was 
found at Lackford, Suffolk, and was formerly in the collection of Mr. 
Warren, of Ixwoi-th, but is now in mine. It is of grey flint. I have 
another, of white flint, of the same length but a trifle narrower, and 
with the grinding for the edge forming more of a facet with the body 
of the celt. It was found in the Isle of Portland. The obHquity of the 
edge was no doubt intentional, and may have originated in the manner 
in which these hatchets were mounted with hafts. Professor Nilsson^ 
has suggested that the obliquity is due to the front part of the blade 
being worn away in use more quickly than the back. 

To this class, though very different in appearance, belongs a beauti- 
fully made celt of grey flint, in the British Museum. It is probably 
of English origin, though the place of finding is unknown. The sides 
are straight and flat, but only about -A- of an inch wide, the faces 
equally convex and polished all over. It is 9 inches long, and tapers 
from Ij^ inches wide at the 
edge, which is broken, to f 
at the butt. Its greatest 
thickness is h an inch. It is 
engraved in the Archaological 
Journal."^ 

Flint celts of the type of 
both Fig. 53 and 54 are 
not uncommon in France 
and Belgium. They are also 
found, though rarely, in Ire- 
land. 

The cutting end of one 
formed of nearly transparent 
quartz, and found in Egypt, 
is in the Museum at Geneva. 

Celts with the sides flat- 
tened are of not unfrequent 
occurrence in other materials 
than flint. That figured as 
No. 55 is of ochreous- 
coloured quartzite, and was 
found at Dalmenj^, Linlith- 
gow. It is preserved in 
the National Museum at 
Edinburgh. The form is 
remarkable, as being so 
broad in proportion to the 
length. The sides are flat, 
but the angles they make 
with the faces are slightly rounded. The butt-end is rounded in both 
directions, and appears to have been worked with a pointed tool or 
pick. 

Another celt, of greenstone, of much the same form but with the 




Fig-. 55.— Diilmeny, LLiilithgow. j 



^ "Stone Age," p. 63. 



Vol. iv. p. 2. 



114 



POLISHED CELTS. 



[CKAP. VI. 



sides more tapering, 6 inches long and 3^ wide, "which \ras found in 
Lochleven^ in I860, is in the same museum. This latter more nearly 
resembles Fig. 51 in outline. A small highlv-polished celt of flinty 
slate (2f inches), found near Dundee,- has been figured. Another, 
more triangular in outline, 6| inches long, was found at Barugh, 
Yorkshire, and is in the Greenwell Collection. I have a celt of rather 
narrower proportions that was found between Hitchin and Pirton, 
Herts. It is made of a kind of lapi>i lydius. 

Many of the Danish greenstone celts, which are perforated at the 
butt, present much the same ou tl ine and section. 

Stone hatchets of this character occur, though rarely, in France. I 

have seen one in the collec- 
tion of the late M. Aymard, 
at Le Puy. Dr. Finlay, of 
Athens, had a thin, flat 
hatchet of this form made 
of heliotrope. 2>h inches long, 
■with flat sides, found in 
Greece. The form occurs 
also in Sicily.' 

Several celts of this type 
have been brought from dif- 
ferent parts of Asia. One, 
of basalt, 2 inches long, 
wedge - shaped, found at 
Muquier,^ in SouthernBaby- 
lonia, is in the British 
Museum ; and several of 
jade. 3 to 4 inches long, 
procured by Major Sladen 
from the province of Yun- 
nan in Southern China, are 
in the Christy Collection. 
By Major Sladen' s kindness, 
I have also a specimen. Mr. 
Joseph Edkin 5 has published 
some notes on " Stone 
Hatchets in China. ' ' ^ Others 
from Perak'" have also been 
described. 

The same form, also in 

jade, has been found in Assam.^ Some from Java, in the museum at 

Leyden, formed of flint, present the same section, but the sides 

expand towards the edge. A nearly similar form occtirs in Japan.* 

Fig. 56 is of the same character as Fig. 55, but narrower at the butt- 

' Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., toL iii. p. 486. - Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., voL xiii. p. 306. 
3 Z.f. Eth., 1878, Supp. pi. iii. « " Horse Ferales," pi. ii. 14. 

* Xature, vol. xxx. p. .515. See also Archiv.f. Anth., vol. xvi. p. 241, and Proc. 
Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. ix. p. 211. 

* Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. xvii. p. 66. 

' Proc. As. Soc. Beng., Sept., 1870. Proc. Ethnol. Soc, 1870, p. Ixii. 

* Kanda's " Stone Implements of Japan," Nature, vol. xxxi. p. 538 ; Cong. Preh. 
Pruzellet, 1872, p. 337. 




Kg. 56.^SproL.:toii, near Kelso. 



WITH FLAT SIDES AND NARROW BUTT. 



115 



end. The original is in the Greenwell Collection, and is formed of 
Lydian stone. It was found at Sprouston, near Kelso, Eoxburghshire. 
Though flat at the sides along most of the blade, the section becomes 
oval near the buit-end. 

I have a smaller example of this type in clay-slate, 3 J inches long 
and If wide at the edge, found at Camaby, near Bridlington. The 
butt-end is in this case rectangular in section. It closely resembles the 
flat-sided hatchets so commonly found in France. I have an Irish celt 
of the same form found near Armagh, and made of clay-slate. Flat- 
sided celts are, however, rare in Ireland. 

A celt of grey flint, 4^ inches long, of much the same outline, but 




rig. 57. — iXunnington, Yorkshire. A 

having the sides 'rounded and not flat, and the butt brought to a 
straight sharp edge, was found in Burwell Fen, and is now in the 
Chi'isty Collection. 

A celt of the same section, but of peculiar form, with the sides 
curved slightly inwards, and tapering considerably to the butt, is 
shown in Fig. 57. The sides are flat, but have the angles slightly 
rounded ; a narrow flattened face is carried round the butt-end. It 
would appear to have been made from a calcareous nodule found in 
some argillaceous bed, like the septaria in the London clay. Both of 

I 2 



116 



POLISHED CELTS. 



[chap. VI. 



its faces present a series of diverging cracks, of slight depth, apparently 
resulting from the dissolution of calcareous veins in the stone. It was 
found at Nunnington, Yorkshire, and now forms part of the Green- 
well Collection. 

The original of Fig. 58 was discovered at Burradon, Northumber- 
land, where also the fine flint celt, Fig. 47, was found. This likewise is 
in the Greenwell Collection. It is of porphyritic stone, and has the angles 
of the flat sides slightly rounded. Another, in the same collection, 
4 inches long, from Doddington, in the same county, is of similar 
character. Celts of much the same shape and size have been found in 
the Shetland Isles ; one of these, 5^ inches long, from West Burratirth, 
is in the British Museum. A similar form is found in Japan. ^ 





Fig. 58. — Burradon, Northumberland. 



Fi:'. 59.— Livormcre, Suffolk. 



Fig. 59 shows a celt of much the same kind, found at Livermere, 
near Bury St. Edmunds. It is formed of a close-grained greenstone, 
and is in my own collection. The angles at the sides are slightly 
rounded. I have others of nearly the same size and of similar material, 
found near Cirencester, and at Soham and Bottisham, Cambs. Green- 
stone celts of about this size, and with the sides more or less fiat, so as 
to range between Figs. 48 and 58, are of not uncommon occurrence in 
the Fen country. Mr. Fisher, of Ely, has one, found near Manea, and 
several from Bottisham. I have one, of felstone, 3i inches long, found 
at Coton, Cambs., one side of which presents a flat surface f inch wide, 
while the other is but slightly flattened. One {-ii^o inches) was found 
near Torquay, Devon. ^ 

A still more triangular form, more convex on the faces, and having 



^ Froc. Soc. Ant. Scot. ,yo\. xxvi., p. 404. 



Tr. Dt^. Assoc, vol. xix. p. 56. 



WITH FLAT SIDES AND POINTED I5U1T. 



il7 




Fi^' no— Ildiituii, .Ni UliuiiilKi'land. 



the flat sides much narrower, is shown in Fig. 60, from a specimen 
in the Greenwell Collection, found at Ildorton, Northumberland. It 
is formed of a hard, slaty rock or hone- 
stone. The angles of the sides are 
rounded. 

In the National Museum at 
Edinburgh are two implements of 
greenstone (2 J and 3 inches) of nearly 
similar form to Fig. HO, but having 
the sides sharp. They were found in 
the Isle of Skye." 

A smaller celt of the same character, 
2^ inches long, found in a cairn at 
Brindy Hill, Aberdeenshire,'- is in the 
British Museum. 

One 2| inches long, from Sardis,^ in 
Lydia, and in the same collection, is 
of much the same form, but rounder 
at the sides and less pointed at the 
butt. 

Implements of the form represented 
in Fig. 61 occur most frequently in 
the northern part of Britain, especially in Cumberland and West- 
morland, in consequence, it may be supposed, of the felspathic rocks, 
of which they are usually formed, being there found in the greatest 
abundance. That here figured is in the British Museum. It is of 
mottled close-grained stone, beautifully finished, and was found in a 
turf pit on Windy Harbour Farm, near Pendle, Lancashire.* It is 
more slender than the generality of the implements of this class, which 
in outline usually more closely resemble Fig. 77, which, however, 
has a cutting edge at each end. They sometimes slightly expand 
towards the butt-eud. 

I have a more roughly-finished implement of this class, with the two 
faces faceted longitudinally, found near Wigton, Cumberland, and 
formerly in the Crosthwaite Museum, at Keswick. It is of felspathic 
ash, much decomposed on the surface, and 9 inches long. I have also 
a small example of the type {7h inches) made of whin-stone, and 
found by Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., near Sudbury, Suffolk, in 187.3. 
Some larger specimens of similar character are in the Christy Collec- 
tion. One of them is 13| inches in length. 

In the Greenwell Collection is an implement of this type, but with the 
sides straighter, and the angles rounded, found at Holme, on Spalding 
Moor, Yorkshire. It is of hone-stone, 7 inches long, 2i inches broad 
at the edge, but tapering to IJ inches at the butt. There is also 
another of folstone, 12:^ long, found at Great Salkeld, Cumberland. 

There is a celt of this type in the Blackmore Museum (13^ inches), 
the butt-end round and sharpened, though the edge has been removed 
by grinding. It is said to have been found, 5 or 6 feet deep in gravel, 



1 See " Acct. of Soc. Ant. of Scot.," p. 55. 

■^ " Horte Ferales," pi. ii. 11. 

•* " HoriB Ferales," pi. ii. I'S. Arch. Journ., vol. xv. p. 178. 

* " Horuj Terales," pi. ii. ?. 



118 



rOI.lSHED CELTS. 



CHAP. VI. 



at Shaw Hall,' near Flixton, Lancashire. Another, in the same collec- 
tion (8 inches), was found near Keswick. 
AVhat from the engraving would appear to be a large implement of 

this kind, lias been described by 
Mr. Cuming- as a club. "It is 
wrought of fawn-coloured hone- 
slate, much like that obtained in 
the neighbourhood of Snowdon. 
It weighs 6^ pounds, and mea- 
sui'es 17| inches in length, nearly 
3 J inches across its greatest 
breadth, and nearly 2^ inches in 
its greatest thickness. The faces 
are convex, the edges blunt and 
thinning oif at both of the rounded 
extremities." It was found near 
Newton, Lancashire. Another 
so-called club is mentioned as 
having been found near Kes- 
wick.^ 

Clumsy and unwieldy as im- 
plements of such a length appear 
to be if mounted as axes, there 
can be no doubt of their having 
been intended for use as cutting 
tools ; and though, from their 
size, they m.ight be considered to 
be clubs, yet their form is but 
ill-adapted for such a weajion, 
even if we assume that, as is 
said to be the case with the Xew 
Zealand r/tere, they were some- 
times employed for thrusting as 
well as for striking, and, therefore, 
had the broad end sharpened. 
The Stirlingshire specimen, Fig. 
77, which is 13i inches long, is, 
however, sharp at both ends. 
There have been, moreover, dis- 
covered in Denmark what are 
indubitably celts, longer than the 
Newton so-called club. They are 
sometimes more than 18 inches 
long, and I have myself such 
an implement from Jutland, of 
ochreous flint, 16 inches long and 
3 inches broad at the edge, which 
is carefully sharpened. I have 
another roughly-chipped Danish celt of flint, 14^ inches long, which 
weighs 6 lbs. 14 oz., or more than that from Newton. 




Fig. 61.— Near Pendle, Lancashire. J 



' Arch. Journ., vol. vii. p. 389. 
3 Proe. Soe. Ant., vol. iii. p. 225. 



* Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. iv., p. 



232. 



OF RECTANGULAR SECTION. 



119 



The celt found in Solway Moss, with its handle still preserved, as 
will subsequently be mentioned, is of the form of Fig. 61. It is of 
folspathic rock, 9i inches 
long and 2^ inches broad, 
the edge slightly oblique. 

One of felstone (15^- 
inches), was found at Dru- 
mour,' in Glenshee, For- 
farshire, with another 13 
inches long. This latter 
widens out suddenly at the 
butt. The larger of these 
two presents on its surface 
a transverse mark, not 
unlike that on the Solway 
Moss specimen, such as 
may have resulted from 
that portion of the surface 
having been protected for 
a time by a wooden handle, 
which eventually decayed 
and perished. 

Another from Lempit- 
law, in the Kelso Museum, 
is 1 3 inches long. 

The flattening of the 
sides and faces of celts is 
sometimes, though rarely, 
carried to such an extent 
that they become almost 
rectangular in section. 

That shown in Fig. 62 
was found near the Rye 
bank, at Ness,^ in the 
North Riding of York- 
shire, and is formed of a 
dark, much altered slaty 
rock, containing a good 
deal of iron. The butt- 
end, though brought to 
an edge, is not so sharp as 
the broader or cutting end. 
The surface is somewhat 
decomposed. It is in the 
Greenwell Collection, in 
which also is the some- 
what analogous implement 
shown in Fig. 63. 

This also is from the same part of Yorkshire, having been found, in 
1868, at Gilling,'' in the Vale of Mowbray, 4 ft. deep in peaty clay. It 

^ Proc. Soe. Ant. Scot., vol. ix. p. 174. ^ Journ. Ethn. Soc, vol. ii. p. 165. 
3 Journ. Ethn. Soc, vol. ii. p. 165. 




//A 



7 



/ y 



Fig. 62.— Ness. 



J 



120 



POLISHED CELTS. 



[chap. VK 



is formed of clay iron-stone, and has the angles somewhat rounded. The 
edge is oblique and slightly chipped away. Another celt of close- 
grained schist (oj inches), found in the same j^arish, and preserved in 
the same collection, more resembles in outline that from Noss, though 
not sharp at the butt, and having an oblique edge. In the Greenwell 
Collection is a thinner celt of the same type, found at Heslerton Carr. 




i .:t 



Fib'. 63.— GiUiiig 



i 



I have a specimen (5J inches) of hone-stone, rather flatter on one 
face than the other, from Kirkcaldy, Fife. 

An Italian celt, of much the same cliaracter as Fig. 62, but of green- 
stone, has been figured by Gastaldi.' 

The next celt which I have to describe is even more chisel-like in 



' Mem. Accad. R. di Torino, Ser. 2, vol. xx%a., Tav. iv. 4. 



CHISEL-I.IKE AND OF RECTANGULAR SECTION. 



121 



appearance, both jtlie faces and sides being almost flat and nearly 
parallel. This peculiarity of form is no doubt mainly due to the 
schistose character of the rock from which the implement is made ; 
which, in the case of the original of Fig. 64, is a close-grained slate 
or hone-stone. It -was found at Swinton, near Malton, Yorkshire, and 
was given to me by the late Mr. C. Monkman. The angles are slightly 
rounded, and the butt-end is tapered off as if to an edge, which, how- 
ever, is now broken away. 

Long, narrow celts of this rectangular section are of very rare occur- 
rence both in Britain and Ireland, and, so far as I am aware, have 





-...W^s...S-$i»j 



Fifr. 64.— Swinton, near Malton, ^ 



Fig. 65.— Scamridge Dykes, YorksLiie. i 



never been found of flint. In Denmark, on the contrary, they are 
common in flint, but generally of a larger size than the specimen here 
engraved. The faces also are usually rather more convex. 

They are to be found among the North American' forms, sometimes 
with a hole towards the butt-end, as if for suspension. 

Somewhat the same form occurs in Siam and in the Malay Peninsula. 

The next specimen, shown in Fig. Go, is of the same material as the 
last, and was found in the same neighbourhood, at the Dj'kes, Scam- 
ridge, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Owing to the irregular fissure 
of the stone, it is considerably thicker at one side than the other. The 
broader side is flat with the angles chamfered, and the narrower side 
is rounded. The faces taper at the butt-end, which is ground to a 

1 Schoolcraft, " Ind. Tribes," vol. i., pi. xi. 3 : xiv. 2. 



122 



POLISHED CELTS. 



[chap. YI. 




; 



regular curve and blunted. This also was given to me by the late 

Mr. C. Monkman, of Malton. 

A curious variety of celt is shown in Fig. 66, the original of 
which was found at Whitwell, in the 
North Eiding of Yorkshire, and forms part 
of the Greenwell Collection. It is made 
of a hard, shelly limestone, apparently 
of Oolitic age, the surface of which has 
been partially eroded. It is nearly flat on 
one face, and seems to have been intended 
for mounting as an adze. Other celts of 
similar material have been found in the same 
district, and Canon Greenwell has kindly 
presented me with one of much the same 
character as this, though far broader in pro- 
portion to its thickness. This specimen, 
which was found at Osgodby, closely re- 
sembles in section that from Truro, Fig. 84. 
A specimen of the type of Fig. 66 (7^ 
inches) is in the British Museum. It was 
found at Creekmoor, near Poole, Dorset. 

Some of the large celts from the Shetland 
Isles present the same peculiarit}'- of being 
flat on one face, but, as the sides are much 
rounded, I shall include them among those 

Fig. 6fi.-V.TiitweU, Yorkshire h ^^ ^^^^ SectiOH. 

These, of oval section, form the third subdivision of polished 
celts, which I now proceed to describe. 

It will be observed that implements of this character, formed of flint, 
are extremely rare. The reason for this appears to be, that from the 
method in which, in this country, flint celts were chipped out, the sides 
were in aU cases originally sharp, and they had a pointed oval, or 
vesica piscis, section. In polishing, this form was to a great extent 
preserved, though the edges were, as has been seen, sometimes ground 
flat and sometimes rounded. It rarely happens, however, that the 
rounding is carried to so great an extent as to produce such a contour 
that it is impossible to say within a little where the faces end and the 
sides begin ; though this is often the case with celts of greenstone and 
other materials, which were shaped out in a somewhat difi'erent 
manner, and in the formation of which grinding played a more im- 
portant part. It is almost needless to say that I use the word oval in 
its popiilar sense, and not as significant of a mathematically true 
ellipse. At the part where the edge of the celts commences, the section 
is of course a vesica piscis. 

The first specimen engraved. Fig. 67, is in my own collection, and 
was found in the Thames at London. It is of dark greenstone, and, 
owing to a defect in the piece of stone of which it was made, there is 
a hollow place in one of the faces. General Pitt Rivers has a similar 
but more symmetrical celt, of the same material, also found in the 
Thames. Another, smaller, from the same source, is in the British 



OF OVAL SECTION. 



123 



Museum ; and another (8 inclies) from the collection of the late Rev. 
T. Hugo, F.S.A.,' is now mine. Its edge is rather oblique. I have 
another from the Thames (7^ inches) with a symmetrical edge. 

Large implements of this form are of not uncommon occurrence in 




Fig. 67. — TIkuius, London. J 

Scotland and in the Shetland Isles. There are several in the 
National ^f useum at Edinburgh, and also in the British Museum, and 
in that of Newcastle. The butt-end is occasionally pointed, and the 
faces in broad specimens, flatter than in Fig. 67. Several of these celts 

^ Arch. Assoc. Joiirn., vol. x. p. 105. 



124 



POLISHED CELTS. 



[chap. VI. 



in the Britisli Musemn •svere found in the middle of the last century, in 
Shetland. The largest is 1 1 inches long, 3 inches vride at the edge, 
and \^ inches thick. It was found in Selter,' parish of Walls. Others 
are from 8 inches to 9 inches long. In the case of one, 1 2 inches long, 
from Shetland, and in the Edinburgh Museum, the edge is oblique. 

Mr. J. "W. Cursiter, of Kirkwall, has a beautiful, long, narrow celt of 
oval section, from Lunnasting, Shetland. It is formed of spherulitic 
f elstone, and is 9^ inches long, but only 2^ inches wide at the broadest 
part. Another, 12 inches long, from Trondra, is of f elstone, and slightly 

curved longitudinally, so 
that it was probably an adze. 
Others- (14, 11, 10^, and 
9 inches) have been figured. 
In the Green well Collec- 
tion is a celt of this kind 
formed of porphyritic green- 
stone, 13 inches long, from 
Sandsting, Shetland. 

A celt of greenstone (8 
inches), in outline much re- 
sembling Fig. 72. was found, 
Lq 1758, at Tresta, in the 
parish of Aithsting, Shet- 
land, and is now in the 
British Musevmi. It is flat 
on one face, the other being 
convex, so that the section 
is an oval with a segment 
removed. Such an instru- 
ment must, in all proba- 
bility, have been mounted 
as an adze, though the flat 
face may have originally 
been due to the cleavage of 
the material, which is a 
porphyritic greenstone. 

Another celt (6 J inches), 

flat on one face, so that the 

section presents little more 

than half an oval, was found 

in the island of Yell, and 

is now in the Newcastle 

Museum. 

I have a large heavy celt less tapering at the butt than Fig. 67, 

8^ inches long, 3 A inches wide, and 2^ inches thick, said to have been 

found at Spalding, Lincolnshire. One of flint (7 inches) nearly oval in 

section, and found at Northampton, is in the museum at that town. 

Celts of the same form and character as Fig. 67 are found both in 
Ireland and in France. 

Fig. 68 shows another variet}' of this type, which becomes almost 
conical at the butt. The original was found near Bridlington, and is 

1 " Horse Ferales," pi. ii. 5. a Froc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xvu. pp. 14, 15, 18, 19. 




Fig. 68.— >"tai Bridlington. 



OF OVAL SECTION WITH CONICAL lilJTT. 



125 



now in my own collection. The material is greenstone. Implements 
of this foi-m, but rarely expanding- at the edge, are of common occur- 
rence in that part of Yorkshire. Some of them have been made of a 
variety of greenstone liable to decomposition from atmospheric or 
other causes, and the celts when found present a surface so excessively 
eroded that their form can with difficulty be recognized. In the Green- 
well Collection are celts of the type of Fig. 68, from Willerby, in the 
East Riding (6^ inches and 5|^ inches), and Grambe, in the North Kiding 
of Yorkshire (6^ inches), as well as another (5| inches) from Sher- 
burn, Durham. I have one nearly 8 inches long, from Speeton, near 
l^ridlington, and several (5^- to G inches) from the Cambridge Fens. 
The surface of one of them is for the most part decomposed, but along 
a vein of harder material the original polish is preserved. 

Mr. F. Spalding has found one 
(8 inches), with a sideways curve, 
on the shore at Walton- on-the- 
Naze. 

A greenstone celt of this form 
(8^ inches) was found at Minley 
Manor,' Blackwater, Hants. 

In the Fitch Collection is one 
of serpentine (6^ inches), from 
DuU's Lane, near Loddon, Nor- 
folk, and the late Mr. J. W. 
Flower had one of greenstone (4 J 
inches), found at Melyn Works, 
Neath. The greenstone celt 
found in Grime's Graves,^ Nor- 
folk, was of this form, but rather 
longer in its proportions, being 
7i inches long and 2.^ inches 
broad at the edge, which is 
oblique. The late Mr. H. 
Burden, of Blandford, had a 
greenstone celt of this type 
(5 inches), found at Langton, 
near Blandford, the butt-end of 
which is roughened by picking, 
probably for insertion in a socket ; and the late Rev. E. Duke, of Lake, 
near Salisbury, had a celt of this character, found in a tumulus in that 
parish. I have both French and Danish specimens of the same form 
at the butt, though narrower at the edge. 

Another variety, in which the butt-end is less pointed and more 
oval, is given in Fig. 69. The original is of dark green hornblende 
schist, and was found at Lakenheath, Suffolk. I have a large imple- 
ment of similar form and material (5^ inches), with the edge slightly 
oblique, from Swaffham, Cambridgeshire ; another of serpentine 
(3^ inches), from Coldham's Common, Cambridge ; others of green- 
stone (4 and 3^ inches), from Kempston, Bedford, and Burwell Fen, 
Cambs. ; as well as one of greenstone (4| inches), from Standlake, 
Oxon. A celt of this type, of porphyritic stone (5:} inches), found 

Ifroe. Soe. Ant., 2nd S., vol. vi. p. 235. * Journ. Eihnol. Soc, vol. ii. pi. xxx. 3. 




Fi?. 69.— Lakenheath, Suffolk. 



126 



POLISHED CELTS. 



[chap. VL 



at Branton, Northumberland, is in the Greenwell Collection. It 
is slightly oblique at the edge. Another of tlie same character, of 
greenstone (6|^ inches), found at Sproughton, Suffolk, is in the Fitch 
Collection. Another, 5 inches long, found at Kingston-on-Thames, is 
in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries. 

Another of green serpentine, faceted to form the edge, and rounded 
at butt, 4 inches long, was found in a cairn in Fifeshire, and is pre- 
served in the National Museum at Edinburgh. 

In the Blackmore Museum is a celt of granite tapering to the 
rounded point at the butt, 6^ inches long, which has been roughened 
at the upper end, and is polished towards the edge. It was found in 
the Eiver Lambourn, Berks. 

I have seen another of this form, but of flint (4J inches), with the 
sides much rounded, so as to be almost oval, found near Eastbourne, 
where also this form has occurred in greenstone. The late Mr. H. 
Darden, of Blandford, had a celt of greenstone of this form 4f inches 
long, found at Tarrant Launceston, Dorset. Many of the celts found 
in India are of this type. 

A shorter form, which also seems to be most prevalent in Yorkshire, 
is represented in Fig. 70. The specimen figured is from Seamer, 

formed of greenstone, and belongs 
to the Greenwell Collection. In 
the same collection is another 
(4 inches), rather larger and 
thicker, from Scampston. Another 
of quartzite (5 inches), polished 
all over, but showing traces of 
having been worked with a pick, 
was found at Birdsall, near Mal- 
ton, and is in the collection of 
Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield. I 
have one of greenstone (4A^ inches), 
also from Seamer. 

A celt of greenstone, of the same 
section, but broader and more trun- 
cated at the butt, 3 inches long, 
and found near Bellingham, Xorth 
Tyne, is in the Newcastle Museum. 
Another (4 inches), in outline more 
like Fig. 60, was found in a se- 
pulchral cave atEhos Digre,' Den- 
bighshire. 

Some of the stone celts from Italy, Greece, Asia Minor- and India, 
are of much the same form, but usually rather longer in their pro- 
portions. I have some Greek specimens more like Fig. 71 — kindly 
given to me by Captain H. Thurburn, F.G.S. Celts of this character are 
said to have been in use among the North American Indians^ as fleshing 

1 Dawkins' " Cave-hunting," p. 157. Arch. Camb., 4th S., vol. iii., 1872, p. 30. 

- See Schliemaim's "Mycen8e,"p. 76; "Troy," p. 71; Bev. ^rcA., vol. xxxiv. 
p. 163, &c., &c. 

3 Schoolcraft, " Ind. Tribes," vol. i. p. 91. Other Xorth American celts are 
engraved in the " Anc. Mon. of the Miss. Valley," pp. 217, 218 ; Squier, " Abor. 
Mon. of New York," p. 77. 




Fig. "0.— Seamer, Yorkshire. 



OF A FORM COMMON IN FRANCE. 



127 




FiK. 71.— (iuernsey. ^ 



instruments, employed by the women in the preparation of skins. 
They were not hat'ted, but held in the hand like chisels. I have a 
celt almost identical in form and material with 
rig'. 70, but from Central India. 

The form shown in Fig. 71 is inserted among 
those of Britain, though geographically it may 
be regarded as French rather than British, having 
been found in Guernsey. I have engraved it 
from a cast presented to the Society of Antiquaries 
by the late Mr. F. C. Lukis, F.S.A. The form 
occurs in various materials — rarely flint — and is 
common through the whole of Franco. A specimen 
from Surrey is in the Ih-itish Museum. I have 
seen one which was said to have been found in the neighbourhood of 
London, but it was not improbably an imported specimen. 

Should authenticated instances of the finding of celts of this class 
in our southern counties be 
adduced, they will be of interest 
as aSovdimg primd facie evidence 
of intercourse with the Con- 
tinent at an early period. 

Small hatchets, both oval and 
circidar in section, have been 
found at Accra,' West Africa, 
and others, larger, on the Gold 
Coast.- The same form is not 
imcommon in Greece and Asia 
Minor. 

Major Sladen brought several 
small jade celts of this form, 
but flatter at the sides, from 
Yun-nan, in Southern China. 
Through his liberality several 
are in the Christy Collection, 
and one in my own. Some 
haematite celts found in North 
America' are of much the same 
size and form. 

The specimen engraved as 
Fig. 72 was found in the neigh- 
bourhood of AYareham, Dorset- 
shire, and is in my own collec- 
tion. It is formed of syenite, 
and, unlike the instruments pre- 
viously described, is narrower at 
the edge than in the middle of 
the blade ; the section shows 
that the faces are nearly flat. 
I have another celt, in which these peculiarities are exaggerated, the 

1 Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. i. p. xcvi., pi. ii. Brit. Assoc. Rep., 1870, p. 154. 

2 Journ. Afitfi. Inst., vol. xii. p. 449, pi. xiii. 

3 "Anc. Mon. of Miss. Val.," p. 215, fig. 106. 




Fig. 72. — Waicliuiu 



128 



POLISHED CELTS. 



[chap. VL 



faces being flatter, the blade thinner, and also wider in the middle 
in proportion to the edge, it being 5J inches long, 2J inches wide in 
the middle, and lA inches at the edge, and rather less than an inch in 
thickness. The material is a Scrpida limestone, and the celt was no 
doubt formed from a travelled block, as it was found in a Boulder-clay 
district at Troston, near Bur}' St. Edmunds. I have a much heavier 
implement from the same locality, and formed of the same kind of 
stone. It is 10 inches long, and rather wider in proportion than 
Fig. 72. It does not narrow towards the edge, but in section and 
general form may be classed with the specimen there figured. 

A large celt, 10 inches long, of the same section, but thinner pro- 
portionally, and with straighter and more parallel sides, in outline 
more like Fig. 79, was found at Pilmoor, in the North Eiding of 
Yorkshire, and forms part of the Greenwell Collection. It is of clay- 
slate. Another in the same collection, and from North Holme, in the 
same Eiding (10 inches), is broader and flatter, with the sides 
somewhat more square, and the edge more curved. One face is 
somewhat hollowed towards one side, possibly to grind out the trace 
of a too deep chip. A third is from Barmston, in the East Eiding 
(10^ inches), and a beautiful celt of hornblendic serpentine (lOf 
inches), oval in section and pointed at the butt, was found at 
Cunningsburgh,* Shetland, and another of diorite (10^ inches), rather 
broader in its proportions than Fig. 72, on 
Ambrisbeg Hill,- Island of Bute. An analo- 
gous form from Japan is in the museum at 
Leyden. 

A long narrow chisel-like celt, with an oval 
section, is given in Fig. 73. The original is of 
dark greenstone, and was found in Forfar- 
shire. It is in the National Museum at 
Edinburgh. I have a larger celt of the same 
form (5^ inches), formed of a close-grained 
grit, and found at Sherburn, Yorkshire. 
Messrs. Mortimer have another of schist 
(4J inches), from Thixendale, Yorkshire. This 
form occurs, though rarely, in Ireland. 

A much larger celt, of metamorphic rock, 
8^ inches long, 3 inches broad at the edge, 
and IJ inches at the butt, If inches thick, 
was found on Throckley Fell, Northumber- 
land, and is in the Museum at Newcastle. 

Fig. 74 gives a shorter form of implement 
truncated at the butt. The original, which 
is in my own collection, is formed of green- 
stone, and was found at Easton, near Brid- 
lington. It is carefully polished towards the 
edge, but at the butt it is roughened, apparently with the intention of 
rendering it more capable of adhesion to its socket. The celt from 
Malton, Fig. 81, is roughened in a similar manner, and the same is the 
case with many of the hatchets from the Swiss lake-dwellings, which 
have been frequently foiind stdl fixed in their sockets of stag's horn. 

' Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xv. p. 245. - F. S. A. S., vol. xxvii. p. 370. 




Fig. 73.— Forfarshire. 



OF OVAL SECTION, POINTED AT THE DUTT. 



129 



I liave another speiiinen from South Back Lane, Bridlington, which, 
however, is not roughened at the butt, and the sides of which have 
had a narrow fiat facet ground along them. It is 6 inches long, and 
3i inches wide at the edge. Mr. W. Tucker has shown me a broken 
specimen like Fig. 74, found near Loughborough. 

Another form presents a rather pointed, and unusually elongated oval 
in section, and is pointed at the butt. Fig. 75 represents a highly- 
finished celt of this kind made of light green, almost jade-like stone, 
preserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh, and said to have 
been found in Caithness. It is so thoroughly Carib in character, and 




Fig. 74. — Bridlington. 



Fig. 75. — Caithness. A 



80 closely resembles specimens I possess from the West Indian Islands, 
that for some time 1 hesitated to engrave it. There are, however, 
sufficiently numerous instances of other implements of the same form 
having been found in this country for the type to be accepted as 
British. The celt found at Glasgow,' in a canoe at a depth of twenty- 
five feet below the surface, was of this kind. In the Greenwell 
Collection is one of porphyritic greenstone (7 inches), and of nearly this 
form, found at Grantchester, Cambridge. Two celts of this character, 
the one from Jamaica and the other from the North of Italy, are 
engraved in the Archceologiar Both are in the British Museum. 

A celt like Fig. 75 (4^ inches), of a material like jadeite, is said to 



1 Wilson' .s " Preh. Man," vol. i. p. 154. 
'■* Vol. xvii. p. 2'2'2. 

K 



See postea, p. 150 



130 POLISHED CELTS. [cHAP. VI. 

have been found about 60 years ago at King's Sutton,^ Northampton- 
shire. It has much the appearance of being Carib. 

Four greenstone celts of this tj-pe, one of them rather crooked 
laterally, were found in 1869 at Bochym,- Curj, Cornwall. 

Another of aphanite (IH inches) from Cornwall's in the Edin- 
burgh Museum, where is also one of the same material and form 
(lOi^ inches; from Berwickshire,* two others of grev porphyritic stone 
(9 inches) from Aberdeenshire,^ and another of porphyrite (10 
inches) found near Lerwick,* Shetland. 

I have specimens of the same type from various parts of France, 
lu the Greenwell Collection is a Spanish celt of the same form found 
near Cadiz. 

The bulk of the celts found in Ireland, and formed of other materials 
than flint, approximate in form to Figs. 69 to 75, though usually 
rather thinner in their proportion. They range, however, widely in 
shape, and vary m ich in their degree of tinish. 

I now come to the fourth of the subdivisions under which, 
mainly for the sake of having some basis for classification, I have 
arranged the polished celts. In it, I have placed those which 
present any abnormal peculiarities ; and the first of these which I 
shall notice are such as do not materially affect the outline of 
the celts ; as, for instance, the existence of a second cutting edge 
at the butt-end, at a part where, though the blade is usually 
tapered away and ground, yet it very rarely happens that it has 
been left sharp. Indeed, in almost all cases, if in shaping and 
polishing the celt the butt-end has at one time been sharpened, 
the edge has been afterwards carefully removed by grinding it 
away. 

The beautifully-formed implement of ochreously-stained flint repre- 
sented in Fig. 76, was found at Gilmerton, in East Lothian, and is 
jireserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh. The sides are 
flat with the angles rounded off, and the blade expands shghtly at the 
ends, both of which are sharpened. It is carefully polished all over, 
so as to show no traces of its having been cliipped out, except a slight 
-depression on one face, and this is polished like tlie rest of the blade. 
It is upwards of a century since this instrument was turned up by the 
plough, as described in the Minutes of the Sociity of Antiqiuiries of 
Scotland' for April 2, 1782, where it is mentioned as the " head of a 
hatchet of polished yellow marble, sharpened at both ends." 

Another from Shetland'' (IH inches) is made of serpentine and has 
both ends 'formed to a rounded cutting edge." 

1 Proc. Soe. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v. pp. 300, 442. 

^ Arch. Asso:. Journ., vol. xxix. p. 343. Cumming's " Churches and Ants, of 
■Cury and Gunwalloe," 1875, p. 66. 

3 Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. iv. p. 62 : xi. p. 514. 

♦ P. S. A. S., vol. xL p. 514. 5 P. S. A. S., vol. xii. p. 207. 

« P. S. A. S., vol. xvii. p. 16. • " Acct. of Soc. Ant. of Scot.," 17S2, p. 91. 

8 Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xvii. p. 15. 



AVllH A CUTTING EDGE AT EACH END. 



131 



A celt from Kirklaucliline, Wigtownshire, mentioned at page 135, 
is much like Fig. 76 in outline. 

A somewhat similar instrument, but narrower at the butt, formed 




lig. 76. — Gilmerton, East Lothian 



of jade (?) and 1 1 inches long, found at Nougaroulet, is engraved in 
the Revue de Gascogne} 

Fig. 77 represents another celt, in the Edinbiu-gh Museum, of 
similar section, but expanding only at the butt-end, which is sharpened, 



1 Vol. vi., 1865. 
K 2 




Fig. 77. — Stirliugshire. J 



SHARP AT BOTH ENDS. 



133 



and contracting from the middle towards the broader end, which, as 
usual, seems to have been the principal cutting end. It is formed of 
compact greenstone, and was found in Stii'lingshire. In general outline, 
it closely resembles a common Cumberland form, of which, however, 
the butt is not sharp. Several such were found in Ehenside Tarn,^ 
Cumberland, varying in length from G to 14^^ inches. One of them 
was in its original haft. The whole are now in the British Museimi. 
Another celt (lOf inches), made of a fine volcanic ash, was found 
in 1873 near Loughrigg Tarn,'- Westmorland. Two celts of much 
the same form from Drumour,'' Glenshee, Forfarshire, in 1870, are 
mentioned on page 119. 

Celts with an edge at each end are rare on the Continent, though 
they are of more frequent occurrence in Ireland. One of this char- 




Fig. 78. — Haromu . 



acter, found in Dauphino, France,* has been engraved by M. 
Chantre. 

Another from Portugal^ has been described by myself elsewhere. 

A celt of shorter proportions, but also provided with a cutting edge 
at each end, is shown in Fig. 78. It is in the Greenwell Collection, 
and was found at Ilarome, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, 
where several stone implements of rare form have been discovered. 
Tlie material is a hard clay-slate. The tool seems quite as well adapted 
for being used in the hand without any moimting, as for attachment 
to a haft. 



1 Arch., vol. xliv. p. 281. 

3 Froc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. ix. p. 174. 

* Trans. Ethnol. Soc, N. S., vol. vii. p. 



2 rroc. Son. Ant., 2nd S., vol. vi. p. 438. 
* " Etudes Paleoethuol.," pi. viii. 6. 
46. 




Fi :. 79. — Da\-iot> near Imcrness 



POLISHED CELTS NARROWING IN THE MIDDLE. 



135 




— XcMF Cottfnliam. 



> 



Another of these implements, with a cutting edge at either end, is 
shown in Fig. 79. 

As will be observed, it is curved longitudinally, so that if attached 
to a handle, it must have been after 
the manner of an adze and not of an 
axe. The sides curve slightly inwards, 
which would render any attachment 
to a handle more secure. 

The material of which it is formed 
is a dark green porphyr3^ It was 
found in a cairn at Daviot,^ near In- 
verness, in company with a celt of oval 
section, and pointed at the butt (9A 
inches) ; and also with a gi'eenstone 
pestle (?) {\^\ inches), rounded at 
each end. This latter was probably 
formed from a long pebble. They are 
all preserved in the National Mu- 
seum at Edinburgh. A curved celt of 
this character but pointed at the butt- 
end (14 inches), formed of indurated 
clay-stone, was found in Shetland.- A 
straighter celt of felstone(13 inches), 
blunt at the butt-end, was found at 
Kirlilauchline,' "Wigtownshire. 

The next peculiarity which I have 
to notice, is that of the tapering sides of the celt being curved inwards, 
as if for the purpose of being more securelj' fixed either to a handle or in 
a socket. In the last implement described, the reduction in width 
towards the middle of the blade would 
appear to have been intended to assist in 
fastening it at the end of a handle, as an 
adze cutting at each end. In Fig. 80 the 
reduction in width is more abrupt, and the 
blade would appear to have been mounted 
as an axe. It is formed of a compact light 
grey metamorphic rock, and was formerly 
in the collection of the Rev. S. Banks, of 
Cottenham, Cambridgeshire. I have a 
greenstone celt found at Carnac, Brittany, 
with shoulders of the same character 
about the middle of the blade. A form of 
celt expanding into a kind of knob at the 
butt-end is peculiar to the Lower Loire.* 
It is known as the " hdche a botito?i," or 
" hiiche a. tete." 

The original of Fig. 81 was found in a gi-avel-pit near Malton,. 
Yorkshire. It was at first supposed to have been found in undisturbed 

^ Proe. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. vi. p. 179. 

^ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. x^-ii. p. 14. 

' Proc. Soc. A»f. Scot., vol. xii. p. 119 ; xxiii. p. 201. 

* Mat. vol. xiii. p. 135 ; xv. p. 462. " Mus. preh.," IS'o. 4G3. 




rig. 81.— Near Multon. i 



13G 



POLISHED CELTS. 



[chap. VI. 



drift, and some correspondence upon the subject appeared in the Times 
newspaper.' The gravel, however, in which it was found seems to belong 
to the series of Glacial deposits, and if so, is of considerably greater 
antiquity than any of the old Eiver-gravels, in which the unpolished 
flint implements have been discovered. This celt is of greenstone, 
carefully polished at the edge, and towards the butt slightly roughened 
by being picked with a sharp pointed tool. This roughewing is in 
character similar to that which has been observed on many of the celts 
from the Swiss Lake-dwellings and from France,- and was no doubt 
intended in their case to make the stone adhere more firmly in the socket 
of stag's horn in which it was inserted. The object in this case would 

appear to be the same ; and, like other 
polished celts, it belongs to the I^eo- 
lithic Period. The expansion of the 
blade towards the edge is very re- 
markable. 

A celt of the same tyjje as that from 
Malton, but somewhat oblique at the 
edge, and formed of quartz containing 
pyrites, found at Soden, is in the Mu- 
seum at Bonn. 

A flat form of stone hatchet, ex- 
panding rapidly fi'om a slightly taper- 
ing butt about half the entire length 
of the blade, so as to form a semicir- 
cular cutting-edge, has been found in 
South Carolina.^ There is a small per- 
foration in the centre, as if for a pin, 
to assist in securing it in its handle. 

Another form, with the blade re- 
duced for about half its length, so as 
to form a sort of tang, is engraved \>y 
Squier and Davis. ^ 
The celt engraved in Fig. 82 presents an abrupt shoulder on one 
side only, which, however, is in this case probably due to the form of 
the pebble from which it was made, a portion of which had split otf 
along a line of natviral cleavage. It is formed of a reddish, close- 
grained porphyritic rock, and is subquadrate in section at the butt. 
It was found at Mennithorpe, Yorkshire, and is in the Greenwell 
Collection. In the same collection is a thin celt of clay-slate, A\ 
inches long, of much the same form, but rounded at the shoulder. 
It was found at Eyedale, in the North Eiding of Yorkshire. 

Some of the shouldered implements may have been intended for use 
in the hand, without hafting. This appears to be the case with the 
greenstone celt shown in Fig. 83. It was found on Middleton Moor, 
Derbyshire, and was in the collection of the late Mr. J. F. Lucas. 
The shallow grooves at the sides seem intended to receive the fingers 
much in the same manner as the grooves in the handles of some of 




Fig. 82.— Mennithorpe, Yorkshire. 



' Jan. 7, 1868. See also Reliquary, vol. viii. p. 

* " Mus. proh.." No. 430. 

^ Schoolcraft, '• Ind. Tribes," vol. ii., pi. xU\' 

< " Anc. Men. of Miss. Valley," p. 218. 



184. 



USED IN THE HANI) WITHOUT HAFTING. 



137 



the tools of the Eskimos or the 
handles of the bronze sickles of 
the Swiss Lake-dwellers.' An 
Irish celt, 8 inches long, and 
now in the Blackmore ISIuseum, 
has two notches on one side only, 
and more distinctly formed, 
"seemingly to receive the fin- 
gers and give a firmer hold 
when used in the hand without 
a haft." 

Another peculiar instrument 
adapted for being held in the 
hand is shown in Fig. 83a. It 
was found at Kej^stone, Hunt- 
ingdonshire,- and is now in the 
British ^rusoum. It is made 
of greenstone, and in form re- 
sembles the sharp end of a celt 
with flat sides let into a spheri- 
cal handle. Some hand-hatchets 
from Australia are of much the 
same character, but in their 
case the knob is distinct from 
the blade, and formed of hard 
xanthorrhaa <j^\vm.. 







Y\'-. 83a.— K'-vskine. 



Lubbock "Preh. Times," 4th ed. p. 613, figs. 215, 216. 
Arch. Journ., vol. viii. p. 422. 



138 



POLISHED CELTS. 



[chap. 



VI. 



The original of Fig. 84 is in the Gi'eenwell Collection, and was 
found near Truro. It is of serpentine, with an obliijue edge, and 
seems to have been formed from a pebble witli little labour beyond 
that of sharpening one end. Thougli miicli flatter on one face than 
the other, it would appear, from the slanting edge, to have been used 
as an axe and not as an adze, unless indeed it were a hand-tool. 

A beautiful adze formed of clialcedonic flint is shown in Fig. 84a. 
kindly lent by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The original 
was found at Fernie Brae,^ Slains, Aberdeenshire. It is 7 inches long, 
and of nearly triangular section. A somewhat similar adze of green- 
stone was found at Little Barras,- Drumlithie, Kincardineshire. I 
have a flint adze (5 inches) of much the same character, but not so flat 
and blunt at the butt- end, and ground at the edge only, which was 
found in Reach Fen, Cambs. It is shown in Fig. 35a at page 92. 

Another peculiarity of form is where the edge, instead of being as 



^U 




Fig. SI.— X< u Truro. 




84a.— Slains (7 inches long). 



usual nearly in the centre of the blade, is almost in the same plane as 
one of the faces, like that of a joiner's chisel. An implement of this 
character, from a "Pict's castle," Clickemin, near Lerwick, Shetland, 
is shown in Fig. 85. 

It was presented to me by the late Eev. Dr. Ivnowles, F.S.A. The 
material appears to be a hard clay-slate. The form is well adapted for 
being mounted as an adze, much in the same manner as the nearly 
similar implements in use by the South Sea Islanders. A New 
Zealand' adze of precisely the same character has been figured. 

Sometimes the edge of a celt, instead of being sharp, has been care- 
fully removed by grinding, so as to present a flat or rounded surface. 

1 Troc. Soe. Ant. Scot., vol. x.p. 509. Dalgamo, " Notes on Slains, &c.," 1876, p. 6. 
" r. S. A. S., vol. xviii. p. 77. ^ Lubbock, op. cit., p. 102, fig. 111-113. 



POLISHED CELTS OF ABNORMAL TYPES. 



139 



In Fig. 86 is represented a singular implement of this kind in flint. It 
is polished all over ; one side is straight, and the other curved ; both 
ends are curved, but one is rounded at the edge and the other flat. It 
is difficult to understand for ^liat purpose such an instrument can have 
been intended. There is no reason for supposing that the grinding at 
the ends was later in date than the formation of the other parts. I have 
others like Fig. 30 with the edge also flattened, one of these I found, 
as already mentioned, at Abbot's Langley ; and I have seen another 
flint celt of much the same form, found at Chesterford, Cambs., with a 
somewhat flat edge, but rounded and worn away, as if by scraping some 
soft substance. Small transYcrso stria, such as might have been caused 
by particles of sand, are visible on the worn edge. In the Greenwell 









Fig. 8a 



iwick. 



Fig. 86.— Weston, Norfolk. 



Collection is a portion of a celt of greenstone, the fractured face ground 
flat and a portion of the edge also ground away. 

A small flint celt, with a round jjolished edge instead of a cutting one 
as usual, was found, with other objects, in a barrow on Elton Moor, 
Derbyshire.^ I have seen a small flint celt like Fig. 33, with the edge 
perfectly rounded by grinding. It was found between Deal and Dover, 
near Kingsdown, by ]\Ir. Ilazzeldine Warren, of Waltham Cross. 

It is hard to say for what purpose the edge was thus made blunt. 
In some cases, however, the instruments may have been used as battle- 
axes, the edges of which when of the perforated forms are usually 
flattened or rounded, probably with the view of preventing accidental 
injury to those who carried them. In some celts, however, the broad 
end is so much rounded that they can hardly l)e said to have an edge, 
and they have more the appearance of having been burnisliing or calen- 

"' " Vestiges of the Auts. of Deri'.," p. oS. 



140 



POLISHED CELTS. 



[chap. VI. 



dering tools. I have observed this rounding of the end in some Irish 
and French specinens, not made of flint, as well as in one from India. 

Occasionally, but very seldom, a circular concave recess is worked on 
each face of the celt, apparently for the purpose of preventing it from 
slipping when held in the hand and used either as a chopping or cutting 
instrument. That engraved as Fig. 87 was kindly lent me by Air. J. R. 
Mortimer, who found it on Acklam "Wold, Yorkshire. It is of green- 
stone, and has been polished over almost the entire surface. The butt- 
end is nearly flat transversely, and ground in the other direction to a 
sweep, so as to fit beneath the forefinger, when held by the thumb and 
middle-finger placed in the recesses on the faces. Such recesses are 
by no means uncommon on the stones intended for use as hammers, 
and farther on (p. 24:;') I have engraved a hammer-stone of this class 
which would seem to have been originally a celt such as this, but which 
]ias entirely lost any approach to an edge by continual battering. In 
Mr. Mortimer's specimen the edge is fairly sharp, though it has lost 
some splinters from it in ancient times. 

In the same collection is another specimen, found near Fimber, 
formed of a green metamorphic rock. The butt-end is ground flat, 





FiL'. b". — Acklam WoiJ. 



Fig. 8S.— Fimber. 



and the sides nearly so. There is a slight depression worked on each 
face. The edge is slightl}' rounded, and shows longitudinal strice. By 
the owner's kindness I am able to engrave it as Fig. 88. 

In General Pitt Eivers's Collection is a celt from Hindostan, with a 
cup-shaped depression on one of its faces. A celt of basalt from Por- 
tugal' has such a depression on each face. 

In the fine and extensive Greenwell Collection, so often referred to, is 
another remarkable celt, Fig. 89. which, though entirely different in 
character from those last described, may also have been intended for 
holding in the hand. It is of greenstone, the svu'face of which is con- 
siderably decomposed, and was found at Duggleby. in the East Eiding of 
Yorkshire. On each side is an elongated concavity, well adapted for 
receiving the end of the forefinger when the instrument is held in the 
liand with the thumb on one face and the middle finger on the other. 
At first sight it might appear that the depressions had been made 

' Mat. vol. xvi. p. 464. 



POLISHED CELTS "WITH DEPRESSIONS AND FLUTINGS. 



141 



with the view of perforating the blade, so as to make it like Fig. 133. 
It is, however, too thin for such a purpose, and as the depressions can 
liardly be connected with any method of hafting, it appears probable 
that they are merely for the purpose of giving the hand a secure grip, 
when using the instrument as a cutting tool. This form is not uncom- 
mon in India. 

Some of the stone hatchets from British Guiana' have a notch on 
either side, apparently to assist in fastening them to their haft. A 
form with projecting lugs half-way down the blade has been found 
in Armenia.'^ 

The last peculiarity I have to notice is when the blade of the celt 
assumes an ornamental character, by being fluted or otherwise orna- 
mented. That represented in Fig. 90 is deeply fluted on either face. 
I have engraved the figxire from a cast in the Museum of the Society of 





Duggkby. 



Antiquaries, the original of which was in the possession of F. C. Lukis, 
Esq., M.D. It was found at St. Sampson, Guernsey. Assuming the 
figure given by jM. Brouillet to be correct, a somewhat similar celt of 
red flint was found with skeletons in the Tombelle de Brioux, Poitou.' 
Another with three hollow facets on the lower parts of one face was 
found in Finistere.* I have a small celt of nearly similar form, biit 
not so hollow on the faces, from Costa Eica. Such specimens are 
extremely rare, and I cannot at present point to any other examples. 
Indeed, it may be questioned how far the implements found in the 
Channel Islands come within the scope of the present work. The 

• Im Thum, " Among the Indians of Gviiana,'' 1883, pi. x. 4. 
^ Chantre, " Le Caucase," 188.5, pi. ii. 9. 

^ " Indicaterr Arch, de Civrai," 1865, p. 271. 

* Mat. 3rd S., vol. i., 1884, p. 243. 



142 



POLISHED CELTS. 



[chap. 



VI. 



grooves in the faces of the celt found at Trinity, near Edinburgh/ can 
hardly have been intended for ornament. 

A kind of celt, not uncommon in Denmark, like Fig. 55. but "vrith a 
small hole drilled through it at the butt-end, as if for suspension, like 
a sailor's knife, has very rarely been found in England, but I have a 
broken specimen from Cavenham, Suffolk, formed of greenstone. 
When perfect the celt must have been in outline like Fig. 69. but thinner. 

A perfect examjile is shown in Fig. 90a. It is formed uf -whin-stone 
and was found in 1896 at Wereham, near Stoke Ferry, Norfolk. It is 
in the collection of Mr. E. M. Beloe, F.S.A., who has kindly permitted 
me to figure it. It is curioush' striated towards the butt-end, possibly 
from friction in a socket. One from Thetford, perforated through the 
centre of the face, is in the National Museum at Edinburgh. Another 
of felstone (Hi inches}, oval in section, found at Melness, Sutherland- 




rig. 90a. — Wereham. ^ 

shire, was exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in March, 
1897. Bored celts, though rare in Britain, occur in Brittany- and other 
parts of France, as well as in Italy. ^ A few have also been found in 
Ireland.* A stone hatchet from Quito in the Christy Collection, though 
of somewhat different form, is perforated at the end iu this manner. 

A vastly greater number of instances of the discovery in Britain of 
stone hatchets or celts might have been cited ; but inasmuch as in 
most cases where mention is made of celts, no particulars are given of 
their form, and as they occur in all parts of the country, it seems 
needless to encumber my pages with references. As an instance of 

^ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. i., p. 281. 

2 Bonstetten, " Supp. an Rec. d'Ant. Snisses," pi. ii., 1. 

^ Arch. Camb., 3rdS., vol. \\., p. 303. Watelet, "Age de Pierre dans le Dept. de 
I'Aifine," pi. v. 9. " Ep. Anted, et Celt, de Poitou." pL x. 7. £ev. Areh., vol xii., 
pi. XV., i. ; op. cit., vol. xv., pi. \iii. and x. Lindenschinit. " Hohenz. Samml.," 
Taf. xUii.. No. 12. I have an example that I boag-ht in Florence. 
^-* Wilde, "Cat. Mus. E. I. Ac." p. 44. 



CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH THEY HAVE REKN FOUND. 143 

their abundance, I may mention that the late Mr. Butnman^ records 
the discovery of upwards of thirty, at fourteen different localities 
within a small district of Derbyshire. Numerous discoveries in Y(jrk- 
shire are cited l>y Mr. C. Monkman.- 

Dr. Joseph Stevens has recorded several from the Thames near Read- 
ing',^ and a very large number of those in my own and various public 
collections I have had to leave unnoticed for want of space. 

The circumstances under which stone celts of various forms 
have been discovered must now be considered, with a view of 
throwing some light on their antiquity, and the length of time 
they have remained in use. And it must at the outset be con- 
fessed that we have but little to guide us on these points. We 
have already seen that they have been found with objects of 
bronze ; for in the barrow on Upton Lovel Down,"* examined by 
Sir E,. Colt Iloare, flint celts, both rough and polished, were 
discovered in company with a perforated stone axe, and a bronze 
pin, though in this instance there were two interments. The 
Ravenhill tumulus, near Scarborough,^ is more conclusive ; for in 
it was an urn containing burnt bones, a broken flint celt, flint 
arrow-heads, and a beautiful bronze pin one and a-half inches 
long. The evidence of other recorded cases is but weak. Near 
Tynewydd, in the parish of Llansilin, Denbighshire,*" a green- 
stone celt and a bronze socketed celt were found together in 
moving an accumulation of stones, which did not, however, appear 
to have been a cairn. In another instance,^ three stone celts, 
one roughly chipped, the others polished, are stated to have 
been found with a bronze socketed celt in the parish of Southend, 
Kintyre, Argyllshire. At Campbelton, in the same district,^ were 
found two polished stone celts, and with them, on the same spot, 
two stone moulds for casting looped spear-heads of bronze. 

Though there may be doubts as to the true association of stone 
celts with instruments of bronze in some of these cases, the presumj)- 
tive evidence is strong of their having remained in use, as might in- 
deed have been reasonably expected, after the introduction of bronze 
for cutting-tools. By the time bronze knife-daggers had become 
common, perforated battle-axes had also come to form part of a 
warrior's ordinary equipment. Tliese are often found with the daggers 
in graves, and there can be no dcjubt of the ordinary form of stone 
hatchet having preceded that with a shaft-hole. There are, however, 
a number of facts in connection with tlie occurrence of the ordinary 

' "Vest. Ant. Derb.," p. 6. 

^ Joiirn. Elhn. Soc, vol. ii. p. 157. "^ Arch. Assoc. Jour)/., vol. xxxix. p. ■JH. 

* "South Wilts," p. 75. Arch., vol. xv. p. 122. 

^ Arch. Assoc. Joiin/., vol. vi. p. 3. ® Arch. Jourii., vol. x. p. 161. 

' Proc. Soc. A/It. Scot., vol. iv. p. 396. * Froc. Sue. At/t. Scot., vol. vi. 48. 



114 POLISHED CELTS. [cHaP. VI. 

Stone celt that must not be passed over, inasmuch as at first sight tliey 
tend to raise a presumption of celts havmg remained in use even during 
the period of the Roman occupation of this country. I will shortly 
recapitulate the principal facts to which 1 allude. 

In excavating a Eoman building at Ickleton,' Cambs., the late Lord 
Braybrooke found a greenstone celt ; and another is said to have 
bet-u found with Eoman remains at Alchester, Oxfordshire.- A flint 
celt is also described as having been fuund with Eoman antiquities at 
Eastbourne.^ 

Among the reHcs discovered by Samuel Lysons, F.E.S., in the 
Eoman villa at Great Witcombe,^ Gloucestershire, is described " a 
British hatchet of liint." Another flint celt was found close by a 
Eoman villa at Titsey.^ Flint celts and scrapers were found in 
the Eomano-British village in Woodcuts Common,'' Dorset, by General 
Pitt Pavers. 

A stone celt, like Fig. 70, has been engraved by Artis' as a polishing 
stone used in the manufactory of Eoman earthen vessels, but no evi- 
dence is given as to the cause of its being thus regarded. 

At Leicester, a fragment of a flint celt was foimd at a depth of 
twelve feet from the surface on an old "ground line," and accom- 
panied by bone objects which Sir AVollaston Franks assigned to a late 
Eoman or even possibly to an early Saxon period."* 

In the Saxon biu'ial-place at Ash, in Kent, were found a poUshed 
flint celt, " a circular flint stone," and a Eoman fibula.^ 

In 1868, a fibrolite hatchet was found within, a building at Mont 
Beuvray, the ancient Bibracte,^" with three Gaulish coins of the time of 
Augustus. 

(Jthers of flint were fotmd in a ITerovingian cemetery at Labruyere, 
in the Cote d'Or." 

The oecuiTcnce at Gonsenheim, near Mainz, of a series of thin 
polished celts with remains presumably Eoman, has akeady been men- 
tioned. In two, if not more, instances in Denmark,'- fragments 
of iron have been found in tumuli, and apparently in association 
with polished hatchets and other instruments of flint and stone. It 
seems doubtful, however, whether in these cases the iron was not 
subsequently introduced. 

The association of these stone implements with Eoman, and 
even Post-Roman, remains in so many different places, would at 
first sight appear to argue their contemporaneity ; but in the case 
of the celts being found on the sites of Roman villas, two things 
are to be remarked — First, that sites once occupied may, and 
constantly do, continue in occupation for an indefinite length of 
time, so that the imperishable relics of one age, such as those in 

1 Arch. Jourti., vol. vi. p. 17 ; xvii. 170. - Arch. Assoc. Juurn., vol. xii p. 177. 

3 Snusex Arch. Coll., vol. ii. p. 258. * Arch., vol. xix. p. 1S3. 

5 SurreijArch. Coll., 1868, pi. iii. 6. 

s " Exc. on Cranbome Chase," vol. i. pi. ivii. ' " Durobriva?," pi. xxix. 4. 

" Proc. Soc. A)it., 2u<i S., vol. i. p. 249. ^ Douglas, " Naenia," p. 92. 

'" Rtv. Arch., vol. xx. p. 322. i» liev. Arch., vol. iv. p. 48-1. 
'•- Ami. for Xordisk Oldkynd., 1838-9, p. 17G. 



THEIR DISCOVERY WITH OBJECTS OF LATER DATE. 145 

stone, may become mixefl in the soil with those of a long subse- 
quent date ; and second, that had these stone implements been in 
common use in Roman times, their presence among Roman re- 
mains would have l)een the rule and not the exception, and we 
should have found them mentioned l)y Latin authors. Moreover, 
if their use had survived in this manner into Roman times, we 
should expect to find them still more abundantly associated with 
tools of the Bronze Age. We have, however, seen how rarely 
this class of stone instruments is found with bronze. 

As to the stone celt discovered at Ash, Mr. Douglas remarks it 
may not " be improbable that this stone instrument was deposited 
with the dead, as an amulet ; and which the owner had found and 
preserved with a superstitious reverence." In a tumulus in 
Flanders,^ six celts were found placed upright in a circle round 
the interment, but from the difference in the condition of their 
surface they appeared to be of different ages, so that it has been 
suggested that they also were gathered from the surface of the 
soil and placed in the tomb as amulets. We shall subsequently 
see that flint arrow-heads were frequently thus preserved in 
Merovingian cemeteries. 

In many cases in Germany,^ stone axes, for the most part per- 
forated, are said to have been found in association with objects of 
iron ; but the proofs of the contemporaneity of the two classes of 
objects are not satisfactory. The religious veneration attaching 
to the Thor's hammers may, however, have had to do with their 
interment in graves, at a time when they had ceased to be in 
ordinary use. Moreover, the axes may have been preserved to 
ward ott'lifjhtning-. 

Another argument in favour of these instruments having re- 
mained in use in Britain until a comparatively late period, has 
been derived from the circumstance of the words dan-(pjs and 
staii-hill, occurring in ^Elfric's Saxon glossary. These words are 
translated by Lye ^ as a stone axe, a stone bill — terms which 
have naturally been regarded as referring to axes and bills made 
of stone, which, therefore, it might be reasonably inferred were in 
use at the time when the glossary was written, or about a.d. 
1000. On examination, however, it appears that no such infer- 
ence is warranted. The glossary is Latin with the Saxon equiva- 
lents annexed to each word, and the two words referred to aie 

' Coti(j. Litem. (VAuth. etfVArch. Prch., 1S67, p. 119. 

- Kirchuer ha.s collected a number of cases. — " J'hor's Donner-Keil," ji. 27. 

•* " Dictionariiun Saxonico-et Gothico-Litinum," s. v. 

L 



146 POLISHED CELTS. [cHAP. VI. 

Bipeiinis, rendered iwihilk and sfan-(vx ; and 2Iarra, rendered dan- 
bill. Now Bipennk is an axe cutting at either end, and the word 
is accurately rendered by " twibille ; " * — the axe having " bill " or 
steel at its two edges. But a double-cutting axe in stone is a 
form of very rare occurrence, and this alone raises a presumption 
of the stan in sfan-cpx referring to stone in some other maimer 
than as the material of which the axe was made. The second 
word, Marra, seems to clear up the question, for this was a mat- 
tock or pick-axe, or some such tool, and this is rendered stan-bill, 
— the steel for use on or among stones. The stone axe may be 
one for cutting stones, like the mill-bill of the present day, which 
is used for dressing mill-stones, and this being usually sharp at 
each end, might not inaptly be regarded as the equivalent of the 
ancient lipennis. An axe is stiU a bricklayer's tool, and is also 
occasionally used by stone-cutters. It seems, then, that the 
" 67a« " in these two Saxon words refers, not to the material of 
which the axes or bills were made, but to the stones on or among 
which they were used. In Halliwell's " Dictionary of Archaic 
and Provincial Words," " the interpretation of Stone-axe is given 
as "'A stone-worker's axe," but it is not stated where the terra 
occurs. 

In the " Jluteriaux " ^ M. Soreil has called attention to a very 
early German poem, possibly of the fifth century, in which the 
heroes are described as contending with stone axes. The subject 
has been discussed by Dr. Much,^ who suggests that the name 
survived long after the actual use of tLe weapons, and points out 
that the modern word Hellebarde (halberd) has the same mean- 
ing, hella in Old German signifying " stone," and harte being still 
used to signify an "axe" or "chopper." He also hints at a 
connection between the sorojia-seax or large knife, with saxum. 
The whole paper is worth reading. 

In the Song of Hildebrand and Hadubrand, probably of the 
•eighth century, stone hammers, sfaim-horts, are also mentioned. 

*' Do stoptan tosamane staimbort chludun 
Hewtin harmlicco huitte scilri." ' 

The passage in " William uf Poitiers," ^ — " Jactant cuspides ac 

' •' Twybyl, a wryhtys instrument," is in the " Promptoritun Parvulomm " trans- 
lated bisacitta or biceps, and " T^vybvl or mattoke," Mana, or liyo. 

• 1855, vol. ii. p. 811. 

3 VoL xi., 1876, p. 385. 

* Mitth. d. Anth. GisdUch. in TTien, vol. vii., 1878, p. 7. 

' O'Curry, " Mann, and Cust. of the Anc. Irish," vol. i. p. cecch-iii. 
'' Wright's " The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon,' p. 72. 



THEIR RANGE IN TIME. l47 

diversorum generum tela, socvissimas quasque secures ac lignis 
imposita saxa," — which has been cited as proving that some of 
the Anglo-Saxons fought with weapons of stone at the battle of 
Hastings, seems only to refer to stone missiles probably discharged 
from some engines of war, and serving the same purpose as the 
stone cannon-balls of more recent times. Professor Nilsson ^ 
has pointed out that jadare often signifies to brandish, and 
argues that the large stone axes were too heavy either for bran- 
dishing or throwing as weapons. It seems to me, however, that 
jactarc in this passage is used in the sense of throwing, the same 
as in Virgil,'^ — 

" Deucalion vacuum lapidcs jactavit in orbem, 
Unde homines nati, durum genus." 

If it be uncertain to how late a period these Neolithic imple- 
ments remained in use in this country, it is still more uncertain 
to how early a period their introduction may be referred. If we 
take the possible limits in either direction, the date at which they 
fell into disuse becomes approximately fixed as compared with 
that at which tliey may first have come into use in Britain. For 
we may safely say that the use of bronze must have been known 
in this country 500 or 600 years B.C., and, therefore, that at that 
time cutting tools of stone began to be superseded ; while by a.d. 
1100, it will be agreed on all hands that they were no longer in 
use. "We can, therefore, absolutely fix the date of their desue- 
tude within at the outside two thousand years ; but who can tell 
within any such limits the time when a people acquainted with 
the use of polished stone implements first settled in this island, or 
when the process of grinding them may have been first developed 
among native tribes ? The long duration of the period which inter- 
vened between the deposit of the lliver-gravels (containing, so far 
as at present known, implements chipped only and not polished), 
and the first ajipearance of polished hatchets, is not in this 
country so well illustrated as in France ; but even there, all that 
can be said as to the introduction of polished stone hatchets, is 
that it took place subsequently to the accumulation in the caves 
of the south of France, of the deposits belonging to an age when 
reindeer constituted one of the principal articles of food of the 
cave-dwellers. As to the date at which those cave-deposits were 
formed, history and tradition are silent, and at present even 
Geology affords but little aid in determining the question. 
1 " Stone Age," p. 73. 2 " Georg.," Ub. i. 62. 

l2 



148 POLISHED CELTS. [cHAP. VI. 

But thougti we cannot fix the range in time of these imple- 
ments, it will be well to notice some of the circumstances under 
which they have been found, if only as illustrative of the habits 
and customs of the ancient people who used them. Of course 
the most instructive cases are those in which they have occurred 
with interments, and some of these I have already incidentally 
mentioned ; as, for instance, the discovery in a barrow on Upton 
Lovel Down of a roughly chipped celt, with others polished at 
the edge, and other objects ; and that of two very roughly 
chipped flint celts found by Dr. Mantell, in a barrow at Alfriston, 
Sussex. 

A celt of greenstone, ground at the edge only, was found in a 
barrow with a burnt body on Seamer Moor, Yorkshire, by the Rev. 
r. Porter ; and in another^ barrow on tlie same moor, Canon Grreenwell 
found a celt of clay-slate, like Fig. 50, burnt red, in association with a 
deposit of burnt bones. In a third tumulus on the same moor, opened 
by the late Lord Londesborougb, there were numerous interments, but 
one of these consisted of a small portion of human bones,- four flint 
celts, five beautifully formed arrow-heads of flint, two rude spear- 
heads of flint, two well-formed knives and spear-heads of flint, two 
very large tusks of the wild boar, and a piece of deer-horn, perforated 
at the end and drilled through, which was thought to be the handle 
for one of the celts. 

In these three instances the polished celts accompany interments by 
cremation, and probably belong to a late period of the Stone Age 
in Britain. They have, however, been frequently found with the 
remains of imburnt bodies. In one of the banks of an ancient settle- 
ment near Knock Castle, Upton Lovel, Sir E. Colt Hoare ^ discovered 
a skeleton with its head towards the north and at its feet a fine black 
celt. In a barrow about seven miles east of Pickering,* besides other 
interments is said to have been one of a skeleton with the head towards 
the south, and a ' ' beautiful stone adze or celt, 3i inches long, wrought 
in green basalt, and a very elaborately chipped spear of flint, near four 
inches long, near its right hand." 

In another barrow in the same district ^ the skeleton was accom- 
panied by " a very small celt or chisel of grey flint, smoothly rubbed, 
and a j)lain spear-head of the same material." 

In another barrow on Elton Moor, Derbyshire,^ there lay behind 
the skeleton a neatly ornamented "drinking cup," containing three 
pebbles of quartz, a flat piece of polished iron ore, a small celt of 
flint, with a rounded instead of a cutting edge, a beautifully chipped 
cutting tool, twenty-one circular-ended instruments, and seventeen 
rude pieces of flint. 

In Liifs Low, near Biggin," Mr. Bateman found a skeleton in the 

^ See p. 105 supra. 

* A woodcut of these is given iu the Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. iv. p. 105. The 
objects are now in the British Museum. 3 << South Wilts," p. 85. 

♦ "Ten Years' Diggings," p. 221. ^ //,;^;_^ p_ 222. 
8 " Vestiges of the Ant. of Derbyshire," p. 53. '' Ibid., p. 42. 



ACCOMPANYING INTERMENTS. 149 

contracted position, and with it two flint celts beautifully chipped and 
polished at the cutting edges ; two flint arrow-heads delicately chipped, 
two flint knives polished on the edge, and one of them serrated on the 
back to serve as a saw ; numerous other objects of flint, some red 
oclire, a small earthenware cuji, and a hammer-head of stag's horn. 

In Cross Low, near Parwich,^ a fragment of a celt and a small 
piece of chipped flint were with a human skeleton in a cist ; and a kind 
of flint axe or tomahawk is reported to have been similarly found in a 
barrow near Pickering.^ 

In the Gospel Hillock barrow, near Buxton, Captain Lukis, F.S.A., 
found near the shoulder of a contracted skeleton, a polished flint celt, 
of which an engraving is given in the Reliquary.^ 

In what appears to have been a tumulus at Seaford,* Sussex, celts 
both whole and broken, and other forms of worked flint, were found, 
but the account given of the exploration is rather confused. 

It will be observed that in these cases stone celts accompany the 
earliest form of interment with which we are acquainted, that in which 
the body is deposited in the contracted position. The reason why 
bodies were interred in that posture appears to be that it was in all 
probability the usual attitude of sleep, at a period when the small 
cloak of the day must generally have served as the only covering at 
night. 

In Scotland stone celts seem to be of frequent occurrence in cairns. 
I have one, already mentioned,* which is said to have been found 
with four others in a cairn on Druim-a-shi, near Culloden. 

Three others, of which two have been already described,^ were dis- 
covered in a caii'n in Daviot parish, Inverness, together with a cylin- 
drical implement, possibly a pestle, and are now in the National 
Museum at Edinburgh. Not improbably my specimen came from the 
same cairn. 

Another' was found in the Cat's Cairn, Cromartyshire. A second,® 
pointed at the butt, is said to have been found in a " Druidical circle," 
Aberdeenshire. A third, ^ of black flint, from the parish of Cruden, 
Aberdeenshire, would seem to have accompanied an interment, as with 
it was found a necklace of large oblong beads of jet, and rudely 
shaped pieces of amber. 

None, however, of these instances afford any absolute testimony as 
to their exact or even approximate age, unless, indeed, the jet and 
amber, if they really accompanied the flint celt, point in that case to a 
date at all events not far removed from that of the bronze objects with 
which such necklaces have frequently been found. 

In the other cases of interments in barrows, however ancient they 
may be, it seems probable that they are not those of the earliest occu- 
pants of this country, by whom polished stone celts, or those of the 
same character rough hewn only, were in use. The labour bestowed 
in the formation of the gi'aves and the erection of the barrows must 

' "Vestiges of the Ant. of Derbyshire," p. 49. 

2 "Ten Years' Diggings," p. 216. » Vol. viii. p. 86. 

* Suss. Arch. Coll. vol. xxxii. p. 175. " P. 112 supra. 

« P. 135. See Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. vi. p. 179. 

' " Cat. Arch. Inst. Mus. at Edinburgh," p. 8. 

' Areh. Jouni., vol. viii. p. 422. 

» "Cat. A.I. Mus. atEdin.," p. 10. 



150 POLISHED CELTS. [cHAP. VI. 

have been immense, and could hardly have been undertaken until a 
stage of civilization had been reached higher than that of some of the 
ruder savage races of the present day. 

It may be mentioned that stone celts are not unfrequently found 
in the soil of -^hich barrows are composed, but in no way connected 
with the intennents in the barrow. 

There are a few instances of the finding of these instruments, not 
in association with interments, where the circumstances under which 
they have been discovered testify to a great, though still indeter- 
minate antiquity. One, for instance, of greenstone, in the Museum of 
the Society of Antiquaries, is stated to have been " found deep in the 
clay whilst digging the Chelsea Waterworks at Kingston.'" Others 
in a sand-bed near York- were 6 or 7 feet below the surface, and 
nearly a quarter of a mile fi'om the river which is thought to have 
deposited the sand. 

In Wilson's "Prehistoric Annals of Scotland"' is recorded the 
finding of a greenstone celt in a primitive canoe, formed of a hollowed 
trunk of oak, at a depth of 25 feet from the surface, at Glasgow ; and 
in the Norwich Museum is one of brown flint, ground all over, 4|- 
inches long, similar to Fig. 54, but with facets towards the edge, as if 
from repeated grinding, which is stated to have been found fixed in 
a tree in the submarine forest at Hunstanton, by the Eev. George 
Mumford, of East Winch, in the year 1829. 

On the whole evidence it would appear, from the number of 
implements of this class which has been discovered, from the 
various characters of the interments with which they are asso- 
ciated, and from the circumstances under which they have been 
found, that these stone celts must have been in use in this country 
during a long period of years ; though we still revert to our first 
confession, that it is impossible to determine at how early a date 
this period commenced, or to how late a date it may have ex- 
tended. If, however, the occupation of this part of the globe by 
man was continuous from the period of the deposit of the old 
Hiver- gravels unto the present day, it seems probable that some 
of these implements may claim an almost fabulous antiquity, 
while in certain remote districts of Britain into which civilization 
made but a tardy approach, it is possible that their use may 
have lingered on to a time when in other parts of the country, 
owing to the superiority and abundance of metallic tools, these 
stone hatchets had long fallen into disuse. 

Instances of thi.? comparatively late use of stone celts appear to 
be afforded by some of the discoveries made in the Orkney and 
Shetland Isles ; and it is doubtful whether in Ireland the use of 

^ Froc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. i. p. 82. 

• Journ. Eth»ol. Soc.,\o\. ii. p. 159. 

' Vol. i. p. .53. See p. 129, supra. Froc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. i. p. 44. 



MANNER IN WHICH HAFTEU. 151 

stone implements did not survive in some parts of the country to 
a far more recent date than would at first sight appear probable. 
I have, however, remarked on this subject elsewhere/ Sir Arthur 
Mitchell's book, " The Past in the Present," may also be consulted. 

The methods in which these instruments were used and 
mounted must to some extent have varied in accordance with the 
purposes to which they were applied. In describing the forms, 
I have pointed out that in some cases they were used as axes or 
hatchets, and in other cases as adzes, and that there are some 
celts which not improbably were used in the hand without any 
handle at all, or else were mounted in short handles, and used 
after the manner of chisels or knives. 

The instances of their being found in this country still attached 
to their handles are rare. In the case of the celt found near 
Tranmere,^ Cheshire, and now in the Mayer Museum at Liver- 
pool, " the greater part of the wood had perished, but enough 
remained to show that the handle had passed in a slightly dia- 
gonal direction towards the upper end of the stone." In the 
Christy Collection is a large felstone celt 12f inches long and 
3^ inches broad, of the same section as Fig. 43, slightly flattened 
at the sides, on the face of which the mark of the handle is still 
visible, crossing it obliquely near the middle. This specimen was 
found at Pentnej^ Norfolk. Similar marks may not improbably 
be observed on other specimens, like that from Drumour already 
mentioned at page 119. 

In the Solway Moss, near Longtown, a hafted hatchet was 
found by a labourer digging peat, at the depth of rather more 





Fig. 91.— Solway Moss. 

than six feet, but the handle appears to have been broken, even 

at the time when the sketch was made from which the woodcut 

' Arch., vol. xli. p. 405. 

- " Horse Fer.," p. 134. Tratis. Hist. Soc. Lane, and Chesh., vol. xiv. pi. ii. 3. 



152 POLISHED CELTS. | CHAP. VI. 

jjiven in the Proceedings of the Socief'/ of Antiquaries'^ was en- 
graved, which is, by permission, here reproduced. The instru- 
ment is now in the British Museum, but the haft, in drying, has, 
unfortunately, quite lost its form, and is still further broken. 
The process of preserving wood when in the tender condition in 
which it is found after long burial in peat was probably not 
known at the time. It has been adopted with great success by 
Mr. Engelhardt in preserving the wooden antiquities from the 
Danish peat bogs, and consists in keeping the objects moist until 
they have been well steeped, or even boiled, in a strong solution 
of alum, after which they are allowed to dry gradually, and are 
found to retain their form in a remarkable manner. 

It is probably owing to the broken and distorted condition of 
the wood that the sketch was inaccurate as to the position of the 
blade with regard to the handle, for the mark of the wood where 
it was in contact with the stone is still visible, and proves that 
the central line of the blade was inclined outwards at an angle of 
about 100° to the haft, instead of being nearly vertical, as shown. 
The edge of the hatchet is oblique to nearly the same extent as 
the inclination of the blade to the haft. It would seem from this, 
that the obliquity of the edge was in some cases connected with 
the method of hafting, and not always, as suggested by Nilsson,^ 
the result of the blade being most worn away in the part farthest 
from the hand holding the shaft. 

The preservation of the wooden handle has been more success- 
fully effected in the case of the celt shown in Fig. 92, engraved 
from a photograph kindly supplied me by Mr. R. D. Darbishire, 
F.G.S. It is figured on a larger scale in the Arclufolocjia.^ where 
all the circumstances of the discovery are set forth in detail. The 
axe was found, in the year 1871, in peat which had once formed 
the bed of a small lake, known as Ehenside Tarn, near Egremont, 
in Cumberland, which has now been drained. With it were found 
another haft of the same character, and several stone celts, one 
of them 14^ inches in length, with the sides but slightly 
curved, and almost equally broad at each end. Some wooden 
paddles and clubs formed of beech and oak, pottery and other 
objects, were also found. The farmer who cultivates the former 
bed of the lake had previously discovered some stone antiquities 
which were brought under the notice of Sir Wollaston Franks, 

' Vol. iv. 112. 2 "Stone Age," Eng. ed., p. 65. 

^ Vol. xliv., pi. viii. fig. 3. 



IN THEIR ORIGINAL HANDLES. 



lo3 



who induced Mr. Darbishire to make the search which was so 
amply rewarded. The haft is formed of a hard root of beech- 
wood, and has been most carefully carved, the surface exhibit- 
ino- alternate cuts and ridges forming small concave facets about 
|-inch apart, and arranged spirally. The other haft for a celt is 
of oak-wood, and is not so well preserved. It will be noticed 
that the end of the beech-wood handle has originally been re- 




Fig . 92.— Cumbtrliind 



<'urved, possibly with a view of steadying the butt-end of 
the celt. 

Curiously enough, in the outline of a celt in its handle, carved 
on the under side of the roof-stone of a dolmen, known as La 
Table des Marchands, near Locraariaker, Brittany,^ the end of the 
handle seems also to be curved back beyond the socket for the 
blade, which however it does not touch. At the other end of the 
handle there is a loop like a sword guard, for the insertion of the 
hand. There is some little difficulty in determining the exact 
form of this incised carving, as the lines are shallow, and the 
light does not fall upon them. I speak from a sketch I made on 
the spot in 1863. Other such representations occur in Brittany.^ 

In a paper^ on a neolithic flint weapon in a wooden haft, Mr. 
C. Dawson has given an account of a discovery made by Mr. 
Stephen Blackmore, a shepherd of East Dean, near Eastbourne, of 
a flint hatchet at Mitchdean. It was lying in its wooden haft 
which was perfectly carbonized, but Mr. Blackmore made a draw- 

' Rev. Arch., vol. x%-iii. p. 2G8. Mus. Preh. No. 442. 

- Cartailhac, "La France preh.," p. 237. ' Suss. Arch. Coll., vol. xxxix. p. 97. 



154 POLISHED CELTS. [cHAF. VI. 

ing of it, apparently from memory. He describes the blade, wliicli 
seems to have been un ground, as lying in a horizontal groove cut 
in one side of the shaft, which was 2 feet G inches long. At one 
end of the shaft were two projections supposed to serve for holding 
the ligatures by which the blade was attached, and nearer the hand 
were a number of grooves running round the haft. Neither the 
description nor the drawings of this and other objects found with 
it are such as to inspire complete confidence. 

About 1822, in sinking a well at Ferry Harty, Isle of Sheppey,^ 
there were found, according to newsjDaper reports, the remains of 
a hut, two skeletons, and *' flints and hard stones, apparently 
intended for axes and cutting implements, with handles of wood 
quite complete and in good preservation." Nothing farther seems 
to be known of this discovery. 

At Ervie,' near Glenluce, Wigtownshire, a celt of indurated 
clay-stone in form like Fig. 77 (8 inches) was found, which shows 
a band of dark colour about 1^ inch wide and about 2 inches from 
the butt-end, crossing it at an angle of about 20°. This band 
probably shows the position of the haft in which the blade was 
fixed. Another celt from Glenshee, Forfarshire, likewise in the 
Edinburgh Museum, shows a fainter mark of the kind. On a 
third from Dolphinton,^ Lanarkshire, the mark is very distinct 
and at a right angle to the axis of the blade. Montelius^ men- 
tions a Swedish specimen, and A. de Mortillet^ a French one of 
flint similarly marked. 

In the Museum of the Eoj-al Irish Academy^ is a drawing of a 
celt in its handle (which is apparently of pine) found in the county 




Fig. 93.— Monaghan. 

of Monaghan. This handle was 13| inches long, and more clumsy 
at the socketed end than that from 8olway Moss. The woodcut 
given by Sir W. Wilde is here, by permi.ssion, reproduced as 
Fig. 93. 

Another nearly similar specimen was discovered near Cook.*- 

1 Lit. Gaz., 1822, p. G05, quoted in N. and Q., 2nd S., vol. vi. p. 32 

"^ I'roc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. ix. p. 460. •* Op. cit., vol. xxx. p. 6. 

* " LaSuede prehist.," 1874, p. 21. » " Musee prchist.," 1881, No. 428. 

« Wilde, " Cat. Mus. E. I. A.," p. 46. 



COMPARED WITH AXES OF MODERN SAV.VGFS. 155 

town/ in the county of Tyrone. What maj^ be the haft of a stone 
hatchet was found in another Irish crannog.*^ Another is in the 
collection of General Pitt Rivers, F.R.S. Some of the hatchets 
from the Swiss Lake-dwellings were hafted in a similar manner. 
In one such haft, formed of ash, from Robenhausen,^ the blade is 
inclined towards the hand ; in another, also of ash, the blade is at 
rio-ht ansrles to the shaft.^ Some of these club-like hafts resemble 
in character those in use for iron blades in Southern and Central 
Africa.^ The copper or bronze axes of the Mexicans^ were hafted 
in the same manner. 

A method of hafting, which implies fixitj' of residence, is said 
to have been in use among the Caribs'^ of Guadaloupe. The 
blade of the axe had a groove round it at the butt-end, and a deep 
hole having been cut in the branch of a growing tree, this end of 
the blade was placed in it, and as the branch grew became firmly 
embedded in it, the wood which grasped it having formed a collar 
that filled the groove. The Ilurons^ are said to have adopted the 
same plan. 

I have engraved in Fig. 94, an extremely rude example of haft- 
ing bv fitting the blade into a socket, from an original kindly lent 




Fi?. 94.— Axe from the Kio Frio. i 

me by the late Mr. Thomas Belt, F.G.S., who procured it among 
the Indians of the Rio Frio, a tributary of the San Juan del 
Norte in Nicaragua. The blade is of trachyte entirely unground 
and most rudely chipped. The club-like haft is formed of some 
endogenous wood, and has evidently been chopped into shape by 
means of stone tools. 

In these instances Clavigero's^ remark with regard to the copper 

^ Arch. Jourii., vol. iv. p. 3. 

' Wood Martin'-s " Lake-dw. of Trol.," 1886, p. o9, pi. vi. 7. 

3 Keller's " Lake-Dwellings," Eii^r. cd., pi. x. 14. * Ibid., pi. xi. 1. 

* "Wood. "Nat. Hi.*t. of Man," vol. i. pp. 321, 404. 

* Squier, " Abor. Mon. of New York," p. 180. 

■» MittJi. (1. Atit. Ges. in Wien, vol. ix.. 1880, p. 135, pi. i. 

* " Aventuret* du Sieur C. le Beau," Amsterdam, 1738, p. 235. Quoted in Arch, 
per r A)it. e la Et.. vol. xiv. p. 372. 

^ Quoted in " Anc. Mon. of Mis.<<. Valley," p. 19S. 



156 



POLISHED CELTS. 



[chap. VI. 



or bronze axes of tlie Mexicans holds good ; they are like " those 
of modern times, except that we put the handle in an eye of the 
axe while they put the axe in an eye of the handle." A similarly 
haf ted hatchet with the blade ground is in use amon » the Botocudo 




Fig. 95.— "War-axe— Gaveoe Indians, Brazil. 

Indians. In the Island of New Hanover^ the axe blade is inserted 
about the middle of the club-like haft. Some hatchets from the 
Admiralty Islands^ are curiously like those from the Swiss Lake- 

J Zeiisch. f. Eth., vol. xxiv., 1892, p. (229), pL y. 2. 
^ Eatzel, " Volkerk," vol. ii. p. 246. 



INSERTED IN SOCKETS IN THE HAFTS. 



157 



dwellings. Excessively long hafts in which the blades are let 
into a socket are occasionally in use among the Chamacocos^ of 
south-east Bolivia. 

Many stone and metallic axes in use among other modern 
savages are hafted in much the same manner by insertion in a 
socket. In some instances it would appear as if the hole for 
receiving the stone did not extend through the haft, but was 
merely a shallow depression — even a notch. Such seems to be the 
case with a war-axe of the Gaveoe Indians of Brazil in the British 
Museum, figured in the Proceedings of the Society of Aniiqimries,'^ 
and here, by permission, reproduced, as Fig. 95. Some of their 
axes have longer hafts. In the Over Yssel Museum is a Brazilian 
stone axe with a blade of this kind, which is said to have been 
used in an insurrection at Deventer^ in 1787. 

The " securis lapidea in sacrificiis Indorum usitata," engraved 
by Aldrovandus,^ seems to haA'e the blade inserted in a socket 
without being tied, but in most axes of tlie same kind the blade is 
secured in its place by a plaited binding artistically interlaced. 



^^^^^rtR^"^'^^^;^^'''^ 




Fig. 96,— Axe of Montezuma II. 

The stone axe said to be that of Montezvmia II., preserved in the 
Ambras Museum at Vienna, is a good example of the kind.^ I 
have engraved it as Fig. 96, from a sketch I made in 1866, 

In some cases the whole handle is covered with the binding. 
Two such in the Dresden Historical Museum are engraved by 
Klemm.^ Others have been figured by Prof. Giglioli.'^ 

Some of the war-axes (called taawisch or tsuskiah) in use 
among the natives of Nootka Sound^ are mounted in this manner, 
but the socket end of the shaft is carved into the form of a gro- 
tesque human head, in the mouth of which the stone blade is 

1 Intern. Arch. f. Eth., vol. ii. p. 272. Arch, per V Ant. e la Etn., vol. xx. p. 65. 
- 2nd S., vol. i. p. 102. See also Ratzel, " Viilkerk.," vol. ii. p. 582. 
3 Int. Arch.f. Ethn., vol. iii. p. 195. * "Mupseum MetaUicum," p. 158. 

' It has also been figui'ed by Klemm, " Cult.-Wiss.," vol. i. fig. 136. 
^ " Cult.-Gesch.," vol. ii. Taf. vi. a.b. " See Int. Arch.f. Eth., Bd. ix., 8upp. pi. iii. 
" Kleram's " Allgemeine Cultur-Wiss.," vol. i. p. 71, whence I have copied the 
figure. See also "Cult.-Gesch.," vol. u., p. 352. 



158 



POLISHED CELTS. 



[_CHAP. 



VI. 



secured with cement, as in Fig. 97. In another instance the 
handle is carved into the fomi of a bird^ and inlaid with mother- 
of-pearl, or, more properly speaking, shell of ha Hot is. The blade of 
basalt projects from the breast of the bird, the tail of which forms 
the handle. In some the blade goes right through the handle, so as 
to project equally on both sides of it, and is sharpened at both ends. 
The socket in all these handles is usually at some little distance 
from their end, but even with this precaution, the wedge-like form 
of the celt must have rendered them very liable to split. It was 




Fig. 97. — Axe — Nootka Sound. 



probably with a view of avoiding this, that the intermediate socket 
of stag's horn, so common in the Lake-dwellings of Switzerland, 
was adopted. The stone was firmly bedded in the horn, the end of 
which was usually worked into a square form, but slightly taper- 
ing, and with a shoulder all round to prevent its being driven into 
the wood. In the annexed woodcut (Fig. 98) is shown one of these 
sockets with the hatchet inserted. 1 1 was found at Concise, in the 
Lake of Xeuchatel. An analogous system for preventing the stone 
blade from splitting the haft was adopted in Burma, Cambodia, 

1 Skelton'i " Meyrick's Armour," pi., cl. 1. 



HAFIEI) WITH INTERMEDIATE SOCKETS. 



159 



and Eastern India, but the shoulders were there cut in the stone- 
blades themselves. One of the Swiss instruments in its complete 
form is shown in Fig. 99, which I have 
copied from Keller.^ It was found at 
Robenhausen, and the club-like handle is 
of ash. Several other specimens are en- 
graved by the same author and Professor 
Desor,^ and by other more recent writers. 
In some instances the stone was inserted 
lengthways^ into the end of a tine of a 
stag's horn at the part where it had been 
severed from the antler, so as to form a 
sort of chisel.'* In other cases the socket 
was worked through the tine, and the 
stone blade fixed in it after the manner of 
an axe, though the handle was too short 
for the tool to be used for chopping. 
Some wooden handles^ are also but a 

few inches long, so that the celts mounted in them must have 
been used for cutting by drawing them along the object to be cut. 




Fig. 98, 



Axe in stag's 
socket — Concise. 



-horn; 




Such stag's-horn sockets have occurred, though rarely, in France, 
if. I*errault found some in his researches in the Camp de Chassey, 

' "Lake-Dwellings," pi. x. 7; 5ter "Bericht," pi. x. 17. ^Vnother from St. 
Aubin is engraved by Chantre, " Etudes Paleoetliu.," pi. xi. Keller has published 
several others. See also " Ant. Lac. du Mus. de Lausanne," 1896, pi. iii. 

- '' Palafittes," fig. 17. See also Troyon, "Habit. Lacust." ; but some of his 
engra\T[ngs, like those of Meillet in the " Kpoc^ues Antedil. et Celtique de Poitou," 
appear to have been made from modern fabrications. 

^ Keller, "Lake-Dwellings," pi. xxii. 7. " Mus. de Lausanne," 1896, pi. iii. 

* Wilde's " Cat. Mus. R.I. A.," p. 251 ; Lindenschmit,*' Sigraaringen," pi. xxix. 7 ; 
Keller, " Lake-DweUings," pi. ii. 

* Ibid., pi. xxii. 12. 



160 POLISHED CELTS. [cHAP. VI. 

(Saoneet Loire).* Some seem to have been found at Tauvray,- in 
making the railway from Paris to Eouen. Others were discovered 
in company with arrow-heads, celts, and trimmed flakes of flint, 
in the Dolmen,^ or AUee courerfe, of Argenteuil (Seine et Oise). 
These are now in the Musee de St. Germain. Others were found 
in a cavern on Mont Sargel (Aveyron).* They occasionally occur 
in Germany. One from Dienkeim is in the Central Museum at 
Mayence. 

Discoveries of tkese stag's-kom sockets for stone tools in Eng- 
land seem to be extremely rare. Mr. Albert Way describes one, 
of wkich a woodcut is given in the Archiologkal Jovrnal? It is 
formed of the horn of the red deer (which is erroneously described 
as being extinct), and is said to have been found with human 
remains and pottery of an early character at Cockshott Hill, in 
AVychwood Forest, Oxfordshire. It seems better adapted for 
mounting a small celt as a chisel, like that of bronze found in a 
barrow at E verley,^ than for forming part of a hatchet. M r. Way ' 
cites several cases of the discovery of these stag's-hom sockets in 
France and elsewhere on the continent of Europe. I may add, by 
way of caution, that nujuerous forgeries of them have been pro- 
duced at Amiens. In some of the genuine specimens from the 
peat of the valley of the Somme,^ the stone was fixed in a socket 
bored in one end of the piece of stag's horn, and the shaft was 
inserted in another hole bored through the horn. M. Boucher de 
I'tTthes describes the handle of one as made of a branch of oak, 
burnt at each end. 

An example of this method of mounting is given in Fig. 99a. 
The original was found at Penhouet, Saint Xazaire sur Loire,^ in 
1877. The length of the haft is 19^ inches. A fine socket with 
the blade still in it, but without the shaft, has been figured by the 
Baron Joseph de Baye.'® It was found in La Marue, in which 
department funereal grottoes have been discovered, at the entrances 
of whick similar hafted axes were sculptured. 

The socket discovered by the late Lord Londesborough in a 
barrow, near Scarborough,^^ appears to have been a hammer, 

' " Note sur nn Foyer. «S:c ," Chalon, 1870. pi. iv. 

- Cochet, " Seine Inf.," 2nd ed., p. 16 

•' Rev. Arch., vol. xv. p. 364, pi. viii. : ilortillet, "Promenades," p. 123. 

* Matiriaux, vol. v. p. 96. ^ Vol. txi. p. 54. See also vol. xiv. p. 82. 

* Hoare's " South Wilts." pi. xxi. " Arch. Jottrn., vol. xxL p. 54. 

8 B. de Perthes' " Antiquites Celtiqnes, &c.," vol. i. p. 282, pi. i., ii. 

9 Rev. Arch., vol. xxxv. p. 307, whence the cut is copied on a reduced scale. 
'0 Arch. Preh., 1880, p. 99, pi. i. and v. Mac, vol. xvi. p. 29S. 

'1 Arch. Asioc. Journ., vol. iv. p. 105. Supra, p. 148. 



COMPARED AVITH AXES OF MODERN SAVAGES. 



161 



although he describes it as a piece of deer horn, perforated at the 
end, and drilled through, and imagined it to have been the handle 
for one of the celts found with it, " much in the manner of that in 
the museum of M. de Courvale, at his Castle of Pinon, in France," 
of which he sent a drawing to the Archnoological Association. A 
stag's-horn socket, with a transverse hole for the haft, and a 




Fig. 99.V.— Penhouet. ^ 

circular socket bored in the end, from which the main body of the 
horn was cut off, was found in the Thames, near Kew, and is in the 
possession of Mr. Thomas Layton, F.S.A. In the circular socket 
was a portion of a tine of stag's horn, so that it seems rather to 
have been intended for mounting such tines for use as picks, than 
lor hafting celts. 




99b. — New Guinea. 



A celt, mounted in a socket of stag's horn, bored through to 
receive the wooden shaft, found in the Lake-dwellings at Concise, 
and in the collection of Dr. Ch'ment, has been engraved by Desor;^ 
and another, found near Aerschot,"'^ in Belgium, by Le Hon. A 
hatchet, mounted in a socket of this kind, is figured by Dupont* 



"Palafittes," fig-. 18. -' "L'Homn;e Fossile," -lud ec., p. H9. 

'• L'Homme pend. les Ageade la PioiTC."' p. 214. 

M 



162 



POLISHED CELTS. 



FfHAP. VI. 



and Van Overloop.' Some of the stag's-horu sockets are orna- 
mented by having patterns engraved upon thera.- 

In New Guinea and Celebes a plan has been adopted of in- 
serting the stone blade into the end of a tapering piece of wood, 
which is securely bound round to prevent its splitting. The small 
end of this fits in a hole in the club-like haft. An example is 
shown in Fig. 99i5,^ obligingly lent by the Society of Antiquaries 
of Scotland. By turning round the pivot an axe is converted 
into an adze. In some New Guinea and New Caledonia adzes and 
axes the blade is let into a socket at a nearly right angle to the 
haft, and either forming part of it or attached to it. Such an adze 




Fig. 99c. — New Guinen Aclze. 

is shown in Fig. 99c, kindly lent by the same Society. A similar 
method of hafting is in use in the Entrecasteaux Islands.'^ 

Some ingenious suggestions as to the probable method of mount- 
ing stone implements in ancient times have been made by the 
Vicomte Lepic.^ With a polished Danish flint hatchet 8 inches 
long, hafted in part of the root of an oak, an oak-tree 8 inches in 
diameter was cut down without inj ury to the blade. 

Another method of hafting, adopted by the Swiss Lake-dwellers 

for their stone hatchets, is described by Dr. Keller,^ from whose 

work I have copied the annexed woodcut. Fig. 100. 

^ '* Les Ages de la Pierre en Belgique," pi. ix. 
" L* Anthropologxe, vol. i. p. 385. 
■^ Froc. Hoc. Ant. Scot., vol. xviii. p. 365. 
^ Ratzel, "Volkerk," vol. ii. 245, 247, &c. 
•' "Les armes et les outils preh. rcconst.," Paris, 1872. 

^ "Lake-Dwellings," Eng. ed., p. 110. See also pi. x. 16, xi. 2, and xxviii. 24 ; 
and Lindenschmit, "Hohenz. Samml,," pi. xxix. 4. 



MOUNTED IN FORKED HAFTS. 



163 



The haft was usually formed of a stem of ha/el, " with a root 
running from it at right angles. A cleft was then made in this 




Fig. 100.— Axe — Robcnhauson. 




Fig. lot.— Schraplau. 



shorter part, forming a kind of beak in which the celt was fixed 

with cord and asphalte." A woodcut of a handle of the same 

character, found near Schraplau, in company with its stone blade, 

is given by Klemm,^ and is here reproduced as Fig. 101. A 

handle of much the same kind, consisting of 

a shaft with a branch at right angles to it, 

in which was fixed a flint axe, was found 

with a skeleton and a wooden shield in a 

tumulus near Lang Eichstatt, in Saxony,^ 

and has been engraved by Lindenschmit. 

Another is said to have been found at Win- 

terswyk. 

The discovery in the district between the 
Weser and the Elbe of several stone hatchets 
mounted in hafts of wood, stag's-horn, and bone, has been recorded 
by Mr. A. Poppe,^ but the authenticity of the hafting seems to me 
open to question. The compound haft of a stone axe, said to have 
been found at Berlin,* is also not above all suspicion. The handles 
of bronze palstaves, found in the salt mines near Salzburg, Austria, 
are forked in the same manner as Figs. 100 and 101. One of them, 
formerly in the Klemm Collection, is now in the British Museum. 

The same system of hafting has been in use among the savages in 
recent times, as will be seen from the annexed figure of a stone adze 
from New Caledonia,'^' Fig. 102, lent to me by the late Mr. Henry 
Christy. Another is engraved in the Proceedings of the Society of 

J " Cultur-Wiss.," fig. 127, p. 70. 

- ".tVlt. u. H. v.," vol. ii. Heft viii. Taf. i. 7 ; Arc/iiv. fiir AnthropoL, vol. iii. 
p. lOo. Jahrb. d. Ver.f. Alt. im Rhein., Ixi. (1877) p. 156." 

^ Berk'ht Xat. Hist. Vereiu, ^vemcn, 1879. * Zeitsch. f. Ethii., vol. xi. p. (162). 
^ "Reliq. Aquit," fig. 12. 

m2 



164 



POLISHED CELTS. 



[chap. VI 



Antiquaries of Scotland} Several other varieties of ^Xew Caledonian 
and Fiji handles have been engraved by M. Chantre.^ In some 
countries, probably in consequence of the difficulty of procuring 
forked boughs of trees of the proper kind, the wood which forms 




Fig. 102. — Adze — ^Xew Caledonia. 

the socket for the blade is bound on at the desired angle to the 
end of the wooden handle. An adze of stone from the Caroline 
Islands, thus mounted, is engraved in the Comptcs Eendus ;^ and a 

1 Vol. iv. p. 297. 

2 "Etudes Paleoeth.," pi. xii. See also "Worsaae, "Primev. Ants, of Denmark," 
p. 12; "Danemark's Yorz.," p. 10; and " Danmark's TidligsteBebyggelse," 1861, 
p. 17. 

' 1863, vol. IxTii. p. 1285. 



MOUNTED ON WOODEN HAFTS. 



165 



handle of this kind from North America, but with a small iron 
blade, is figured by Klemm.^ 

We are left in a great degree to conjecture as to the other 
methods of mounting stone hatchets and adzes on handles in pre- 
historic times ; but doubtless some besides those already mentioned 
were practised. A very common method among existing savages 




Fig. 103.— Adze — Clalam Indian.s. 

is to bind the blade of stone on to the face of a branch at the end 
of the handle, which in some cases projects upwards, and in others 
downwards, and is inclined at an angle more or less perpendicular 
to the handle. 

Figs. 103 and 104 are kindly lent me by the Society of Anti- 
quaries of Scotland.^ The short-handled adze, Fig. 103, is one 



1 "Cultur-Wise.," p. 70. 

^ Proc. S. A. i>., vol. ii. pp. 423, 424 ; Wilson's " Preh. Man," yoI. i. p. 



156. 



166 



POLISHED CELTS. 



[chap. VI. 



used by the Schlalum or Clalam Indians, of the Pacific Coast, to 
the south of the Straits of De Fuca and on Puget's Sound, to 
hollow out their canoes. The group. Fig. 104, exhibits various 
methods of attachment of stone adzes to their handles employed 
by the South-Sea Islanders. 

The Australians occasionally mounted their tomahawks in much 
the same manner as that shown in the central figure. An example 




Fig. IM.— South-Sea Island Axes. 

has been engraved by the Eev. J. G. "VTood.^ The right-hand 
figure probably represents an adze from the Savage Islands. 
Some Brazilian and Aleutian Island adzes are mounted in much 
the same fashion. 

The jade adzes of the Xew Zealanders are hafted in a somewhat 
similar manner ; but the hafts are often beautifully carved and 
inlaid. A fine example is in the Blackmore Museum, and a handle 
in the Christy Collection. I have also a haft with the original 

» "Nat. Hist, of Man," toI. ii. p. 32. 



COMPARE]) AMTH ADZES OF MODERN SAVAGES. 167 

jade blade, but the binding has been taken off. One of them is 
engraved by the Rev. J. G. AVood.^ The axe to the left, in Fig. 
104, as well as that in the centre, is from Tahiti. The axes from 
Mangaia, so common in collections, exhibit great skill in the 
mounting and in the carving of the handles. Some have been 
engraved by the Rev. J. G. "Wood.^ A ceremonial stone adze 
with a very remarkable carved haft from New Ireland^ has been 
figured by Professor Giglioli. 

In some instances the ligaments for attaching the stone blade 
against the end of the handle pass through a hole towards its end. 
A North American adze in the Ethnological Museum, at Copen- 
hagen, is thus mounted, the cord being apparently of gut. 

A similar method of mounting their adzes, by binding them 
against the haft, was in use among the Egyptians.^ Although 
it is extremely probable that some of the ancient stone adzes of 
other countries may have been mounted in this manner, there have 
not, so far as I am aware, been any of the handles of this class 
discovered. I have, however, two Swiss celts of Lydian stone, 
and of rectangular section, found at Nussdorf and Sipplingen, in 
the Ueberlinger See, and on the flatter of the two faces of each, 
there is a slight hollow worn away apparently by friction, which 
was, I think, due to their having been attached against a handle 
in this manner. The blade in which the depression is most evi- 
dent has lost its edge, seemingly from its having been broken in 
use. I have not up to the present time found any similarly worn 
surfaces upon British celts. 

Another method of hafting adopted by various savage tribes 
is that of winding a flexible branch of wood round the stone, and 
securing the two ends of the branch by binding them together in 
such a manner as tightl}' to embrace the blade. A stone axe from 
Northern Australia thus hafted, is figured in the Archcvologia,^ 
whence I have borrowed the cut. Fig. 105. Another used by na- 
tives on the Murray river '^ has been figured by the Society of An- 
tiquaries of Scotland. This method of hafting has been mentioned 
by White,^ who describes the binding as being effected by strips 

I Op. cit., vol. ii. p. 201. - Op. cit., vol. ii. pp. 369, 373. 

3 Int. Arch./. FAhn., vol. iii. p. 181, pi. xv. 1, 2. 

* Rev. Arch., vol. xviii. p. 266. * Vol. xxxiv. p. 172. 

' P. S. A. 6'., vol. X. p. 263. See also "Notes on some Australian and other Stone 
Implements," by Prof. Liversidge, F.R.S. [Journ. R. S. of New South JFales, vol. 
xxviii., 1894), and Mr. E. J. Hardmau's account of some West Australian imple- 
ments (Wood Martin's " Rude St. Mons. of Ireland," 1888, p. 115). 

' "Joum. of Voy. to N. S. Wales," p. 293; Klemm, " Cult.-Gesch.," vol. i. 
p. 308. 



lt)8 POLISHED CELTS. [CHAP. VI. 

of bark, and in his figure shows the two ends of the stick more 
firmly bound together. 

Another example has been engraved b}' the Rev. J. G. "Wood.^ 
This mode is very similar to that in common use amono: black- 




Fig. 105.— Axe— Xorthern Australia. 

smiths for their chisels and swages, which are held by means of a 
withy twisted round them, and secured in its place bj^ a ring. 

It seems extremely probable that so simple a method may have 
been in use in early times in this country, though we have no 
direct evidence as to the fact. A " fancy sketch" of a celt in a 
withy handle will be found in the ArchwoJocjla? It resembles in 
a singular manner the actual implements employed by the jib- 
way Indians,^ of which there is a specimen in the Christy Col- 
lection, engraved by the Rev. J. G. "Wood.^ Some of the other 
North American tribes ^ mounted their hatchets in much the 
same manner. A hatchet thus hafted is engraved by School- 
craft.^ 

In some instances a groove of greater or less depth has been 
worked round the axes mounted in this manner, though undoubt- 
edly British examples are scarce. An axe-hammer of diorite 
(13 inches), found near Newburgh,^ Aberdeenshire, has a groove 
round it instead of the usual haft-hole. The blade engraved in 
the Archcvological Journal^ and found near Coldstream, Northum- 
berland, is probably of Carib origin, like others which have also 
been supposed to have been British. Another from the Liverpool 

' " Nat. Hist, of Man," vol. ii. p. 32. Co/^/". Worsaae, " Danemark's Vorz.," 
p. 10. 

^ Vol. xxxi. p. 452. 3 ggg Jones's " Hist, of Ojibway Indians." 

* "Nat. Hist, of Man," vol. ii. p. 652. Conf. Catlin, " N. A. Ind.," vol. i. pi. 
zciz. /. 

* Col. A. Lane-Fox, " Prim. Warf.," part ii. p. 17. 

* " Ind. Tribes," vol. i. pi. xv. 1, p. 285. ' Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xxvii. p. 49. 

* Vol. xxiv. p. 80. 



MOUIS'TEi) ON WITHES AND CLEFT STICKS. 169 

Docks is mentioned by Mr. H. Ecroyd Smith. ^ In the British 
Museum are two such axes, and some other stone implements, 
found near Alexandria, but which probably are Carib, as would 
also seem to bo those in the Museum of Dou:ii,^ on which are 
sculptured representations of the human face. 

Stone axe-heads with a groove round their middle, for receiv- 
ing a handle, have been found in Denmark,^ but are of rare occur- 
rence. The form has been found in the salt-mines of Koulpe,^ 
Caucasus, and in Russian Armenia. The large stone mauls found 
so commonly in the neighbourhood of ancient copper-mines, in 
this and many other countries in both hemispheres, were hafted 
much in the same manner as the Australian axe. 

In other cases axe-heads are mounted by being fixed in a cleft 
stick for a handle, the stick being then lashed round so as to secure 
the stone and retain it in its place. This method was employed by 
some of the North American Indians,^ and the aborigines in the 
colony of Victoria.^ In the Blackmore Museum is a stone axe 
thus mounted, from British Guiana. There is a small hole 
through the butt which is carved into a series of small spikes. 
Others from Guiana ^ have notches at the sides to receive a cord 
which bound the haft in a groove running along the butt-end. 
The same form has been found in Surinam.^ An Egyptian^ stone 
hammer is mounted in much the same way. The notches prac- 
tically produce lugs at the butt-end of the blade. I have an iron 
hatchet, edged with steel, brought home by the late Mr. David 
Forbes, F.B.S., from among the Aymara Indians of Bolivia, 
which is mounted in a stick cleft at the end. The blade is 
T-shaped at the butt, and is tied in such a manner, by means 
of a strip of leather, that the arms of the T rest on two of the 
coils, so as to prevent its falling out, while other two coils pass 
over the butt and prevent its being driven back, and the whole 
binds the two sides of the cleft stick together so as tightly to 
grasp the blade and prevent lateral or endways motion. The 
ancient Egyptian bronze hatchets were merely placed in a groove 
and bound to the handle by the lugs, and sometimes by the cord 
being passed through holes in the blade. The same shape is 

' <' Arch, of Mersey District," 1867, p. 15. 

^ Arch., vol. xxxii. p. 400 ; Proc. Soc. Aitt., 1st s. vol. i. p. 131. 

^ Worsaae's " Nordiske Oldsager," fig. 14. 

* Cliantre, " Le Caucase," 18.")o, vol. i. p. 50, pi. ii. 

* Schoolcraft, " Ind. Tribes," vol. ii. pi. 73 ; Klomm, " Cult.-Gesch.," vol. ii. p. 62. 

* Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. v. p. 287. ' Journ. Anth. List., vol. xi. p. 448. 
8 Int. Arch./, nth., vol. v., Supp. pi. i. '-' "lUahun" (1891), p. 55. 



170 POLISHED CELTS. [CHAP. VI. 

found in flint hatchets ascribed by Professor Flinders Petrie * 
to the twelfth dynasty. "What may be a stone hatchet mounted 
occurs in a painting at Medum.^ 

Another Australian method of mounting implies the possession 
of some resinous material susceptible of being softened by heat, 
and ajjain becomings hard and tough when cold. This mode is 

o o o 

exhibited in Fig. lUO, which represents a rude instrument from 
Western Australia, now in my collection, engraved in the Arc/i(eo- 
logia} It is hammer-like at one end, axe-like at the other, and 
is formed of either one or two roughly chipped pieces of basalt- 
like stone entirely un ground, and secured in a mass of resinous 




Fig. 106.— Hatchet— Western Australia. 

gum, in which the handle is inserted. In most implements of 
this kind there appear to be two separate stones used to form 
the double blade, and these are sometimes of different kinds of 
rock. It would seem that the shaft, either cleft or uncleft, 
passed between them, and that the stones, when bound with 
string to hold them in their places, were further secured with a 
mass of the gum of the Xanthorrho'd or grass-tree.* 

Such a method of hafting cannot, I think, have been in general 
use in this country-, for want of the necessary cementing material, 
though, from discoveries made in Scandinavia, it would appear 
that a resinous pitch was in common use for fixing bronze imple- 
ments to their handles ; so that the practice may also have applied 
to those of stone. In the Swiss Lake-dwellings, bitumen was 
used as a cement for attaching stone to wood. In the case of the 
axes of the Indians on the Piiver Napo,^ Ecuador, the binding of 

1 " Kahun," pi. xvi. " Illahun," pi. vii. 

2 "Medum " (1892), Frontisp. 14, p. 31. 

* Vol. xxxiv. p. 172. See also Wood, " Nat. Hist, of Man," vol. ii. p. 32. 

' Bonwick's "Daily Life of the Tasmanians," p. 44 ; Trans. Etlniol. Soc, N. S.. 
vol. iu. p. 267. Several specimerus are figured in Ratzel, " Viilkerk," vol. ii. p. 46 

* See Arc/i. per VAnth. e laEtn., vol. xxv., 189;5, p. 283. 



MODKRN METHODS OF HAKTING AXES. 171 

tlie blades, which are formed with lup^s like those of Guiana, is 
covered with a thick coating formed of bees- wax and mastic. 

Besides those that were hafted as axes or adzes, it seems 
probable that not a few of the implements known as celts may 
have been for use in the hand as cutting tools, either mounted 
in short handles or unmounted. There can be but little doubt that 
the tools. Fig. 83 and 83a, were thus used in the hand, as also the 
implement with a depression on each face (Fig. 87), and that with 
the notches at the side (Fig. 89) ; and they can hardly have been 
unique of their kind. 

Dr. Lukis,^ indeed, at one time expressed an opinion that the 
stone celt was not intended to be secured " in a handle, but was 
held in the hand and applied to particular uses which are not now 
evident, but to which neither the hammer nor the hatchet were 
applicable." But in the face of the fact that numerous handles 
have since been found, such an opinion is no longer tenable 
except in a very limited sense. 

Among modern savages we have instances of similar tools being 
used in the hand without the intervention of any haft, giving a 
form much like that of Fig. 83a, though among the Australians 
the butt-end is sometimes enveloped in a mass of resinous matter, 
so as to form a knob which fits the hand. According to Prinz 
Neuwied,^ the Botocudos used their stone blades both unmounted 
in the hand and hafted as hatchets. The South Australians ^ and 
Tasmanians^ likewise use celts in a similar manner. 

There are cases in which the hatchet and haft have been formed 
from one piece of stone. Such a one, of chloritic stone, found in 
a mound in Tennessee,^ is in outline like Fig. 92, and has a small 
loop for suspension at the end of the handle. Mr. Cursiter, of 
Kirkwall, has an instrument of the same kind from Orkney, 
formed of hard slate. In extreme length it measures 9j inches. 
It cannot, however, be assigned to a very early date. For a 
comparison of celts from different countries Westropp's " Prehis- 
toric Phases " ^ may be consulted. 

With regard to the uses to which these instruments were 
applied, they must have been still more varied than the methods 
of mounting, which, as we have seen, adapted them for the pur- 
poses of hatchets and adzes ; while, mounted in other ways, or 

' Vroc. Soc. A)it., Ist s. vol. ii. p. 305. 

- Quoted by Klemm, " C. G.," vol. i. p. 268. 

» Journ. Eth. Soc, vol. ii. p. 109, fig. 7. * Nat. vol. x. p. 173. 

* " Smithsonian Contributions," 1876, p. 46. " (London, 1872) pi. ii. p. 66. 



172 POLISHED CELTS. [cHAP. VI. 

uumoiinted, they may have served as wedges, chisels, and knives. 
The purposes which similar instruments serve among modern 
savages must be much the same as those for which the stone celts 
found in this country were employed by our barbarian prede- 
cessors. An admirable summary of the uses to which stone 
hatchets — the " Toki " of the Maori — are, or were applied in 
Xew Zealand, has been given by Dr. W^. Lauder Lindsay.^ They 
were used chietiy for cutting down timber, and for scooping 
canoes * out of the trunks of forest trees ; for dressing posts for 
huts ; for grubbing up roots, and killing animals for food ; for 
preparing firewood ; for scraping the flesh from the bones when 
eating, and for various other purposes in the domestic arts. But 
they were also employed in times of war, as weapons of offence 
and defence, as a supplementary kind of tomahawk. 

For all these purposes stone celts must also have been em- 
ployed in Britain, and some may even have been used in agricul- 
ture. "We can add to the list at least one other service to which 
they were appKed, that of mining in the chalk in pursuit of 
flint, as the raw material from which similar instruments might 
be fashioned. 

1 Froc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. v. p. 327. See also E,. Brough Smyth, " Aborig. of 
Victoria," vol. i. p. 357. 

^ It is, however, to be observed that among the North American Indians fire was 
the great agent employed in felling trees and in excavating canoes, the stone hatchet 
being called in aid principally to remove the charred wood. — Schoolcraft, " Ind. 
Tribes," vol. i. p. 75. 



173 



CHAPTER VII. 



PICKS, CHISELS, GOUGES, ETC. 

I NOW come to several forms of implements which, though ap- 
proximating closely to those to which the name of celts has been 
applied, may perhaps be regarded with some degree of certainty 
as forming a separate class of tools. 
Among these, the long narrow form to 
which, for want of a better name, that of 
"Picks" has been given, may be first 
described. It is, however, hard to draw 
a line between them and chisels. 

An idea of the prevailing form will be 
gathered from Fig. 107, which represents 
a specimen in my own collection fonnd at 
Great Easton, near Dunmow, Essex, and 
given me by Colonel A. J. Copeland, F.S.A. 
Its siu'faces are partially ground, especially 
towards the upper end, which appears to have 
been pointed, though now somewhat broken. 
The lower end is chipped to a rounded outline, 
but this end is not ground, and the outer or 
more convex face of the implement, in one 
part shows the original crust of the flint. 

In the Fitch Collection is a finer and 
more symmetrical sj)ecimen of the same kind 
from North Walsham. It is 7^- inches long, 
rather more than 1 inch wide, and f inch 
thick. It is polished nearly all over, both 
faces are ridged, so that it is almost rhom- 
boidal in section, though the angles are 
rounded ; one face is curved lengthways 
much more than the other, which is nearly 
straight. At one end it is ground to a semi- 
circular edge, but at the other it is merely 
chipped, and stiU shows part of the original crust of the flint. Another 
implement of this character, but lli inches long, and 2/; inches wide 
in the broadest ])art, was found at Melbourn, ' Cambridgeshire, and 
was in the collection of the late Lord Braybrooke. 
* Arch. Journ., vol. xvii. p. 170. 




107.— Great Easton. 



174 



PICKS, CHISELS, GOUGES, ETC. 



[chap. VII. 



:'!:, 



I have seen another nearly 6 inches long, but little polished, and 
almost oval in section, which was found at Melton, near AVoodbridge, 
Suffolk. This also is blunt at one end, and ground to a semicircular 
edge at the other. A fragment of a tool of this class, found near 
Maidenhead, is in the Geological ^luseum in Jerinyn Street. Another, 
more roughly chipped out and but partially polislied, was found on 
Mount Harry, near Lewes, and is preserved in the Miiseum in that 
town. It is narrow at one end, where it is ground to a sharp edge. 

The late Mr. H. Durden, of Blandford, had another, found on 
Iwerne Minster Down, Dorset, 5 J inches long and 1]- inches broad, 
more celt-like in type. One face is more convex than the other ; the 
sides are sharp, and one end is squarer than the other, which comes to 
a rounded point. 

In my own collection is one of oval section (o inches), polished nearly 
all over, from Burwell Fen, Cambridge ; another (4f inches), much, 
polished on the surface, is from the Thames at Twickenham. A third, 

from Quy Fen, Cambridge (4f inches), is 
rather broader in its proportions, and of 
pointed oval section. A fourth, from 
Bottisham Fen (4^ inches), has a narrow 
segmental edge, and is rounded at the 
butt, where it is slightly battered. These 
may perhaps be regarded as chisels. 

In the Greenwell Collection is what 
appears to be a fragment of a chisel, still 
about 4 inches long, found at Northdale, 
Bridlington. The same form of implement 
is found in France. I have a fragment of 
one which was found by M. Dimpre, of 
Abbeville, in the old encampment known 
as the Camp de Cesar, near Pontremy. 

In the case of some very similar imple- 
ments of flint from Scandinavia it is the 
broad end that is usually sharp, though 
some are entirely unground. 

Occasionally these implements occur in 
this country in the same unpolished con- 
dition, like Fig. 108, from the neighbour- 
hood of Bury St. Edmunds. This also 
presents on the more highly ridged face 
the same curvature in the direction of its 
length as is to be observed on the polished 
specimens, and the pointed end seems the 
sharper and the better adapted for use. 
I have a fine unground specimen (6 
inches) from Feltwell, Norfolk, and anotlier (4 A- inclies) from Chart 
Farm, Ightham, Kent, given to me by Mr. B. Harrison. 

Unfortunately there are no indications by which to judge of the 
method of hafting such instruments. It appears probable, however, 
that the broader end may have been attached at the end of a handle, 
like those in Fig. 104, and that the tool was a sort of narrow adze or 
pick, adapted for working out cavities in wood, or it may be for 



'.1^- 



J 




Fig. 108.— Bill \ .'-t. l..lmunds. J 



SMALL HAND CHISEL!*. 



175 



grubbing in the ground. Some rough instruments of this character 
are found in Ireland,' but are usually more clumsy in their proportions 
than the English specimens that I have figured. They are often of a 
sub-triangular section, and pointed at one or both ends, though rarely 
ground. I have, however, a tapering pointed tool of black chert, and 
belonging to the same class of implements, found in Lough Neagh.^ 
It appears adapted for boring holes in leather or other soft substances. 
A ver}' remarkable implement belonging to the same group is shown 
in Fig. 109. It was found in the Fen country near Bui'well, Cam- 
bridge, and was given me by the late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.Gr.S. At 
the broad end it is much like the instruments just described. A portion 
of both faces has been polished, the sides have been rounded by 
grinding, and though it has been chipped to an edge at the broad end, 
this also has been rendered blunt in the same manner, possibly with 





Fig. 109.— Burwell. 



Fig. nn.— Xear Bridlincrton. 



the view of preventing it from cutting the ligaments by which it was 
attached to a handle. The narrow end is ground to a chisel edge, 
which is at right angles to that of the broad end. In form and 
character this chisel end is exactly like that of a narrow " cold chisel " 
of steel, in use by engineers. Whether it was used as a narrow adze 
or axe, or after the manner of a chisel, it is difficult to sa}'. 

Fig. 1 10 is .still more chisel-like in character. It is of flint weathered 
white, but stained in places by iron-mould, from having been brought 

' WUde, " Cat. Mus. R. I. A.," p. 27. 
* Archaologia, vol. xli. p. 402, pi. xviii. 7. 



17(3 



PICKS, CHISELS, GOUGES, ETC. 



[chap. 



Vll. 



in contact with modem agricultural implements, while lying on the 
surface of the ground. It was found at Charleston, near Bridlington. 
It is imground except at the edge, where it is very sharp, and at 
one or two places along the sides, where slight projections have 
been removed or rounded off by grinding. The butt-end is truncated, 
but is not at all battered, so that if a hammer or mallet was used with 
it, without the intervention of a socket or handle, it was probably of 
wood. I have another specimen of rather smaller size from the same 
locality. It is, however, of porphyritic greenstone, and the butt-end, 
instead of being truncated, has been chipped to a comparatively sharp 
edge, which has subsequently been partially rounded by grinding. If 
used as a chisel at all. this implement must have been inserted in a 
socket. 

Mr. H. Durden had a chisel of the same character found at Hod 
Hill, Dorset, 5^ inches long, and If inches broad, with the sides ground 
straight. 

The Greenwell Collection contains a flint chisel of this form 5 inches 
long and ^ inch broad, found near Icklingham, Suffolk. It is ground 
at the sides as well as at the edge. Another, 4 J inches long, in the 
same collection, was found at North Stow, Suffblk. There is also a 
small chisel of hone-stone, 2f inches long, found at Eudstone, near 
Bridlington, and another 3f inches long, of subquadi'ate section, 
found in a barrow at Cowlam,^ Yorkshire. 

The form occurs in France. A beautiful chisel (7 inches), polished 
all over, and brought to a narrow edge at either end, was fotmd in the 
Camp de Catenoy (Oise).'- It is nearly round in 
section. Another, of dark jade-like material 
(4 inches), polished all over, was obtained from 
a dolmen at Pornic^ (Loire Inferieure). 

There are occasionally found some small chisels 
apparently intended for holding in the hand, as if 
for carving wood. One of these, from Dalton, 
on the Yorkshire Wolds, and in the collection 
of Messrs. Mortimer, is shown in Fig. 111. It 
is of grey flint, sHghtly curved longitudinally, 
nearly semicirciilar in section, with the side angles 
rounded, the butt trimcated, but all its sharp angles 
worn or ground away, and with a cu-cular edge 
slightly gouge-like in character. It has been 
ground transversely or obliquely on both faces, but 
the stricb from the grinding are at the edge longi- 
tudinal. I have a nearly similar tool from AVest 
Stow, Suffolk (oj inches), and one from the neigh- 
bourhood of Bridlington, Yorkshire, but the butt- 
end is broken. 

Another flint chisel, from the same neighbourhood, 3i inches long 
and I inch wide, in my collection, presents the peculiarity of having 
the butt-end ground to a sharp narrow semicircular edge, the principal 
edge at the other end being broader and less curved. There can be 

' " Brit. Barrows," pp. 22.5, 396. 

- " Le Camp de Catenoy," N. Ponthieux, Beauvais, 1872, pi. v. i. 

' Parenteau, " Invent. Archeol.," 1878, pi. i. 2. 




Fig. 111.— Dalton, York- 
shire. J 



SMALL HAND tlllSELS. 



177 



little doubt of this having been merel}' a hand tool. A portion of the 

■edge at the narrow end is worn away as if by scraping bone or some- 
thing equally hard. This wearing away does not extend to the end of 

the tool. Another specimen from Yorkshire is in the Blackmore 

Museum.' 

A chisel from Suffolk,- ground at both ends, has been figured. 

The implement shown in Fig. 112 appears to belong to this same 

class of tools, though closely resembling some of those which will 

hereafter be described as " arrow-flakers," from 

which it differs only in not showing any signs of 

being worn away at the ends. It is of flint 

neatly cliipped, and was foimd at Helperthorpe, 

Yorkshire. I have another of the same form, 

but a trifle longer, found by Mr. AV. "Whitaker, 

F.E.S., near Baldock, Herts. Neither of them 

shows any traces of grinding. 

A similar chisel of flint, square at the edge, 

and found near Londinieres^ (Seine Infcrieui-e), 

is engraved by the Abbe Cochet. 

Implements, which can without hesitation be 

classed as chisels, are rare in Ireland, though 

long narrow celts approximating to the chisel 

form are not uncommon. These are usually of 

clay-slate, or of some metamorphic rock. I 

have, however, specimens of oval section not 

more than an inch wide, and as much as 5 inches 

long, with narrow straight edges, which seem 

to be undoubtedly chisels. I do not remember 

to have seen a specimen in flint, those described by Sir W. Wilde * 

being more celt-like in character. 

Narrow chisels, occasionally 10 and 12 inches long, and usually 
scj^uare in section, and either polished all over or merely ground at the 
■edge, are of common occurrence in Denmark and Sweden.-^ They are 
sometimes, but more rarely, oval in section. 

In Germany and Switzerland the form is scarce, but one from the 
Sigmaringen district is engraved by Lindenschmit,® and a Swiss speci- 
men, in serpentine, by Perrin.' 

Some of the small celts found in the Swiss lakes appear to havebeen 
rather chisels than hatchets or adzes, as they were mounted in sockets*' 
bored axially in hafts of stag's horn. In some instances the hole Avas 
bored transversely through the piece of horn, but even then, the tools 
are so small that they must have been used rather as knives or drawing 
chisels than as hatchets. Chisels made of bone are abundant in the 
Swiss Lake-settlements. They are also plentiful in some of the caverns 
in the French Pyrenees, which have been inhabited in Neolithic times. 
Several have also occurred in the Gibraltar caves. 




112. — Helperthorpe. 



" Flint Chips," p. 76. ^ p,.^^ g,i^-^ j^^f j,-c/,., vol. ^■iL p. 209. 

" Seine Inf.," 'Ind cd., p. 528. •• " Cat. Mus. R. I. A.," p. 27. 

Worsaae, "Nord. Olds." Nos. 20, 22 ; Nilsson, ♦' Stone Age," pi. vi. 127. 

" Hoheuz. Saniml.," Taf. xliii. .5. 

" Etude Prehist. sur la Savoie," 1869, pi. ii. 4. 

Desor, "Palafittes," p. 23, &g. 19. 

N 



178 



PICKS, CHISELS, GOUGES, ETC. 



[chap. VII. 




Among tlie Maories of New Zealand small hand-chisels of jade are 
used for carving -wood and for other purposes. They are sometimes 
attached to their handles by a cmiously inter- 
twined cord.^ and sometimes by a more simple 
binding. For the sketch of that shown in 
Fig. 113, I am indebted to the late Mr. Gay. 
The original is in the British Museum.- It will 
be observed that the end of the handle, which has 
been battered in use, is tied round with a strip of 
bark to prevent its spUtting. The blade seems 
to rest against a shoidder in the handle, to which 
it is firmly bound by a cord of vegetable fibre. A 
stone chisel from S. E. Bolivia^ is mounted in 
the same fashion, but the blade is shorter. The 
stone chisels in use in ancient times in Britain 
were, when hafted at all, probably mounted in a 
somewhat analogous manner. 

Consideriiig the great numbers of gouges 
or hollow chisels of flint which have been 
found ia Denmark and Sweden, their extreme 
rarity in Britain is remarkable. It seems 
possible that the celts with an almost semi- 
circular edge, some of which, when the two 
faces of the blade are not equally convex, are 
of a gouge-like character, may have answered 
the same purpose as gouges. It is to be 
observed that this class of celts is scarce in 
Denmark, where gouges are abundant ; but 
possibly the ancient inhabitants of that 
country may have been more of a canoe- 
forming race than those of Britain, so that, 
in consequence, implements for hollowing out 
the trunks of trees were in greater demand 
among them. The best-formed gouges discovered in England, 
have, so far as I am aware, been found in the Fen country, where 
it is probable that canoes would be in constant use. 

Two such, foimd in Burwell Fen, are preserved in the Museum of 
the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, one of which is shoAvn in Fig. 114. 
The other is rather smaller, being 5 J inches long and 1^ inches broad. 
They are entirely unpolished, with the sides nearly straight and sharp, 
and one face more convex than the other. At the butt-end they are 
truncated, or show the natural crust of the flint. The cutting edge at 

' Wood, "Nat. Hist, of Man," vol. ii. p. 201. 
- Nilsson. •' Stone Age." pi. vi. 129, p. 54. 
" ////. Arch. f. Ethn., toI. ii. p. 273. 



Fig 



113.— Xew Zealand 
Chisel. \ 



GOUGES KARE IN BRITAIN. 



179 



the other end is a^jproximately at riglit angles to the blade, and is 
chipped hollow, so that the edge is like that of a carpenter's gouge. 

In Fig. 114a, is shown a tine gouge of white flint in my own collec- 
tion. It was found in 1871 on the AVestleton Walks, Suffolk, and 
was ceded t(j me by Mr. F. Spalding. It has been most skilfully and 
symmetrically chipped out, but both the surface and the edge are left 





-A«t 





Fie. 114 — Burwoll. 



Fig. 114a.— Westleton "Walks. 



k 



entirely unground. What may be termed tlio front face is flatter than 
in the specimens last described. The cutting edge is more rounded. 

The next specimen, Fig. 115, is less decidedly gouge-like in 
character. It is of grey flint, and was in the collection of the late 
Mr. Caldecott, of Mead Street, having been found at Eastbourne, 
Sussex. The sides are sharp, but rounded towards the butt, "which is 
also round. A large flake has been taken lengthways off the hollow 
face, and it ma}* be mainly to this circumstance rather than to original 
design, that the gouge-like character of the implement is due. 

Most of the l)ani.«;h gouges have a rectangular section at the middle 
of the blade, and the Ijutt-end is usually truncated, and sometimes 

N 2 



180 



PICKS, CHISELS, GOUGES, ETC. 



[chap. Vll. 



shows marks of having been hammered, so that these implements 
were probably used without hafting and in conjunction with a mallet 
or hammer of wood or stag's horn. Another and rarer form of gouge 
with a sharp elliptical section, tapers to the butt, and may have been 
used for paring away charred surfaces without the aid of a mallet. 
Some small examples of this class show, however, polished markings, 
as if from having been inserted in handles. 

Under the head of gouges I must comprise a few of those celt-like 
implements already mentioned, which, without being actually ground 
hollow, yet, bv having one of their faces much flatter transversely than 
the other, present at the edge a gouge-like appearance, somewhat 




Fig. 115. — Easttonme. I 

after the manner of the "round-nosed chisels " of engineers. One of 
these was discovered in a barrow on Willerby TTold.^ Yorkshire, by 
Canon Greenwell, F.E.S., though it was not associated with any burial. 

It is shown in Fig. 116, and is formed of a light green hone-stone, 
carefully ground and even polished, and presents a beautifully regular 
and sharp cutting edge. It would appear to have been intended for 
mounting as a hollow adze rather than as a gouge, and would when 
thus mounted have formed a useful tool for hollowing canoes, or for 
other similar pui'poses. 

In the Greenwell Collection is also another implement of the same 
•chara<?ter and material, but smaller, being 4 inches long and 2f inches 

1 "Brit Barrows," p. 181. 



BASTARD GOUGES. 



181. 



broad. It was found at Ganthorpe, Yorkshire. The sides in this 
case are flat. 

The implement shown in Fig. 117 has, when the convex face is 
seen, much tlie same appearance as Fig. 08. The other face, however, 
is slightly hollowed towards the middle longitudinally, and is nearly 
flat transversely, so that the edge presents a gouge-like appearance. 
It was found at Iluntow, near Bridlington, and is in my own col- 
lection. The material is greenstone, the surface of which is somewliat 




Fig-. U7. 



i 



Fig. 116.— Willerby Wuld. ^ 

decomposed, and seems in places to have been scratched by the plough 
or the harrow. 

A considerable number of gouges of this bastard kind have been 
found in Ireland, and I have figured one from Lough Neagh.' A few 
of the Irish celts are actually hollowed at the edge, so as to become 
more truly gouge-like in character. 

Besides occurring in abundance in Scandinavia, gouges, properly 
80 called, are also found in Northern Germany and Lithuania. They 
also occur in Russia,'- Finland, and Western Siberia, and even in Japan 
and Cambodia. 

^ Arch., vol. xli. pi. xviii. 10. 

- Mem. Hoc. li. des Ant. da Xord, 1872-77, p. 105. Zeilsch.f. Eth. vol. xix. \\ 413. 



182 P1CK:S, CHISELS, GOUGE;^, ET( . [cHAP. VII. 

One of flint. 5 indies long', from tte neig-hbourhood of Beauvais 
(Oise\ is in the Blackmore Museum. The ^ame form has also been 
found in Portugal^ and Algeria. - 

A stone implement.^ " a square chisel at one end and a gouge at tl»e 
other," -was foimd in one of the Gibraltar caves. 

In North America.^ including Canada and Newfoundland, gouges 
formed of other varieties of stone than flint are by no means un- 
common, and among the Caribs of Barbados, where stone was not 
to be procured, we find gouge-like instruments formed from the 
colnmclh of the large Siromhis gigc^- On the western coast of North 
America, mussel-shell adzes are still preferred by the Ahts* to the 
best English chisels, for canoe-making purposes. 

Some narrow bastard gouges, almost semicircular on one face and 
flat transversely on the other, but not hollowed, have been found 
in the Swiss Lake-settlements. I have one of diorite, of inches 
long and 1 inch broad, from Sipplingen. The butt is roughened as 
if for insertion in a socket. A similar foi-m is found in Germany. 
I have a specimen 9^ inches long found in the neighbourhood of 
Mainz. 

A bastard form of gouge, mounted as an adze, is in use in the 
Solomon Islands. One tied to its haft with rattan is in the Christy 
Collection. 

^ Cartailhac," Ages preh. de I'Esp. et du Port.."' p. 91. 
- Trans. Ethn. Soc. N. S.. vol. vii. p. 47. 
3 Trans. Freh. Cong., 1S68. p. 130. 

* Schoolcraft, "Indian Trih»es," vol. iv. p. 175. 

* Sproat, " Scenes and Studies of Savage Life.' p. 316. 



183 



CHAPTER VIII. 

PERFORATED AXES. 

I NOW come to a very important class of antiquities, the stone 
axes and axe-hammers with a hole for the insertion of a shaft, 
like the ordinary axes and hammers of the present day. As to the 
method by which these shaft-holes were bored, I have already 
spoken in a previous chapter. I have also mentioned that many 
of them appear to belong to a time when bronze was already in 
use, at all events for knife-like daggers, and that they have in 
many countries shared with the more simply- formed celts the 
attribution of a heavenly origin as thunderbolts, together with 
the superstitious reverence due to their supernatural descent. 
I have, therefore, but little here to add beyond a classification and 
description of the various forms ; but I may mention that the 
name by which such implements were " popularly known in 
Scotland almost till the close of last century was that of the 
Purgatory Hammer," buried with its owner that he might have 
the wherewithal " to thunder at the gates of Purgatory till the 
heavenly janitor appeared."^ 

They are for the most part made from metamorphic or volcanic 
rocks, and occasionally from quartzite, but I have never seen a 
British perforated axe made from ordinary flint, though hammers 
of this material are known. Stukeley,'^ indeed, mentions that 
in cleansing the moat at Tabley, near Knutsford, "they found an 
old British axe, or some such thing, made of large flint, neatly 
ground into an edge, with a hole in the middle to fasten, into a 
handle ; it would serve for a battle-axe." Stukeley was probably 
mistaken as to the material ; but there are in the Museum at 
Copenhagen one or two flint axes ground to an edge, the shaft- 

1 Wilson, "Preh. Ann. of Scot.," vol. i. p. 191; Arch. Scot., vol. i. p. 291. 
* " Itin. Curios.," 2nd. ed., vol. i. p. 57- 



184 PERFORATED AXES. [CHAP. VI II. 

holes in which are natural, and no doubt led to the stones being 
selected for the purpose to which they were applied. An artifici- 
ally-perforated French specimen will subsequently be mentioned. 
Flints both naturally and artificially perforated, have also been 
occasionally converted into hammers and maces. 

In Scandinavia and Northern Germany, perforated axes and 
axe-hammers are frequently known as Thor's hammers, 
as already mentioned,^ and some authors have maintained 
that they were in use for warhke purposes so late as eight or 
ten centuries after our era. Kruse," however, has urged that 
though found in the neighbourhood of graves of the Iron Age in 
Livonia and Courland, they are never found in the graves them- 
selves, and that their use is not mentioned in any ancient 
histories. 

The principal forms may be classified as follows : — 
1. Double-edged axes, or those with a cutting, or but slightly 
blunted edge at either end. 

2. Adzes, or implements with the edge at right angles to the 
shaft-hole. 

3. Axes with the edge at one end only, the hole being near 
the other end, which is rounded. These shade off into — 

4. Axe-hammers sharp at one end, and more or less hammer- 
like at the other, the shaft-hole being usually near the centre. 

To the weapons of the first of these classes the name of Ama- 
zon Axe has been applied by Professor Xilsson ; ^ but the 
Scandinavian axes expanding considerably at the cutting ends, 
resemble the Amazonia securis of classical sculpture more than do 
the English specimens. 

Fig. 118 represents a beautifully formed axe of the first class, in 
my own collection. It is of greenstone, and was found near Him- 
manby, Yorkshire. The two sides are concave longitudinally, so that 
it expands towards the edges. They are also sHghtly concave trans- 
versel}-. The angles are rounded, and the edges are blunt, especially 
that at the shorter end. The shaft-hole is oval, and tapers slightly 
from each end towards the middle. It woiild appear to have been 
worked out with some sort of chisel, and to have been afterwards made 
smootlier bv grindino:. 

A broader weapon of granite, expanding more at the ends (Scinches) 
was found in the Tay.^ near Xewbvirgh, Fife. A flatter specimen of 
porphyiitic stone 4 inches) was found on the shore of Cobbinshaw 
Loch,5 TVest Calder, Midlothian, in 1885. 

^ P. 58. - " Necrolivonica," Beil. C, p. 23; and Xachtrag, p. 20. 

' " Stone Age," p. 71. * Froc. See. Ant. Scot., vol. x-viii. p. 310. 

* P. S. A. S., vol. xxiv. p. 277. 



SHARP AT BOTH ENDS. 



185 



A specimen of nearly the same type, found near Uelzen, Hanover, 
is engraved by von Estorlf ; ' another from Sweden, by Sjclborg.- 

In the Museum at Geneva is a very similar axe of greenstone (5^ 
inches), found in the neighbourhood of that town. One of serpentine, 
much longer in its proportions (9;^ inches), and with an oval shaft-hole. 




Fig. lis.— Iluiuuaiiby. J 

is in the Museum at Lausanne. It was found at Agiez, Canton de 
Vaud. 

In the Collections ^ published by the Sussex Archfeological Society 
is a figure, obligingly lent to me, of a beautiful axe-head of this class 
(Fig. 119) found with the remains of a skeleton, an amber cup (Fig. 
307), a whetstone (Fig. 18G), and a small bronze dagger with two rivet 
holes, in an oaken coffin in a barrow at Ilove, near Brighton. The 

» " Heidnischo Alterthiimer," 1846, pi. vi. 16. - Vol. ii. fig. 144. 
^ Vol. i.x. p. r20. See Arch. Joiini., vol. xiii. p. 184, aiid vol. xv. p. 90. 



186 



TERFORATED AXES, 



[chap. VIII. 



axe-liead is said to be formed of some kind of ironstone, and is 5 inches 
long. The hole is described as neatly drilled. A weapon of the same 
kind (3i inches) blunter at the ends and described as a hammer, was 
found with a deer's-horn hammer, and a bronze knife in a barrow at 
Lambourn, Berks. ^ A small black stone axe-head of nearly similar 
form was found near the head of a contracted skeleton at a depth of 
12 feet in a barrow in Eolston Field, "Wilts.- A somewhat similar 
specimen, with the sides faceted and blunt at one end, has been en- 
graved as having been found in Yorkshire.^ It is, however, doubtful 
whether, like many other objects in the same plate, it is not foreign. 
The original is now in the Christj^ Collection. 

A double-edged axe-head of basalt, injured by fire, and 4h inches 
long, was foimd by the late Mr. Bateman, in a large urn with calcined 
bones, bone pins, a tubular bone laterally perforated, a flint " spear- 
head," and a bronze awl, in a barrow near Throwley, Derbyshire.* 
This was the only instance in which he found a perforated stone axe 
accompanying an interment by cremation. 

An axe-head of basalt, with a double edge to cut either way, was 
also dug up in the neighbourhood of Tidpswell, Derbyshire.'^ 




Fig. 119.— How. 



A specimen of this kind (5 inches), edged at both ends, but "the 
one end rather blunted and lessened a little by use." was found near 
Grimle}-, "Worcestershire, and is figured by Allies.'' 

I have a specimen (5|- inches), much weathered, which is said to have 
come from Bewdley in that county, but which maybe that from Grrimley. 

An example, 5 inches long, engraved in the Salisbury volume ' of 
the Archfeological Institute, from a barrow on "Windmill Hill, Abury, 
"Wilts, is described as double-edged.** 

The Danish and German axe-heads of this form have usually, but 
not always, one edge much more blunted than tlie other. Occasionally 
there is a ridge on each side at the blunt end, which shows that this 
thickening was intentional. A fine double-edged axe-head of this 
form from Brandenburg is engraved in the "Horse Ferales."^ The 
■double-edged form is found also in Finland.^" 

The form likewise occurs in France, but the faces are usually flatter. 
I have one from the Seine at Paris (5^ inches). Another from the 



^ Greenwell, in Arch., vol. lii. p. 60. 
^ Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xx. pi. \]i. 1. 
° " Veet. of Ants, of Derbyshire," p. 7. 
^ "Ants, of Worcestershire," pi. iv. 8 and 9. 
' Arch. Jounu, vol. vii. p. 899. 
'" Aspelin, " Ant. du Nord Finno-Ougrien," No 



- Hoare's " Soutli "Wilts," p. 174. 
■* "Ten Years' Diggings," p. lo5. 

'' P. 108, No. 4. 
9 PI. iii. 9. 



EXPANDING AT ONE END. 187 

<lopartment of the Tliarente is engraved by de Eochebrune ; ' and a third 
from the department of Seine et Oise is in the Musee de St. Germain. - 
A fine example of the same form is in the Museum at Tours, and another 
in that of Blois. In the collection of M. Eeboux'' was a curious imple- 
ment from the Seine, formed of flint, pointed at each end, and per- 
forated in the middle. Another, in flint, from Mesnil en Arronaise* 
(Somme) (8i inches), has been figured. The perforations may be 
natural, though improved by art. In my own collection is one of 
the finest specimens that I have ever seen. It is also from the 
Seine at Paris. It is 9.^' inches long, and slightly curved in the direc- 
tion of its length ; on either side there is a long sunk lozenge, in the 
centre of which is the cylindrical shaft-hole, and the ends expand into 
flat semicircular blades about 2| inches across. The material is a 
hard basaltic rock,' and the preservation perfect. It was found in 1876. 

A stone axe in the Museum of the Eoyal Institution at Swansea, 
and found at Llanmadock, in Gower, has been kindly lent me for en- 
graving, and is shown in Fig. 120. It expands at the sharper end 
much more suddenly and to a mucli greater extent than does that from 
ITunmanby. The edge at that end, which is almost semicircular in 
outline, has suffered from ill-usage since it was discovered ; the 
material of which it is made being felspathic ash, the surface of which 
has become soft by decomposition. The other and narrower end is 
flattened to about half an inch in width. The implement has already 
been engraved on a smaller scale. '^ 

In Bartlett's "History and Antiquities of Manceter, "Warwick- 
shire,'"^ is engraved an axe of the same character as this, but expand- 
ing at the bhmter end almost as much as it does at the edge, which is 
described as being very sharp. It is said to have been formed of the 
hard blue stone of the country, but "from age or the soil in which it 
has lain " to be "now coloiu-ed with an elegant olive-coloured patina." 
It was found on Hartshill Common, in 1770, where a small tumidus had 
been cut through, "the bottom of which was paved with brick, which 
by the heat of the fire had been nearly vitrified." There is probably 
some mistake as to the bricks. 

Another axe-head like Fig. 120, 8 inches in length, and more dis- 
tinctly hammer-like at the narrow end, was found in the parish of 
Abernethy, Perthshire, and has been engraved by Wilson." 

In character these axes with expanded ends more nearly resemble 
some of the Scandinavian and North German types than do most of 
the other British forms. Broken stone axes expanding at the edge 
have been found on the site of Troj'. 

In the Museum of the Leeds Philosophical Society is a double-edged 
axe-head of a larger and coarser kind, which is said to have been 
found near Whitb}'. Its authenticity was strongly vouched for by 
the late ^Ir. Denny, but I fear that it is a modern fabrication. 

An implement of the same foi-m, from Gerdauen, East Prussia, is 

' "Mem. BUT les Eestes d'Indust.," &c., 1866, pi. x. 12. 
- Mortillet, "Promenades," p. 146. 

' Cong.prih. Bologne, 1871, p. 101. Bo. Buda-Fcst, 1876, p. 87. "Mus. Preh.," 
No. 500. ./ . F . . y 

* Rev. Arch., 3rd S., vol. vii. p. 66. 

* Areh. Joi/rn., vol. iii. p. 67. " P. 17, pi. ii. 3. 
^ " Preh. Ann. of Scot.," vol. i. p. 193. 



188 



PEllFOKATED AXES. 



[CH.AI'. 



VIII. 



preserved in the Berlin M\iseum; and anotlier of greenstone was 
found at Hallstatt.' A singular variety from the same spot has the 
edge at one end at right angles to that at the other. 

A small sketch of a ver}- remarkable curved blade, pointed at one 
end and with an axe-hke edge at the other, is given in the Journal of the 
Arclueological Association.'- It is of greenstone, 11 inches long and 2h 
inches across, and was found in Guernse}-. By the kindness of the 
late Eev. W. C. Lukis, F.S.A., of Wath, I am enabled to give an 






Fig. 120.— Llanmadock. 

engraving of tlie tj-pe in Fig. 121. A number of 
found in the Channel Islands, to which the form 

The second class into which I proposed to 
ments consists of adzes, or blades having the 
to the shaft-hole. Apart from a short notice 
I believe that attention was for the first time 
edition of this book, to the occurrence of this 

1 Simony, "Alt. von Hall.statt," p. 9 ; Taf. vi. 3. 



specimens have been 
seems pecuhar. 

divide these imple- 
edge at right angles 
by Mr. Monkman, 
called in the former 
form in Britain. 
- Vol. iii. p. 128. 



roiNTED AT ONE END. 



189 



The specimen I liave selected for engraving, as Fig. 122, gives a 
good idea of the typical character. It is of greenstone, with the shaft- 
hole tapering inwards from both faces, one of which is less convex 
than the other. It was found at Fireburn Mill, near Coldstream, 
Berwickshire, and is in the Greenwell Collection. In tho same 




Fi''. 121. — Guciubev 



collection is another of similar character, but having the butt-end 
broken off and the edge more circular, found at Willerby Carr, in tlie 
East liiding of Yorkshire. 

I have a smaller specimen (42 inches), of a hard micaceous grit, 
found at Allerston, in the North Riding ; as also a remarkably fine 
and perfect adze of porphyritic greenstone (6' inches), ground to a 



lyo 



PERFORATED AXES. 



[chap. 



VIII. 



roimded edge at the butt, instead of being truncated like Fig. 122. 
Tlie shaft-hole, like that of all the others, tapers inwards from both 
faces, in this instance from If inch to f inch. This specimen was 
found at South Daltou, near Beverley. An adze or hoe of the same 
kind, found at Wellburj-,! near Oflie}', Herts, is in the collection of Mr. 
W. Eansom, F.S.A. 

Another implement of the same class (9 inches), flat on one face, and 




Fi?. 122.— Fireburn Mill, Coldstream. ^ 

much like Fig. 122, is in the National Museum at Edinburgh. It 
is of greenstone, much decomposed, and was found at Ormiston Abdie. 
Fife. A shorter specimen (3J inches) sharpened at each end, found 
at Sandwiek, Shetland, is in the fine collection of ^Ir. J. W. Cursiter, 
at Kirkwall. 

Another, in outline more like the celt Fig. 57, though sharp at 
the sides, is also in the GreenweU Collection. It is formed of red 

1 Trans. Herts. X<tt. Hist. Soc, vol. rai., 189G, p. 176. 



ADZE-LIKE IN CHARACTER. 



19L 



micaceous sandstone (6;^ inches), and was found at Scacldeton, in 
the Nortli Eidin^ of Yorkshire. A rough sketch of it has been 
published bj^Mr. Monkman.' In the same collection is another, rather 
narrower in its proportions, Ijeing 7h inches long and 3 inches broad, 
found at Pilmoor, as well as one 6 inches long and 2^ inches broad, 
found at Nunningt(jn. 

Another, !jh inches long, square at both ends, found near Whitby, 
is in the Museum at Leeds. 

The form is known in Denmark, but is rare. A more celt-shaped 
specimen is engraved b}' Worsaae.- He terms it a hoe {hakke), and it 
is, of course, possible that these instruments may have been used for 
digging purposes. 

Two short, broad hoes {hacken), of Taunus slate, found near Mainz, 
are given by Liudenschmit.'' Another is in the IMuseum at Bruns- 
wick. 

Some hoe-like, perforated stone implements from Mexico, are in the 
Ethnological Museum at Copenhagen. The so-called stone lioes of 
North America* are not perforated, though sometimes notched at the 
sides. Dr. Keller'' has suggested that a circular perforated disc from 
one of the Swiss Lake-settlements may have been a hoe. 

In the Museum of the Deutsche GeseUschaft at Leipzig, is a gi-een- 
stone implement resembling these 
adzes or hoes at its In-oader end, 
but at the other, instead of being 
square or rounded, presenting an 
axe-like edge. 

A narrow, thick adze of this 
character, flat on one face, rounded 
on the other, 4^ inches long, found 
at Scudnitz, near Schweinitz, 
Prussian Saxony, is in the Berlin 
Museum. A rather similar form 
has been found in Bohemia.® 

An intermediate form between 
a hammer and an adze will be 
subsequently described at p. 231. 

A small perforated adze in the 
Museum of the Cambridge Anti- 
quarian Society, Fig. 123, is more 
truly celt-like in character, and 
appears, indeed, to have been 
made from an ordinary celt by 

boring a shaft-hole through it. It is formed of a hard, green, slaty 
rock, and was found in Burwell Fen. I believe that another, but 
larger, specimen of the same type, was found in the same district in 
Swaffham Fen. 

The late Mr. G. W. Ormerod, F.G.S., brought under my notice another 

1 Joiirii. Ethiiol. Soc, vol. ii. pi. xvi. 14. 

2 "Nordiske Oldsafrer," No. 50. 

3 " Alterthiimer," vol. i. Heft ii. Taf. i. 10 and 12. 

* Smithsouiai) lieport, 1803, p. 379. 

* Anz. f. Schiv. Alt., 1870, p. 141. 

" Mitth. A,ith. r^cv. (/( Wien, vol. xxv. (1895) p. 39. 




Burwell Fen. 



192 PERFORATED AXES. [cHAP. vm. 

specimen found, in 1865, at North Bovev, Devon. It is of greenstone, 
about 3J inches long. The sides taper towards the butt-end, which is 
rounded, and the hole in the middle appears to be only about i inch 
in diameter, but bell-mouthed at each face. It is novr in the Museum 
at Exeter. Another (3^ inches) was found at Ugborough, Devon.^ 

The implement showTi in Fig. 124 seems to be an unfinished speci- 
men belonging to this class. It is formed of greenstone, portions of 
the natural joints of which are still visible on its surface. It seems 
to have been worked into shape by picking rather than by grinding ; 
but the hole appears, from the character of the surface, to have been 
ground. Had it been continued through the stone, it would probably 
have been considerably enlarged in diameter, and if so, the implement 






Fig. 124. — Stxjurton. 



would have been much weakened around the hole. It seems possible 
that it was on this account that it was left unfinished. It was found 
near Stourton, on the borders of Somerset and "Wilts. 

The third of the classes into which, for the sake of convenience, 
I have divided these instruments, consists of axe-heads with a 
cutting edge at one end only, the shaft-hole being near the other 
end, which is rounded. 

Fig. 125 represents an elegant specimen of this class, found at Bard- 
weU, in Suffolk, and formerly in the collection of Mr. Joseph Warren, 
of Ixworth, but now in my own. The material appears to be felstone. 
The edge is slightly rounded, the shaft-hole carefuUy finished, and 
the two faces ground hollow, probably in the manner suggested at p. 43. 

^ Tr. Dev. Astoe., vol. xxii. p. 44. 



CUTl'ING AT ONE END ONLY. 



193 



I have another made from a quartzite pebble (4f inches) with 
the sides hollowed transversely, but rounded longitudinally, found 
with an urn on Wilton Heath, near Brandon, in 1873. The blunt 
end is bruised and flattened by wear. I have a second, also of 
quartzite (5J inches), rounded in all directions, found near Ipswich, 
in 1865. It retains much of the form of the original pebble. 

In the ^Museum at Newcastle is preserved a specimen very similar to 
Fig. 125, of mottled greenstone, beautifully finished ; the sides aro, how- 






rig. 125.— Bardwell. ^ 

ever, flat and not hollowed. It is 6k inches long, the faces are rounded, 
and the hole, which is about ^ inch in diameter, tapers slightly towards 
the middle. It was found in the River "Wear at Sunderland. Another 
of the same character, formed from a beautifully veined stone, accom- 
panied a bronze dagger in a barrow near East Kennet, Wilts.' 

I have another axe of the same kind, with both sides flat, 6^ inches 
long, formed of porphyritic greenstone, and found near Colchester. 

1 Proc. Soc. A»t., -ind. S., vol. iv. p. 339. Arch., vol.xliii. p. 410. A. C. Smith's 
"Ant. of North Wilts.," p. 168. "Salisbury Vol. Arch. lust.," 1849, p. 110; 
Arch. Joiirn., vol. xiiv. p. 29. 

O 



194 



PERFORATEU AXES. 



[chap. VIII. 



Another, formed of basalt, 6;^ inches long, the sides slightly hollowed, 
from Chest erf ord, Cambridge,' was in the possession of the late 
Mr. Joshua Clarke, of Saffron Walden. 

Another, 5 inches long, was found in the Thames oif Parliament 
Stairs, and passed with the Eoach Smith Collection into the 
British Museum. One, 5 J inches long, from Cumberland, is in the 
Christy Collection. 

One of sandstone (4^ inches) was discovered at Northenden,'' 
Cheshire, in 1883. 

In the Greenwell Collection is one of greenstone, 6f inches long, 
found at Millfield, near Sunderland. The hole is somewhat oval, 
and tapers inwards from each side. There is also one of basalt, 4^ 
inches long, with an oval hole and slightly convex sides, from 
Holystone, Northumberland. The edge, as usual, is blunt. 

An axe-head of this kind, from a chambered timiulus or dolmen 
at Craigengelt, near Stirling, Scotland, is engraved by Bonstetten.^ 
One with flat sides (G| inches) was found in the Tay, near Mug- 
drum Island, Perth, ^ and another (7 inches) at 
Sorbie, "Wigtownshire.* 

Implements or weapons of this character 
occasionally occur in Ireland,^ but the sides are 
usually flat. 

The exact form is rare iu Denmark and North 
Germany. Lindenschmit' engraves a thin speci- 
men from Liineburg. It occurs also in Styria. 
A specimen from Lithuania, more square at the 
butt, is engraved b}' Mortillet.* I do not re- 
member to have met with it in France. 

In one of the barrows on Potter Brompton 
AYold,^ Yorkshire, explored by Canon Green- 
well, accompanying an interment by crema- 
tion, he found a beautifullj'-formed axe-head 
(if serpentine (?) the surface of which was 
in places scaling off from decomposition, arising 
from its having been partly calcined. A single 
view of it is given in Fig. 126. The hole is 
about IJ inches in diameter on each side, but 
rather smaller in the middle. The cutting edge 
has been rounded as well as the angles round 
the sides, but this process has been carried 
to a greater extent on one than the other; possibly this was the outer 
side. 

A somewhat similar, but rather broader, axe-head of basalt, 5;^^ 
inches long, was found by the late Mr. T. Batemau in a barrow called 
Carder Low,'" near Hartington, in company with a small bronze dagger, 
and near the elbow of a contracted skeleton. 

' Arch. Assoc. Jotirn., vol. xxv. p. 272. 

* Fr. Lane, and Ch. Arch. Soc, vol. xi. p. 172. 

^ " Essai 8ur les Dolmens," pi. iv. 1. * P. S. A. S., vol. viii. p. 264. 

5 P. S. A. S., vol. xxiii. p. 208. " Wilde, " Cat. Mus. R. I. A.," p. 79. 

' " Alt. u. H. v.," vol. i. Heft i. Taf. i. 18. 

* Materiaux, vol. i. p. 462. ' " Brit. Ban'ows," p. 158. 
10 "Vest. Ant.Derb.," p. 63. Cat., p. 6, No. V). 




Fig. 126.— Potter Brompton 
Wold. i 



USED AS BATTLE-AXES. 



195 



Another, expanding rather more at the edge, from a barrow in 
Devonsliire,* was in the Meyrick Collection. 

A somewhat similar axe-head, more rounded at the butt and rather 
more expanded at tlie cutting edge, was found in Annandale in 1870, 
and was described to me by the late Mr. Joseph Clarke, F.S.A. 

One of granite, much like Fig. 126, came to light in a cairn at Brec- 
kigoe," Caithness. 

In the same barrow at Eudstone,^ near Bridlington, as that in 
which the block of pyrites and flint scraper, subsequently to be des- 
cribed (Fig. 223), were found, but with a different interment. 
Canon Greenwell discovered the beautifully formed axe-hammor 
shown in Fig. 127. It is of very close-grained, slightl}'' micaceous 
grit, and presents the peculiarity of having the rounded faces slightly 
chamfered all round tlie Hat sides. The edge is carefully rounded, and 




i'ig. 127.— Kudstone. ?, 

the broad end somewhat flattened. It lay behind the shoulders 
of the skeleton of an old man lying on his left side, with his right 
hand on his head, and his left to his face. Before the face, was 
a bronze knife 4 inches long, with a single rivet to fasten it to its 
handle, and close to the axe-hammer lay a pointed flint flake re-chipped 
on both faces. In a barrow at Sledmere * with burnt bones lay a 
weapon of this kind battered at the blunt end. 

An axe-head (G;^ inches), with convex faces, rounded at the butt, 
and with an oval shaft-hole, was dredged from the Thames at London,* 
and is now in the British Museum. 

It seems almost indisputable that these elegantly formed axe-heads 
belong to the period when bronze was in use, and from their occurrence 
in the graves the}' appear to have formed part of the equipment of 
warriors. 



' Skelton's " Meyrick' s Armour," pi. xlvi. 3. 

* Froc. Soc. Ant. iScot., vol. xxLx. p. C. 

* Trans. E. R. Ant. Svc, vol. ii. 1894, p. 21. 

O 2 



3 " Brit. Banow.s," p. 266. 
* " Horte Ferales," pi. iii. 4. 



196 



PERFORATED AXES, 



[chap. VIII. 



The careful manner in wliich their edges are blunted shows 
that they cannot have been intended for cutting tools, but that they 
must have been weapons of war. A blow from a battle-axe with a 
blunted edge would be just as fatal as if the edge had been sharp and 
trenchant, while the risk of accidental injury to the scantily- clothed 
warrior who carried the axe was next to none when the edge of the 
weapon was thus blunted. The practice of removing the edge by 






Fig. 128.— BoiTOwash. 



i 



grinding was, no doubt, introduced in consequence |of some painful 
experience. 

Fig. 128 is of stiU more ornamental character, having a beaded 
moulding towards each edge of the faces and following the curvatiu-e 
of the sides. The drawing is taken from a cast in the Museum of the 
Society of Antiquaries, presented by Sir "W. Tite. M.P.' The original 
is said to have been found near Whitby. A fine axe-head " of red 
granite, ornamented with raised mouldings," was, however, foimd with 

' Proe. See. A„t., 2nd S., vol. ii. p. 295. 



ORNAMENTED ON THE FACES. 



197 



human bones near Borrowash, Derbyshire, in 1841/ and is in the 
Bateman Collection, now at Sheffield. To judge from the woodcut in 
the Catalogue, the cast must have been taken from this specimen. 

"A very elegant axe-head, 5 inches long, of reddish basalt, beauti- 
fully wrought, with a slight moulding round tlio nngles, and a perfora- 
tion for the sliaft," is described by Mr. Bateman- as having been 
found on a barrow eleven miles E. of Pickering, Yorkshire. 

Mouldings of various kinds occur on Danish and German axe- 
hammers of the Bronze Age,^ but this form of small axe with a 
rounded butt is of rare occurrence. The longitudinal line in relief 
which occurs on the sides of some German battle-axes^ has been regarded 
as an imitation of tlie mark left on bronze axes by the junction of 
the two halves of the mould. The small axe-heads from Germany^ 
are wider at the butt, and more like Figs. 118 and 120 in outline. 




Fig. 129.— Criehie, Aberdeenshire. 



The beautiful battle-axe, formed of fine-grained mica schi.st, found 
placed on bui-nt bones in a "Druidical" circle at Criehie, near 
Inverurie, Aberdeenshire,'' and presented by the Earl of Kintoreto the 
National Museum at Edinburgh, has deeply-incised lines round the 
margins of the hollow sides at the mouth of the shaft-hole. This 
weapon is 4 inches in length, and is considerably sharper at the 
broader end than at the other, though the edge is well rounded. For 
the loan of Fig. 129 I am indebted to the Society of Antiquaries of 
Scotland. In general character this specimen approximates to a some- 
what rare Irish form, shortly to be mentioned, of which I possess a 

^ "Vestiges of Ants, of Derbyshire," p. 7 ; Cat., No. 36 ; Brigg's "History of 
Melbourne," p. 15; Wright's "Celt, Eoman, and Saxon," p. 69. 

* "Ten Years' Diggings," p. 227. Cat., p. 25, No. 256. 

^ Worsaae, "Nord. Olds.," No. 109; Lindenschmit, "Alt. u. H. V.." vol. i. 
Heft iv. Taf. i. o, 6. 

* Zeitsch. /. Ethn., vol. xxiv., 1892, p. (178). 

* Lindenschmit, op. cit., vol. i. Heft i. Taf. i. 8, 9, and 10. 

6 rroc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. ii. p. 306; xviii. p. 319; " Cat. Arch. Inst. ilus. 
Ed.," p. 19 ; " Horaj Ferales," pi. iii. 20 ; " Sculpt. Stones of Scot.," vol. i. p. xx. ; 
AVilfion, "Preh. Ann. of Scot.," vol. i. pi. iii. 



198 PRRFOUATED AXES. [cHAP. VIIT. 

specimen. The battle-axe from the barrow at .Selivood, Fig. 140, is also 
slightly ornamented by lines on the sides, and that from Skelton 
Moors, Fig. 139. is fluted. 

Two axe-hammers of granite and greenstone (4J and 5 inches) of 
much the same type as Fig. 129, but more elongated, so as in form to 
resemble Fig. 13(3. were found near Ardrossan,' Ayrshire. 

An unfinished axe-head of the same kind was found at Middleton,- 
Stevenston, Ayrshire. 

An axe-head of porphyritic greenstone (7^ inches long), from 
Stainton Dale, near Scarborough.' is said to resemble in form an 
Irish axe-head engraved in the Ulster Journal of Archceology } If so. 
the sides through which the hole is bored were hollow, as in Fig. 129. 
and there was also a moulding round them. This Irish axe-head is 
formed of a kind of pale green hone-stone, and is now in the British 
Museum. Instead of incised lines there are raised flanges on each face, 
bordering the concave side in which is the shaft-hole. The length is 
b\ inches, and the butt-end is half an oval, just flattened at the end. 
It was found in the river Bann. 

Axe-heads of a much more clumsy character than any of those last 
described are of more frequent occurrence in this country. The one I 
have selected for illustration as Fig. 130. is rather small of its kind. It 
is made of greenstone, the surface of -which has considerably suffered 
from weathering, and was found in draining at Walsgrave-upon- 
Sowe. near Coventry. It was presented to my collection by the late 
Mr. J. S. "Wliittem, F.G.S. The shaft-hole, as usual, tapers inwards 
from buth sides ; its surface is more polished than that of the exterior 
of the implement. A small portion of the end of the butt is flat, but 
this appears due to accident rather than design. I have a rather 
longer axe-head, of porphyritic greenstone, which was washed out of 
the ground by a brook at Ayside, near Xewby Bridge, "Windermere, 
and was given to me by Mr. Harrison, of Manchester. It is consider- 
ably rounded in both directions at the butt, the edge is narrow, and 
one side, probably the outer, much more rounded than the other. The 
edge is carefully ground, but farther up the face, the surface shows 
that it has been picked into form. The shaft-hole is much like that of 
Fig. 130. 

I have another specimen from Plumpton, near Penrith (9i inches), 
rounded at the butt, but unsymmetrical, owing to a natural plane of 
cleavage interfering with the shape, and, as it were, taking off a slice 
of the stone. The shaft-hole is oval, the longer diameter being length- 
wise of the blade, and the edge is oblique. The sides are flatter than 
those of Fig. 130. In my collection are others from Mawbray and 
Inglewood Forest, Cumberland '7^ and 8 inches', and one '7 inches) 
from Cader Idris. Merionethshire. Another flO inches) was found at 
Llanfairfechan,' Carnarvonshire, another at Llanidloes, Olontgomery- 
shire, and a third in Anglesey.' The late Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt, F.S.A., 
had a flatter and longer specimen of this form (10 inches), found at 
Winster, Derbyshire. Implements of this character, but often approxi- 

> r. S. A. 5., vol. ix. p. 383, pi. xxii. ^ P. S. A. S., vol. xxi. p. 264. 

' Arch. Joum., vol. xii. p. 277. * Vol. iii. p. 234. 

* Arch. Camb., .5th S., vol. v. p. 170. « Jifoniff. Coll., vol. liv. p. 271. 
" Arch. JouDi., vol. xixi. p. 302. 



LARGE AND HEAVY. 



199 



mating in shape to Fig-. 131, have been found in considerable numbers, 
though as isolated specimens, in the North. One found in Aberdeen- 
shire (8i- inches long), of this class, but with the butt-end slightly 
hollowed, and having a well-marked shoulder on each face, as if by 
continual reduction by sharpening at the edge, is engraved in the 






W'\ 






Fig. laO.— Wnlsgrave-upon-Sowe. A 

Arvhaological Journal} One from Scotland- (10^ inches) was exhibited 
by the Marquis of Breadalbane at Edinburgh, in 1856, and one (12 
inches) from Alnwick.^ Others have been found at Tillicoiiltry Bridge,^ 
Clackmannan; Kelton,^Kircudbrightshiro ; in Wigtownshire" ; Silver- 

1 Vol. viii. p. 421. - " Cat. Arch. Inst., Mus., Ed." p. 6. 

3 Ibid., p. 45. ^ Arch. Scot., vol, iii., App., p. 121. 

' Froc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vo'. vii. p. 478. * Ibid., vol. iv. p. 55 



200 PERFORATED AXES. [cHAP. VIII, 

mine,' Torphiclien. Linlithgow; and Laurie Street,- Leith; another 
from the coast of Scotland is engraved in Skelton's " Mejrick's 
Armour,'" but is there regarded as having been brought over by 
Danish invaders. Other Scottish^ specimens are numerous. There 
are thirteen in the Grierson Museum, Thornhill. Dumfriesshire. One 
of the same form as the figure (9f inches) vras found at Dean/ near 
Bolton. Lancashire, and others at Hopwood and Saddleworth in the 
same county. One of grit (7^ inches) was found at Siddington,' near 
Macclesfield. Another (8 inches), found at Kirkoswald. Cumber- 
land, is in the museum at Newcastle, together with a similar speci- 
men from Haydon Bridge ; and others have been found at Thirstone, 
Shilbottle, Barrasford,' and Hipsburn,* Northumberland ; and in 
Yorkshire.* One (lOi inches) was found at Ehenside Tarn.'" 
Cumberland. Others at Eusland, North Lonsdale, and Troutbeck. 
A long list of stone-hammers, &c., found in Cumberland and "West- 
morland, has been given by Chancellor R. S. Ferguson, F.S.A.," 
and a similar list has been compiled for Lancashire and Cheshire.'^ 
They occur also in more southern districts. I have seen one (8 
inches) from the neighbourhood of Glastonbury. Another of the 
same length was found on Dartmoor, near Burnt Tor. Others (8^ 
and 9 inches) from Ashbury and Holsworthy, ^^ Devon, are in the 
Museum of the Plymouth Institute. One was found at "Withycombe 
Ealeigh," Devon. A fine specimen (8 inches long), with, the sides 
somewhat hollowed, was found at Tasburgh, Norfolk. Another 
of greenstone {oh inches), and rather curved longitudinally, was 
found in the same parish. Other specimens from Norfolk are men- 
tioned in the Norwich volume of the Archaeological Institute. I have 
one of serpentine from Chatteris Fen, which has been broken diagonally, 
and had a fresh edge ground quite awaj- from the middle. The Rev. 
S. Banks had one of hard sandstone (7J inches), found in Cottenliam 
Fen. Its faces are more parallel, so that the edge is more obtuse. 
I have seen one, found near Stourton (9i inches), Somersetshire, 
straighter at the sides, and having the angles rounded. They occur 
in Leicestershire.'^ One (7 inches) from the Cemetery at Leicester, 
and one (9i inches) from Barrow-on-Soar, are recorded. An axe of 
the same kind, but smaller, found near Imola. has been engraved 
by Gastaldi.'^ 

Perhaps the more common variety, in Cumberland, is that which is* 
somewhat flattened at the butt, like Fig. 131, and which is, more 

' Ibid., vol. vi. p. 86. = Ibid., vol. iv. p. 379. 

3 PI. xlviii. 1. 

* See F. S. A. S., vol. xii. p. .568 ; xiv. p. 126 ; xv. p. 266 ; x\-i. p. 76 ; xxiii. p. 
205, 210 ; and Smith" .s "Preh. Man in Ap'sliire," 189-5, p. 39. 

* Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xv., p. 232. 

* Geologist, toI. vii. p. 56. ' Arch. Ael., vol. xii. p. 118. 

* "Cat. Arch. Inst. 3Iub., Ed.," p. 38. 

' Arch. Journ., vol. x. p. 65. '" Arch., vol. xliv. p. 284. 

" Proc. Soc. Ant.. 2nd S., vol. viii. p. 489. 

'2 TV. Lane. »nd Chesh. Ant. Soc, vol. v. p. 327. See also xi. p. 171. 
" Tr. Dev. Assoc, vol. xxvi. p. 51. 
'^ Tr. Dev. Assoc, vol. xxii. p. 208. 
>* Itep. Leic Lit. and Phil. Soc, 1887-8, pi. iii. 

'* Mem. Peal. Ace. delle Science, ^c, di Torino, Ser. II., vol. xxvi. Ta. i. 1. See 
also for Italy, Pull, di Pal. Ital., 1882. p. 1. 



A LARGE FORM COMMON IN THE NORTH. 



201 



properly' speaking, an axe-hammer. This specimen -^as found near 
Red Dial, AVigton, Cumberland, and is in my own collection. The 
two sides are nearly flat and parallel, and the edge appears to have 
been re-sharpened since the axe-head was first formed, as it is ground 
away to a shoulder a little below where it is perforated. It is formed 




Fig. 131.— Wig:toii. 



of an igneous rock. A very symmetrical example, Sh inches long, 
with the sides nearly flat, from Aikbrae, Culter, Lanarkshire, is 
engraved in the Jourtial of the Archccological Association} 

A very similar specimen, 1 1 inches long, found in a turf moss near 
Haversham, Westmorland, is engraved in the Arclmologia^' as is 



' Vol. xvii. p. JO. 



2 Vol. ii. p. 125. 



202 PERFORATED AXES. [CHAP. VIII 

another from Fumess.^ Another, with the sides more parallel, and 
rounder at the end. 8 inches in length, was found near Carlisle up- 
wards of a century ago, and forms the subject of an interesting paper 
by Bishop Lyttelton.- Two also were found at Scalby,^ near Scar- 
borough. In the Greenwell Collection are several implements of this 
character, obtained in the North of England. They are 8 to 9 inches 
long, and 4 to 5 inches broad. One (10 inches) is from Helton, in 
the parish of Chalton, Northumberland ; and another, of nearly the 
same size and form as Fig. 131. from Castle Douglas, Kircudbright- 
shire ; another of greenstone 6 inches) from Bronipton Carr, York- 
shire ; and others, varying in form, from Ousby Moor, Cumberland, 
and Heslerton "Wold, Yorkshire. A fine example (8 inches', truncated 
at the butt, from Dunse Castle,* Berwickshire, has been figured. 

In the British Museum are several axe-heads of this form. One, 
9 inches long, of a porphyritic rock, is said to have been foimd in a 
barrow on Salisbury Plain. One, 12 inches long, is from Stone, Stafford- 
shire, as well as another in which the boring is incomplete, there being 
only a conical depression on each side. A third, thinner ''8 inches), was 
found near Hull. A fourth, of compact felspathic material, 8J inches 
long, is from the parish of Balmerino. Fife. A fifth, of similar material, 
8 inches long, is from Llanbrynmair, Montgomeryshire.' It is worked to 
a flat oval at the butt-end, but with the angles rounded. The hole, as 
usual, tapers inwards from each side, but is not at right angles to the 
central line of the axe. I have a fine implement of this class, but larger 
and narrower than the figure, and concave on the sides, so that the edge 
is wider than the butt. It is of basalt, much eroded on the surface, 
and was found at Hardwick, near Bishop's Castle, Shropshire. It is 
10 A- inches long, about 4} inches wide at the butt, where it is 3 inches 
thick. The shaft-hole is nearly 2 inches in diameter, and almost 
parallel ; the weight, Si lbs. 

One (9J inches) was found at Grimley,® Worcestershire. Another, 
of porphvry, nearly triangular in outline (7 inches), from Necton, 
Norfolk, is in the Norwich Museum. The shaft-hole, in this case, is 
parallel, but in most, it tapers both ways, contracting from about 1 f 
or 2 inches on each face to about 1 1 inches in diameter in the middle. 
One of greenstone (6 inches^, found near Ely, has an oval hole. 

The late Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt, F.S.A., had an axe-hammer of 
this class (7^ inches), but still more flattened at one end, found in 
Cambridgeshire. At the edge the faces form an angle of 45° to 
each other, and there is little doubt that the implement has lost 
much of its original length through continual sharpening. He 
also kindly lent me for engraving the curious axe-hammer shown 
in Fig. 132, and has made use of my wood-cut in his " Grave Mounds 
and their Contents." ' It is formed of a very fine-grained, hard, and 
slightly micaceous grit, and its weight exceeds 7| lbs. It is some- 
what roimded at the hammer-end, which appears to have lost some 
splinters by use, though the broken surface has since been partially 
re-ground. The blade is slightly curved longitudinally, and both the 

> Tol. xxxi. p. 452. - Arch., vol. ii. p. 118. 

3 Arch., vol. XXX. p. 459. * F. S. A. S., vol. xiii. p. 334 ; xxii. p. 384. 

' " Horae Ferales," pi. iii. 3. 

« Allies' "Ants, of Wore.," p. 150, pi. iv. 10. ' P. 111. 



FJ.UTED ON THE FACES. 



203 



outer and inner sides have been hollowed from the point, as far as tlie 
perforation. The faces have each four parallel grooves worked in them, 
80 that they are, as it were, corrugated into five ribs, extending from 




near the edge to ojiposite the centre of the holo. The liollows on the 
sides also show two slight ril)s parallel with the faces of tlie blade, the 
angles of which are rounded. The shaft-hole tiipers .slightly in both 
directions towards the centre, where it is about 1 jj inch in diameter. 



204 



PERFORATED AXES. 



[chap. Vlll. 



The grooves seem to have been produced by picking, but have sub- 
sequently been made smoother by grinding. It was found at a spot 
known as the Sand Hills, in Lord Middleton's Park.' near "Wollaton, 
!Notts. The Eev. "NV. C. Lukis. F.S.A.. had a closely similar specimen 
(10 inches', foimd at .Tervaux, near Bedale, Yorkshire. It is not, 
however, fluted on the faces. 

Sc)me of these iDstrum<;-nts are so heavy that they can hardly have 
been wielded in the ordinary manner as axes, though they may have 
served for splitting wood, either by direct blows or by being used as 




Fig. 13a.— Buckthorj*. 

wedges. Bishop Lyttelton thought they might have been battle-axes, 
but Pegge- pointed out that they were too heavy for such a purpose 
or for use as missiles, and came to the conclusion "that these per- 
forated stones were not originally applied to anj- warlike purpose, but 
rather to some domestic service, either as a hammer or beetle for 
common use." Professor Nils son, ^ at a later date, has arrived at the 
same conclusion, and considers them most suitable for being held in 
the left hand by a short handle, and driven rate wood by blows from a 

1 Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iv. p. 319. 
- Arch., vol. ii. \>. 127. 
' " fcjtoiie Age," p. 73. 



hOKlNO, THE LAST PllOCESS. 



205 



club held in the right hand. He has suggested for them the name of 
"handled wedges." In some parts of France I have seen extremely 
heavy iron axes, much resembling these stone implements in fonn, 
used for splitting wood. It seems possible that in old times these 
heavy stone implements may also have been employed in agriculture. 

Axes of this character, usually formed of greenstone, are very com- 
mon in Denmark and Northern Germany. They are much rarer in 
France, partly, no doubt, in consequence of the less abundance of 
suitable material. They also occur in Russia' and in Italy.- 

A snuili specimen of the same form but rather more square at the 
butt than Fig. 1131, made of dark serpentine, and only 3| inches long, 
was found at Tanagra, in Boeotia, and was formerly in the collection of 
Dr. G. Finlay,'' of Athens. 

Some of the forms last described, having square butt-ends, might, 
perhaps, with greater propriety, have been included in the fourth 
class into which I have proposed to divide these instruments, viz., 
axe-hammers, sharpened at one end and more or less hammer- 
like at the other, and with the shaft-hole usually about the centre. 

One of the simplest, and at the same time the rarest varieties of this 
class, is wliere an implement of the form of an ordinary celt, like Fig. 
69, has been bored through in 
the same direction as the edge. 
Fig. 133 represents such a 
specimen, in the collection of 
Messrs. Mortimer, of Driiheld. 
It was foimd at Buckthorpe, 
Yorkshire, and is formed of 
close-grained greenstone. The 
butt-end is circular and flat, 
and the shaft-hole, which is 
oval, tapers considerably both 
ways. 

An axe-hammer of diorite, 
of nearly similar form, found 
at Groningen, in the Nether- 
lands, is in the museum at 
Ley den. 

Another simple form is that 
exhibited in Fig. 134, taken 
from a specimen in greenstone 
found at Aldro', near Malton, 
Yorkshire, and in the po.^ses- 
sion of Mr. Hartley, of !Malton. 
Its princijial interest consists 
in its having been left in the 
unfinished state, previous to its 
perforation. We thus learn that the same practice of working the 
axe-heads into shape before proceeding to bore the shaft-hole, pre- 

' L'Atit/i., vol. ^d., l-89;3, p. 10. - " Abita/. lac. di Fimon," 1S70, p. 150, pi. .xiv. 
•' " Cat. of Objects found in Greece, ' tig. 3. 




Fig. 131.— Aldro'. 



206 



PERFORATED AXES. 



[chap. VIII. 



vailed here as in Denmark. lu that country numerous specimens have 
been found, finished in all respects except the boring, and in many 
instances this has been commenced though not completed. It would 
appear from this circumstance that the process of boring was one which 
required a considerable amount of time, but that it was most satisfac- 
tordy performed after the instrument had been brought into shape ; 
the position of the hole being adjusted to the form of the implement, 
and not the latter to the hole. In the extensive Greenwell Collec- 
tion is the cutting end of an axe which has been broken half-way 
across the hole, which, though commenced on both faces, was never 
finished. The conical, cup-shaped depressions produced by the boring 

instrument, extend to some depth 
in the stone, but are still J inch 
from meeting. The fragment is 
o|^ inches long, and was found at 
.Sprouston, near Kelso. 

In the same collection is a 
small imfinished axe -head of 
greenstone, 4 inches long, in 
which the hole has not been com- 
menced. It was found at Cox- 
wold, in the North Hiding of 
Yorkshire. 

An unpierced axe - head of 
greenstone, 4 inches long, in 
form much like Fig. 136, but 
with the hollowed face shorter, 
was found in a grave in Stronsay, 
one of the Orkney islands, and is 
now in the National Museum 
at Edinburgh. There are slight 
recesses on each face, showing 
the spots at which the perforation 
was to have been commenced. 

A perforated axe of serpentine, 
of the same chariicter as Fig. 134, 
but wider at the butt, was found 
in the Thames, and is now in the 
British Museum. It is 4 inches long and has the peculiarity of being 
much thicker at the cutting end than at the butt ; the two sides taper- 
ing from 1^ inch at the edge to f inch at the butt. 

A similar feature is to be observed in another axe of hornblende 
schist (5f inches), and of rather more elongated form tlian Fig. 134, 
foimd at Cawton, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and in the Green- 
well Collection. 

A partially-finished axe-head, with one side and about two-thirds of 
the width of the faces worked into form, is engraved in the " Horse 
Ferales." ^ It is not a British specimen, but its place of finding is un- 
known. Perforated hammers, in form much like Fig. 134 and 135, 
occurred among the early remains at Troy.- 

A rather more elaborate form, having the two sides curved longi- 




1 ri. iii. 24. 



Schliemaim's " Troy," 1875, p. 94. Atlas, pi. ixii. 610. 



axe-iiammp:rs hollowed on the sides. 



207 



tudinally inwards, and the edge broader than the hammer-end, is 
shown in Fig. 135. The cutting edge is carefully removed, so that it 
was probably a battle-axe. The original, which is of porjihyritic 
greenstone, was discovered by Canon Greenwell, in a barrow at Cow- 
lam,' near Weaverthorpe, Yorkshire. It lay in front of the face of a 
contracted skeleton, the edge towards the face, and the remains of 
the wooden handle still grasped by the right hand. Connected with 
this grave was that of a woman with two bronze ear-rings at her head. 




iig. 13t>.— Seglull. fj 

Another of much the same fonn, but of coarser work and heavier, 
was found near Pickering, and is preserved in the Museum at Scar- 
borough. 

I have seen a small axe of similar type, but with the edge almost 
semicircular, and the hole nearer the butt, found at Felixstowe, Suffolk. 
It is of quartzite, 4i inches long. The hole, though 1^- inch in diameter 

1 Froc. Sjc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iv. p. GL " Brit. Barrows," p. 222. 



208 



PERFORATED AXES. 



[chap. VI II. 



at the sides, diminislies to ^ an inch in the centi-e. In this respect it 
resembles some of the hammer-stones shortly to be described. 

Fig. 136 presents a rather more elaborate form, which is, however, 
partly due to that of the tlat oval quartzite pebble from which this 
axe-hammer was made. The hammer- end seems to preserve the 
form of the pebble almost intact ; it is, however, slightly flattened at 
the extremity. The original is preserved in the Greenwell Collection, 
and was found in a cist at Seghill,^ near Newcastle, in 1866. The 
bones, by which it was no doubt originally accompanied, had entirely 
gone to decay. A Scotch example, made of basalt, the sides of 
which are much more concave, is shown in Fig. 136a. kindly lent by 




Fig. 136a.— Wick, Caithness. i 

the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. It was found at Wick,- 
Caithness. 

It was an axe-head somewhat of the character of Fig. 136, but 
sharper at the hammer- end, that was found in an urn, near Broughton 
in Craven, in 1675, and with it a small bronze dagger (with a tang 
and single rivet hole) and a hone. It is described and figured by 
Thoresby.' Hearne* regarded it as Danish. It is described as of 
speckled marble polished, 6 inches long and 3i inches broad, with the 
edge at one end blunted by use. A nearly similar form 4-i inches) 
has occurred in Shetland.^ What appears to be an unbored axe of 
this kind is in the Powysland Museum.* 

' Froc. Soc. Anl., 2nd S., vol. iv. p. 60. "Brit. Barrows," p. 224. 

- Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xxix., 189.5, p. 66. 

•' Thoresby's Cat. in TVTiitaker's ed. of " Ducatus Leod.," p. 114. 

' Leland's "Coll.," vol. iv. vi. 

^ P. S. A. S., vol. xxvii., 1893, p. 56. « Montg. Coll., vol. xiv. p. 276. 



AXE-HAMMERS HOLLOWED ON THE SIDES. 



20y 



A still greater elaboration of form is exhibited in Fig. 137, from an 
implement found at Kirklington, Yorkshire, and in the Greenwell 
Collection. It is of basalt, worked to a fiat oval at the hammer- 
end, and to a curved cutting edge at the other. The two sides are 




rig. 137.— Kirklington. 



ground concave, and the shaft-hole is nearly parallel. This axe- 
hammer is of larger size than usual when of this form, being 8 
inches in length. 

Nearly similar Weapons have 1 een frequently found in barrows. 

p 



210 



PERFORATED AXES. 



[chap. VI II. 



One such, of greenstone, about 4 inches long, was found by the late 
Mr. Charles Warne, F.S.A., in a barrow at Winterbourn Steepleton, 
near Dorchester, associated with burnt bones. He has given a tigure"^ 
of it, which, by his kindness, I here repi'oduce, as Fig. 138. Another 
(4 inches) was found in a barrow at Trevelgue,- Cornwall, in 1872. 

An extremely similar specimen, found near Claughton Hall, Gar- 
stang, Lancashire, has been hgured.' It is said to have been found, 
iin cutting tkrough a tumulus in 1822, in a wooden case, together with 
an iron axe, spear-head, sword, and hammer. There must, however, 
be an error in this account ; and as an urn, containing burnt bones, 
was found in the same tumulus with the Saxon or Danish interment, 
it seems probable that the objects belonging to different burials, 
primary and secondary in the barrow, became mixed during the twenty- 
seven years that elapsed between their discovery and the communica- 
tion to the Archpeological Institute. Another weapon of much the 
same shape, but 4f inches long, and formed of dark greenstone, is in 
the British Museum. It was found in the Tliames, at London. The 




Fig. 138. — "Winterboum Steepleton. J 

process by which these hollow sides appear to have been ground will 
be described at page 266. 

Sir E. Colt Hoare has engraved two axe-hammers of this form, but 
sUghtly varj'ing in size and details, from barrows in the Ashton Valley.* 
In both cases the}' accompanied interments of burnt bones, in one 
instance placed beneath an inverted urn ; in the other there was no urn, 
but an arrow-head of bone la}' with the axe. 

An axe (5:^ inches), of nearly the same form, but having a small 
oval projection on each face opposite the shaft-hole, was found in the 
bed of the Severn, at Eibbesford, Worcestershire, and is now in the 
Museum of the Society of Antiquaries. It has been somewhat incor- 
rectly figured by AUies,^ and rather better by AVright.'^ 

An axe-head (5 vo inches), of the same character as Fig. 138, but 
in outline more nearly resembling Fig. 137, found near Stanwick, 
Yorkshire, is in the British Museum." The cutting end of such a 
weapon was dredged with gi-avel from the Trent, at Beeston, near 
Nottingham, in 1862. 



63. 



- Arch., vol. xliv. p. 427. 



" Celtic Tumuli of Dorset," p. 

Arch. Journ., vol. \i. p. 74. 

" South Wilts," Tumuli, pi. viii. " Cat. Devizes Mus.," Nos. lo, 17. 

"Ants, of Worcestershire," pi. iv. 5, p. 146. 

" Celt, Roman, and Saxou," p. 70. 

" Horse Ferales," j)!. iii. 15. 



AXE-HAMMEKS ORNAMENTED OX THE FACES. 



211 



Another axe-banimer of greenstone, with projections on the faces 
opposite the centre of the hole, and with a hollow fluting near each 
margin, that is carried round 
on the sides below the holes, 
is shown in Fig. 139. The 
original was found by the 
Eev. J. C. Atkinson, who 
kindly lent it me for cii- 
graA'ing. It lay in an urn 
about 17 inches high, con- 
taining burnt bones and some 
fragments of burnt tiint, in a 
large barrow on the Skelton 
Moors, Yorkshire. In the 
same barrow were found 
eight other urns, all contain- 
ing secondary interments. 
In another barrow, on Wes- 
terdale floors. Mr. Atkinson 
found a second axe-hammer 
of nearly the same size and 
form, but more hammer- like 
at the end. This also has 
the channels on the faces. It 
is of fine - grained granite, 
and lay in an urn with burnt 
bones, a small "incense- 




Fig. 139.— Skelton iloors. 



cup," and a sort of long bone bead, having a sjiiral pattern upon it 

and a ti-ansverse orifice into the perforation, about 

the centre. In this case, also, the interment wa- 

not that over which the barrow was originally ' -- , 

raised. In another barrow, on Danby North 

Moors, also opened by Mr. Atkinson, a rather 

larger axe-hammer of much the same outline, lay 

with the hole in a vertical j^osition, about 15 

inches above a deposit of burnt bones. It is of 

basalt much decaj'ed. An axe-hammer from 

Inveraray,' Argyllshire (oj inches), in outline 

rather like Fig. 143, has small projections on each 

face opposite to the centre of the shaft-hole. 

A longer and more slender form has also occa- 
sionally been found in tumuli. Sir R. Colt Hoare 
has given an engraving of a beautiful specimen 
from the Selwood Barrow,- near Stourton, which is 
here reproduced as Fig. 140. The axe is of syenite, 
5^ inches long, and lay in a cist, in company with 
burnt bones and a small bronze dagger, which in 
the description is erroneously termed a lance-head. 
Parallel with each side, there ajipears to be u 
small groove worked on the face of the weapon. 
A very pretty example of the same form accom- 

' P.-S'..-i.S.,vol.xxm.p.8. 2" South Wilts" Tumuli, pi. i. "Cat.DevizesMus.,"No.283. 

p 2 




Fig. 140.— Sel wood Karro^r. 



212 



PERFORATED AXES. 



[chap. VIII. 



paniecl an interment in a barrow at Snowshill,' Gloucestersbire. With. 
it were associated two bronze daggers and a bronze pin. 
^In the Christy Collection is a similar but larger specimen, 7 inches 
long, formed of dark greenstone. It also has the grooves along the 
margin of the faces, and has an oval flat face about 1 inch by | inch 
at the liammer-end. The hole, which is 1^ inch full in diameter at 
one side, contracts rather suddenly to 1 inch at the other. This weapon 
wa«; i'ormerly in the Leverian Museum, and is said to have been found 
in a barrow near Stonehenge, which, from its similarity to Sir R. C. 
Hoare's specimen, there seems no reason to doubt. 
An axe-hammer of clay-stone porphyry, 4f inches long, and in form the 




Fij?. 140a. — Longniddry. 



same as those last described — except that there appears to be more of 
a shoulder at the hammer-end — was found in a barrow at Winwick,'^ 
near Warrington, Lancashire. It was broken clean across the hole, 
and had been buried in an urn with burnt bones. With them was 
also a bronze dagger with a tang, and one rivet hole to secure it in 
the handle. 

An axe-hammer of much the same proportions, but more sijuare at 
the hammer-end, was discovered in a dolmen near Carnac,' in Brittany. 
A beautifvd. axe of the same character with ornamental grooves and 

1 Arch., vol. lii. p. 70. 

^ Arehceol. Journ., vol. xviii. p. 158. Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xvi. p. 295, 
pi. XXV. 8; Trans. Hist. Soc. Lane, and Chesh., vol. xii. p. 189. 
^ " Guide des Touristes, &c., dans le Morbihan," 1864, p. 43. 



FREQUENTLY FOUNJ) IN BARROWS. 



213 



mouldings is in the Museum at Edinburgh, and is here, by favour of 
the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, shown as Fig. 140a. The 
original is of diorite, and was dug up in IHOO at Longniddry , ' East 
Lothian. 

Another variety of form is shown in Fig. 141, reduced from Sir R. 
Colt Tloare's great work.- In this case the hammer- 
end w(ndd appear to be lozenge-shaped, as there is 
a central ridge shown on the face. It was found 
in the Upton Level barrow, on the breast of the 
larger skeleton, near the feet of which the flint 
celts, polished and unpolished, and various other 
objects in bone and stone, were found, as previously 
mentioned.'' The engraving of this weapon in the 
Archeeologia differs considerably from that given by 
Sir R. V. Hoare. 

In Fig. 142 is shown another form, in which the 
hammer-end, though Hat in one direction, forms a 
semicircular sweep, answering in form to the cutting 
edge at the other end. The two faces are orna- 
mented with a slight groove, extending across them 
parallel to the centre of the shaft -hole. The 
material of which this axe - hammer is made 
appears to be serpentine. It was found in the 
Thames, at London, and is in the British Museum. 
A "hammer" from a barrow at Wilsford,^ Wilts, 
which was associated with a flat bronze celt and ^^' ' v^'^ '^ ■ 
other articles of bronze, was of the same type as Fig. 142, but without 
the grooves. 

The very neatly formed instrument represented in Fig. 143, seems to 
occupy an intermediate place between a battle-axe and a mace or 
fighting hammer. It is rounded in both directions at the butt-end^ 





i'ig. 1-12.— Thames, Loudon. 



but instead of having a sharp edge at the other end it is brought to a 
somewhat rounded point. The inner side is concave, though hardly 
to the extent shown by the dotted line in the cut. The shaft-hole is 
nearly parallel, though somewhat expanding at each end. The 

> P. S. A. S., vol. xxviii. p. 241. 

* " South Wilts," Tumuli, pi. v. ; " Cat. Devizes Mus.," No. 8 ; Jrch., vol. xv. 
pi. V. 1. •' Supra, p. 83. 

* Hoare's " South Wilts," p. 209 ; Arch., vol.xliii. p. 411 ; A. C. Smith's " Ants, 
of North Wilts," p. 19. 



214 



PERFORATED AXES. 



[chap. VI 11. 



.t 



material is greenstone. This weapon was found in tlie middle of a 
barrow, or rather caim, formed of stones, i]i the parish of Pelynt, 
Cornwall.' It lay among a considerable quantity of black ashes, 
which had evidently been burnt on the natural surface of the ground 
at the spot. There was no urn, nor any other work of art in com- 
pany with it. In another barrow, in the same field, was a bronze 
dagger with two rivets. I have never seen any other stone hammer of 
this form found in Britain, nor can I call to mind any such in con- 
tinental museums. The nearest approach to it is to be observed in some 
of the Scandinavian weapons, in which the outer side is much more 

rounded than the inner, but in 
these there is usually an axe-like 
edge, though very narrow. A 
shuttle-.-Bhaped weapon of por- 
phyritic stone, found in Ui)per 
Egypt,- is not unlike it, but is 
equally pointed at both ends. 
The perforation narrows from 
f inch to i. The concave side of 
the Pelynt weapon is so much 
like that of some of the battle- 
axes, such as Fig. 137, as to 
suggest the idea that originally 
it may have been of this form, 
but having in some manner been 
damaged, it has been re- worked 
into its present exceptional shape. 
It will have been observed that 
instruments, such as most of 
those engraved, have accom- 
panied interments both by cre- 
mation and inhumation, and 
have, in some cases, been found 
in association with small daggers, 
celts, and pins or awls of bronze. 
Other instances may be adduced 
from the writings of the late Mr. 
T. Bateman, though sometimes the exact form of the weapons is not 
recorded. In the Parcelly Hay Barrow,^ near Hartingtun, an axe- 
head of granite, with a hole for the shaft, and a bronze dagger, with 
three rivets for fastening the handle, had been buried with a con- 
tracted body, above the covering stones of the primary interment.* 
Another, of basalt, apparently like Fig. 126, broken in the middle, 
is said to have lain between two skeletons at fvdl length, placed side 
by side in a barrow at Kens Low Farm.* On the breast of one lay a 
circular brooch of copper or bronze. "With the axe was a polished 
porphyry-slate pebble, the ends of which were ground flat. 

1 27th Report Roy. Inst, of Cornw., 1846, p. 35. I am indebted to the Secretaries 
of this Institution for permission to engrave the specimen. It is also figured in 
Borlase's " Naenia Comubi;e," p. 191. 

* Proc. Soe. Ant. Scot., vol. xiii. p. 347 ; xxvi. p. 398. 

^ "Ten Years' Digginars," p. 24. * " Crania Brit.," vol. ii. xviii. pi. 2. 

* " Vest. Ant. Derb.,"^p. 29. Smith, " Coll. Ant.," vol. i. pi. xx. 3. 




Fig. 143.— Pelynt, Cornwall. 



BUT LITTLE T^SED BY MODERN SAVAGES. 215 

Looking at the whole series, it seems probable that they were 
intended to serve more than one purpose, and that while the adze- 
like instruments may have been tools either for agriculture or for 
carpentry, and the large heavy axe-hammers also served some 
analogous purposes, the smaller class of instruments, whether shar- 
pened at both ends or at one only, may with some degree of cer- 
tainty be regarded as weapons. That the perforated form of axe 
was of later invention than the solid stone hatchet is almost self- 
evident ; and that many of the battle-axe class belong to a period 
when bronze was coming into use is well established. That all 
instruments of this form belong to so late a period there is no 
evidence to prove ; but in other countries where perforated axes 
are common, as in Scandinavia and Switzerland, those who have 
most carefully studied the antiquities, find reason for assigning 
a considerable number to a period when the use of bronze was 
unknown. On the other hand, it is possible that in some instances 
the large heavy axe-hammer may have remained in use even in 
the days when bronze and iron were well known. Sir W. 
Wilde mentions one in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy, 
10| inches long, which is said to have been recently in use. 
Canon Greenwell had another which was used for felling pigs 
in Yorkshire. Such, however, may be but instances of adapt- 
ing ancient implements, accidentally met with, to modern uses. 

I have already, in the description of the various figures, men- 
tioned when analogous forms were found in other parts of Wes- 
tern Europe, so that it is needless again to cite instances of dis- 
coveries on the Continent. I may, however, notice a curious 
series from Northern Russia and Finland.^ They are for the 
most part pointed at one end, the other being sometimes carved 
to represent the head of an animal. Some are pointed at each 
end. In several there is a projection on both sides of the shaft- 
hole, designed to add strength to a weak part, but at the same time 
made ornamental. The animal's head occurs also on bronze axes. 

Out of Europe this class of perforated instruments is almost 
unknown. 

Turning to modern savages, the comparative absence of per- 
forated axes is striking. In North America, it is true that some 
specimens occur, but the material is usually too soft for cutting 
purposes, and the haft-holes are so small that the handles would 

1 Mem. Soc. R. des Ant. du Nord, 1872-77, p. 107. Aarbiig. fur Oldk., 1872, d. 
309-342. Cong. preh. Stockholm, 1874, p. 290. Aspelin, "Ant. du Nord. Finno- 
Ougrien," No. 71-76. 



216 PERFORATED AXES. [(;HA1', VUl. 

be liable to break. It has therefore been iuferred that they 
were probably used as weapons of parade. They are, however, 
occasionally formed of quartz.^ Schoolcraft,^ moreover, regards 
the semilunar perforated maces as actual weapons of war. One 
of them, pointed at each end, he describes as being 8 inches long, 
and weighing half a pound. The more hatchet-like forms he 
considers to be tomahawks. In some instances^ the hole does not 
extend through the blade. 

In Central America, Southern Africa, and New Zealand, where 
the art of drilling holes through stone is, or was, well known, 
perforated axes appear to be absent. I have, however, heard of 
an instrument of the kind having been discovered in New Zealand, 
but have not seen either the original or a sketch. Some per- 
forated hoe-like implements have been found in Mexico. 

The nearest approach to such instruments is perhaps afforded 
by the sharp-rimmed perforated discs of stone, mounted on shafts 
so as to present an edge all round, which are in use, apparently 
as weapons, in the Southern part of New Guinea, and 
Torres Straits. Some perforated sharp-rimmed discs of flint and 
serpentine, have been found in France.'* They are probably 
heads of war-maces. In New Caledonia,^ flat discs of jade, ground 
to a sharp edge all round, are mounted as axes, being let into a 
notch at the end of the haft and secured by a lashing that passes 
through two small holes in the edge of the blade. 

The cause of this scarcity of perforated weapons appears to be, 
that though it might involve rather more trouble and skill to 
attach a solid hatchet to its shaft, yet this was more than com- 
pensated by the smaller amount of labour involved in making 
that kind of blade, than in fashioning and boring the jDerforated 
kind. These latter, moreover, would be more liable to break in 
use. Looking at our own stone axes from this point of view, it 
seems that with the very large implements the shaft-hole became 
almost a necessity ; while with those used for warlike purposes, 
where the contingencies of wear and breakage were but small, it 
seems probable that the possession of a weapon, on the production 
of which a more than ordinary amount of labour had been 
bestowed, was regarded as a mark of distinction, as is the case 
among some savages of the present day. 

' " Indian Tribes," vol. iv. p. 174. ' Op. cit., vol. i. p. 92 ; vol. ii. pi. 48. 

» Op. cif., vol. iv. p. 167. * "Mua. preh.," No. 449. Mat., vol. xvii. p. 284. 

^ Ratzel, " Volkerk.," vol. ii. p. 247. 3Iitth. d. Aitth. Qes. in U'ien,vo]. ix. (1880) 
pi. ii. 



217 



CHAPTER IX. 

VKKPORATEl) AND GROOVED HAMMERS. 

Closely allied to the axe-haramers, so closely indeed that the 
forms seem to merge in each otiior, arc the perforated hammer- 
heads of stone, which are found of various shapes, and are formed 
of several different kinds of rocks. In many instances, the whole of 
the external surface has been carefully fashioned and ground into 
shape, hut it is at least as commonly the case that a symmetrical 
oval pebble has been selected for tlie hammer-head, and has been 
tlius used without any labour being bestowed upon if, beyond 
tliat necessary for boring the shaft-hole. By some antiquaries, 
these perforated pebbles have been regarded as weights, for sink- 
ing nets, or for some such purpose ; but in most cases this is, I 
think, an erroneous view — firstlj^ because the majority of these 
implements show traces, at their extremities, of having been used 
as hammers; and, secondly, because if wanted as weights, there 
can be no doubt that the softer kinds of stone, easily susceptible 
of being pierced, would be selected ; whereas these perforated 
pebbles are almost invariably of quartzite or some equally hard 
and tough material. 

There are some instances, indeed, in which the perforation 
would appear to be almost too small for a shaft of sufficient 
strength to wield the hammer, if such it were ; but even in such 
cases, where hard silicious pebbles have been used, they must, in all 
probability, have been intended for other purposes than for weights. 
I am inclined to think that some means of httfting, not now in 
use, may have been adopted in such cases, and that possibly the 
handles may have been formed of twisted hide or sinews, passed 
through the hole in a wet stale, secured by knots on either side, 
and then allowed to harden by drying. Such hafts would be more 
elastic and tough than any of the same size in wood ; but it must 
be confessed that there is no evidence of their having been ac- 
tually employed, though there is of the stones ha\'ing been in use 



218 PERFOKATED AND GROOVEU HAMMERS. [CHAP. IX. 

as tammers. I have an Irish specimen, 3| inches long, with the 
perforation tapering from about If inch diameter on either side, 
to less than ^ an inch in the middle, and yet each end o£ the 
stone is worn away by use, to the extent of j inch below the ori- 
ginal oval contour. It is possible that these deep cavities may 
have been intended to assist in keeping a firm hold of the stone 
when used in the hand as a hammer without any shaft, in the 
same manner as did the shallow indentations, which occasionally 
occur on the faces of pebbles which thus served ; but this is hardly 
probable when the cavities meet in the centre to form a hole exactly 
like the ordinary shaft-holes, except in its disproportionately 
small size. It is worthy of notice, that even in axe-hammers 
the shaft-hole appears to be sometimes absurdly small for the 
size of the implement. I have a Danish specimen of greenstone, 
carefully finished, G| inches long, and weighing 1 lb. 15 ozs. 
avoirdupois, and yet the shaft-hole is only | inch in diameter on 
either side, and but ^ an inch in the centre. The axe from Felix- 
stowe, already mentioned, presents the same peculiarity'. 

It has been suggested that one of the methods of hafting these 
implements with the double bell-mouthed perforations, was by 
placing them over a branch of a tree, and leaving them there until 
secured in their position by the natural growth of the wood, the 
branch being then cut off at the proper places, and serving as a 
handle. I have, however, found by experience that even with a 
fast-growing tree, such a process requires two or three years at 
the least, and that when removed, the shrinkage of the branch in 
drying, leaves the hammer-head loose on its haft. Such a system 
of hafting would, moreover, imply a fixity of residence on the 
part of the savage owners of the tools, which appears hardly com- 
patible with the stage of civilization to which such instruments 
are probably to be referred. 

At the same time, it must be rememlered that the Caribs of 
Guadaloupe and the Hurons are, as has been mentioned at 
page I'jo, credited with an analogous system of hafting imper- 
forate hatchets. 

It has also been suggested that some of these pierced stones 
were offensive weapons, having been attached by a thong of leather 
to a handle,^ and used as " flail-stones," after the manner of the 
" morning-stars " of the middle ages. Such a method of mount- 
ing, though possible, appears to me by no means probable in the 

' Arch. A$$oc. Journ., vol. xx. p. 102. 



OF PECULIAR FORMS. 



219 




Fig. 144.— Balmaclellan. 



TA 



majority of cases, thougli among the Eskimos^ a weapon has 
been in use, consisting of a stone 
ball with a drilled hole, through 
which a strip of raw hide is 
passed to serve as a handle. 

'L'iie first specimen that I have 
selected i or illustration, Fig. 144, 
might, with almost equal pro- 
priety, have beeu placed among 
the perforated axes, though it 
has three blunt edges instead of 
one or two. It was found at 
Balmaclellan, in New Galloway, 
and is now in the National 
Museum at Edinburgh. It is of 
very peculiar triangular form, 1 .V 
inches in thickness, 
and with a perforation 
expanding from an 
inch in diameter in the 
centre, to 1^ inches on 
each side. An en- 
graving of it is given 
in the Proceedings of the 
Society of Antiquaries 
of Scotland.'- This I 
have here reproduced 
on a larger scale, so as 
to correspond in its 
in-oportious with the 
other woodcuts. 

A curious hammer, 
of brown haematite, 
not quite so equilateral 
as the Scotch speci- 
men, and much thicker 
in proportion, found in 
Alabama, has been en- 
graved by Schoolcraft.^ 
The holes, from each 
side, do not meet in 
the middle. 

The specimen shown 
in Fig. 145 was found 
in the Thames, at Lon- 
don, and is now in the 
British Museum. In 
form it is curiously like 




m 



w: 



I- 




Fig. 145. — Thames, London 



1 Stevens, " Flint Chips," p. 499. 



Vol. vii. p. 385. 



^ " Indian Tribes," vol. iv. p. 1*>8. 



220 



PERFORATED AND GROOVED HAMMERS. 



[chap. 



IX. 



a metallic hammer, svrelling out around the shaft-hole, and tapering^ 
doN\Ti to a round flat face at eiu-h extremity. So far as I know, it is. 
unique of its kind in this country. It is more probably the head of a 
war mace than that of an ordinary hammer. A somewhat similar 
hammer, of porphyry, is in the museum of the Deutsche Gesellschaft 
at Ijeipzig. It is, however, shorter in its proportions. 

A stone hammer found at Claycrop, Kirkiuner,' AVigtownshire, is. 




? 



Fig. 145a. — Kiikinnc r. 



by the courtesy of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, shown iu 
Fig. 145a. In form, it is very like Fig. 136a from Wick, but blunter 
at the edge. 

The instrument shown in Fig. 146 is perhaps more like a blunted 
axe-hammer than a simple hammer. It has at one end a much- 
rounded j)oint, and at the other is nearly straight across, though 
rounded in the other direction. It would appear to be' a weapon 

' P. S. A. S., vol. xvi. p. 57. 



SOME OF THKM WEAI'ONS, NOT TOOLS. 



221 



rather than a tocjl. It is formed of greenstone, and was found near 
Scarborough, being now in the museum at the Leeds Philosophical 
Hall. A similar form has been found in Italy.' 

A beautifull}' finished hammer-head, cross-paned at both ends, and 
with a parallel polished shaft-hole, is shown in Fig. 147. It is of 
pale mottled green gneissose rock, with veins of transparent pale 
green, like jade, and was found in a barrow in Shetland. It is 
preserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh, where is also 
another of the same form, but broader and much more weathered, 
which was found at Scarpiegarth,- also in Shetland. Mr. J. W. 
Cursiter has another of these ruder examples (3^ inches) from Firth. 
He has also a very highly polished specimen made of serpentine 
(4 inches) subquadrate in section, and with hemispherical ends, from 



x;SSSi3Sra»w5« 




Fis. HG. — Scarborough. 




Fig. 147.— Shetland 



Lingrow, Orkney. The perforation is conical, being 1 inch in diameter 
on one face and only ^ inch on the other. A remarkably elegant 
instrument of this kind, formed of a quartzose metamorphie rock, 
striped green and white, and evidently selected for its beauty, is in 
the well-known Greenwell Collection. It was found in Caithness. It 
is polished all over, and 4| inclies long, of oval section, with the ends 
slightly rounded. The shaft-hole is parallel, ^ inch in diameter, and 
about f inch nearer to one end than to the other. In the same collec- 
tion is another specimen, rather more elongated in form, and of more 
ordinary material, found near Harome, in Yorkshire, in a district 
where a number of stone implements of rare types have been dis- 
covered. It is of clay-slate, 5:^ inches long, and of oval section. The 
shaft-hole tapers from 1 inch at the faces to -^^^ inch in the centre. 
A shorter hammer, of gneiss, 3f inches long, and of similar section, 

' Bellucci, "Mat. Paletn. dell' Umhria," Tav. xi. fig. 3. 
^ Froc. Soc. Aiit. ScoL, vol. vi. p. 327. 



-222 



PERFOR.^TED AND GROOA'ED HAMMERS. [cHAP IX. 



with a parallel shaft-hole f inch in diameter, was foixnd near Blair- 
Drummond. and is now in tlie National Museum at Edinburgh. It 
has a thin rounded edge at one end, and is obtuse at the other, as if 
it had been broken and subsequently rounded over. The form occasion- 
ally occurs in the South of England. In the British Museum is a 
beautiful specimen (4^ inches) from Twickenliam, and another of 
more ordinary stone from the Thames, which was formerly in the 
Eoots CoUectiou. 

Another polished hammer (of grey granite) with curved sides, and 
narrower at one end than the other, was found in a cairn in Caithness,' 
in company with a Hint flake ground at the edge, some arrow-heads, 
and scrapers. By permission of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 




Fi^. 148.— Caithness, 




Fig. 149.— Leeds. 



it is shown in Fig. 148. A somewhat similar form of hammer has been 
obtained in Denmark. - 

The hammer-head shown in Fig. 149 resembles the Shetland imple- 
ments in character, though, besides being far less highly finished, it is 
shorter and broader, and shows more wear at the end. The hole, also, 
is not parallel, but tapers from both faces. It is stated to have been 
found 12 feet deep in gravel, while sinking for foundations for the 
works of the Xorth-Eastem Eailway in NeviUe Street, Leeds. It is 
formed of greenstone, and has aU the appearance of having been made 
out of a portion of a celt. 

I have a somewhat smaller hammer-head, of much the same form, 
from Eeach Fen. Cambridge, which also seems to have been made from 
a fragment of a broken celt. I have seen one of the same kind, 
found near BrLvham. in Devonshire. 

I have another specimen, from Orwell, "Wimpole, Cambs.. in which 
a portion of an implement of larger size has also been utilized for 



1 Froc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. vii p. 499. 



Ant. Tidsk., 1853-60, p. 277. 



CONICAL, ROUNDED AT EACH END. 



223 



a fresh purpose. In this case the sharper end of a largo axe-head of 
stone, probably much like Fig. 131, having been broken off, the 
wedge-shaped fragment, which is about 3 inches long and 2 inches 
broad, has been bored through in a direction at right angles to the 
edge, and probably to the original shaft-hole, and a somewhat adze- 
liko hammer-head has been the result, what was formerly the edge 
of the axe being rounded and battered. 

Fragments of celts which, when the edge was lost, subsequently 
served as hammers, but witliout any perforation, have not unfrequently 
been found, both h(?re iind on the Continent. The Eskimo hammer, 
already mentioned, has much the same appearance and character as if 
it had been made from a portion of a jade celt. 

The form of liammer shown in Fig. 150, may be described as a 
frustum of a cone with convex ends. The 
specimen here figured is of quartzite, and 
was found near Eockland, Norfolk. It is 
preserved in the Norwich Museum. The 
hole, as usual with this type, is nearly 
parallel. The lower half of a similar ham- 
mer, but of hint, 2 inches in diameter, and 
showing one-half of the shaft-hole, which is 
I inch in diameter, is in the British Museum. 
It came from Grundisburgh, Suffolk. 

A more conical specimen, tapering from 
2§- inches to 1^- inches in diameter, and 
3 inches long, with a shaft-hole | inch in 
diameter within f inch of the top, is in the 
Greenwell Collection. It is of basalt, and 
was found at Twisel, in the parish of Norham, 
Northumberland. 

Some rather larger and more cylindrical 
instruments of analogous form have been 
obtained in Yorkshire. One such, about 4 
inches long, and with a small parallel shaft- 
hole about 5 inch in diameter, was found, 
with an urn in a barrow at Weapon Ness, 
and is in the museum at Scarborough. With 
it was a flint spear-liead or javelin-head. It 
is described as rather kidney-shaped in the 
Archaiohgia} I have the half of another, made of compact sandstone, 
and found on the Yorkshire AVolds. 

The same form occurs in Ireland, but the sides curve inwards and 
the section is somewhat oval. Sir W. "Wilde - describes two such of 
polished gneiss, and a third is engraved in Shirley's "Account of 
Farney." ' Sir William suggests that such implements were, in all 
probability, used in metal working, especially in the manufacture of 
gold and silver. Certainly, in most cases, they can hardly have been 
destined for any ordinary purposes of savage life, as the labour 
involved in boring such shaft-holes in quartzite, and especially in 




Fig. 150.— Rockland 



1 Vol. XXX. p. 461. - " Cat. Mus. R. I. A.," p. 80. 

' P. 94. See also Arch. Journ., vol. iii. p. 94; and Worsaae's " Prim.' Ants 
Den.," p. 15. 



of 



224 



PERFORATED AND GROOVED HAMMERS. [CHAP. IX. 



flint, must have been immense. It seems quite as probable that 
these were weapons as tools, and, in that case, we can understand an 
amount of time and care being bestowed on their preparation such as 
in modern days we find savages so often lavishing on their warlike 
accoutrements. Another argument in favour of these being weapons, 
may be derived from the beauty of the material of which they are 
sometimes composed. That from Farney is of a light green colour and 
nicely polished, and one in m}' own collection, found near Tullamore, 
King's County, is formed of a piece of black and white gneissose 
rock, which must have been selected for its beauty. One in the British 
Museum from Lough Gur is of black hornblende. 

The type with the oval section is not, however, confined to Ireland. 
In the Greenwell Collection is a beautiful hammer of this class, 
which is represented in Fig. 151. It is made of a veined quartzose 
gneiss, and was found on Heslerton "Wold. York- 
shire. As wOI be seen, it is somewhat oval in 
section. The sides are straight, but the faces from 
which the hole is bored are .somewhat hollow. 
I have a specimen of the same form, but made of 
greenstoue '3 inches), from the neighboiirhood of 
Sutton Coldfield/ Warwickshire. 

A barrel- shaped hammer (o| inches) "was found 
on the hill of A.shogall.- Turriff, Aberdeenshire, 
and a rude triangular hammer on the Gallow HiU. 
of Turriff. 

A smaller hammer-head, ciu-iously like those 
from Farney and Tullamore, both in form and 
material, was found with a small "food vessel" 
accompanying an interment near Doune,^ Perth- 
shire. It is 2| inches long, with a parallel shaft- 
hole I inch in diameter. 

Another, of small-grained black porphyry, neatly 
polished, and about 3-1 inches long, similar in out- 
line to Fig. 150, but of oval section, and little more 
than an inch in thickness, was dredged up in the 
Tidal Basin, at Montrose, and is preserved in the local museum. 

A cylindrical hammer of grey granite (2 J inches) only partially 
bored from both faces, was found in the parish of Glammis,^ Forfar- 
shire. Mr. J. W. Cursiter, of Kirkwall, has a beautiful specimen 
formed of striped gneiss (3^ inches) with well-rounded ends, and the 
sides much curved inwards. It was foimd at "\Miiteness, Shetland. 
Another of his hammers (2f inches) with a parallel hole (| inch) has 
the sides straight and is of oval section. It is of beautifully mottled 
gneiss. 

Another variety, allied to the last, has an egg-shaped instead of a 
quasi-conical form ; the shaft-hole being towards the small end of the 
egg. The specimen here engraved, Fig. 152, is apparently of serpen- 
tine, and was found at HaUgaard Farm, near Birdoswald, Cumber- 
land. It is in the Greenwell Collection. 

I have a smaller but nearl}' similar specimen in greenstone, from 

» Proe. Soc. Ant., 2nd S. vol. vii., p. 268. - P. S. A. S., vol. ix. p. 155. 

3 Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. ix. p. 39 ; x^■ii. p. 453. * P. S. A. S., vol. xvi. p. 171. 




Fip 



151.— Heslerton 

Wold. 



MADE FROM TEUBLES WITH NATURAL HOLES. 



225 



the neiglibourhood of Flamborougli, Yorkshire. The hole in this 
is more bell-mouthed than in the other specimen, and a little nearer 
the centre of the stone. 

One of neaidy similar form, but rather flatter on one face, 3:Jr inches 
long, found in Newport, Lincoln, is engraved in the Archcological 
Journal.^ 

Another in size and shape, much like Fig. 1.32, was dug up at 
Llanrhaiadr-yn-Mochnant, i\[ontgomer3'shire.- Another in the British 
Museum came from the neighbourhood of Keswick. 

An egg-.shaped hammer, 3 inches long, of mica schist, and found in 
the Isle of Arran,^ is in the National Museum at Edinburgh. Tlie 
shaft-hole is in the centre. 

Sometimes these hammer-heads are, in outline, of an intermediate 
form between Figs. 151 and 152, being oval in section, and more 




Fig. 152.— Birdoswald. ,J 

rounded at the smaller end than the larger, which is somewhat flat- 
tened. One such, in the Christy Collection, is formed of granite, and 
was found at Burns, near Keswick, Cumberland. Another, of quart- 
zite, ^\ inches long, found on Breadsale Moor, is in the ]\[useum at 
Derby. Neither of them presents the same high degree of finish as 
Fig. 151. They seem, indeed, to have been made from pebbles, which 
were but slightly modified in form by their conversion into hammer- 
heads. 

Occasionally, though rarely, flint pebbles naturally perforated have 
been used as hammers. In excavating a barrow at Thorverton,^ near 
Exeter, the Eev. R. Kirwan discovered a flint pebble about .'5i| inches 
long, with a natural perforation rather nearer one end than the other, 
but which on each face has been artificially enlarged. Each end of 
the pebble is considerably abraded by use. No other relics, with the 

• Vol. xxvii. p. 142. - Montg. Coll., vol. xiv p. 275. 
^ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. v. p. 240. 

* Trans. Devon. Assoc, vol. iii. p. 497. 



226 PERFORATED AND GROOVED HAMMERS. [CHAP. IX. 

exception of charcoal, were found in tliebarrovr. Mr. Kirwan suggests 
that the stone may liave been used by phicing the thumb and fore- 
finger in each orifice of the aperture ; but not improbably it may have 
been hafted. In the !Museum at Copenhagen are one or two axes of 
flint, ground at the edge, but with the shaft-holes formed by natural 
perforations of the stone. And in M. Boucher de Perthes' Collection' 
were two hammer-heads, with central holes of the same character. 

The beautiful and elaborately finished hammer-head found at Maes- 
more, near Corwen, Merionethshire, and now in the National Mu- 
seum at Edinburgh, is to some extent connected in form with those 
like Fig. 152. It is shown in Fig. 153, on the scale of h- linear, but 
a full size representation of it is given elsewhere.- It is of duslcy white 
chalcedony, or of very compact quartzite, and weighs 10^^- ounces. 
''The reticulated ornamentation is worked with great precision, and 
must have cost great labour. The j^erforation for the haft is formed 
with singidar symmetry'- and perfection ; the lozengy grooved 
decoration covering the entire surface is remarkably symmetrical 
and skilfully finished." The Eev. E. L. Barnwell,-' who presented 




Fii,'. 153. — ilaesmore, Corwen. 

it to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, has observed that ' ' the 
enormous amount of labour that must have been bestowed on 
cutting and polishing, would indicate that it was not intended for 
ordinary use as a common hammer." " Some have considered it as the 
war implement of a distinguished chief ; others, that it was intended 
for sacrificial or other religious purpose, or as a badge of high, 
office." Other conjectures are mentioned which it is needless to repeat. 
My own opinion is in favour of regarding it as a weapon of war, such 
as, like the jade mere of the New Zealander, implied a sort of chief- 
tainship in its jiossessor. At the time of its discovery it was unique 
of its kind. But since then a second example has been found, though 
in an unfinished condition,^ at Urquhart, near Elgin, and has also been 
placed in the museum at Edinburgh. It is rather smaller, but of 
similar type and material to the Welsh specimen. The sliaft-holo is 
finished, but the boring process has not been skilfully carried out, the 
meeting at the centre of the holes bored from either face not having 

' "Ant. Celt, et Anted.," vol. i. pi. xiii. 9, p. 327. 

- Arch. Jinir., vol. xix. p. 92. ylrcli. Camb., 3rd S., vol. vi. p. 307. 

•' Proc. Soc. Ant. Srof., vol. at. p. 43. See also Arch. Camb., iih. S., vol. vii. p. 183. 

* J'roc. Soc. Ant. Hcot., vol. ix p. 259. 



OF AX OKXAMENTKD CHARACTER. 227 

been perfect ; and thougli tlie ]iolo lias Loon made straight by subse- 
quent grinding out, there is still a lateral cavity left. The faceted 
pattern is complete at the small end, and commenced on both sides. 
Along the edge of the face small notches are ground, showing the 
manner in -which the pattern was laid out before grinding the hollow 
facets. 

A third but ruder example of the same kind was found in the Thames,, 
at Windsor,' and was exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries in 1895> 
by Mr. F. Tress Barry, F.S.A., who has kindly presented it to me. It 
is of nearly the same size as the others, but the perforation is natural, 
and there is no attempt at ornamentation, though much of the surface 
has been ground in irregular facets. 

The end of a naturally perforated flint nodule from ^Udbourne, 
Wilts, in the collection of Mr. J. W. Brooke, seems to be part of a 
hammer. It is neatly faceted like the nucleus. Fig. 189, and has been 
roimded by grinding. The hole lias been partially ground. 

A very peculiar hammer, discovered by Sir Richard Colt Hoare,- in 
Bush barrow, near Normanton, Wilts, is reproduced in Fig. 154. It lay 
on the right side of a skeleton, which was accompanied by a bronze celt 



Fig. 154.— Normanton, "Wilts. ^ 

■without side flanges, a magnificent bronze dagger, the handle of which 
was ornamented with gold, a lance-head of bronze, and a large lozenge- 
shaped plate of gold. The hammer-head is "made out of a fossil mass 
of tuhularia, and polished, rather of an egg form," or "resembling the 
top of a large gimlet. It had a wooden handle, which was fixed into 
the perforation in the centre, and encircled by a neat ornament of brass, 
part of which still adheres to the stone." As it bore no marks of wear 
or attrition, Sir Richard hardly considered it to have been used as a 
domestic implement, and thought that the stone as containing a mass 
of serpularia, or little serpents, might have been held in great venera- 
tion, and therefore have been deposited with the other valuable relies 
in the grave. Judging from the other objects accompanying this inter- 
ment, it seems more probable that this hammer was a weapon of 
offence, though whether the material of which it was formed were 
selected from any superstitious motive, rather than for the beauty of 
the stone, may be an open question. I have already mentioned instances 
of serpula' limestone having been employed as a material for celts of 
the ordinary character. The hole in this instrument appears to be 
parallel, and may possibly have been bored with a metallic tool. The 
occurrence of this hammer in association Anth such highly-finished and 

> Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. xv. p. 349. 

- " South Wilts," p. 204. " Cat. De%'Lzes Mua., No. 150." ^ Supra, p. 128. 

Q 2 



228 



PERFORATED AND GROOVED HAMMERS, [CHAP. IX. 



tastefully-decorated oT)jects of bronze and gold, shows conclusively 
that stone remained in use for certain purposes, long after the know- 
ledge of some of the metals had been acquired. 

The hammer-heads of the next form to be noticed are of a simpler 
character, being made from ovoid pebbles, usually of quartzite, by 
boring shaft-holes through their centres. The specimen I have selected 
for illustration, Fig. 155. is in my own collection, and was found in 




Fi^'. 155. — Redgrave Park. 5 

Redgrave Park, Suffolk. It is said to have been exhumed ten feet 
below the surface, by men digging stone in Deer's Hill. The pebble is 
of quartzite, probably from one of the conglomerates of the Trias, but 
more immediately derived from the gravels of the Glacial Period, which 
abound in the Eastern Counties. The hole as usual tapers towards the 
middle of the stone. The pebble is battered at both ends, and slightly 
worn away by use. I have a rather smaller, and more kidney-shaped 
hammer, also slightly worn away at the ends, foimd at M'illerby Carr, 
in the East Eiding of Yorkshire, and one (4 inches), that is consider- 
ably worn at both ends, from Stanifield, Bury St. Edmunds. An 

example was found at Normand}',^ near 
Wanborough, Surre}'. I have seen one 
formed from a sandstone pebble (4^- 
inches) found near Ware. 

In the Greenwell Collection is a large 
specimen, made from a flat pebble {7^ 
inches) obtained at Salton, York, N.R. 

Fig. 156 shows a smaller variety of the 
same type, but rather square in outline, 
and with the shaft-hole much more boll- 
mouthed. The original is in my own 
collection, and was found in Redmore 
Fen, near Littleport, Cambridgeshire. I 
have others from Icklingham (2f inches) and Harleston, Norfolk (3J 
inches). Hammers of this and the preceding type are by no means un 
1 Surr.Arch. Coll., vol. xi. p, 248-9. 




Fig. 156.— Eedmore Fen. 



MADE FROM QUART/ITE PEBBLES. 



229 




common. Mr. Josliuu W. Brooko has one (3} inches) from Liddingtou, 
Wilts. One of ([uartzite, 5 inches long, was found in a vallum of Clare 
Castle, Suffolk,' and is in the IMuseum of the Society of Antiquaries; 
another (4.V inches) at Sunnin^j^liill, Berks ; - another (2^ inches) near 
Reigate.'' One, in form like Fig. 1 .06 (4 [^ inches), was discovered in Fur- 
ness.^ Others were found at Pallingham Quay,' and St. Leonard's For- 
est,'' Horsham (5 inches), both in Sussex. AV'hat seems to be a broken 
hammer (2| inches) and not a spindle-whorl was obtained at Mount Ca- 
burn," Lewes. Another, circular in 
outline, and 3 inches in diameter, 
was found at Stifford," near Grays 
Thurrock, and is engraved in the 
ArchaologicalJoiirnaiy I have here 
reproduced the figure (Fig. 157), 
though the scale is somewhat larger 
than that of my other illustrations. 

In the British Museum is a speci- 
men, originally about oh inches by 
2\ inches, and []; inch thick, witJi 
the end battered, which was found 
in a tumulus at Cliffe, near Lewes. 
Another, 3 J inches in diameter, from 
the Thames ; a subtriaugular exam- 
ple from ]\Iarlborough (4] inches) ; 
and an oval one (3^ inches) from 
Sandridge, Herts, are in the same collection. 

A longer form (6| inches by 3^) was found at Epping Uplands, 
Essex,'" and another about o inches, rather hoe-like in form, in the Lea, 
at Waltham. Another (4.| inches) was found in London." 

In the Norwich IVIuseum are two hammer-heads of this type, one 
from Sporle, near Swaffham (3^ inches), of cj[uartzite ; and the other 
of jasper, from Eye, Suffolk, o inches by 2| inches. In the Fitch Col- 
lection are also specimens from Yarmouth (3^ inches), from Lyng (5 
inches), and Congham, Norfolk (6 inches), as well as a fragment of 
one found at Caistor. 

The late Mr. Warren, of Ixworth, had one from Great Wratting, 
near Haverhill (4 inches), and the late Mr. James Carter, of Cam- 
bridge, one 3} inches in diameter, from Chesterton. 

In the Museum of the Cambridge Antic^uarian Society is one of 
irregular form, found near Newmarket. A thin perforated stone, 6 
inches by 3 inches, from Luton,'- in Bedfordshire, may belong to 
this class, though it was regarded as an unfinished axe-head. 

In the collection formed by Canon Greenwell is one found at Coves 
Houses, Wolsingham, Durham (3.V inches), and another of ciuartzite (4^ 
inches), with both ends battered, from JNIildenhall Fen. He discovered 
another of small size, only 2 j inches in length, with the perforation not 

' Archaiologia, vol. xiv. p. 281, pi. Iv. ; Cat., p. 14. 



Fig. 157.— Stifford. 



Arch. Joiirn., vol. ix. p. 297. 
Archicologia, vol. xxxi. p. 4.52 
Smsex Arch. Coll., vol. xxvii. 
I'roc. Soc. Ant., 2ndS., vol. ii: 
Essex Nut., vol. viii. p. 164. 
Proc. Soc. Ant., 2ud S., vol. i 



p. 181. 
.p. 406. 

i. p. 400. 



Arch. Jonrn., vol. x. p. 72. 
'' Sussex Arch. Coll., vol. ix. p. 118. 
" Arch., vol. xlvi. p. 492, pi. xxiv. 22. 
» Vol. xxvi. p. 190. 
" Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xxix. p. 77. 



230 GROOVED HAMMERS. [CHAP, IX. 

more than -iV intli iu diameter in tlie centre, in tlie soil of a barrow at 
Eudstone.' near Bridlington. 

The late Mr. H. Diirden, of Blandford, had two fragments of these 
hammers, made from quartzite pebbles, one of them from Hod Hill, 
Dorset, and the other from the same neighbourhood. A perforated 
oval boulder of chert was also found near Marlborough. - 

Both roimd and oval hammer-stones are in the Leicester Museum.' 
One {(jh inches) was found at Doddenham, Worcestershire, and others 
(3| inches) at Silverdale,'' Torver.'^ and elsewhere in Lancashire. •"■ A 
large specimen (8 inches) was found at Abbey Cwm Hir,' Iladnorshire, 
and a small one near Khayader,'' Montgomeryshire. A circular example 
(4 J inches), with a ver}' small central hole, was discovered in Pembroke- 
shire.' Quartzite pebbles converted into hammer-heads occur also in 
Scotland. The hole in one from Pitloehrie'" is only ^ inch in diameter 
at its centre. In one from Ythanside, Gight," Aberdeenshire (4 J inches), 
it is only J inch. 

Besides quartzite and silicious pebbles, these hammer-heads were 
made from fragments of several other rocks. The Rev. S. Banks had 
one of greenstone, 5|- inches by oj inches, found at Mildenhall. A disc 
of dolerite '- (4 inches) with convex faces and perforated in the centre in 
the usual manner, was found at Caer Leb, in the parish of Llanidan, 
Anglesea. Several hammer-stones of this kind were obtained by the 
late Hon. W. 0. Stanley, M.P., in his researches in the Island of Holy- 
head.'^ One of them, now in the British Museum, is of trap, 4h: inches 
long and 3 inches broad, somewhat square at the ends ; another is of 
schist, 3| inches long, and much thinner in proportion. Both were 
found at Pen-j'-Bonc. A fragment of a third, formed of granite ( ? ), 
"Was found at Ty Mawr, in the same island. One of granite (?)" was 
found at Titsey Park, Surrey. A small one of "light grey burr stone," 
2f inches in diameter, was found at Haydock,^^ near Newton, Lan- 
cashire. I have a subquadrate example (4 inches) of felsite, from Belper, 
Derbyshire. The Scottish specimens are often of other materials than 
■qiiartzite. A circular ' ' flailstone, " found at Culter, Lanarkshire, has been 
figured,''' but the material is not stated. The same is the case with an 
oval one, 4 inches long, found near Longman,'' Macduff, Banff; another 
from Forfarshire ;'*' and a third, 4 inches by 3 inches, from Alloa.'' 

Others from Portpatrick-" (6f inches), and from a cist at Cleugh,-' 
Glenbervie, Kincardineshire, have been figured. I have a disc (3 
inches), nearly flat roimd the circumference like a Danish "child's 

' " Brit. Barrows," p. 248. 2 ^ych. Joiirii., vol. xxv. p. 250. 

^ Jiep. Leic. Lit. and Phil. Soc.,\?)l%, pi. iii. * Arch. Assoc. Jourii., vol. xxix. p. 305. 

s Tr. Cumb. and West. Ant. Soc, vol. ix. p. 203. 

'■ Tr. Lane, and Ch. Ant. Soc, vol. ii. pi. i. 

" Arch. Cainb., 5th S., vol. xii. p. 247. * Op. cit., p. 249. 

■■' Arch. Camb., 5th S., vol. v. p. 315. '" F. S. A. S., vol. xx. p. 105. 

" P. S. A.S., vol. xii. p. 183. 

'- Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xxii. p. 314. Arch. Camh., 3rJ S., vol. xii. p. 212. 
'•' Arch. Journ., vol. xxvi. p. 321 ; vol. xxvii. p. 147. 
^^ Surrey Arch. Coll., vol. iv. p. 237 ; 18G8, p. 24. 
^* Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xv. p. 233. 
'* Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xvii. pi. iv. p. 5. 

" Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. \i. p. 41. '* Ibid., vol. iii. p. 437. 

'» Ibid., vol. iv. p. 55. 20 P. S. A. S., vol. xii. 568. 

" Op. cit., p. 610. 



PURPOSES TO WHICH APPLIED. 



231 



wheel " from Ballachulisli, Inverness. It is formed of liornblendic 
gneiss. A lianuner-stone of this kind from Poyaune, Landes,' lias been 
recorded. 

. Some of these circular pebbles may have formed tlie heads of 
Inrar-maces, such as seem to have been in use in Denmark in ancient 
Ipimes and in a modified form, 
among various savage tribes in 
recent days. 

A curious variety of this type, 
tiat on one face and convex on the 
other, is sho'vvn in Fig. 1.58. It is 
made from a quartzite pebble, that 
has in some manner been split, 
and was found at Sutton, near 
Woodbridge. It is now in the 
collection of General Pitt Pivers, 
F.RS. 

In the Christy Collection is 
another implement of much the 
same size, material, and character, 
which was found at Xarford, 
Norfolk. The ends are somewhat 
hollowed after the manner of a 
gouge, but the edges are rounded. 
It seems to occupy a sort of inter- 
mediate position between a ham- 
mer and an adze. 

One of similar, but more elon- 
gated form, found at Auque- 
mesnil - (Seine Inferieure), has 
been figured by the Abbe Cochet. 

It is difficult to say for what purpose hammers of this perforated 
kind were destined. I can hardly think that such an enormous amount 
of labour would have been bestowed in piercing them, if they had 
merely been intended to serve iu the manufacture of other stone imple- 
ments, a service in which they would certainly be soon broken. If 
they were not intended for weapons of war or the chase, they were 
l^robably used for lighter work than chipping other stones ; and yet 
the bruising at the ends, so apparent on many of them, betokens their 
having seen hard service. 'We have little, in the customs of modern 
savages, to guide us as to their probable uses, as perforated hammers 
are almost unknown among them. The perforated spheroidal stones 
of Southern Africa'' actmerel}- as weights to give impetus to the digging 
sticks, and such stones are said to have been in use in Chili^ and Cali- 
fornia.^ The perforated discs of North America appear to be the 
fi\'-wheels of drilling sticks. Some c_[uartz pebbles perfoi-ated Avith 
small central holes, and brought from the African Gold Coast," seem 
to have been worn as charms. 

» Rev. dTAni. 1st S., vol. iv. p. 25.5. - '• Seine Inf.," 2nd ed.. p. 313. 

' "VTood, '• Nat. Hist, of Man." vol. i. p. 2.54. Proc. Soc. Ant. f>cot., vol. xi. p. 140. 
* /'. S. A. S., vol. xiv. p. 17o. '•> Rau. "Smithson. Arch. Coll.," p. 31. 

*• Sir J. Lubbock, in Jouni. Atith. Inst., vol. i. p. icv. 




Fi?. 158.— Sutton. 



232 PERFORATITD AND GIJOOVED HAMMERS. [CHAP. IX. 

In Ireland, perforated hammer-stones are miicli more abundant 
than in England. They are usuaUy formed of some igneous or meta- 
morphic rock, and vary considerably in size, some being as much as 10 
or 12 inches in length. 8ir AV. Wilde observes that stone hammers, 
and not unfreqiiently stone anvils, have been emploj'ed by smiths and 
tinkers in some of the remote country districts until a comparatively 
recent period. If, however, these hammers were perforated, there can 
be but little doubt that they must have been ancient tools again brought 
into use, as the labour in manufacturing a stone hammer of this kind 
woidd be greater than that of making one in iron, which would, more- 
over, be ten times as serviceable. If, however, the stone hammers 
came to hand ready made, thej' might claim a preference. For heavy 
work, where iron was scarce, large mauls, such as those shortly to be 
described, might have been in use rather than iron sledges ; biit the 
more usual form of stone hammer would probably be a pebble held in 
the hand, as is constantly the case witli the workers in iron of South- 
ern Africa. Even in Peru and Bolivia, the late Mr. David Forbes, 
F.R.S., informed me that the masons skilfiJ in working hard stone "with 
steel chisels, make use of no other mallet or hammer than a stone 
pebble held in the hand. The anvils and hammers used in Patagonia' in 
working silver are generallj^ of stone, but the latter are not pei-forated. 

In Germany, as already- incidentally remarked, anvils formed of 
basalt were in frequent use in the sixteenth century. 

In Scandinavia and Germany the same forms of hammers as those 
found in the British Isles occur, both in quartzite and in other kinds 
of stone. They are not, however, abundant. AVorsaae does not give 
the type in his " Nordiske Oldsager," and Nilsson gives but a single 
instance.'' Lindenschmit* engraves a specimen from Oldenstadt, Lilne- 
burg, and another from Gelderland."^ 

In Switzerland they are extremely rare. In the Neuchutel Museum, 
however, is a perforated hammer, formed from an oval pebble, and 
found in the Lake-habitations at Concise ; another, 2 inches in diameter, 
with a email perforation deeply countersimk on each face, has been 
regarded by M. de Mortillef^ as a sink-stone for a net. 

I have a lenticular mace-head, 3 inches in diameter and 2 inches 
thick, formed of a silicious breccia from Pergamum. The hole tapers 
from ^ inch to i inch. 

The half of a small perforated hammer made of greenstone and 
polished is recorded to have been found at Arconum,' west of Madras. 
A perforated stone, possibly a hammer, was found in the Jubbulpore 
district, Central India ; ** and a fine example from the Central Prov- 
inces, '■" rather more oval than Fig. 157, has been figured by the late 
Mr. Y. BaU. 

In the British Museum is a perforated ball of hard red stone of a 
different t3'pe from any of those which I have described, which came 
from Peru. It is about 3 inches in diameter, with a parallel hole an 
inch across. Around the outside are engi-aved four human faces, each 
surmounted by a sort of mitre. It may be the head of a mace. 

* Jourii. Anthrop. Inst., vol. i. p. 198. - Sup., p. G4. 

'•> "Stone Age," pi. i. 12. ^ " Alt. u. h. V.," vol. i. Heft i. Taf. i. 4. 

s Op. cit., vol. i. Jicft viii. Taf. i. G. « " Or. de la NaAng., &c.," fig. 20. 

' Trann.preh. Cong., 1868, p. 236. » Froc. As. Soc. Bettg., 1866, p. 135. 
' I'roc. As. Soc.Bcng., Mar., 1874. 



MAULS FOR MINING PURPOSES. 233 

Spherical mace-lioads of marble and of harder rocks occur among' 
Egyptian anti(Xuitios. Thoy are sometimes decorated by carving. 

In this i)Iaco ixn-haps it will be well to mention a class of large 
hammer-stones, or mauls, as they have been termed, which, 
though belonging to a period when metal was in use, are in all 
probability oi: a high degree of antiquit}'. They consist, as a 
rule, of large oval pebbles or boulders, usually of some tough 
form of greenstone or grit, around which, somewhere about the 
middle of their length, a shallow groove has been chipped or 
" picked," from f inch to 1 inch in width. On the two opposite 
sides of the pebble, and intersecting this groove, two flat or 
slightly hollowed faces have often been worked, the purpose of 
which is doubtless connected with the method of hafting the 
stones for use as hammers. This was evidently by means of a 
withe twisted round them, much in the same manner as a black- 
smith's chisel is mounted at the present day. In the case of the 
mauls, however, the withe appears to have been secured by tying, 
like the haft of one form of Australian stone hatchets (Fig. 105), 
and then to have been tightened around the stone by means of 
wedges driven in between the withe loop and the flat faces before 
mentioned. 

A^ German stone axe seems to have been fastened to its haft in 
the same manner. 

In many of tlie Welsh specimens about to be mentioned, the flat 
faces arc absent, and the notch or groove does not extend all round 
the stone, but exists only on the two sides through which the longer 
transverse axis of the pebble passes. In this case the wedges, if any, 
were probably driven in on the flatter side of the boulder. 

The ends of the pebbles are usually much worn and broken b}' 
hammering, and not unfrequently the stone has been split by the 
violence of tlie blows that it has administered. It is uncertain whether 
they were merely used for crushing and pounding metallic ores, 
or also in mining operations ; but with very few exceptions they occur 
in the neighbourhood of old mines, principally copper-mines. 

In some copper mines at Llandudno,- near the great Orme's Ilead, 
Carnarvonshire, an old Avorking was broken into about sixty years 
ago, and in it were found a broken stag's horn, and parts_of what were 
regarded as of two mining implements or picks of bronze, one about 
3 inches and the other about 1 inch in length. In 1850, another 
ancient working was found, and on the floor a number of these stone 
mauls, described as weighing from about 2 lbs. to 40 lbs. each. They 
had been formed from water-worn boulders, probably selected from 

' Zeitsch. f. yl. and E., vol. viii., 187(5, pi. xxv. 

^ Arch. Joiini., vol. vii. p. 08 ; Gent.'s Mag., 1849, p. 130. 



234 GROOVED HAMMERS. [CH.AP. IX. 

tlie beacli at Pen-maen-mawr. One of the maiils in tlie AVarrington 
Museum' is 6^ inches long, and -weighs 3 lbs. 14 ozs. One of basalt, 
measuring nearly a foot in length, was found in ancient -workings at 
Amlwch Parys ^Nliue,- in Anglesea. Others have been discovered in old 
■workings in Llangynfelin Mine,^ Cardiganshire, and at Llanidan,* 
Anglesea. 

A ponderous ball of stone, about .5 inches in diameter, probably 
used in crushing and poimding the ore, a portion of stag's horn, 
fashioned so as to be suited for the handle of some implement, and an 
iron pick-axe, were found in some old workings in the .Snow Brook 
Lead Mines, Plinlimmon, Montgomeryshire.^ 

Two of these hammer-stones, 4^^ and 5 inches in length, were ob- 
tained by the late Hon. AV. 0. Stanley, within hut ciixles, possibly 
the remains of the habitations of copper miners in ancient times, at Ty 
Mawr, in the Island of Holyhead. Some of these mauls are figured in the 
ArchaohgicaJ Journal,'^ and are of much the same form as Fig. 159, the 
original of which probably served another puri)ose. Others of the same 
character, formed of quartzite, were found at Pen-y-Bonc,' HolyheaJ. 
and Old Geir,- Anglesea. They have also been found at Alderley 
Edge,* Cheshire. 

A boulder, like those from Llandudno, but found at Long Low, near 
AVetton, Staffordshire, is in the Bateman Collection.-" One from 
Wigtownshire'' has been regarded as a weight. 

They are of not tmcommon occurrence in the south of Ireland.'' 
especially in the neigbourhood of Killamey, where, as also in Cork, 
many of them have been found in ancient mines. Thej' have, in 
Ireland, been denominated miners' hammers. One of them is engraved 
in " FKnt Chips." ^^ I have seen an example from Shetland. 

They have also been found in ancient copper mines in the province 
of Cordova,'* at CeiTO Muriano, A'illanueva del Eey,'^ and Milagro, 
in Spain; in those of Euy Gomes,'* in Aiemtejo, Portugal; and at the 
salt mines of Hallstatt,'' in the Salzkammergut of Austria, and at 
Mitterberg,'' near Bischofshofen. 

A large hammer of the same class, but with a deeper groove all 
round, has been recorded from Savoy. '^ 

They are not, however, confined to European countries, for similar 
stone hammers were found by Mr. Bauerman in the old mines of 
AVady Maghara,-' which were worked for turquoises (if not also for 

' Arch. A$80c. Joiinu, vol. xv. p. 2"A. • Arch. Journ., vol. vii. p. 69. 

3 ^rch. Camb., 2nd S., vol. i. p. 331. ■• Arch. Ctnnb., 4th S.. vol. v. p. 181. 

5 Arch. Journ., vol. svii. p. 66. ^' Vol xxvi. p. 320, figs. 10 and 11. 

' Arch. Jourii., vol. xxvii. p. IGl. " Lib. Cit.. p. 164. 

9 Journ. Anth. Itut., vol. v. p. 2. '« Cat., p. 28, No. 293. 

" P. S. A. S., vol. xxiii. p. 213. 

'- " Cat. Mus. Jl. I. A." p. 85. The chLsel-edsrod specimens there described are 
not improbably American. '^ P. 5.37. 

1* Mortillet, " Jtf'if^riauz,''' vol. iii. p. 98; vol. iv. p. 2S1. Tubino, "Estudios 
Prehi.storicos," p. 100. Cartailhac, p. 202. 

'* Jiev. Arch., vol. xiii. p. 137. 

^'^ Jor/i. de Sci. Math. Phv". y Xatiir., 1S6S, pi. viii. 

'' Simonv, " Alt. von HaUstatt." Taf. vi. 5. 

"• "Pr;ih. Atla-^." Wien, 1889, Taf. xix. 

''•' Perrin. " Et. Prehist. sux la Savoie," pi. xv. 17. 

^' Quart. Journ. Geol. Hoc, 1869, vol. xxv. p. 34. 



OF WIDE RANGE. 235 

copper ore) by the ancient Egj'ptians, so early as the third Manethonian 
Dynasty. It is hard to say wliother the grooved stone found by 
►Selilieuiann at Tro}'' was used as a hammer or a weiglit. 

AVhat is more remarkable still, in the New "World similar stone 
hammers are found in the ancient copper mines near Lake Superior.'^ 
As described by Sir Daniel Wilson/' " many of these mauls are mere 
water-worn oblong boulders of greenstone or porphyr}^ roughly chijipcd 
in the centre, so as to admit of their being secured by a withe around 
them." They weigh from 10 to 40 lbs., and are found in enormous 
numbers. M. Marcou^ has given an account of the discovery of some 
of these mauls in the Mine de la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest, at Point 
Kievenau, Lake Superior. lie describes them as formed of leptynite 
(quartz and felspar), quartz, and porphyry, and weighing from 5 to 8 
lbs. each ; and mentions having seen one of quartz weighing about 
.3 lbs., wliich was in the possession of some Kioway Indians, and was 
bound to a handle with a strip of bison skin. 

This similarity or identity in form of implements used in countries 
so wide apart, and at such different ages, does not, I think, point of 
necessity to any common origin, nor to any so-called " continuity of 
form," but appears to offer another instance of similar wants with similar 
means at command, resulting in similar implements for fulfilling those 
wants. Grooved hammers for other purj)oses, as evinced by their 
smaller size, and a few grooved axes, occur in Scandinavia. An 
examjile among one of the lower races in modern times is afforded by 
a large crystal of quartz, with its terminal planes preserved at both 
ends, which has been slightly grooved at the sides for the purpose of 
attaching it to a handle, and was brought by Captain Cook, from St. 
Creorgc's Sound, Avhere it appears to have been used as a hammer or 
pick. It is now in the British Museum, and has been described hj Dr. 
Henrj' Woodward.' 

Even in IJritain the hammer-stones of this form are not absolutely 
confined to mining districts. Canon Grreenwell. in one of the barrows 
at Rudstone,^ near Bridlington, found on the lid of a stone-cist two 
large greenstone jiebbles 8 and 9|- inches long, each with a sort of 
" waist " chipped in it, as if to receive a withe, and having marks at 
the ends of having been in use as hammers. 

Closely connected in form and character with the mining hammers, 
though as a rule much smaller in size, and in all probability intended 
for a totally different purpose, is the class of stone objects of one of 
which Fig. 159 gives a representation, reproduced from the ArcliccoJogical 
Journal.' This was found in company with two others at Burns, near 
Ambleside, Westmorland ; and another, almost preciselj^ similar in 
size and form, was found at I'ercy's Leap, and is preserved at Alnwick 
Castle. Another, from Westmorland, is in the Liverpool Museum, 
and they have, I believe, been observed in some numbers in that dis- 
trict. A stone of the same character, but more elaborately worked, 

' " Troy and its Remains," p. 97. 

- Schoolcraft, " Indian Tribes," vol. i. p. 9G ; Sqiiicr's " Ab. Men. of New York," 
p. 184 ; Lapham, "Ants, of Wisconsin," p. 71. 

3 "Prelii^t. Man," vol. i. pp. 246, 2.53. 

< Co.nptcs Jiendus, 18G6, vol. Ixii. p. 470; Geol. Mag., vol. iii. p. 214 ; Mortillet, 
** Mat.,'' vol. ii. pp. 331, 401 ; vol. iii. p. 99. ' Brii. Assoc. Report, 1870, p. loS. 

• Brit. Barrows, p. 239. ' Vol. x. p. C4. 



236 



GROOVED HAMMERS. 



[chap. 



IX. 



having somewhat acorn-shaped ends, was found "by the late Hon. 
"\V. 0. Stanley, at Old Geir,' Anglesea. Others from Anglesea,- one 
of them ornamented, have been figured. They were originally re- 
garded as hammer-stones, hut such as I have examined are made of 
a softer stone than those usually employed for hammers, and they are 
not battered or worn at the ends. It is, therefore, probable that they 
were used as sinkers for nets or lines, for which purpose they are well 
adapted, the groove being deep enough to protect small cord around 
it from wear by .friction. They seem also usuallj- to occur in the 
neighbourhood either of lakes, rivers, or the sea. A water- worn 
nodule of sandstone, o inches long, with a deep groove round it, and 
described as probably a sinker for a net or line, was foimd in Aber- 
deenshire,^ and is in the National Museum at Edinburgh; and I 



^ 



•^ 




Fig. 159. — Ambleside. 



have one of soft grit, and about the same length, given me by Mr. 
E. D. Darbishire, F.G.S.,. and found by him near XantUe, Carnarvon- 
shire. 

Many of these sink-stones are probably of no great antiquity. 
"With two transvei'se grooves, they are still in use in Shetland. ■* 

The Fishing Indians of Yaucouver's Island ^ go out trolling for 
salmon in a fast canoe, towing behind them a long line made of tough 
seaweed, to which is attached, by slips of deer hide, an oval piece of 
granite perfectly smooth, and the size and shape of a goose's egg. It 
acts as a sinker, and is said to spin the bait. A net-sinker, formed of 
a pebble slightl}- notched or grooved, is among the antiquities from 

1 Arch. Journ., vol. xxvii. p. 164, pi. xi. 5. 

2 Arch. Camb., 4th S., vol. v. p. 181 ; is. p. 34. 

3 I'roc. 8oc. Ant. Scot., vol. vi. p. 209. 

* P. .S. A. S., vol.ix. p. 382 ; xii. p. 266. Mitchell, '• Past in the Present," p. 124. 
» J/Vw. Anthrop. Hoc. Loud. vol. iii. p. 261. 



AND NET-SIXKERS. 237 

Lake Erie, engraved by Sclioolcraft.' Others liave Leon found in tlio 
State of New York.- See C. Rau's "Prehistoric Fishing." •* 

Sink-stones are by no means rare in Irehmd, and continue in use 
to the present day. One of the same class as Fig. 1.59, but grooved 
round the long axis of the pebble, is engraved by Sir W. Wilde.'* 
Similar stones occur in Denmark, and were regarded by Worsaae '• 
as sink-stones, thougli some of tliem, to judge from the wear at the 
ends, and the liardness of the material, were used as hammers. I 
liave seen, in Sweden, the leg bones of animals used as weights for 
sinking nets. 

Another form of sink-stone, weight, or plummet, was formed by 
boring a hole towards one end of a flattish stone. Such a one, 
weighing 14} oz., was dredged from the Thames at Battersea.'' 

Another, of oval form, pierced at one end, from Tyrie,' Aberdeenshire, 
is in the National Museum at Edinburgh ; and a wedge-shaped 
perforated stone from Culter, Lanarkshire,'* was probably intended 
for the same purpose. These may have been in use for stretching 
the warp in the loom when weaving. They are found of tliis form 
with Roman remains. '■' 

1 " Ind. Tribes," vol. ii. pi. 39. - Op. cit., vol. ii. p. 90. 

3 1884, p. 156 seqq., also Arch. f. Anth., vol. v. p. 262. 

* " Cat. Mus. R. J. A.," p. 95, fig. 77. 

* "Nord. Oldsag.," fig. 88 ; Nilsson, "Stone Age;' pi. ii. p. 34. 
^ Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xiv. p. 327. 

' Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. iv. p. 489. 

* Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xvii. p. 19. 

' See a paper on "Antike Gewicht-steine," by Prof. Ritsclil, in the Jahrh. d. 
Ytr. V. AUerihums-fr. im Rheinl., Heft. xli. 9 ; also xliii. 209. 



238 



CHAPTER X. 

HAMMKR-STONES, ETC. 

Under this head I propose to treat of those implements which 
have apparently been used as hammers, but which, for that pur- 
pose, were probably held in the hand alone, and not provided with 
a shaft, as the groove or shaft-hole characteristic of the class last 
described, is absent. At the same time there are some hammer- 
stones in which there are cavities worked on either face, so deep 
and so identical in character with those which, in meeting each 
other, produce the bell-mouthed perforations commonly present 
in the hammers intended for hafting, that at first sight it seems 
difficult to say whether they are finished implements, or whether 
they would have become perforated hammer-heads had the pro- 
cess of manufacture been completed. Certainly in some cases the 
cavities appear to be needlessly deep and conical for the mere 
purpose of receiving the finger and thumb, so as to prevent the 
stone slipping out of the hand; and yet such apparently un- 
finished instruments occur in different countries, in sufficient 
numbers to raise a presumption that the form is intentional and 
complete. There are some instances where, as was thought to be 
the case with a quartz pebble from Firth,^ in Orkney, the un- 
finished implements may have been cast aside owing to the stone 
having cracked, or to the holes bored on each face not being quite 
opposite to each other, so as to form a proper shaft-hole. 

In other instances, as in Figs. 160 and 161, the battering of 
the end proves that the stones have been in actual use as hammers. 
It is of course possible that these cavities may have been worked 
for the purpose of mounting the stones in some other manner 
than by fixing the haft in a socket. A split stick may, for 
instance, have been used, with a part of the wood on each side of 
the fissure worked away, so as to leave projections to fit the cavi- 

' Proc. Soc. Ant., 2n(l S., vol. ii. p. 274. 



"WITH DEPKESSIONS ON THE FACES. 



239 



tics, and have then been bound together so as to securely grasp 
the pebble. A stone mallet, consisting of a large pebble mounted 
between two curved pieces of wood, somewhat resembling the 
hames of a horse collar, and firmly bound together at each end, 
is still used by the quarrymen of Trichinopoly,^ in India. 
Another method of hafting stones, by tying them on to the side 
of a stick with little or no previous preparation, is practised by 
the Aymara Indians of Bolivia and Peru." Mr. D. Forbes, 
F.R.S., in his interesting account of this people, has engraved a 
])ebble thus mounted, which was in use as a clod crusher. One 
of them is preserved in the Christy Collection. Among the 
Apaches,^ in Mexico, hammers are made of rounded pebbles 
hafted in twisted withes. 

A remarkable liammer-hGad, found at Ilelmsley, in tlie North 

Eiding of Yorkshire, is iu the collection formed by Canon Greenwell. 

It is shown in Fig. 160, and has been made from a rather coarse- 
^> grained quartzite pebble, both ends of which 
^ have, however, been worn away by use to aa 

extent probably of an inch in each case, or of 

two inches in the whole pebble. The worn 

ends are rounded, but somewhat hollow in the 

middle, as if they liad at that part been iised 

for striking against some cylindrical or sliarp 

surface. The funncl-sha2)ed cavities appear 

almost too deep and too sharp at their edges 

to have been intended merely to assist in 

holding the hammer in the hand, and it 

seems possible that their original purjiose 

may have been in connection with some 

method of hafting. The hammer has, how- 
ever, eventually been used iu the hand alone, 

for the wear of the ends extends over the face, 

quite to the margin of one of the cavities, 

and at such an angle, that it would have been 

almost impossible for any handle to have 

been present. But if the stone be held in 

the hand, with the middle finger in the 

cavity, the wear is precisely on that part of the stone which would 

come in contact with a flat surface, in hammering upon it. AVhat 

substance it was used to pound or crush it is impossible to determine, 

but not improbably it may have been animal food ; and bones as well 

as meat may have been pounded Avith it. 

A quasi-cubical hammer-stone, with recesses on two opposite faces, 

found at Moel Fenlli,^ Euthin, Denbighshire, has been figured. It 

is now in my collection. 

> Mem. Geol. Surv. Lid., vol. iv. pi. i. p. 203. Trans. Preh. Cong., 1868, p. 238. 

2 Jotirii. Eth>iol. Soc, vol. ii. p. 2G3, pi. xxi. 7. 

' Catlin's "Last Rambles," p. 188. * Arch. Camh., oth. S., vol. i. p. 307. 




Fig. 160.— Helmsley. J 



240 



HAMMER-STONES, ETC. 



[chap. X. 



The specimen engraved as Fig. 161 has been made from a quartzite 
pebble, and has the conical dejiression deeper on one face than the 
other. It was found at Wiuterbonrn Bassett, Wilts, and is now in the 
British Museum. 

In the Norwich Museum is a similar pebble, from Sporle, near 
-y Swaffham. It is o\ inches long, recessed on each face, with a conical 
depression, the apex rounded. These cavities are about \\ inches 
diameter on the face of the stone, and about | inch in depth. The 
Eev. W. C. Lukis, F.S.A., had a hammer-stone of this kind, 3 inches 
long, found at Melmerby, Cumberland. One (6 inches) was found at 
Langtree,^ Devon, another (3|^ inches) at Trefeglwys,- Montgomery- 



U^ 






Fig. 161.— Wmtt'ibournBassftt. 2 

shire. I have one (3 inches) from Eyton-on-Dunsmore, Coventry, and 
a thinner example, 2| inches, much worn at the ends, from Lithngton, 

A circular rough-grained stone, 3 inches in diameter, with deep 
cup-like indentations on each face, found on Goldenoch Moor, "Wig- 
townshire,^ is in the National Museum at Edinburgh ; where is also 
another hammer formed of a greenstone pebble (o^- inches', with 
broad and deep cup-shaped depressions on each face, and much worn 
at one end, which came from Dunning, Perthshire. There are other 
examples of the same kind in the same museum. Many have, indeed, 

1 Tr. Lev. Assoc, vol. xii. p. 71. " Montg. Coll, vol. xiv. p. 273. 

3 Froc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. iv. p. 440; xiv. p. 127 : xv. p. 108. 



WITH DEPRESSIONS ON THE FACES. 



241 




IGlA.— Golilenoch. 



boon found iu Scotland. A good example from Machermore Loch/ 

AVigtownsbire, and several others,- have been figured. 

That from Groldenoch, shown in Fig. 161a/ has a deep recess 

on each face. Others from Fife' have the recess on one face only. 

In the case of one from the 

Island of Coll'^ the recesses are 

at the sides instead of on the 

faces. 

In some cases the depressions 

are shallower, and concave 

rather than conical. I have a 

flat irregular disc of greenstone, 

about 2\ inches diameter and 

I inch thick, thinning off to the 

edges, -which are rounded, and 

having in the centre of each 

face a slight cup-like depression, 

about I inch in diameter. It was found in a trench at Ganton, York- 
shire. In the GreenweU Collection is a somewhat larger disc of sand- 
stone, -worn on both faces and round the whole edge, and with a slight 

central depression. It was found in a cairn at Ilarbottle Peels, 

Northumberland. In form, these insti-uments are identical with the 
Tilhiiggersteene '• of tlie Danish antiquaries, and it is possible that some 
of them, especially those of the circular form, may have been used for 
the purpose of chipping out other kinds of stone imjjlements. 

The type is not of uncommon occurrence in Ireland." It is rare in 
France, but a broken example from the neighbourhood of Amiens 
is in the Blackmore Museum. 

I have a sj^ecimen which might be mistaken for Danish or Irish, 
but which was brought me from Port Beaufort, Cape of Good Hope, 
by Captain H. Thurburn, F.G.S. It must have been in use there 
at no vei'y remote period. 

An oval stone, with what appears to be a cup-shaped depression 
on one face, § inch deep, is engraved by Schoolcraft* as a relic of 
the Congaree.s. Another, from the Delaware Eiver, of the Danish 
form, is described by Nilsson* as a tool for making arrow-points. 
He also engraves one from Greenland. Other so-called hammer- 
stones in the same plate are more probably " strike-a-light " stones, and 
under any circumstances belong to the Early Iron Period. Abbott '" 
and Pan " also describe Indian hammer-stones, some like Fig. 161. 

Highly polished, and deep cup-shaped or conical depressions are 
occasionally to be observed occurring on one or both faces of large 
pebbles, usually of quartz, and sometimes in two or three places on 

' P. 8. A. S., vol. xi. p. .583, Munro "Lake-dw.," p. 448. 

- ]\ S. A. S., vol. xiv. 127 ; xv. 2C7 ; xxiii. p. 211. 

■' Kindly lent by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. 

* P. S. A. S., vol. xxii. p. 62. * P. S. A. S., vol. xii. p. 688. 

'' "Worsaae's " Nord. Oldnager," No. 32, 33. Nilsson's "Stone Age," pi. i. 14. 
A Liiuebiirg specimen.with deep conical depressions, is given by Lindenschmit. "Alt. 
u. h. v.," vol. i. Heftviii. Taf. i. 4. 

■" Wilde's "Cat. Mus. R. I. A.," fig. 7.5. 

** "Ind. Tribes," vol. iv. p. 165. 
'0 " Prim. Industry," p. 42.5, et. seqq. 

K 



9 "Stone Age," p. 12, pi. i. 2, 3. 
^' Arch. f. Antli., vol. v. p. 263. 



242 



HAMMER-STOXES, ETC. 



[chap. 




the same face. Though very similar to the holIo"\vs on the hammer- 
stones, they are clue to a very different cause, being merely the results 
of stone bearings or journals having been emplo3'ed, instead of those 
of brass, for the upright spindles of corn mills. It seems strange that 
for such a purpose stone should have gone out of use, it being re- 
tained, and indeed regarded as almost indispensable for durability, 
in the case of watches, the jiivot-holes of -which 
are so frequentlj^ ''jewelled^''' 

Fig. 162, which I have reproduced from the 
Sussex Archceological Collections' on the same scale 
as the other figures, shows a pivot-stone of quart- 
zite (?) found in the ruins of St. Botolph's Priory, 
Pembrokeshire, a few yards from a pebble (4A in- 
ches) of similar material, in which a hole had been 
bored to the depth of half an inch apparently by the 
friction of the pointed end of the smaller pebble. 
Another pivot-stone of the same kind was found at 
Bochym,'- Cornwall. Such socket-stones were, imtil 
Tig. 162.— St. Botolph's recently, in use in Scotland^ and Piedmont* for the 
"°^^ ■ ' iron sjnndles of the upper mill-stones of small water- 

mills. Pivot-stones with larger socket-stones were also used for field- 
gates. Similar socket-stones occur in Switzerland,* and have puzzled Dr. 
KeUer. 

A stone, with a well-polished cavit}'-, found on the site of an old 
mill near Carluke, Lanarkshire,'' was exhibited at Edinburgh in 
1856. Another was found in Argyllshire; and I have seen other 
specimens from Ireland. The socket of the hinge of the great gate 
at Dunnottar Castle is said to have consisted of a similar stone. 
>Stones with highly-poKshed hoUows in them, in which apparentlj' 
the ends of drill - sticks revolved, are com- 
mon on the site of ancient Naukratis.' 

As has already been observed at page 223, it 
is by no means uncommon to find portions of 
polished celts which, after the edge has been by 
some means broken away, have been converted 
into hammers. Yery rarely, there is a cup-like 
cavity worked on either face in the same 
manner as in the celts shown in Figs. 87 and 
88. A specimen of this character, from the 
neighbourhood of Bridlington, is shown in 
Fig. 163. It is of close-grained greenstone, 
and, to judge from the thickness of the battered 
end, the celt, of which this originally formed 
the butt, must have been at least half as long 
again as it is in its present form. The cavities 
have been worked out with some kind of pick 
or pointed tool, and from their position so near 
the butt-end, it seems probable that they did 
- Arch. Assoc. Joitni., vol. xxix. p. 344. Cum- 
ming's " Churches and Ant.si. of Cury and Dunwalloc," 1873, p. 69. 
~ P. S. A. S., vol. X. p. 634. Mitchell, " Past in the Present," p. 126. 

iv. p. 139. i An:, f. Schw. AH., 1876, Taf. viii. 




rig. 163.— Bridlington. 



1 Vol. ix. p. 118. 



Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. 

" Cat. Arch. Inst. Mus., Ed^u.," p. 12 



"Naukratis," 1886, pi. i. p. 4: 



WITH DEPRESSIONS OX THE FACES. 



243 



Fig. 164.— Bridlington. 



not exist in the original celt, but were subsequently added -vrlien it 
bad lost its cutting edj^e, and -was destined to be turned into a hammer- 
stone. In the Clreenwell Collection is a similar specimen, 4 inches long, 
found at Wold Newton, in the East liiding of Yorkshire. In the celts 
with cup-sliaped depressions on their faces, but still retaining their 
edge, the depressions are nearer the centre of the blade. 

This liollosving of a portion of the surface is sometimes so slight as 
to amount to no more than a rougliening of the face, such as would 
enable tlio thumb and fingers to take a 
sufficiently secure hold of the stone, to 
prevent its readily falling out of the 
band when not tightly grasped ; a cer- 
tain looseness of hold being desirable, to 
prevent a disagreeable jarring when 
the blows were struck. If, as seems 
])robable, many of these hammers or 
pounders were used for the purpose of 
.splitting bones, so as to lay bare the 
mixrrow, we can understand the necessity 
of roughening a portion of the greas}'- 
surface of the stone, to assist the hold. 

In Fig. 16-11 have represented a large 
quartz pebble found in Easton Field, 
IJridlington, which has the roughened 
depression on both faces rather more 
strongly marked than usual, especially 
on the face here shown. It is more 
battered at one end than the other, and has evidently been long in use. 
It shows some traces of grinding at the lower end in the figure, as if 
it had been desirable for it to have a sort of transverse ridge at the 
end, to adapt it to the purpose for which it was used. 

Canon Greenwell found in a barrow at Weaverthorpe,^ Yorkshire, a 
hammer-stone of this kind, but nearly circular in form. It is a flat 
quartz pebble, about 1-|- inches in 
diameter, battered all round, and 
broken at one j)art, and having 
the centre of one face artificially 
roughened. 

A round hammer (2.V inches), with 
depressions on each face, was found 
at Gatley,- Cheshire. Hammer- 
stones of the same character occurred 
abundantly on the site of ancient 
Naukratis.^ The tcallong,^ or stone 
used by the Australian natives for 
grinding nardoo seeds on the yow ici, a large flat stone, is curiously like 
Fig. 164. 

To the same class, belongs the hammer-stone shown in Fig. 165, 
found at Huntow, near Bridlington. It has been made from a quartz 
pebble, of the original surface of which but little remains, and has a 

r,-. Lane, and Ch. Arch. Sop., vol. xi. p. 172. 
* Jouru. Anth. Inst., vol. vi. pp. -11, 195. 

r2 





Fig. 1< 



/"i 



' " Brit. Barrows," p. 200. 

* "Naukratis," pi. i. 188G, p. 42. 



244 HAMMER-SIONES, ETC. [CHAP. X. 

well-marked depression about ^ inch, deep in the centre of each face. 
The periphery is much Avorn away by use. 

A tine-grained sandstone pebble, in form like a small cheese, about 
3 inches in diameter, having the two faces smooth and perfectly flat, 
was foimd at Eed Ilill,' near Eeigate, and was regarded as a muller 
or pounding- stone used possibly in husking or bruising grain ; or even 
for chipping flint, its surface bearing the mark of long-continued use 
as a pestle or hammer.- '-'Precisely similar objects have been found 
in Northumberland, and other»parts of England." 

Canon Greenwell informs me that about twenty such, differing in 
size and thickness, were found on Corbridge Fell, together with several 
stone balls. He thinks they may possibly have been used in some 
game. A paper on the stone hammer and its various uses has been 
published by Mr. J. D. McGuire.^ 

The circular stone from Upton Lovel Barrow,* engraved by Sir 
E. Colt Hoare, appears to be a hammer or, more probabl}-, a rub- 
bing-stone, but it is worn to a ridge all round the periphery. ■ I 
have a precisely similar instrument from Ireland. Other mullers 
from "\S'iltshire ^ barrows have been figured by Dr. Thurnam. Several 
such discoidal stones, somewhat faceted on their periphery, were 
foimd by the late Hon. AV. 0. Stanley, in his examination of the 
ancient circular habitations in Holyhead Island, and some have been 
engraved.® 

An almost spherical stone, but flattened above and below, where the 
surface is slightly jwlished, was found in Whittington Wood, Glouces- 
tershire, and exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries in 1866.' It is of 
quartzite, about 3 inches in diameter. Another, of the same size, of 
depressed spherical form, was found in Denbighshire,"" and another 
flat disc of quartz in Aberdeenshire.^ 

Pebbles that have been used in this way, as pounders or mullers, 
belong to various ages and different degrees of civilization. Some well 
worn have been found in Yorkshire ^" barrows and elsewhere.^' One 
from Philiphaugh,'- Selkirkshire, has been figured. I have one such, 
worn into an almost cubical form, which was found with Eoman remains 
at Poitiers, and I have seen several others said to be of Eoman date. 
A pounding-stone of much the same form as Fig. 165, found on the 
summit of the Mont d'Or, Lj'onnais,^ has been engraved by M. Chantre, 
with others of the same character. I have seen examples in Germany. 

I have a flat granite pebble, about 3^ inches by 3 inches, the sides 
straight, the ends round, and with well-marked circular depressions in 
each face, from Cayuga County, Xew York. It has certainly been used 
as a hammer-stone. Such mullers are by no means uncommon in 
North America. Some of the American ^* stone discs, which are ocea- 

' Froc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. i. p. 71. - Arch. Joiir/i., vol. xvii. p. 171. 
3 Amer. Anthropologist, vol. iv., 1891, p. 301. 

* " South Wilts," Tumuli, pi. vi. " Cat. Devizes Mus.," No. 3. 

* See Arch., vol. xliii. p. 408. 

* Arch. Journ., vol. xxvi. p. 320, figs. 14, 15. Arch. Camb., 4th S., vol. v. p. 181. 
' Proc. Soc. Ant., 2n(i S., vol. iii. p. 396. " Arch. Jouni., vol. x. pp. C4, 160. 

3 Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. vi. p. 208. 
»" Greenwell, " Brit, bar.,'' pp. 200, 239, 242. 

^' Arch. Journ., vol. xxviii. p. 148. '- P. S. A. S., vol. xxviii. p. 341. 

12 " Etudes Paleoethnol.," 1867, pi. iv. 1. 
" Squier and Davis, " Anct. Mon. of Mississ. Valley," p. 222. 



WITH CUr-SHAl'ED DEPRESSIONS. 245 

sionally pierced, ai)pear to liave Loon more probably used in certain 
games. 

Oup-sliapod cavities occasionally occur on stones which have not 
apparently been intended for use us hammers. In the soil of one of 
tho barrows at lludstone, near Bridlington, Canon Groenwell found a 
fragment of a greenstone pebble, nearly flat on one face, in which a 
concave depression, about an inch over and \ inch deep, had been 
l)icked. In tho National Museum at Edinburgh is a subquadrate 
flat piece of grit, 1 inch thick and about 3.V inches long, on each 
face of which is a cup-shaped depression about 1^ inches in dia- 
meter. It does not appear to have been used as a hammer. Mr. 
James Wyatt, F.G.S., had a piece of close-grained grit, in shape 
somewhat like a thick axe-head, -1^ inches long, ;J inches wide, and 
3 inches thick, with four concave deiiressions, one on each face and 
side, found at Ivempston Eoad, near 13edford. What purpose these 
hollows fulfilled, it is difficult to guess. The stones in which they 
occur may, however, have been used as anvils or mortars on which to 
hammer or pound ; or the cavities may have served to steady objects 
of bono, stone, or wood in the process of manufacture. Anvil stones, 
with pits worn on their faces, probably by Hints having been 
broken upon them, have been found in Scotland.' A sandstone^ 
with a concave depression on each of its six faces has been re- 
garded by IMortiilot as a grindstone for fashioning stone buttons or 
the convex ends of other implements. I have seen analogous cavi- 
ties produced, on a larger scale, on blocks of granite which have 
been used as anvils, on which to break road materials. The cup 
and ring cuttings •' common on ancient stone monuments, especially in 
Scotland, do not come within my province. Flat stones, with cup- 
shaped markings upon them, sometimes as many as seven on a stone, 
were found in considerable abundance in some of the Yorkshire * 
barrows examined by Canon Greenwell. 

The stones with cup-shaped^ depressions in them, found in the 
caves of the Eeindeer Period in the south of France, have the hollows, 
in nearl}' all instances, upon one of their faces only, and have there- 
fore more probably served as mortars than as hammers. The pebbles, 
from the same caves, which have been used as knapping or chipping 
stones, arc usually left in their natural condition on the faces, though 
worn away at the edges, sometimes over tho whole periphery. A very 
few of the hollowed stones show signs of use at the edges. 

Stones with cup-shapod '"' depressions, like those from the French 
caves, are in use in Siberia for crushing nuts and the seeds of the 
Cembro Pine ; and among the natives of Australia ' for pounding a 
bulbous root called beiiila/i, and the roasted bark of trees and shrubs 
for food. Some Carib examples of the same kind are in the Ethno- 
logical ^Museum at Copenhagen, as well as some from Africa, used in 
the preparation of poison. 

1 r. S. A. .v., vol. xiv. p. 314 , xxi. p. 13o. - " Mus. preli.," fig. o92. 

•' See Sir J. Y. Simpson, I'roc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. vi. App. 
* "Brit. Barrows," 341, ct scqq. * See " Reliqiiise Aquit.," p. 60. 

6 '< Rcl. Aquit.," p. 108. 

'' Arch. Assoc. Jourii., vol. vii. p. £4. See Eyre's "Central Australia," vol. ii. 
pi. iv. p. 14. 



24G 



HAMMER-STONES, ETC. 



[chap. 



Some of the so-called corn-crushers ' and mealing-stones from the 
Swiss Lake-dwellings have shallow depressions on the faces, but for 
the most part they belong to the class to be subsequently described. 
I have one of granite, from Nussdorf, with a depression on one face, 
in which the thumb can be placed, while the forefinger lies in a 
groove, like that of a pulley, Avhich extends about half-way round the 
stone. The opposite part of the edge is much worn by hammering. 
It ajiproximates in form to tlie pulley -like stones to which the name of 
sling-stones has been given, but the use of which is at present a mystery. 

A hammer-stone, curiously like that which I have ongi-aved as Fig. 
165, is among tliose found in the settlements of the Lac du Bourget,- 
by M. Eabut. This or a similar one is in the British Museum. Another 
from Picardy^ has been iigured. 




Fig. 166.— Scamridge. 



A hammer-stone, if so it may be called, of bronze, is among the anti- 
quities from Greenland in the Ethnological ISIuseum at Copenhagen. 

Occasionally' the depression is reduced to a minimum, and consists 
of merely a slight notch or roughening on one or both faces of the 
pebble which has served as a hammer or pounding-stone. 

The irregular, flat greenstone pebble, worn away at both ends, 
shown in Fig. 166, has on one face only a notch, apparently intended 
to receive the thumb. It was foimd at Scamridge, Yorkshire, and is 
in the Greenwell Collection. It will be observed that it is worn into a 
curved ridge at one end. In the same collection is an oval quartzite 
jiebble (4^]- inches), battered at both ends, and with a slight diagonal 
ridge at that most worn away. This was found in a barrow at Weaver- 
thorpe,* with an unburnt body. I have a flat greenstone pebble from 

^ Keller's " Lake- dwellings," p. 137. Lindensclimit, "Holienz. Samml.," pi. 
xxvii. 8. 

- " Hab. Lac. de la Savoie," 1st Mem. pi. xi. 2. 

" Rev. Arch., 3rd S., vol. -v-ii. p. 6S. ^ " Erit. Earrows," p. 193. 



RIDGED AT THE END. 247 

Scamridge, Yorksliiro, worn av>'iiy at ono end to a curved ridge- 
somewhat oblique to tlie faces of the pebble, one of which is slightly 
polished as if l)y constant rubbing. There is in the Greenwell Collec- 
tion a granite pebble (3^ inches), from the same place, battered 
at one end, and the other much worn away by use, which also has 
one face flat and slightly polished. In the camp at Little Solsbury 
Hill,' near Batli, I iound two quartzite implements of rudely quad- 
rangular prismatic form, each having one end worn away to a ridge. 
Another quartzite pebble, rubbed to an obtuse edge at one end, was 
found by (ieneral I'itt llivers, F.R.tS.,'" within an ancient earthwork at 
Dorcliester, Oxfordshire. 

A hammer-stone of close-grained grit, having a ridge all round the 
perii)hery, was found in Anglesea.-' Others with ridged ends have 
occurred in crannogs at Lochlee,^ Ayrshire, and in Wigtownshire.'' 
Some of them seem to belong to the Iron Age. 

Among the specimens just described, there are three peculiarities 
which, though not occurring together on all, are worthy of notice — the 
notch on the face, the ridge at the end, and the polished face. 

There can be no doubt of the notch on the face being, like the cup- 
shaped depressions, merely intended as an aid in holding the stone. 
On the hammer-stones discovered by the late Mr. J. W. Flower, 
F.Gr.S., in a post-Roman kjokken-mcidding, in the island of Herm,'' 
there were usually one or two rough notches or indentations on each 
face, exactly adapted to receive the ends of the thumb and some of 
the fingers ; and, curiously enough, I have a pebble notched in pre- 
cisely the same manner from Delaware AVater Gap, Pennsylvania, and 
no doubt intended for a hand-hammer or pounder. 

In the same kjokken-muddingat Hermwere several' celt-like imple- 
ments of j^orphyry and greenstone which, instead of an edge, had the 
end blunt, but Avith a ridge obliquely across it, as on these pebbles. 
Somewhat similar pounding-stones have been found by the late Hon. 
"W. 0. Stanley, at Pen-y-I3onc," Holyhead, in some instances provided 
with a depression fitting the thumb or finger, and several having the 
ridge at the end. 

The same sort of ridge occurs on pounding-stones from Denmark, 
Portugal,' Spain,'" Ireland, and elsewhere, and occasionally extends all 
round the stone when it happens to be disc-shaped, like those already 
mentioned from Upton Lovol and elsewhere. Hammer-stones worn 
to a ridge are also found in Egypt." It would appear that the face of 
the hammer was ground away, either by a rocking motion on a flat 
stone, or by the blows given with it being administered alternately from 
the right and from the left, so as to keep any matter that was being 
pounded with it from being di-iven out of position. 

1 Trau.i. Ethnol. Soc, N. S., vol. iv. p. 242. 

- Jottrii. Ethnol. Soc, vol. ii. p. 413. ^ Arch. Canih., 4th S., vol. v. p. 184. 

* r. S. A. .S'., vol. xiii. p. 204, Munro, "Liike-d\v.," p. 102. 

•' 1'. H. A. S., vol. xxiii. p. 214. " Jotirn. Aiith. Soc, 1869, p. cxvii. 

' The burnishing stones in use umong powtorers are, when dismounted from their 
setting, curiously like these blunt-ended celt-like instruments. They have no ridge, 
however, at the truncated end. Some of the stone burnishers used by bookbinders- 
are also in form like celts, but have a flattened edge. 

■^ Arch. Juiini., vol. xxvii. p. IGI. " Trans. Eth)i. Soc, N.S.,vol. vii. p. 48. 

"^ De Gongora, "Ant. Preh. dc Andalusia," p. 108. 
" Zeitsch. f. Eihn., vol. xx. p. (3G5). 



248 HAMMER-STONES, ETC. [CHAV. X. 

I have, lastly, to notice the more or less polished condition of one 
of the faces of these stones, which may be due to their being used for 
grinding the material already pounded by their edges to a finer 
powder on the slab, which served instead of a mortar. One of the 
flat pebbles found in the Cave of La Madelaine. Dordogne, appears 
to have served as a muller for grinding the haematite used as paint. 

Sometimes these hammer-stones are mere pebbles without any 
previous preparation, and indeed it is but natural that such should 
have been the case. Canon Greenwell has found pebbles of quartz 
and greenstone, worn and battered at the ends, accompanying inter- 
ments on the Yorkshire "Wolds, and such are also occasionally present 
on the surface, though they are, of course, liable to escape observa- 
tion. A quartzite pebble that has served as a hammer-stone, and 
is much worn and fractured by use, was found at Ty Mawr. and 
is figured in the Jrchaohgical Journal} as are also several from 
hut-circles in Holyhead and Anglesea.- A large sarsen-stone pebble, 
weighing 4f lbs., and which had obviously been used as a hammer, was 
foimd in the Long Barrow, at "West Kennet,^ "Wiltshire. A large coni- 
cal sort of muller of sarsen-stone.' weighing 12^ lbs., was discovered 
with twenty-two skeletons, various animal remains, and pottery, in a 
large cist, in a barrow near Avebury. Mr. G. Clinch has a hammer 
from West ^\'ickham, made from a nearly cylindrical quartz pebble, 
much worn at both ends, one of which is more rounded than the other. 

On the Downs of Sussex, in the pits of Cissbujy, in Yorkshire, 
Suffolk, Dorsetshire, and other counties, hammer-stones of flint, 
apparently used for chipping other flints, have been found, but from 
their rudeness it seems hardly worth while to engrave any specimens. 
At Grime's Graves the hammer-stones consisted principally of quartzite 
pebbles, though some were of flint. In many instances the hammers 
made of flint seem to be cores from which flakes have been struck, 
but which, proving to be of refractory stone, have been found more 
serviceable as hammers. Some of the cores found at Spiennes, near 
Mons, have been thus used, as well as fragments of celts. Some of 
the hammer-stones from the French eaves consist also of such cores. 





; r;.-^. ;e7 :j;dl6S.— York<hirt Woldi. \ 

Stone mullers are in common use in most countries at the present day, 
for grinding paint and similar purposes. They occur at the Cape of Good 
Hope,^ but were there, no doubt, originally intended for other uses. 

The general character of the chipped flint hammer-stones will be 
gathered from Figs. 167 and 168, both from the Yorkshire "Wolds. 

' Yol. xxiv. p. 251. - Vol. ixvi. p. .320: xxni. 147. 

3 Areh., vol. xxiviii. p. -116. * "Cran. Brit.,"' vol. ii. pi. o8, p. 2. 

* Trant. Freh. C<fng., 1868, p. 70. 



MADE OF FLINT AND QL'ARTZITE. 



249 



Neither of thorn shows any trace of the original surface or crust of 
the flint from wliich it has been fashioned. The larger one has been 
chipped with numerous facets somewhat into the shape of a broad 
bivalve shell, and is mucii battered round the margin. Pig. 168 is 
niuch smaller than usual, and is more disc-like in character. 

A large number of discoidal stones, formed from flattish quartzite 
pobbles,lhave been found on the Culbin Sands, ^ Elginshire. By the 





Fig. 168a.— Culbin S.inds. J 

kindness of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, one of them is sliown 
in Fig. 168a. They maybe hammer-stones, but show no traces of use. 

IMore commonly, perhaps, the form is approximately spherical. Fig. 
169 is, however, a more symmetrical specimen than usual. It was 
found by Mr. E. Tindall at Grindale, near Bridlington, and its surface 
is battered all over by continual 
pounding. I have others of similar 
character from Icklingham, Suf- 
folk ; Jordan Hill, Weymouth ; and 
elsewhere. Two from Old Geir, 
iVnglesea, are engraved in the 
Arc/iccoloffical Journal!- 

Others were found in a tumulus 
at Seaford, ' and at Blount Caburn,^ 
Sussex. 

Numerous rude hammer-stones 
have been found at Carnac,'^ Brit- 
tany. 

One of chert, 3 inches in diameter, was found in the Isle of Port- 
land,'' and several have been found in Dorsetshire" which were sup- 
posed to have been used in fashicmiug flint implements ; and balls of 
chert, 2t} inches and 2| inches in diameter, found at West Coker, 
Somersetshire," and another from Comb-Pyne, Devonshire,'-* have been 
thought to have been " intended for the sling, or else to be tied up 
in a leather thong attached to a staff, and employed as a sort of 
mace." 

1 r. S. A. S., vol. XXV. p. 496. - Vol. xxvii. pi. xi. 2, ;]. 

3 Susx. Arch. Coll., vol. xxxii. p. 171. * Arch., vol. xlvi. p. 492, pi. xxiv_. 26. 

'•> Miln'.s " Excav. at Carnac," 1881, pi. xv. "^ Arch. Jouni., vol. ^xv. p. 47. 

' Proc. Sue. Ant., 2ud S., vol. ii. p. 26.). 

^ Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xviii. p. ;{93. ^ Ibid., vol. xxiii. p. :501. 




Fig. 1C9.— lliiJlii 



250 IIAMMEK-STONES, ETC. [CHAl-. X. 

A globular noclulfi of flint, one pound in weight, and chipped all 
over, found with numerous flint flakes in the long-chambered barrow 
at AVest Kennet,' appeared to Dr. Tliurnam to have been used in 
their production. Several others found together in the parish of Ben- 
loch}-,-' near Blairgowrie, were regarded as sling-stones. A lump of 
red flint found in a barrow near Pickering,'' in company with a flint 
spear-head and two arrow-heads at the right hand of a skeleton, was 
considered by Mr. Bateman to have been used as a hammer for chij^ping 
other flints. A more highlj'-decorated class of stone balls will be 
described at a subsequent page. Stone balls, such as were in common 
use for cannon in the Middle Ages, and those thrown by catapults and 
other military engines, do not come within my province. 

Judging from the battered surface of the spherical stones now 
under consideration, there can be no doubt of their having been 
ill use as hammers or pounders ; but they were probably not in 
all cases used merely for fashioning other implements of stone, but 
also for triturating grain, roots, and other substances for food, in 
the same manner as round pebbles are still used by the native 
Australians,^ One such root, abundant in this country, is a prin- 
cipal article of food consumed bytheAhts^ of North America, among 
whom " the roots of the common fern or bracken are much used 
as a regular meal. They are simisly washed and boiled, or beaten 
with a stone till they become soft, and are then roasted." In 
New Zealand also fern roots are jDounded for food, with pestles of 
basalt. The corn-crushers and mealing-stones found in the Swiss 
Lake- dwellings have evidently been intended for the purposes 
which their names denote ; and at the present day among many 
savage tribes, the only form of mill that is known is that of a flat 
or slightly concave bed-stone, with a stone rolling-pin or muUer. 
Among the Kaffirs^ and in West Africa the mill is of this char- 
acter, the bed-stone being large and heavy, slightly hollowed on its 
upper surface ; the muller, a large oval pebble which is used with 
a peculiar rocking and grinding motion. The corn (maize or 
millet) is often boiled before grinding. In Abyssinia'^ the bed- 
stone of gneiss or granite is about 2 feet in length and 14 inches 
in width. The face of this is roughened by beating it with a 
sharp-pointed piece of harder stone, such as quartz or hornblende, 
and the grain is reduced to flour by repeated grinding or rubbing 

1 Arch. vol. xxxviii. p. 416. - Arch. Assoc. Journ.,yo\. xxiii. p. 391. 

* "Ten Years' Dig^gs." p. 223. •« Tra7>s. Ethn. Soc, K. S., vol. iii. p. 278. 

•'' iSproat's " Scenes and Studies of Savage Life," p. 5.5. 

« Wood, "Nat. Hist, of Man," vol. i. p. 152. Eatzel, " Yolkerk.," vol. i., 1887, 
p. 216. 

' " Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia," Baker, p. 78. See also "The Albert Nyanza," 
vol. i. p. 6.'). Klemra's " Cult.-Wiss.," p. 88. 



SADDJ.E-QUERNS. 



251 



■with a stone rolling-pin. Sucli mcaling-stones are also in use in 
South America.^ They have been occasionally found in Britain, 
and the annexed figure shows a pair found in a hut-circle at Ty 
Mawr,^ in the island of Holyhead. Others have been found in 
Anglesea.^ Similar specimens have been obtained in Cambridge- 
shire and Cornwall, and Mr. Tindall had a pair found near 
Bridlington. A mcaling-stonc with the muUer was found in Ehen- 
side Tarn,'* Cumberland. I have myself found a muUcr at Osbas- 
ton, Leicestershire. A pair of stones from the Fens^ is in the mu- 
seum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. Some largo blocks of 
flint, having a flat face bruised all over by hammering, have also 
been found in the Fens, and may have served as mealing- stones. 

The same form of mill is found also in Ireland,'' and not 
improbably remained in occasional use until a comparatively late 




Fig. 170.— Holyhead. 

period. Fynes Moryson'^ mentions having seen in Cork " young 
maidcs, stark naked, grinding corno with ccrtaine stones, to make 
cakes thereof ; " and the form of the expression seems to point to 
something different from a hand-mill or quern, which at that time 
was in common use in England. The name of saddle-quern has 
been given to this form of grinding apparatus. In the ])lack- 
more Museum is one from the pit- dwellings at Ilighfield,^ near 
Salisbury, which are not improbably of post-Roman date ; and in 
the British Museum is one found near Macclesfield. 

' Rev. Dr. Hume, "Ulust. of Brit. Ants, from Objects found in S. Amer.," p. C9. 

- See Arch. Jottrn., vol. xxiv. p. 241, whero much information is given concerniug- 
such stones. 

^ Arch. JcMrn., vol. xxvii. p. 160, &c. ylrch. Cmnh., 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 210 ; ord 
S., vi. 376 ; vii. 40 ; viii. 157 : 4th S., xii. p. 32. * Arch., vol. xlvi. p. 28"). 

■' Arch. Camb., 3rd S., vol. vii. p. 240. '• Wilde'.s " Cat. ilus. R. I. A." p. 104. 

" " Itinerary," 1017, pt. iii. p. 101. " •' Flint Chips," p. G2. 



5 



252 HAMMER-STONES, ETC. [CHAF. X. 

They are also known in Scotland. One of granite, found near 
"V\'ick,^ is in the National Museum at Edinburgh ; as is also 
another, 20 inches by 12 inches, with a rubber 12 inches by 
8 inches, found in a cave near Cullen, BanfFshire.- 

They likewise occur in Shetland.^ Mr. J. TV. Cursiter has a 
long narrow muUer with a curved back, in which are five grooves 
to receive the fingers, so as to give it the appearance of being a 
fragment of an ammonite. 

Saddle-querns of the same character occur also in France.^ I 
have a small example from Chateaudun. One from Chassemy^ 
(Aisne) has been figured. 

Some were likewise found in the Genista Cave at Gibraltar.^ 
They are common in "West Prussia and in the Island of Riigen, 
as well as in Scandinavia generally. 

A German saddle-quern, from the ancient cemetery at Monsheim, 
has been engraved by Lindenschmit.^ Others are mentioned by 
Klemm.^ MM. Siret have also found them in their explorations 
in Spain. 

It will have been observed, in the instances I have cited, that 
the movable muller or grinding-stone is not spherical, but elon- 
gated; but what is possibly the more ancient form approached 
more closely to a pestle and mortar in character, and consisted of 
a bed-stone with a slight concavity in it, and a more or less 
spherical stone for a pounder. 

A grinding-stone of granite, with a cavity, apparently for bruising 
grain by a globular stone, was found in Cornwall.^ and undressed 
slabs with concavities of the size and shape of an ordinary soup-plate, 
are of frequent occurrence in the Hebrides.^'' Others have been t'ovuid 
in company with stone balls, in the ancient habitations in Anglesea. 

Fig. 171 shows a trough of stone, found at Ty Mawr,'^ Holyhead, 
by the late Hon. "W. 0. Stanlej', who kindly lent me the wood-cuts of 
Figs. 170 and 171. The cylindrical grinding-stone or muller was 
fotind within it, and has a central cavity on each face, to give the hand 
a better hold in grinding. A similar appliance was found at Pen-y- 
Bone '- in the same island. 

A triturating trough from Cleveland" has been figured. 

^ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot. ,Tol.u. p. 377. 

- P. S. A. S., vol. vii. p. 9. 3 p s. A. .S.. vol. xi. p. 176. 

* Garrison et Filhol, " Agede la Pierre polie,"' &c.. p. 27. Arch. Camb., 4tliS., 
Tol. i. p. 292. 

^ "Mus. Preh.," No. 5S7. * Tran.'. Preh. Co»g., 1868, p. 155. 

" " Alt. u. h. v.." vol. ii. Heft -i-iii. Taf. i. 16. 

* "Cult.-Wisa.," p. 88. 

' Arch. Camb., 3rd S., vol. iii. p. 356. i'» Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. iv. p. 1 17. 

" Arch. Journ., vol. xxvii. p. 160, pi. ii. 1. 
^- A. J., vol. sxiv. p. 247. '^ Atkinson's " Cleveland," p. 40. 



PESTLKS AND MORTARS. 



253 



Tliey havo Leon found in Cornwall ' and in Ireland.- 

Others havo been discovered in Brittany. 

Hand-mills of granite formed in much the same manner have been 
in use until lately in Brandenburg. The lower stones are described 
as from 2 feet to 4 feet long, and nearly as wide, with channels, after 
long use, as much as G inches deep ; the mullers are either spherical 
or oval, and of such a size that tliey can be hold in the hand.-' 

A largo sandstone, with a small bowl-shaped concavity worked in it, 
was found near burnt bones, in a barrow at Elkstone,' Staffordshire ; 
and two others in barrows near Sheon.'" Another, with a cup-shaped 
concavity, 2\ inches in diameter, occurred in a barrow near Picker- 
ing;" and in other barrows were found sandstone balls roughly chipped 
all over, from 4 inches to 1 inch in diameter, in one instance associated 
with a bronze dagger. A ball of sandstone, 2^ inches in diameter, was 
found with Hint instruments accompanying a contracted skeleton in a 




i•'l^^ 171.— Tv .Miiwr. 



barrow near Middleton." A round stono like a cannon-ball was also 
found in a barrow near Cromer," and three balls of stone, from 2^ 
inches to IJ inches in diameter, were picked up in a camp at Weet- 

.^ wood," Northumberland. 

Mealing-stones, both flat and hollowed, were found in Schliemann's^" 

excavations at Troy. 

In grinding and pounding a considerable amount of grit must havo 
been worn off the stones and been mixed witli the meal. The usual worn 
condition of the teeth in the skulls from ancient barrows may be con- 
nected with this attrition. Mr. Charters- White," by examination of 

' "Na?ma Comub.," p. 221. 

2 Wood-ilartin " Lake-dw. of Ireland," 1886, p. 8.5. 

•' Kirchner, ''Thor's Donncrkeil," 1853, p. 97. 

* " Ten Years' Diggings," p. 172. '' Ibid., -p. 177. 

« Ibid., pp. 213, 224, 226. " " Vestiges Ant. Derb.," p. 99. 

^ Areh. Journ., vol. vii. p. 190. ^ Arch. Joiini., vol. xxiv. p. 81. 

"» "Troy," 1875, pp. 151, 103. 

" British Med, Journ., April 2nd, 1887, quoted in E^sex Xaturalist, vol. i. p. 92. 



254 



HAMMER-STOXES, ETC. 



[chap. 



some teeth from a long barrow at HeytesLury, T\*ilts. was able to 
show the presence of grains of sand of dilferent kinds in the dental 
tartar. 

There are two other forms of grinding apparatus still in use — 
the pestle and mortar, and the rotatory mill — both of "which date 
back to an early period, and concerning which it "will be well to 
say a few words in this place. The ordinary form of pestle — a 
frustum of a very elongated cone with the ends 
rounded, is so well known that it appears need- 
less to engrave a specimen on the same scale as 
the other objects. In Fig. 172 is shown one of 



W 



Kg. 173 




Rg. 172.— Holyhead. 

a more than usually club-shaped form, 11 inches 
long, found in Holyhead Island.^ 

This cut originally appeared in illustration of an 
interesting paper by Mr. Albert Way, F.S.A., on 
some relies found in and near ancient circular 
dwellings in Holyhead Island, in which paper 
some of the other discoveries about to be men- 
tioned are also cited. A pestle nke a small club, 
9 1 inches long, was found in a gravel-pit near 
Audley End,- with a Eoman cinerary urn. Another, 
of grey granite, more cylindrical in form, and 
flatter at one end, IH iaches long and 2 inches 
in diameter, was f otmd at Pulborough, ' .Sussex, and 
is engraved in Fig. 1 73. A limestone pestle of the 
same character, 12 inches long and 2^ inches in 
diameter, found at Clift Hill, is in the museum at 
Leicester. A fine pestle of granite or gneiss (12f 
inches^ from Epping Forest ^ has been figured, as 
has been a shorter one from a barrow at Colling- 
botim Ducis,^ Wilts. Another of greenstone, 
-h.. probably a naturally-formed pebble, 10] inches 
long and 2^ inches in diameter, rounded at 
both ends, was found with three porphyry celts in a cairn at 
Daviot,^^ near Inverness. It is now in the National Museum at 

1 Arch. Jouni., \o\. xxiv. p. 252. 

^ Arch. Journ., vol. xiv. p. 357 ; xtu. 170. 

3 Suss. Arch. Coll., vol. ix. p. 117. " Chich. Vol. Arch. Inst.,"' p. 63. This cut 
has been kindly lent me by the Sussex Aich. Society. 

* £stex yatttraliit, vol. ii. p. 4. 

5 Arch. Tol. xliii. p. 408. A. C. Smith, "Ants, of X. Wilts,"" p. 14. 

<- See Pfoc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. vi. p. 179, "where the mtasiirements hardly agree 
with mine. 



FROIvr SHKTLAXl) AND ORKNEY. 2'J5 

EJinljurg-lx. Anothei- of j^veonstono, IG inches long, Avas found near 
Carlisle'; and tlio late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S., liad one of tlie 
same material 10 inches long, tapering from 2 inches in diameter to 
II inches, found in llilgayFen, Norfolk. A similar pestle-like stone, 6 
inches long, found in tStyria, is engraved by Professor Unger.'- Another 
of the same length was among the objects found in the Casa da Moura," 
Ptn'tugal. ^Mauy pestles, more or less well finished in form, have 
been discovered by tlio late L)r. Hunt, Dr. Mitchell, Mr. Petrio, Mr. 
Long, and others in the Orkney and Shetland Isles, and in different 
parts of Scotland. 

Those wlio wish to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with 
the different circumstances of these discoveries, and with the various 
forms of rough implements brouglit to light, will have to consult the 
original memoirs '' which have been written concerning them. Both 
in cists or graves, and in the remains of ancient circular habitations, 
have numerous hammer-stones and pestles been found, associated 
with various other articles manufactured from stone and bone. Some 
of these are extremely rude, and appear hardly deserving of the 
names of spear-hcads, knives, chisels, battle-axes, &c., which have 
been bestowed upon them. Thero can, however, be no doubt of 
their being of human manufacture, whatever purpose they may have 
served. A few well-formed and polished stone celts were found in 
company with the objects of this class in the "Underground House 
of Skaill," Orkney, which, however, Avas not, strictly sjieaking, sub- 
terranean. In the building, and in the midden around it, were 
very great numbers of oval sandstone pounding-stones and of large 
sandstone flakes, probably knives of a rude kind, a pebble with a 
groove round it like a ship's block, and a few celts. In Shetland 
these rude stone implements have been found with human skeletons 
interred in cists, sometimes with polished weapons.* A very curious 
implement, somewhat T-shaped, with pointed extremities, and grooves 
round the transverse part, was found in the broeh of Quoyness,'' San- 
daj', Orkney, and has been figured. 

Many of the pestle-like stones are mereh' chipped into a somewhat 
cylindrical form, but others have been picked or ground all over, so as 
to give them a circular or oval section. The ends in many instances are 
more or Ic^ss splintered, as if by hammering some hard substance rather 
than by pounding, and the exact purpose to which they were applied 
it is extremely difficult to divine. 

Four of them are shown, on a small scale, in Figs. 174 to 177. 

Some are more club-liko " in character, as in Fig. 178, and are 
even occasionally wrought to a handle at one end, as was the case 

^ Arch. Jourii., vol. xxiv. p. 253. 

- Sitzungsb. der K. Akad. dtr Wiss. in Wioi, vol. Iv. p. 52S. 

^ Trans. Ethn. Soc, N. S., vol. vii. p. 49. 

* See Laing's "Prehistoric Remuins of Caitliness, " 1866. Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., 
vol. vii. I'tjs.iim ; viii. 64. pi. vi. Jlcni. Anthrop. Soc. Lond., vol. ii. p. 294 ; iii. 
216. I am indebted to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland for the loan of Figs. 
174 to 179. See also P. S. A. S., vol. viii. pi. vi. ; xi. p. 173; xii. p. 271; 
and Mitchell's " Past i:i the Present," p. 140. 

* J'roc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. vii. p. 136. 
•> P. S. A. S., vol. vii. pp. 358, 400. 

' P. S. A. S., vol. vii. p. 125. 



256 



HAMMER-STONES, ETC. 



[chap. X. 



with one found in the heart of a burnt stone tumulus at Bressay ^ (Fig. 
179), so as tu give them much of the appearance of the short batlet or 




I-.--. 1-4. 




Fig. 175. — Shetland. 




Fi'-. 176.— Shctlacd. 



batting-staff used in the primitive mode of washing linen, such as is 
still so commonly practised in many parts of the Continent. Nearly 




Fis. 177.— Shetland. 



similar rough instruments have been found al Baldoon,- Wigtown- 
shire. Is it possible that these stone bats can have served a similar 




Fig. 178.— Shetland. 



21 in. 



purjiose 'i In the Northern counties ^ a large smooth-faced stone, set 
in a eloping position by the side of a stream, on which washerwomen 

' P. S. A. .S., vol. vii. p. 127. ^ P. S. A. S., vol. xxiii. p. 219. 

2 See "SMiitaker's "Hist, of Craven.," 2nd ed., p. 468. 



VARIOUS FORMS OP MORTARS. 257 

beat their linen, is still called a battling-stone,' and the club is called 
a batter, batlet, battledore, or battling-staff . Such clubs may also have 
been used in the preparation of hemp and flax. 

A stone club, from St. Isabel,- Bahia, Brazil, is described as 13| 




Fig. 179.— Shetland. 

inches long, 2i inches wide, and l^ inch thick. It may, however, be 
a celt, like the supposed clubs from Lancashire^ and Cumberland. 

There can be no doubt of several of the pestles, though probably not 
all, belonging to the same period as stone implements of other forms. 
The mortars in which they were used, were probably merely depres- 
sions in blocks of stone, or even of wood. Some rude mortars have, as 
already mentioned, been found in Holyhead Island, and Anglesea, but 
it is uncertain to what age they belong. A portion of a mortar of 
granite, with a channelled lip, found witli fragments of urns and 
calcined bones in a grave at Kerris Vaen, Cornwall, is engraved in the 
Archceologia Cambrensis.* 

Very similar stone pestles to those from Orkney were in use among 
the Nortli American Indians'' for pounding maize, and some are 
engraved by Squier and Davis." 

They also employed' a small form of mortar for pounding quartz, 
felspar, or shell, with which to temper the clay for pottery. Stone 
mortars and pestles were in use among the Toltecs and Aztecs in 
making tortillas, and are found in South Carolina,* and elsewhere in 
the United States. Among the ancient Pennacooks *• of the Merrimac 
valley, the heavy stone pestle was suspended from the elastic bough of 
a tree, which relieved the operator in her work ; and among the 
Tahitians'" the pestle of stone, iised for pounding the bread fruit on a 
wooden block, is provided with a crutch-like handle. 

Some large circular discs of stone, apparently used for grinding, and 
others with deep cup-shaped depressions in them, found on Dartmoor, 
and probably connected with some ancient metallurgical operations on 
the spot, have been engraved and described in the Transactions of the 
Devonsk ire Association.^ ' 

' Wright's " Prov. Diet.," s.v. Cotgrave translates the word Baton " a laundress's 
batting-stdff." 

-' Arch. Assoc. Jotirn., vol. xxiv. p. 65. ■' Op. cit., vol. xv. p. 232. 

■* 3rd S., vol. iii. p. 358. * Schoolcraft, " Ind. Tnbes," vol. i. p. 80. 

•" '' Anct. Mon. of Mississ. Val.," p. 22it. 

" Schoolcraft, " Ind. Tribes," vol. i. p. 90. 

" Op. cU., vol. ii. p. 89. ^ Op. ci/., vol. iv. p. 175. 

'" Cuming in Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. vii. p. 83, where .some interesting infor- 
mation relating to mortars will be found. Ratzel, " ViJlkerk.,"- vol. ii. p. 179. 

" Vol. iv. p. 136. See also a paper by Mr. R. N. Worth, on the progicss of 
mining skill in Devon and Cornwall, in the Trans. Coniw. Polyt. Soc. 

S 



258 HAMMER-STONES, ETC. [cHAP. X. 

The hand-mill formed with an upper rotatory stone is a mere modi- 
fication of the pestle and mortar, and dates back to a very early period, 
though it has continued in use in some parts of the British Isles even 
unto our own day. The name quern, by wliir-h such mills are usually 
known, occurs in closely similar fonns, in all the Teutonic dialects. 
In Anglo-Saxon it appears under the form Cweom or Cwyrn, and in 
modern Danish as Qvsem. An excellent example of this instrument, 
■which had been, up to 1850, in use in the cabin of a Kilkenny peasant, 
was presented by the Eev. J. Graves to the Archaeological Institute, 
and is described and engraved in their Journal.' The upper stone is 
of granite, the lower of millstone grit. The lower stone is recessed to 
^ receive the upper, and has a central depression, in which a small block 

^ of oak is fixed, from which projects a small pin — also of oak — to carry 

^ the upper stone. This is about 2 feet in diameter, and is perforated 

at its centre with a hopper-like hole, across the bottom of which a 
.- small bar of oak is secured, having a recess in it to receive the pin, 

!^ r\j but only of such a depth as to keep the upper stone at a slight distance 

■^.. Vj from the lower. Through the upper stone, and near its verge, a 

vertical hole is drilled to receive a peg, which forms the handle for 
^ Vj' turning it. When in use it is worked, as in ancient times among the 

.vJ Jews, by two women seated opposite each other, who alternately seize 

and propel the handle, so as to drive the stone at considerable speed. 
The corn, highly dried, is fed by handfuls into the hopper in the runner 
or upper stone, and the meal passes out by a notch in the rim of the 
nether stone. Pennant,- in his "Tour in Scotland," describes querns. 
\ as still in use in the Hebrides in 1772. They were said to cost about 
- , -^ fourteen shillings, and to grind a bushel of com in four hours, with 
two pair of hands. He gives a representation of a quern at work, with 
a long stick, hanging from the branch of a tree, inserted in the hole 
in the runner, so as to form the handle. A somewhat similar method 
of driving the hand-mill indoors, taken from a German MS. of the 
^*^'' fourteenth century, has been reproduced from a work by Drs. Von 

^ Hefner and Wolf in the Archaological Journal:' 

A sketch of a hand-mill in use at the present day, at Abbeville, is 
1.'. given in C. Eoach Smith's " Collectanea Antiqua."* 

^ -;»Y' .. ' Even in the neighbourhood of water-mills, when the charge for 
. . ■ grinding was at all high, we find these hand-miUs in use in mediaeval 

^cP^ times. Such use. by the townsmen of St. Albans, was, in the begin- 

ning of the fourteenth century, a fruitful source of litigation between 
them and the abbots, who claimed the monopoly of grinding for their 
tenants. •" Thirteen of these, however, maintained their right of using 
hand-mills, as having been enjoyed of old, and some claims were raised 
to the privilege of gi'inding oat-meal only, by means of a hand-mill. 

It seems probable that these mediaeval hand-mills were of large size, 
and with a comparatively flat upper stone, like the modern Irish form, 
which is sometimes 3 feet 6 inches in diameter. One. 3 feet in diameter, 
found near Hollingboume.^ Kent, was probably of no great antiquity. 

{^' 1 Arch. Journ., vol. vij. 393. - Vol. ii. p. 323. 

* " Die Burg Tannenberg," &c.. Arch. Jouru., yol. vii. p. 40-4. 
« Vol. iii. p. 130. 

5 " Gesta. Abb. Mod. S. -Ub.," vol. ii. p. 249. 

* Arch. Asioc. Journ., vol. vii. p. 175. 



HAIS'U-M1I,LS OR QUERXS. 259 



k^y 



The same may be said of a six-sidod quern, with an iron pivot, found 
in Edinburgli.' A quern, found at West Ooker,- Somerset, with a 
fleur-de-lis over tlie passage hy which the meal escaped, has been 
assigned to the thirteenth century. The lower stcjue of a quern 
.accompanied an apparently .Saxon interment at Winster,' Derbyshire, 
lit was of the beehive* shape, and made of millstone grit. Similar , 
■querns, with iron ])ins, have been found at Bi'eedon,=^ Leicestershire, - KCT^ 
as well as others with the upper stone more conical. One of this class •; V" 

was also found near Rugby.'' They frequently accompany Eoman' re- | , ,]^, , 
mains, but these are generally of smaller size, and of a more hemispheri- ' '' " 
cal form, the favourite material being the Lower Tertiary conglomerate, 
or Hertfordshire pudding-stone. Those of Andernach lava, from the 
Rhine, are usually flat. 

A complete quern was found at Ehenside Tarn,® Cumberland. The 
upper half of another was in a post-Roman circular dwelling, near 
Birtley,'-' Northumberland. 

(iuerns of various forms are of frequent occurrence in Wales, 
especially in Anglesea. An upper stone from Lampeter,'" Cardigan- 
shire, has a semicircular projection at the margin round the hole for 
the handle. In some districts" they have been in use until quite 
recent times. '- 

In Scotlimd, querus are of frequent occurrence in the ancient 
brochs and hill forts. In one of the former, at Kettleburu,'-' Caith- 
ness, a stone in preparation for a quern was found; in another, in 
Aberdeenshire, an upper stone, 1 8 inches in diameter, was discovered. 
Another stone of the same size, surrounded by four border stones to 
prevent the scattering of the grain in grinding, was discovered in a 
subterranean chamber in a hill fort at Dunsinane,'* Perth. A curious 
pot-quern, the lower stone decorated with a carved human face, was 
found in East Lothian, and is engraved by Wilson. '^ 

Some interesting notices of Scottish querns have been given b}- Sir 
.Arthur Mitchell.'" 

The upper stone, ornamented with raised lines, shown in Fig. 180, 
from a cut kindly lent me by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 
was found in trenching a moss in the parish of Balmaclellan, New 
(ialloway, with some curious bronze objects of '* late-Celtic " workman- 
ship. '^ 

An upper stone (18 inches), ornamented in a nearly similar way, 
was found near Stranraer,'* Wigtownshire, and another, with a tribrach 
instead of a cross, at Roy Bridge,'" Inverness-shire. 

' Froc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol iii. p. 203. - Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xv. p. 3;i'ci 

•^ "Ten Years' Dig.," p. 99. . * Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xiii. 227. 

■'• Ibid., vol. XV. p. 337. « Arch. .Tuurn., vol. v. p. 329. 

' Smith's " Coll. Ant.," vol. i. p. 112. Arch., vol. xviii. p. 435 ; xix. 183 ; x.xx. 
128. Vroc. Bury and Jf. Suff. Arch. I., vol. i. p. 230, &c. Froc. Soc. Aid., 2nd ;S., 

vol. iii. p. 2.59. 

» Arch., vol. xliv. p. 285. » Arch., vol. xlv. p. 3GG. 

'! ^'^^^^- (^'""^'■' -^tli S., vol. viii. p. 320. " Arch. Camb., 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 210. 

'■- Lee's " Isca Silurum," p. 114. '^ Froc. Soc. Ant. Scut., vol. i. p. 2(37. 

'* P. S. A. i., vol. ii. p. 97. See also vol. v. p. 30. 

'* Freh. Ann I'.s of Scot., vol. i. p. 214. 

'* /' 5. A. & , vol. xii. p. 261. Mitchell's "The I'ast in the Present." p. 34. 

" F. S. A. S , vol. iv. p. 417. ■" F. S. A. S., vol. xiii. p. 178. 

'» F. S. A. S.. vol. xxi. p. 162. 

s2 



260 



HAMMER-STONES, ETC. 



[chap. X. 



Some ornamentally carved upper stones of querns, one of them with 
spiral and leaf -shaped patterns upon it, much like those on the bronze 
ornaments of the "late-Celtic" Period, have been discovered in 
Anglesea.' 

Querns of green sandstone are stated, by Sir E. Colt Hoare,' to be 
numerous in British villages and pit-dwellings in Wiltshire, as indeed 




Fig. ISO.— Balmadellan. 

they are in other counties,^ though formed of various kinds of grit. 
They rarely occur in barrows, though burnt granite querns have been 
found with burnt bones in cromlechs in Jersey.* 

Some observations on querns by the Rev. Dr. A. Hume, are published 
in the Archceologia Cafnbrensis.^ As these utensils belong, for the most 
part, to Roman and post-Roman times, I have thought it needless lu 
enter into an}' more minute description of their forms, or of the 
•circimistances under which they have been found. 



' Areh. Camb., 3rd S., vol. vii. p. 
2 "South Wilts," p. 36. 
* Arch.,\o\. XXXV. p. 246. 



38. 



"Vest. Ant. Derb.," 127 
2nd 6., vol. ii. p. 89. 



261 



CHAPTER XL 

GRINDING- STONES AND WHKTSTONES. 

Before proceeding to the consideration of other forms of imple- 
ments, it will be well to say a few words with regard to those 
which have served for grinding, polishing, or sharpening tools 
and weapons, and more especially such as there is every reason 
to suppose, were employed to give an edge or finish to other 
materials than metal, though the whetstones of the Bronze Period 
must not be passed by unnoticed. 

I have already mentioned the fact that the grindstones on 
which stone celts and axes were polished and sharpened, were not 
like those of the present day, revolving discs against the peri- 
phery of which the object to be ground was held ; but stationary 
slabs on which the implements to be polished or sharpened were 
rubbed. Considering the numbers of polished implements that 
have been discovered in this country, it appears not a little 
remarkable that such slabs have not been more frequently noticed, 
though not improbably they have, from their simple character, for 
the most part escaped observation ; and even if found, there is 
usually little, unless the circumstances of the discovery are pecu- 
liar, to connect them with any particular stage of civilization or 
period of antiquity. In Denmark and Sweden, however, these 
grinding-stones, both of the flat and polygonal forms already 
described, are of comparatively frequent occurrence. Specimens 
are figured by Worsaae,^ Sophus Miiller, and others, and were 
also given by Thomsen,^80 long ago as 1832. He states that they 
have been found in Scandinavia, in barrows and elsewhere in the 
ground, with half-finished stone celts lying with them, so that 
there can be no doubt as to the purpose for which they were 
intended. They are also described by Nilsson^ and Montelius.* 

» "Nord. Olds.," Nos. 35 and 36. 

* Tidjikrift for Oldkyndighcd, vol. i. pi. ii. p. 423. 

» "Stone Age," p. 16. * "Ant. Sued " 



262 GRINDING-STOXES AND WHETSTONES. [tIIAl>. XI. 

]}oth slabs and prismatic pieces of saudstone have been found in 
the Swiss Lake-dwellings/ several of the former with concavities 
on one or both faces, resulting from stone hatchets having been 
ground upon them.^ 

In France the discovery of numerous ' poJissoirs ' has been noticed, 
some of them of very large dimensions. They are abundant in the 
Departments of la Charente^ and la Dordi)gne,* and some fine examples 
are in the Museum of Troyes (Aube). One, nearly 3 feet long, with 
hollows of different characters, apparently for grinding different parts 
of tools and weapons, is figured by M. Peiguo Delacourt ;'' an oval 
concavity upon it is 2 feet 3 inches long by 1 foot wide, and seems well 
adapted for grinding the faces of large celts. Another fine example was 
in the possession of Dr. Li'veille,* at Grand Pres>^igny, and a large 
specimen, also from Poitou, is in the !Musee de 8t. Germain. Several 
have been found in I^uxembourg" and Belgium. 

Flat grinding-stones of smaller dimensions have been found in the 
turbaries of the Somme and in the Camp de Catenoy.*^ A narrow 
sharjiening stone o inches long is recorded to have been found with 
stone hatchets and other implements in the Cueva de los Murcielagos, 
in Spain." Folis-toirs have also been observed in India. ^" 

The Carreg y Saelhau," or Stone of the Arrows, near Aber, Carnar- 
vonshire, has numerous scorings upon it, a quarter or half an inch in 
depth ; and. though doubtless used for shar])ening tools and weajions 
of some kind, it seems to belong to the metallic age. Canon Green- 
well informs me that he observed a rock close to a camp on Lazeuby 
Fell, Cumberland, with about seventy grooves upon it from 4 to 7 
inches long and about 1 inch wide and deep, pointed at eitlier end, as 
if from sharp-ended tools or weapons having' been ground in them. 
The grooves are in various directions, Ihough sometimes in groups of 
four or five together, which are parallel with each other. In the 
course of his investigations in the barrows on the Yorkshire ^Voids'- he 
has found a few of the flat slabs for grinding or polishing, though of 
t^mall size. One of them, formed of a fiat piece of red sandstone about 
4^ inches b}- 3^ inches, with both faces bearing marks of having been 
in use for grinding, lay close to a deposit of burnt bones. Another 
somewhat similar fragment of sandstone (2| inches by 2^ inches), 
which also bore traces of attrition, was found in a barrow at Helpcr- 
thorpe. 

In another barrow at Cowlam,'-' Yorkshire, E. E., was a rough piece 

' Keller's -'Lake -dwell.," p. 24. 

2 Keller, "Pfahlbauten," Iter Bericht, Taf. iii. 19; 3ter. Ber. Taf. ii. 2. 

' '• Les Polissoirs preh. de la Charonte.'' G. Chauvet, Angoxilcme, 1883. 

* '• Les Polissoirs neol. du Dep. de la Dordogne," Testut. Mat.. 3rd S., vol. iii. 
<1886) p. 65. 

* "Notice sur deux Instruments," &c., p. 4. JIortDlet, Matiriaux, vol. ii. 
p. 420. 

^ See " Ant. Celt et Anted, de Poitou," pi. xxx. 
' Ann. Soc. Arch, de BruxeUex, vol. x., 1896. p. 109. 

8 B. de Perthes, "Ant. Celt et Anted.," vol. ii. p. 16.5. MortUlet, "Prom, au 
Mus. St. Germain," p. 148. 

* De Gongora y Martinez, " Ant. Preh. de Andalusia," p. 34, fig. 19. 

'" Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. x\t. p. 73. ^' See Arch. Jourii., vol. xxi. p. 170. 

'» "Brit. Barrows," p. 168. ^3 "Brit. Barrows," p. 220. 



TJSEU FOR SHARPENING CELTS. 2G3 

of grit, 2:1 inches long, with one end slightly hollowed, apparently Ly 
grinding celts, and a large flat conipuft laminated red sandstone pebble 
about 84' inches by 3 inches, witli b<jt}i faces ground away, the one 
being evenly flat and the other uneven. In the same barrow occurred 
one of the flint rubbers to be su])sequently described, and also a 
quartzite pebble (2A inches long) that had been used as a hammer- 
stone. A portion of a whetstone of I'ennant or Coal-measure sand- 
stone was found in the long barrow at AVest Kennet, AViltshire,' in 
which also occurred a thin ovoidal knife of flint, ground at the edges. 

I have in my own collection a very interesting specimen of this kind 
from Burwell Fen, near Cambridge. It is a thin slab of close-grained 
micaceous sandstone, about 0^ by 4 inches, slightly holl()\\ed and 
polished on both faces by grinding. AVith it were found two celts of 
flint, -l.l and 5 inches long, of pointed oval section, one of them 
polished all over, and the other at the edge only, which in all 
probability had been sharpened on this very stone. In the same place 
were two long subangular fragments of greenstone of the right form, 
size, and character to be manufactured into celts, and which had no 
doubt been selected for that purpose. 

A grinding-stone with a celt lying in it, found at Glenluce,- Wig- 
townshire, has been flgured. 

On the Sussex Downs I have found flat pebbles 3 or 4 inches long, 
which have evidently been used as hones, but whether for stone or 
metallic tools it is impossible to say. Fragments of polished celts 
and numerous flakes and "scrapers" of flint were, however, in their 
immediate neighbourhood. Among the modern savages of Tahiti^ who 
used hatchets of basalt, a whetstone and water appear to have been 
always at hand, as constant sharpening was necessary. It seems 
probable therefore that there must have been a constant demand for 
such sharpening-stones in this country, and that many of them ought 
still to exist. With flint hatchets, the constant whetting was, however, 
no doubt less necessary than with those of the different kinds of basalt. 
Their edges, if carefully chipped, will indeed cut wood without being 
ground at all. 

Mr. Bateman mentions " a flat piece of sandstone rubbed hollow 
at one side " as having been found in a barrow at Castern, Staf- 
fordshire,* but it is uncertain whether this was a grindstone. 
It may have been used only as a mortar, for with it was a round 
piece of ruddle or red ochre, *' which from its abraded appearance 
must have been in much request for colouring the skin of its 
owner. "^ In a barrow on the West Coast of Kintyre, there also 
occurred a piece of red Lancashire or Westmoreland iron- ore or 
haematite worn flat on the side, apparently by having been rubbed 
upon some other substance. Nodules of ruddle are also said to 

' Arch., vol. xxxviii. p. 417. 

■^ " Cook's Voyages," quoted by Tylor, "Early Hist, of Mank.," 2nd ed., p. 201. 

3 F. S. A. S., vol. XV. p. 263. 

♦ " Ten Years' Dig.," p. 169. 

^ Areh. Scot., vol. iii. p. 43. 



264 GRINDING-STONES AND ^VHKTSTONES. [CHAP. XI. 

have occurred, interspersed with the charcoal in a barrow at 
Broad Down, near Honiton.^ 

In one of the ancient habitations in Holyhead,^ was a large 
stone 11 inches long, probably used for grinding haematite, with 
which it was deeply tinged ; and a small stone box found with 
celts and other relics at Skara, Skaill, Orkney,^ contained a red 
pigment. 

There can be little doubt of this red pigment having been in 
use for what was considered a personal decoration by the early 
occupants of Britain. But this use of red paint dates back to a 
far earlier period, for pieces of haematite with the surface scraped, 
apparently by means of flint-flakes, have been found in the French 
and Belgian caves of the Reindeer Period, so that this red pig- 
ment appears to have been in all ages a favourite with savage 




Fi::. ISOa. — LambertoD Moor. 

man. The practice of interring war-paint with the dead is still 
observed among the North American Indians.* 

• ' The paints that warriors love to use 
Place here within his hand, 
That he maj- shine with ruddy hues 
Amidst the spirit land." 

Some few of the grinding-stones found in this country resemble 
those of polygonal foi-m found in Denmark,^ in so far as they are 
symmetrically shaped and have been used on all their faces. One 
13j inches long, found on Laniberton Moor,*^ Berwickshire, is shown in 
Fig. 180a., kindly lent by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. 

In the Christy Collection is such a sharpening-stone, nearly square 
in section, about 9^ inches long, and of the form shown in Fig. 181. 
Both the faces and sides are worn slight!}- concave, as if from grinding 
convex surfaces such as the edges of celts, though it is impossible to 
say with any degree of certainty that this was really the purpose to 
which it was applied. It is said to have been found near Barcoot, in 
the parish of Dorchester, Oxon, in 1835, not far from a spot where a 

^ Arch. Journ., vol. xxv. p. 295. - Arch. Journ., vol. xxvii. p. 161. 

' Froc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. vii. p. 219. 

* See Lyell, " Ant. of Man," 3rd ed. p. 189. 

' "Worsaae, fig. 36. Nilsson, '• Stone Age," pi. ii. 15. 

* Proe. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xv. p. 74. 



FOUND IN HARROWS. 



2(Jo 



stone celt had beeu found a few years previously. In the same collec- 
tion is a Danish whetstone of precisely the same character, but rather 
broader at one end than at the other. 




Fip. 181.— Dorchestsr. 

A grinding-stone, 26 inches long, was 
found at EhensideTarn,' Cumberland. 

In Fig. 182 is shown, full size, a very 
curious object formed of compact mica- 
schist, which has the api^earance of having 
served as a whetstone or hone. It has been 
ground over its whole ."surface. The flatter 
face is towards the middle somewhat hol- 
lowed — rather more so than is shown in the 
section — and shows some oblique scratches 
upon it as if from rubbing a rather rougli 
object upon it. It was found in 1870 by 
Canon Greenwell, with other relics accom- 
panying an unburnt body in a barrow at 
Rudstone, near Bridlington.'^ About midway 
between the head and the knees was a series 
of articles in this descending order. On the 
top was this whetstone — if such it be — rest- 
ing on a carved jet ring, like Fig. 372, which 
lay on the boss of a large jet button. Below 
this was another jet button, like Fig. 371, 
face downwards. Close by lay a half-nodule 
of pyrites and a round-ended flint flake, 
which will be subsequently noticed. Nearer 
the face was a dagger-knife of bronze, with 
three rivets through it, and two more for 
fastening together the two plates of ox-horn 
of which the hilt had been composed. The 
whetstone may have been that used for shar- 
pening this instrument. 

An instrument of slate of nearly the same 

> Jrrh.,vo]. xliv. p. 286. 

- .]faUon Sffsteiiffer, Nov. 12, 1870. " Brit. Bar- 
rows," p. 263. 




Fig. l^J I., l-'.-iif. ; 



26lJ GR1> DING-STONES AND WHEISTONES. [CHAP. XI. 

form was found iu a caii-n at Penbeacon,' Dartmoor, and was regarded 
by Mr. Spence Bate as a tool used in fashioninp: day vessels. Dr. 
Thurnam- has suggested that if covered with leather these stones may 
have served as bracers or arm-guards for archers. 

Two pieces of a dark-coloured slaty kind of stone, of nearly the same 
form and size as the Yorkshire specimen, and lying parallel with each 
other, were found by Sir K. Colt Hoare' at the feet of a -skeleton, 
together with a little rude drinking-cup, iu a barrow near Winter- 
bourn Stoke. A stud and ring of jet, probably of the same character 
as those from Kudstone, and a piece of Hint rudely chipped, as if in- 
tended for a dagger or spear, were also found. No bronze objects were 
discovered, but the ci.'^t appears to have been imperfectly examined. 

I have already mentioned^ that in grinding and polishing the 
concave faces of different forms of perforated stone axes, it is pro- 
bable that stone rubbers were used iu conjunction with sand. 
Even the smaller flat and rounded faces may have been wrought 
by similar means. That rubbers of some kind must have been 
ui-ed, is, I think, evident from the character of the surfaces, espe- 
cially of those which are hollowed ; and the most readily available 
material for the formation of such rubbers, was doubtless stone. 
There is therefore an a pfiori probability of such stone grinding- 
tools having been in use ; and if we find specimens which present 
tlie conditions which such tools w'ould exhibit, we are almost 
justified in assuming them to have served such purposes. Now 
in the collection of Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield, Yorkshire, are 
several pieces of flint and portions of pebbles of schist, flint, and 
<iuartz fotmd in that neighbourhood, which are ground at one end 
into a more or less rounded form, and exhibit striae running 
along, and not across, the rounded surface. They have, in fact, 
all the appearance of having been used with coarse sand for 
grinding a concavity iu another stone, such, for instance, as the 
concave face of the stone axe shown in Fig. 125. I am indebted 
to their kindness for the specimen shown in Fig. 183, which con- 
sists of a short piece of a conical nodule of flint, the 
large end of which has been used for grinding in 
ancient times, the striated face being now considerably 
weathered. In the Greenwell Collection is a rubber of 
Fig. 18.3.— Fim- the samo kind from Weaverthorpe on the Yorkshire 

t)cr. J .^ _ ^ 

Wolds. Mr. H. S. Ilarland'' has found other speci- 
mens in Yorkshire, of which he has kindly given me several. 
Polishers^ are also found in Scotland. A polisher of somewhat 
similar character, but made of serpentine, was found in the 

' Tnins. iJev. Assoc, vol. v. p. .551. - Arch., vol. xliii. p. 426. 

^ " South Wilts.," p. 118, pi. xiv. * P. 43. 

' Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. vi. p. 399. " J roc. Soc. Ant. ^"^cot., vol. iv. p. 264. 




FOUND JN liVKIunV.S. 



267 



Lugo di Varcse, near Coriio, where a number of stone implemenis 
were also discovered. 

At a later period larger rubbers of the same kind were used to 
smooth the flutings of Doric columns. I have seen some among 
the ruins of the temples at Selinunto, in Sicily. 

Some long narrow rubbers, apparently intended for grinding 
out the shaft-holes of perforated axes, have been found in the 
Swiss Lake-dwellings ; and I have a slightly conical stone, about 
an inch in diameter, from !Mainz, which may have been used 
for the same purpose. 

In the barrow at Cowlam, already inentioued. besides the grinding- 
btoues of grit, there was a piece of iiint roughly chipped into a cubical 
form, and having one face partly ground smooth. It may have been 
used for polishing the surfaces of otlier stone implements, or possibly 
merely as a muller. It is shown in Fig. 184. Thestriaj run diagonally 
of the square face. 

lu the collection fonued by Canon Ureenwell, is also a sandstone 
pebble, 2^ inches in diameter, which has been "picked" into shape, and 
has one face smooth as if used for grinding. It was found in a barrow 
on Ganton Wold, luist Hiding. A rougidj' conical piece of oolitic sand- 
stone, 2\ inches high, in places '• picked " on tlxe surface, and with the 
bas*- apparently used for grinding, was found with a contracted body 
and some flint llakes, in anotlier barrow on Ganton Wold.* 

la the AViltshire barrows several rubbing-stones (or what appear to 
be such) of a peculiar form liave been found, of which one is sliownin 





Fig. 184.— Cowh-m. 



Fig. ISO. — AiiR'sLiury. 



Fig. 18.0. It is of close-grained grit, possibly from the Lower Green- 
sand, and was discovered with two others in a barrow on Normanton 
Down, near Amesbury. Two more wove in tlie collection of the late 
Ecv. Kdvrard Luke, of Lake, near Salisbury, to whose kindness 1 
am indebted for the loan of the specimen. Both are now in the British 
■Musi'iini. These instruments var}' but little in shape, size, or character, 
being usuall}' of a truncated hali'-ovoid form, witli a rounded groove 
along the flat surface, and are formed of sandstone. 

One was foxind in a barrow at Upton Level,- with flint celts, a per- 
forated stone axe-head, various implements of bone, a bronze pin or 

' " Brit. Barrows." p. 173. 

2 Hoare's "South Wilt.s,"' p. 7.'j. .lirh., vol. xv. p. 12;'). "Cat. Dcvi/.es 
Mu8.," No. 2. 



268 GRINDING-STONES AND WHEl-STONES. [cHAP. XI. 

awl, and other objects. Another oecurred in a barrow at Everley,' 
with a bronze chisel, an unused whetstone of freestone, and a hone of 
bluish colour : and another with a skeleton, a stone hauimer. a bronze 
celt, a bone tube, and various other articles in a barrow at Wilsford.* 
Two or three of these sharpening stones, found in a barrow at Eound- 
way. near Devizes, are in the Museum of the "Wilts Areha'ological 
Society-. One of these has been figured.^ A pebble with shallow 
grooves on each face found at Mount Caburn. Lewes.* may possibly 
belong to this class of implements, though it may have been a hammer. 
A rubbing-stone of this kind was found at Topcliffe,* Yorkshire, but 
nut in a barrow. 

Sir R. C. Hoare considered whetstones of this kind to have been used 
for sharpening and bringing to a point, pins and other implements of 
bone, and they seem well adapted for such a purpose, and are stUl so 
used by the Eskimos. They may also have served for smoothing the 
shafts of arrows. Serpentine pebbles with a groove in them are used 
for straightening arrow-shafts b}' the Indians of California,* and shaft 
rubbers of sandstone have been found in Pennsylvania.' 

The Eev. W. C. Lukis found a similar stone (4^ inches) in a barrow 
in Brittany. It is now in the British Museum. Another from a dolmen 
in Lozere- has been thought to be for sharpening the points of bone in- 
struments. Stones of the same form have been found in Germany ; two 
from the cemetery near Munsheini* are preserved in the Museum at 
Ma?nz. They are rather more elongated than the English examples. A 
specimen very Kke Fig. 185 has been found in Denmark.'- They seem 
also to occur in Hungary.'^ I have a grooved stone of this kind from the 
Lago di Yarese, Como, where the manufacture of flint arrow-heads was 
carried on extensively. An object found with polished stone instru- 
ments in the cave Casa da Moura, Portugal/- not improbably belongs 
to this class of grooved sharpening stones. 

From their association with bronze objects, they appear to belong to 
the Bronze rather than to the Stone Period ; and the same holds good 
with the more ordinary form of whetstone, of which an example is 
given in Fig. 186. The original was found in the tumulus at Hove,^ 

near Brighton, which contained the stone 
axe-head already mentioned, a beautiful 
amber cup, and a bronze dagger. Another, 

of compact red sandstone, 3f inches long, 

Fi". 166.— Hove. - wdth the perforated end rounded, was found 

in a barrow on Bow Hill,'* Sussex, and is 
now in the British Museum. Another, 3 inches long, bluish grey in 

• Hoare, "South TVUts," p. 182. " Cat. Dev. Mus.," Xo. 97. » " S. W." p. 209. 

3 Arch., vol. xliii. p. 423. A. C. Smith, " Ants, of N. Wilts," p. 6S. " Cat. 

Devizes il'os.," No. 172a. * Arch., vol. xlvi. p. 435. \\. ixiv. 20. 

5 Reliquary, N. S.. vol. v., 1891, p. 47. « Arch. f. Anlh., vol. ix. p. 249. 

' 13^/( Rep. Bureau of Ethn., 1896, p. 126. ■* "ilusee preh.." No. 593. 

' Lindenschmit, "A. u. h. V.," vol. ii. Heft viii. Taf. i. 2. Ztitsch. de& 

Vereins fiir Rhfin. Geschichte, ^c, in Mainz, vol. iii. Archiv fur Authrop., vol. iii. 

Taf. ii. Rev. Arch., vol. six. pi. x. 2. 

'* Sophus Miiller, "Stenalderen,'" fig. 196. " Zeitsch. f. Eih., 1891, p. 89. 
1- Trans. Ethnol. Soc, N. S., vol. vii. p. 49. 

'2 Sussex Arch. Coll.. vol. ii., p. 120, whence the cut is borrowed. Arch. Jourti.y 
vol. xiii. p. 184 ; iv. 90. 

'* Arch. Journ.. vol. x. p. 356. " Chichester Vol.," p. .52. 




FOUND WITH INTERMENTS. 2G9 

colour, was found with a bronze dagj^er and a stone axe-hammer in 
an urn at Broughton' in Craven, in 1675. 

Two perforated whetstones were found with a bronze dagger and pin 
in the Silk Hill Barrow," Wilts. Another, with the perforation in a sort 
of loop at the end, was found with two daggers and a crutched pin of 
bronze, associated with burnt bones in a barrow at Normanton. ' Whet- 
stones, in some cases not perforated, have occurred in other Wiltshire 
barrows, associated with bronze daggers at AVilsford* and Lake, ^ and 
with flint daggers or spear-heads at Durrington.'' The smooth stone 
found with a iliiit dagger in a barrow near Stonehenge,^ may also 
possibly have been a whetstone. Two from barrows at Knowle,'' 
Dorset, and Camerton, Somerset, have been figured by Dr. Thurnam. 
Another of the same kind was found in a barrow at Tregaseal," St. 
Just, (^ornwall, and two others wi h urns at Brane Common,^" in the 
same neighbourhood. Others not perforated are recorded fromCotten- 
ham," Cambs. One from Anglesea'- has been figured. 

Two of greenish stone (chlorite?) one 2| inches long, pei'forated at 
the end, were found at Drewton,'^ near North Cave, Yorkshire; and 
another of similar material, 2 inches long, was found near some " Picts' 
houses,'' '^ Shapinsay, Orkney. Half of a whetstone was found with a 
bronze dagger and numerous flint flakes by Mr. Morgan in a barrow 
at Penhow,''^ Monmouthshire; and a much-used whetstone was found 
in a barrow near Scarborough,"'' but the form of neitlier is specified. 
Several, both pierced and otlierwise, have been recorded from Scot- 
land." One with the boring incomplete was found with a flint knife in 
a cist at Stenton,'" East Lothian, and another, perforated, with a 
thin bronze blade and an urn at Glenluce,'^ Wigtownshire. It 
appears possible that some of the stones found in Scotland and per- 
forated at one end, described by AVilson-" as flail-stones, ma}- after all 
be merely whetstones. The perforated form is common in Ireland, 
and is usually found in connection with metal objects.-' I have a 
narrow lione of rag-stone, perforated atone end, which was found with 
a remarkable hoard of bronze objects, including moulds for socketed 
celts and for a gouge, in the Isle of Ilarty, Sheppe3^ An almost iden- 
tical whetstone is in the Zurich Museum. 

Wlietstone.s, perforated at one end, have occurred in the Swiss Lake- 
dwellings." Most of those found in the ancient cemetery of Hallstatt,^ 
in the Salzkammergut, were perforated in the same manner, and in 

' Thoresby's Cat. in Whitaker's " Due. Lend.," p. 114. 

- Hoare's " South Wilts," y. 191. ^ Jbid., p. 199. 

* Ibid., p. 209. * Ibid., p. 211. 

6 Jbid., p. 172. '' Ibid., p. 164. "Cat. Devizes Mus.," No. 8.5 

•* Arch., vol. xliii. p. 424. ■' Arch., vol. xlix. p. 194. 

10 "Nienia Comubiic," 1872, p. 212. " Arch. Journ., vol. xxviii. p. 247. 

'- Arch. Journ., vol. xxxi. p. i;02. '•• Arch. Journ., vol. xxi. p. 101. 

'* Proc. Soc. ylnt. Scot., vol. iv. p. 490. 

'•' Arch. Jvuri/., vol. xviii. p. 71. Lee's '' leoa Silurum," jpI. xlii. p. 108. 
-® Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. iv. p. 105. 

" P. S. A. S., vol. xii. p. 120 : xxiii. p. 219 ; xxviii. p. 230. 
"* P. S. A. S., vol. xiv. p. 221. '9 P. S. A. S., vol. xxii. p. G7. 

-" "Preh. Ann. of Scot.," vol. i. p. 188. 
=' Wilde's "Cat. Mus. R. I. A." p. 87. 
■-■- Perrjn, " Et. Prehist. sur la Savoie,' pi. xv. 12. 

^ Von Sacken, " Grubf. von Hallstatt," Taf. xix. Simony, " Alt. von Hallstatt," 
Taf. vi. 6, 7. 



270 



GRINDING-STONES A>"D WHETSIONES. 



CriAP. XI. 



some cases provided with an iron loop for suspension. They are 
visually of sandstone, and not formed from slaty rocks. 

A whetstone, 5^ inches long, the two flat faces of which had evidently 
been used for sharpening flat blades, while in the centre of each is a deep 
groove, probabl}- caused by sharpening pointed tools, such as awls or 
needles of bronze, was found at Ty Mawr, Anglesea, near a sput where 
a number of bronze celts, spear-heads. &c., had previously been dug up. 
It has been figured by the late Hon. W. 0. Stanley/ whose cut is 
here reproduced as Fig. 187. The ends of the .«tone are somewhat 
battered from its having been also used as a hammer. 

The same explorer discovered in hut-circles in Holyhead Island - 
other whetstones of the same character, in one instance with two 
principal grooves and minor scorings crossing each other at an acute 
angle, and in another with three parallel grooves in the face of the 




fig. 187.— Ty Ma%5T. 

stone. There can be little doubt that these sharpening stones belong 
to a period when the use of metal for cutting and piercing instruments 
was fully established. 

There are frequently found in Ireland and Scotland flat pebbles 
of quartz and quartzite, sometimes ground on the edges or faces, 
or on both, and having on each face an indentation running in a 
somewhat oblique direction to the longer axis of the pebble. 
Specimens^ have been figured by Sir "William Wilde, who describes 
them as sling-stones. The flat faces of some have all the appear- 
ance of having been abraded by a pointed instrument. I have 
never met with this form in England, but in the National 
Museum at Edinburgh is a grooved pebble exactly like those 
found in Ireland, from the broch, at Xintradwell,* Sutherlandshire, 
and another from that at Lingrow, Orkney. One from Borness,^ 

' Arefi. Joum., vol. xxvii. pi. iii. 1. 

- Arch. Joum.. vol. xx^^. p. 321, fig?. 18, 19. 

■ " Cat. Mus. li. I. A..' p. 75. * P. S. A. 8., vol. ix. p. 358. 

'> P. S. A. S., vol. X. pi. x\-iii. llo. 



PEBBLKS WITH GKOOVES IN THKM. 271 

Kirkcudbriu^htshire, lius been fifjurod. Others have been found ut 
Dunino/ Fife, and Dunnichen,^ Forfarshire. This latter has an 
oval hollow on one face and a groove on tlie other. 

This pebble variety is rarely found in Scandinavia, but another 
and probably rather later form, in which the pebbles have been 
wrought into a long shuttle-like shape, is abundant. Some of these 
are provided with a groove along the sides, which would admit of a 
cord being fastened round them, by which to suspend them from the 
girdle. On one or both faces there is often a similar indentation 
to those on the Irish specimens, on which, however, it is, as a rule, 
deeper than on the Scandinavian. On the latter, the grooves have 
sometimes more the appearance of having been produced by 
repeated slight blows than by friction. Specimens are engraved 
by Worsaae^ and Nilsson.* The latter regards them as belonging 
to the Stone Age. They occurred, however, with numerous 
objects of the earl}' Iron Age at Thorsbjerg.^ and have even 
been found with remains of both bronze and iron bands around 
them, instead of an)' more perishable cord. 

These grooved stones are not to be confounded with the ordinary 
form of hammer-stone,^ but belong to a distinct category. They 
were, in all probability, used as a means for obtaining fire, by 
striking them with a pointed piece of iron. They constitute, in 
fact, the "flint" part of a modification of the ordinary "flint 
and steel." 

Whetstones are, of course, commonly found with Roman 
domestic antiquities ; with Saxon, which are usually of a more 
purely sepulchral character, they arc rarely discovered. Canon 
Greenwell found, however, two whetstones, one as much as 24 
inches long, in graves of this period, at Uncleb}', Yorkshire. 

In one of the German cemeteries on the Ilhine, corresjionding 
to ours of Anglo-Saxon date, a small rubbing or sharpening stone, 
almost celt-like in form, was found.^ 

In Dutch Guiana^ a small form of grinding-stone of quartz, 

apparently of the same age as the stone hatchets of that country, 

is known as a thunderstone, and great medicinal powers are 

ascribed to it by the natives. I must, however, return to the 

sharper forms of stone implements. 

' P. S. A. S., vol. xxiii. p. 234. - P. S. A. .S., vol. \iv. p. 27'3. 

' "Nord. 01d«.," fior. 343. ♦ PI. i. 

■' En^'.'lhardt, '• Thor.sbjcrg Musefimd," p. -"jI, pi. xii. 12. 

« See Brit. Assoc. Jiep., 1881, p. 692. 

' Jahrb. d. Ver. r. AH. fr. in, lihnnL, Heft iliv. p. 139, Taf. vi. 21. 

" Note* and Queries, 2nd S., vol. viii. p. 92. 



272 



CHAPTER XII. 

FLINT FLAKES, CORES, ETC. 

The different forms of implements and weapons which have been 
treated of in the preceding pages have, for the most part, been 
fashioned from larger or smaller blocks of stone, reduced into 
shape by chipping ; the chips having apparently been mere waste 
products, while the block from which they were struck was even- 
tually converted into the tool or weapon required. "With the 
majority, though by no means all, of the Xeolithic forms which we 
still have to pass in review, the reverse holds good ; for the raw 
materials, if I may so term them, from which the bulk of them were 
made, were flakes or splinters of flint struck ofl" from larger blocks, 
in such a manner that it was the spKnters that were utilized. The 
block from which they were struck, instead of being the object of 
the manufacture, became, when all the available flakes had been 
removed from it, mere refuse, to be thrown away as useless. 

Before considering any of the various tools and weapons into 
which these flakes or splinters were converted by subsequent or 
secondary working, it will be well to say a few words about the 
simpler forms of flakes, and the cores or nuclei from which they 
were struck. 

I have already, in speaking of the manufacture of stone imple- 
ments, described the manner in which flakes or spalls are, at the 
present day, struck off by successive blows from the parent block 
or core, and have suggested the probable methods employed in 
-ancient times for producing similar results. Remarks on the 
method of production of flint flakes have also been made by Sir 
W. WMe,' Sir John Lubbock,- Mr. S. J. Mackie,^ Prof. T. McK. 
Hughes,* and others. I need not, therefore, re-open the subject, 

» " Cat. Mus. R. I. A.,"' p. 7. - '• Preh. Times," 4th ed., p. 87. 

s " GeoL and Xat. Hist. Rep.,'' vol. i. p. 208. 

* " G. andN. H. Rep.," voL ii. p. VIH; Proc. Sqc. Ant., 2nd S., voL iv. p. 95. 



THE CONE AND IJUI-R OF PERCUSSIOX. 273 

though it will he well again to call attention to some of the dis- 
tinctive marks by which artificially formed flakes may be distin- 
guished from mere splinters of natural origin. The formation of 
these latter is usually due either to the flint, while still embedded 
in the chalk, having received some violent shock from disturbance 
of the stratum ; or to unequal expansion, which sometimes causes 
flints to split up into rudely prismatic forms, much like those 
assumed by starch in drying, and sometimes causes cracks on the 
surface, Avhich enable water and frost to complete the work of 
splitting them. Occasionally, nearly flat planes of fissure are 
caused by the expansion of some small included particle of a 
different mincralogical character from the surrounding flint. In 
such cases a series of concentric and more or less circular rings 
may usually be traced on the surface surrounding the central 
particle, which apparently mark the intervals of repose, when its 
expansion had ceased for a time to exert sufficient force to continue 
the fissure. This kind of fracture is most prevalent in flints upon 
or near the surface of the ground, such as those in drift-deposits. 

Tn hardly any instances of natural fracture does the surface of 
the splinter show any trace of its having been produced by a blow, 
though the violent impact of one stone upon another, by means of 
a fall from a cliff, or of other natural causes, might produce a 
splinter of the same form as if it had been struck oft' by a hammer. 
There would, however, be the mark of the blow on one face only 
of such a splinter, whereas in a perfectly artificial flake the traces 
of the blow by which each facet was produced would be discernible. 
On the sea-shore, natural splinters of flint, resulting from the blow 
of one wave-borne pebble on another, may occasionally be found, 
some of them having a kind of secondary working at the edges, the 
result of attrition among the pebbles on the shore. 

If a blow from a spherical-ended hammer be delivered at right 
angles on a large flat surface of flint, the part struck is only a 
minute portion of the surface, which may be represented by a 
circle of very small diameter. If flint were malleable, instead of 
being slightly elastic, a dent would be produced at the spot ; but, 
being elastic, this small circle is driven slightl}' inwards into the 
body of the flint, and the result is that a circular fissure is pro- 
duced between that part of the flint which is condensed for the 
moment by the blow, and that part which is left untouched. As 
each particle in the small circle on which the hammer impinges 
may be considered to rest on more than one other jDarticle, it is 

T 




274 FLINT FLAKES, CORES, ETC. [fllAP. XII. 

evident that tlie circular fissure, as it descends into the body of the 
flint, will have a tendency to enlarge in diameter, so that the piece 
of flint it includes will be of conical form, the small circle struck 
hy the hammer forming the slightly truncated apex. That 
this is not mere theory will be seen from the 
annexed woodcut. Fig. 188, showing a cone of 
flint produced by a single blow of a hammer.^ 
Fi" 18S — Artifiaal Somctimcs, as has been shown by Prof. T. McK. 

Cone of Flint. Hughcs, F.R.S., the sides of the cone are in steps, 
the inclination varying from 30^ to 110"^. This is probably to 
some extent due to the character of the blow, and the form of the 
hammer. 

If the blow be administered near the edge, instead of in the 
middle of the surface of the block, a somewhat similar effect will 
be produced, but the cone in that case will be imperfect, as a 
splinter of flint will be struck off, the fissure probably running 
along the line of least resistance ; though, owing to the suddenness 
of the blow, the conical character of fracture is at first produced 
-at the point of impact. This fracture will vary to some extent in 
accordance with the angle at which the blow is given, and the 
character of the hammer ; but in all cases where a splinter of flint 
is struck off by a blow, there will be a bulb or projection, of a 
more or less conical form, at the end where the blow was adminis- 
tered, and a corresponding hollow in the block from which it was 
■dislodged. This projection is usually known as the " bulb of per- 
cussion," a term, I believe, first applied to it b}^ the late Dr. Hugh 
Falconer, F.R.S. ; and on every flake, all the facets of which are 
purely artificial, this bulb will be found at the butt-end of the 
larger flat face, and the hollow depressions, or portions of depres- 
sions, on all the other facets. If on a splinter of flint such a bulb 
occurs, it proves that it must have resulted from a blow, in all 
probability, but not of necessity, given by human agency ; but 
where the bulb is on the principal face, and analogous depressions, 
or portions of them, are visible on the several other faces, and at 
the same end of a flake, all of them presenting the same character, 

• I first learnt the art of producing these cones from the late Eev. J. S. Henslow, 
F.R.S., and have since then instructed many others in the process, among them the 
late Dr. Hugh Falcoaer, F.K.S., whose account of the manufacture of flakes 
(" Palseont. Mem.," vol. ii. p. 605) is, I find, curiously like what I have written 
above. He insists rat her more strongly on the different characteristics of "iron-struck ' ' 
and " stone-struck " facets than I should be inclined to do. There is, however, in all 
probability adift'eiencein the fracture resulting from hammers of different degrees of 
hardness and elasticity The mechanics of the fracture of flint have also been studied 
by the late M. Jules Thore, of Dax. {Bull, de la Hoc. dc Borda, Dax, 1878.) 



CLASSIFICATION OF FLAKES. 275 

and in a definite arrangement, it is in the highest degree probable 
that such a combination of blows must be the result of design, 
and the features presented are almost as good a warrant for the 
human origin of the flake as would be the maker's name iipon 
it. When, however, several of such flakes are found together, 
each bearing these marks of being the result of several successive 
blows, all conducing to form a sj'^mmetrical knife-like flake,^ it 
becomes a certainty that they have been the work of intelligent 
beings. 

In size and proportions flakes vary considerably, the longest 
English specimens that I have seen being as much as 8 or 9 inches 
long, while some, which still appear to have been made use of as 
tools, are not more than an inch in length. Their proportional 
breadth is almost as variable. 

With regard to the classification and nomenclature of these 
objects, 1 would suggest that the name of flake should be limited 
to such artificial splinters of flint as, either in their section or out- 
line, or in both, present a certain amount of symmetry, and appear- 
ance of design ; and that the ruder forms, such as would result 
from chipping some large object into sliape, without any regard 
to the form of the parts removed, should be called chips or spalls." 
Such as show no bulb of percussion may be termed splinters. The 
Scottish name for flakes is " skelbs." 

The inner, or flat face of a flake, is that produced by the blow 
which dislodged it from the pai-ent block, core, or nucleus. The 
outer, ridged or convex face comprises the other facets, or, in some 
instances, the natural surface of the flint. The base, or butt-end 
of a flake, is that at Avhich the blows to form it were administered ; 
the other end is the point. 

Flakes may be subdivided into — 

1. External, or those which have been struck off by a single 
blow from the outer surface of a nodule of flint. Many of these 
are as symmetrical as those resulting from a more complicated 
process of manufacture, and they have frequently been utilized, 
especially for scrapers. 

2. Ridged flakes, or those presenting a triangular section. One 
face of these sometimes presents the external crust of the flint, as 
in Fig. 190. In others, the ridge has been formed by transverse 

• Archccologia, vol. xxxix. p. 70. 

'^ "Spalls or broken pieces of stones that come off in hewing and graving." — 
"Nomenclator," p. Ill, quoted iu Halliweirs "Diet, of Archaic Words, «S:c." 
" Spalle, or chyppe, quisquilia, assula.'" — " Proniptoriuin Parvulorum," p. 407. 

t2 



276 FLINT FLAKES, CORES, ETC. [cHAP. XII. 

chipping, as is the case ^vith the long flakes from Pressigny 
(Fig. 6), but this method appears to have been almost unknown 
in liritain. 

3. Flat, where the external face is nearly parallel to the 
internal, and the two edges are formed by narrow facets, as in 
Fig. 200. 

4. Polygonal, where the external face consists of many facets, 
as in Fig. 192. 

These several varieties may be long or short, broad or narrow, 
straight or curved, thick or thin, pointed or obtuse. The character 
of the base may also vary, being rounded or flat, thick or thin, 
broad or narrow. 

The cores from which flakes have been struck are, of course, of 
various forms, some having had only one or two flakes removed 
from them, and others several. In the latter case they are often 
more or less regularly polygonal, though only few of the facets will 
be of the full breadth of the flakes, as the external face of every 
successive flake carries off some part of the traces of those pre- 
viously struck off. Not unfrequently some of the facets are 
arrested at a little distance from the end where the blows were 
struck, in consequence of the flake having broken short off, instead 
of the fissure continuing to the end of the block. Occasionally, 
and more especially on the Yorkshire T\^olds, the nuclei are very 
small, and much resemble in character those found, with numerous 
flakes, in India, in the neighbourhood of Jubbulpore.^ 

It has been suggested" that cores were occasionally made on 
purpose for use as tools ; but this appears very doubtful. Of 
course, if a core were at hand, and seemed capable of serving 
some special purpose, it woidd be utilized. 

The core here engraved of the full size in Fig. 189 was found by 
myself at "Weaverthorpe, Yorkshire. I have 
already suggested that in striking off such 
small flakes as those removed from this core, 
some sort of punch may have been used, in- 
stead of the blows being administered directly 
Ly a hammer. We have no conclusive evidence 
as to the purpose to which such minute flakes 
were appHed, but the}- may have been fashioned 
into drills or scraj)ing or boring tools, of very 
i.^.i^j.~\;\^-.-..riuwip^. , diminutive size. Such small objects are so 
liable to escape observation, that though they 
may exist in considerable numbers, they are but rarely found on the 

> Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 38. Froc. As. Soc. Beng., 1867, p. 137. 
* Dr. Gillespie, in Jouni. Anth. Inst., vol. vi. p. 260. 




POLYGONAL CORES. 277 

surface of the ground. Numerous flakes, however, quite as minute, 
with their edges showing evident signs of wear, are present among the 
refuse left by the cave-dwellers of the Reindeer Period of the South 
of France. As will subsequently be seen, these minute flakes have 
been also found in Egypt and in Asia, as well as inl^ritain. See Fig. 
232 A to 232 F. There is a class of ancient Scandinavian harpoon-heads, 
the stems of which are formed of bone with small flint flakes cemented 
into a groove on either side so as to form barbs. Knives of the same 
kind are subsequently mentioned. 

Among the Australians' we find very minute splinters of flint and 
(juartz secured to wooden handles by " black-boy " gum, and forming 
the teeth of rude saws and the barbs of javelins. Some remarkably 
small flakes have also been found in the diamond-diggings of South 
Africa in company with fragments of ostrich-egg shell, such as with the 
aid of the flakes might have been converted into the small perforated 
discs still worn as (»rnaments by the Bushmen. 

There are but few published notices of the discovery of English cores 
of flint, though they are to be found in numbers over a considerable 
tract of couutr}', especially where flint abounds. 

I have recorded their finding at Kedhill,- near Reigate, and at Little 
Solsbury Hill,^ near Bath. I also possess numerous specimens from 
Herts, Gloucestershire, Sussex, Bedfordshire, Suffolk, and Yorkshire. 
In several instances two series of flakes have been struck off, the one set 
at right angles to the other. More rarely the flakes have been obtained 
from both ends of the block. 

A core from the Fens^ is in the Museum of the Cambridge Anti- 
quarian Society, and several were found, with other worked flints, in 
the chambered Long Barrow at West Kennet, Wiltshire. 

Numerous specimens from Peter's Finger, near Salisbury, and else- 
where, are in the Blackmore Museum ; and a number were found by 
General Pitt Eivers in his researches at Cissbury, Sussex, and by Canon 
Greenwell at Grime's Graves.' Mr. Joseph Stevens has described 
specimens from St. Mary Bourne,^ Hants. They are recorded also as 
found with flakes at Port St. Mary,' Isle of Man. 

A long bludgeon-shaped nodule of flint, from one end of which a 
succession of flakes had been struck, was found in a grave, with a con- 
tracted skeleton, in a barrow near Winterbourn Stoke,** Wilts. 

Illustrations of cores, and of the manner in which flakes have been 
struck from them, liave been given by various authors.'-' 

The existence of flakes involves the necessity of there having been 
cores from which they were struck ; and as silicious flakes occur in 
almost aU known countries, so also do cores. A series of French miclei is 

I "Wood, "Nat. Hist, of Man," vol. ii. pp. 36-38. 

- I'roc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S.. vol. i. p. 7'5. 

3 Trans. Ethn. Soc, N. S., vol. iv. p. 'Jll. 

■• Arc/i. Joiint., vol. xvii. p. 170. 

* Jottni. Ethnol. Soc. Zand., vol. ii. p. 430. 

'"' For neolithic implements from this place, see Trans. Berks. Archaol. and Archil. 
Soc, 1879-80, p. 49. 

' " Manx Note Book," vol. i. (188o) p. 71. 

" Mem. Anthrop. Soc. Land., vol. i. p. 142. 

'■' See Worsaae " Nord. Olds.," No. GO ; •« Guide to North. ,Vrch.," p. 39 : and the 
authors already cited at p. 272. 



278 



FLINT FLAKES, CORES, ETd 



[chap. XII. 



fip^iired by MortiUet.^ and a fine example from Olonetz,- Eussia, by 
Worsaae. Tliey have also beeu found in the Arabian desert.' Those 
of large size and of regular polygonal form are rare in Britain and 
Ireland, and, indeed, generally in Europe. Some of tlie largest and 
most regiilar occur in Scandinavia. I have also some good examples 
from Belgium. Many of the cores from Spiennes, near Mous, Avere 
subsequently utilized as celts; and the same vras the case to some 
extent at Pressignj-. the large cores from ^vliich have already been 
described. The Mexican^ and East Indian^ forms, in obsidian and 
cherty flint, have also been mentioned. They are unsm-passed for 
symmetry and for the skill exhibited in removing flakes from them. 

It is worthy of remark that cores and flakes of obsidian, almost 
identical in character Trith those from Mexico, but generally of small 





S';>^'»-il^ 




Fig. 190.— XowhaTeii.J Fig.lfll.-EedMll.Reigate.i Fig.lt'2.— Icklingham.i Fig.liS.— Seaford.i 

size, have been found in Greece, principally in the island of Melos.*^ 
Specimens are in the Christy Collection, and I possess several. Obsi- 
dian nuclei are also found in Hungary. 

Simple flakes and splinters of flint laave been found in considerable 
numbers over almost the whole of Britain. Of the four here shown, 
Eig. 190 was found near Newhaven, Sussex; Fig. 191 near Eeigate, 
Surrey; Fig. 192 near Icklingham, Suffolk; and Fig. 193 at Seaford, 
Sussex. At each of these places they occur in great numbers on the 
surface, and near Eeigate some thousands were collected nearly forty 
years ago by Mr. Shelley.' of whose discoveries I have given an account 
elsewhere. The counties in which they principally abound are perhaps 

1 "Mns. preh.," pi. xxTiii. 

- Mem. Soc. R. des Ant. du Kord., 1872-7, p. 103. 

^ Zeitsch. f. Ethn., vol. xvii. p. (133). 

* P. 23. "Seeako Tylor, "Anahuac," p. 96. 

•'■ Geol. Maf)., vol. iii. p. 433 ; iv. 43. 

« " Objects Found in Greece," G. Finlay, 1SG9. Zeitsch. f. Ethn., vol. v. p. 
(110). 

' Eroc. Soc. A)if., 2nd S., vol. i. p. G9. See also Arch. Journ., vol. xvii. p. 
171. 



NUMEROUS IN ANCIENT SETTLEMENTS. 27^ 

Cornwall,' Devonshire,- Dorsetshire, "Wilts, Hants,^ Surrey,* Oxford- 
shire,° Sussex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Derbyshire, Lancashire," and York- 
shire ; but they may be said to be ubiquitous. In some parts of Devon- 
shire, and especially near Croyde, they occur in great numbers, so 
gi'eat, indeed, as to have led Mr. Whitley' to suppose them to have been 
formed by natural causes rather than by human agency. Far more 
rational accounts of them have been given by Mr. Townshend M. 
nall,^Mr. H. S. Ellis,'-' and Mr. C. Spence Bate.'" 

Flakes and splinters of flint frequently occur in and around ancient 
encampments and settlements, as well as in association with inter- 
ments both by cremation and inhumation. ^lan^- of the immense 
number of " spear-heads" collected by Mr. Bateman in his investiga- 
tions were of the simple flake form, and others were flakes ynih but 
slight secondary working at the edges, such as will hereafter be 
noticed. Many other instruments which he discovered were merely 
flakes, such as the thick-backed cutting iustnmient of flint three inches 
long, with a bronze dagger and two small balls of stone, in a barrow 
containing a skeleton near Pickering,'^ which would appear to have 
been of this character. They occurred with burnt bones in cinerary 
urns at Broughton,'- Lincolnshire, in one case with aflat bronze arrow- 
head; at Summer Hill,'' near Canterbury; with a flint arrow-head 
at Sittingbourne ;'* with burnt bones and bronze daggers in a barrow 
at Teddiugton,'^ Middlesex; at Penhow,"' Monmouth; and in the 
Gristhorpe Barrow,'' near Scarborough; with burnt bones in a circle 
of stones near Llanaber,'"' Merionethshire, where no flint occurs natu- 
rally ; with burnt bones in an urn beneath a tumulus at Br}Tibugeilen,''-' 
Llangollen ; in a barrow near Blackbury Castle,^ Devon ; and in one 
on Dartmoor ;-' and at Hollingsclough and Upper Edge," Derbyshire. 
Flakes, not of flint, biit of a hard silicious grit, occurred in a cist with 
burnt bones near Harlech ;-^ and of some other hard stone in a 
cist in Merionethshire.-* Other instances have been cited by General 
Pitt Eivers,^^ who found several rough flakes and splinters of grit and 
felspathic ash in cairns near Bangor, North Wales, Some of these 
showed signs of rubbing and use on their edges ; in some cases they 
had the appearance of having been scraped by metal. Whether they 
were the weapons and tools of the people buried in the cairns, or 

' rroc. Soc. Ant, 2nd S., vol. v. p. 433. 

- Tr. Dev. Assoc, vol. xvii. p. 70 ; xviii. p. 74. Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xx^'iii. 
p. 220. 

•* Jourii. Anth. Inst., vol. v. p. 30. Notes and Queries, 5th S., vol. vii. p. 447. 

* " Flint Impts., (fee, found at St. Mary Bourne," Jos. Stevens, 1867. 

•'' Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. xiii. p. 137. 

•^ Tr. Lane, and Chesh. Arch. Soc., vol. ii. pi. i. iv. p. 305. 

' Journ. R. Inst. Cornii-all, Oct., 1864. « Proc. Soc. Ant., 2ndS., vol. iii. p. 22. 

' Trans. Preh. Cong., 1868, p. 89. Tr. Devon. Assoc, vol. i. ; pt. v. p. 80. 

1" Op. cit., p. 128. 11 "Ten Years' Dig.," p. 226. 

'- Arch. Journ., vol. viii. p. 343. i' Arch. Assoc. Journ. ,\o\. xxii. p. 211. 

1* Proc Soc Ant., 2nd S., vol. vi. p. 48. i^ Arch., vol. xxxvi. p. 176. 

1" Arch. Journ., vol. xviii. p. 71. 

1" Reliquary, vol. vi. p. 4. i" Arch. Journ., vol xii. p. 189. 

i» Arch. Camb., 2nd S., vol. i. p. 331 ; ii. 222. 

-" Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xviii. p. 58. 

-1 Tr. Devon. Assoc, vol. vi. p. 272, fig. 2. 

" Reliquary, vol. iii. p. 1()2. -•* Arch. Journ., vol. ix. p. 92. 

-' Arch. Camb., 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 102. "^'^ Journ. Ethnol. Soc, vol. ii. p. 306. 



280 FLINT FLAKES, CORES, ETC. [ciL\P. XII. 

merely votive offerings, appeared to be somewhat doubtful. The urns 
associated with them were such as might well belong to the Bronze 
Period. 

Flint flakes are described as found in graves with contracted inter- 
ments at Amble,' Northumberland ; Driffield,- Yorkshire ; Ballidon 
Moor,' Derbyshire ; Littleton Drew,^ and Winterbourn Stoke,* AVilts. 
Canon Greenwell*^ has also found them in great numbers with inter- 
ments of different characters. They occurred with extended burials 
at Oakley Park,' near Cirencester. In some of the long barrows they 
are especially numerous, upwards of three hundred having been found 
by Dr. Thurnam at West Kennet,* while there were three only in 
that of Eodmarton,'' and two were found at the base of the cairn in 
the chambered tumulus at Uley,'" Gloucestershire. Another accom- 
panied a skeleton in a ^long barrow near Littleton Drew.^^ Sir 
Eichard Colt Hoare speaks of a great quantity of chipped flints, pre- 
pared for arrows or lances, as having been found in barrows on Long 
Street Down,'- and at Brigmilston, Wilts ;'■* but, as a rule, he seems 
not to have taken much notice of such simple forms. Others have 
been discovered with ashes at Helmingham,'* Suffolk. 

It is, however, needless, to cite more instances of their occurrence 
with interments belonging to the Stone and Bronze Ages, as the pre- 
sence of flakes and ehippings of flint is in such cases the rule rather 
than the exception. 

In Scotland, where flint is a scarcer natural product, they are also 
found. As instances, I may cite one foimd in an urn within a cist at 
Tillicoultry,'^ Clackmannanshire; and in a cist in Arran."' In some 
parts of Aberdeenshire'' and Banffshire they are numerous, and in the 
Buchan district are associated with shell mounds, orkjokken-mciddings. 
They occur also in Lanarkshire and Elgin. '^ In Orkney''' they abound : 
as also at the Bin of Cullen,-'^ where a manufactory of arrow-heads 
seems to have existed. In cists in Roxburghshire-' were sepulchral 
urns and numerous flint flakes ; and in Argyllshire-'- there were in a 
cist with a skeleton flint flakes in such numbers as to form a heap from 
eighteen inches to two feet in height. Some of white quartz have 
been found associated with arrow-heads in Banffshire."' Little heaps'^* 
of six or eight were found in each corner of a grave at Clashfarquhar, 
Aberdeen. The}' abound on the sand-hills near Glenluce and on the 
Culbin Sands. 

Of ancient encampments or settlements where flint flakes occur in 

' Arch. Journ., vol. xiv. p. 281. - Arch., vol. xxxiv. p. 252. 

3 " Cran. Brit.," vol. ii. pi. 1, p. 2. * " Cr. Br.," vol. ii. pi. 24, p. 3. 

* Mem. Anthrop. Soc. Lond., vol. i. p. 142. 

* Arch., vol. lii. p. 12, and "British Barrows," passim. 

' Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xvii. p. 73. " Arch., vol. xxxviii. p. 416. 

9 Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. ii. p. 278. "> Arch. Journ., vol. xi. p. 322. 

" Wiltsh. Mag., vol. iii. p. 170. '^ "South AV'ilts," p. 193. 

" "South Wilts," p. 195. '* Arch. Journ., vol. xxi. p. 172. 

15 "Cat. Arch. Inst. Mus. Edin.," p. 20. '« Froc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. iv. p. 507. 

" Op. cit., vol. iv. p. 385, and vi. 234, 240. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, 18G5, vol. 

xxi. p. 1. 

" P. S. A. S., vol. vi. p. 251, and v. 61. i' Arch. Journ., vol. xx. p. 35. 

-" Anthrop. Rev., vol. ii. ; Ixiv. 

21 Wilson, "Preh. Ann. of Scot.," vol. i. p. 177. 22 /j;,^.^ p_ 178. 

23 Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. v. p. 13. ^4 jirch. Scot., vol. iii. p. 46. 



LOCALITIES WHERE ABUNDANT. 281 

numbers, I may mention Maiden Bower, near Dunstable ; Pulpit 
AVood, near Prince's Eisborough ; Cissbury,' Beltout Castle, and other 
encampments in Sussex ; Little Solsbury Hill, near Bath ; Castle 
King,- Cannock Chase ; Avebury,^ "Wilts ; and Callow Hill,* Oxford- 
shire. They have been found in wonderful abundance on the surface 
in the counties already mentioned, and their occurrence has been 
noticed near Bradford Abbas f near Folkestone f at Possingwortli 
Manor,'' Uckfield ; near Hastings;*^ at Stonham'' and Icklingham, 
Suffolk ; near Grime's Grraves, Norfolk ;'" at St. Mary Bourne,^^ Hants; 
and in a turbary at Ileneglwys,'- Anglesea, an island in wbich no 
flint occurs naturally. Two from Carno, Montgomeryshire, are 
engraved in the Arcltoiologia Camhrensis}"^ They have also been found 
under a submerged forest on the coast of West Somerset.^* I have 
seen a few flakes made from Lower Tertiary conglomerate. 

In districts where flint was an imported luxurj^, other stones, usually 
containing a large proportion of silica, and when broken presenting a 
conchoidal fracture, served, so far as the material allowed, the same 
purposes as flint. Of this a few instances have already been given. 
In some cases even laminated sandstones, shales, and slates seem to 
have been utilized. Numerous relics of this kind, some so rude 
that their purposes may appear doubtful, were found by the late 
Mr. S. Laing,'^ in Caithness. Large oval flakes, made from sandstone 
pebbles, occurred in very great numbers in and around the ancient 
dwelling at Skaill, Orkney. In form, however, these approximate 
more nearly to the Pict's knives, of whicli hereafter, than to ordinary 
flakes. The method of their manufacture has been described by Mr. 
Laing.'*' 

A curious stone knife or dagger, found beside a stone cist in Perth- 
shire,'' is described as a natural formation of mica- schist, the peculiar 
shape of which has suggested its adaptation as a rude but efficient 
implement. 

Some rude spear-heads of flint and greenstone are said to have been 
found near Pytchley,'* Northamptonshire ; and some of Kentish rag at 
Maidstone.'^ I have also seen them made of Oolitic flint. 

Plakes of quartzite have been found, together with some of flint and 
quartz and with polished celts, in some of the caverns inhabited during 
the Neolithic Period in the Pyrenees of the Ariege,'-" and also in the 
Lake Settlement of Greug.^' 

When we consider how well adapted for cutting purposes were 

^ Arch., vol, xlii. p. 64. • Arch. Jouru., vol. xx. p. 198. 

3 "Salisb.Vol. Arch. Inst.," p. 106. * Joi<rn. Ethn. Soc, vol. i. p. 10. 

^ Arch. Journ., vol. xxiii. p. .300 ; vol. xxv. p. loo. ^ Gcol. Mag., vol. vii. 443. 

' Arch. Journ., vol. xxii. p. 68. '' Suss. Arch. Coll., vol. xix. p. 53. 

^ Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xxiv. p. 182, &c. 

'« Journ. Ethn. Soc, vol. ii. p. 421. '• " Flint Impts.," Jos. Stevens, 1867. 

^- Arch. Journ., vol xxi. p. 168. '^ 3rd S., vol. iii. p. 304. 

'* Journ. Ethn. Soc, vol. ii. p. 141. 

15 •' Prehist. Rem. of Caithness," Froc Soc Ant. Scot., vol. vii. p. 37. 
i« P. S. A. S., vol. vii. p. 73. " P. S. A. S., vol. i. p. 101. 

J* Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. ii. p. 203. '^ Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xiii. p. 319. 
•" Garrigou et Filhol, "Age de la Pierre polio." &c., pi. vii. and viii. 
-1 De Bonstetten, ♦'2nd Supp. au Rec. d'Ant. Suisses," pi. i. 



282 FLINT FLAKES, CORES, ETC. [cHAV. XII. 

these simple flakes of flint, and liow they constituted, as it were, 
the raw material for so many of the more finished forms, such as 
arrow-heads, of which the consumption in ancient times must 
have been enormous ; and when, moreover, we take into account 
that in producing a well-formed flake many waste flakes and mere 
splinters must probably have been struck off, and that in forming 
the large implements of flint almost innumerable chips or spalls 
must have been made, their abundance on the sites of ancient 
dwelling-places is by no means surprising, especially as the 
material of which they are formed is almost indestructible. 

Such fragments of flint must have been among the daily neces- 
sities of ancient savage life, and we can well understand the feeling 
which led the survivors of the departed hunter to place in his 
grave not only the finished weapons of the chase, but the material 
from which to fcrm them, as a provision for him in " the happy 
hunting grounds," the only entrance to which was through the 
gate of Death. 

The occurrence of flint chips and potsherds in the soil of which 
barrows are composed, may in some cases be merely the result 
of their being made up of earth gathered from the surface of the 
ground, which from previous occupation by man was bestrewn 
with such remains. It is, however, often otherwise, especially 
when the flakes are in immediate association with the interment. 
The practice of throwing a stone on a cairn is no doubt a relic 
of an ancient custom.-^ The " shards, flint, and pebbles" which 
Ophelia should have had thrown on her in her grave may, as has 
been suggested by Canon Greenwell,^ point to a sacred Pagan 
custom remembered in Christian times, but then deemed irre- 
ligious and unholy. 

The presence of flint flakes in ancient graves is not, however, 
limited to those of the so-called Stone and Bronze Periods, but 
they occur with even more recent interments. For it seems proba- 
ble that the flint was in some cases buried as a fire-producing 
agent, and not as the material for tools or weapons. In a cist at 
Lesmurdie,^ Banffshire, apparently of early date, were some 
chips of flint which appeared to the discoverer to have been 
originally accompanied by a steel or piece of iron and tinder. 
The oxide of iron may, however, have been merely the result of 

' On this custom see Tran'^. Lane, and Chesh. Arch. Hoc, vol. vi. p. 58 ; yiii. p. 63 ; 
xi. p. 27. 

- Arch. Journ., vol. xxii. p. 116. 

" I'toc. i>oc. Ant. Scot., vol. i. p. 210. 



KOT tONFINEI) TO THE STONE PERIOD. 283 

the decomposition of a piece of iron pyrites. At Worle Hill/ 
Somersetshire, " flint flakes, prepared for arro\y-lieads," were 
found with iron spear-heads and other objects, though it is very 
doubtful whether they weie in true association. In Saxon graves,^ 
however, small nests of chipped flints are not unfrequent, and 
the same is the case with Merovingian and Frankish interments, 
sometimes accompanied by the steels or briqiicfs,^ at other times 
without them. I have a wrought flint of this class, curiously like 
a modern gun-flint, from an early German grave near Yv^iesbaden. 
Occasionally flakes of other materials than flint occur. Their 
presence in graves is regarded by M. Baudot as due to a reminis- 
cence of some ancient rite of sepulchre. In the Anglo-Saxon 
burial-ground at Ilarnham Hill,^ near Salisbury, and at Ozengal, 
steels were also found. Canon Greenwell found a steel, in form 
much like those of modern date, in a Saxon grave at Uncleby in 
the East Riding of Yorkshire. As has been pointed out by Mr. 
Akerman, Scheffer ^ informs us that so late as the seventeenth 
century, the Lapps were buried with their axe, bow, and arrows, 
and a flint and steel, to be used both in a life to come and in find- 
ing their v,ny to the scene of their future existence. 

Flakes and rudeh' chipped pieces of flint are also of very com- 
mon occurrence on the sites of Homan occupation, as, for instance, 
at Ilardham,'" Sussex, where Prof. Boyd Dawkins found them 
associated with Roman pottery. At Moel Fenlli,^ also, in the vale 
of Clwyd, there occurred with Roman pottery some flint flakes 
which have been figured as arrow-heads, and with them what is 
termed a stone knife, but which is, however, more probably a 
whetstone used to sharpen those of steel. I have myself noticed 
flint flakes at Regulbium (Reculver), Yerulamium (St. Alban's), 
and on other Roman sites. Many of them were no doubt used for 
producing Are, but the more finished flakes may possibly have 
served as carpenters' tools for scraping, in the same way as frag- 
ments of glass are in use at the present day. 

There is, however, another cause why rude splinters of flint 

' Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xii. p. 299. 

- See Arch. Journ., vol. xi. p. 211, and xx. 189; V/right, " Rems. of a Prim. 
Poop, in Yorkah.," p. 10. 

^ See Cochet, " Normandie Souterr.," p. 25S ; Baudot, "Sep. de.s Barbaras." p. 
70 ; Troyon, " Tombeauxdc Bel- Air" ; Lindensclimit, '• Todtenlager bei Selzeu," 
p. 13. 

* Arch., vol. XXXV. p. 2(57. 

* "Hist, of Lapland," Ed., 1704, p. 313; Keysler, "Ant. Sept.," p. 17!. 
^ Sussex -ireh. Coll. vol. xvi. p. 03. 

" Arch. Cavil,., 2nd S., vol. i. p. 88. 



2S4 



FLINT FLAKES, CORES, ETC. [cHAP. XIL 



should accompany Rotnan remains, especially in the case of villas 
in country districts, for the tribuhim, or threshing implement 
employed both by the Eomans and other ancient civilized nations, 
was a " sharp threshing instrument having teeth," ^ in most cases 
of flint. Yarro-thus describes the trilnlum : — "Id tit e tabula 
lapidibus aut ferro exasperata, quaj imposito auriga aut pondere 
grandi trahitur jumentis junctis ut discutiat e spica gruna." 
Another form of the instrument was called traha or trahea. In 
the East, in Xorthern Africa, Spain, Portugal, Madeira, Tenerilfe, 
and probably other parts of the world, threshing implements, 
which no doubt closely resemble the original tribula, are still in 
use. The name is still preserved in the Italian irebbiatrice, the 
Spanish trilla, and the Portuguese trilho, but survives, metaphori- 
cally alone, in our English tribulation. In Egypt their name is 
nureg, and in Greece aXwvi'arpa, from aXwvLa, a threshing- 
floor. Drawings of various tribula have been given by various 
travellers,^ and the implements themselves from different countries 
may be seen in the Christy Collection and in the Blackmore 
3Iuseum. Thev are flat sledires of wood, five to six feet in length, 
and two or three in breadth, the under side pitted with a number 
of square or lozenge- shaped holes, mortised a little distance into 
the wood, and having in each hole a flake or splinter of stone. I 
have seen them in Spain mounted with simple pebbles. In those 
from Madeira the stone is a volcanic rock, but in that from Aleppo 
— preserved in the Christy Collection,^ and shown in Fig. 194 — 
each flake is of cherty flint and has been artificially shaped. Occa- 
sionally there are a few projecting ribs or runners of iron along 
part of the machine, but in most instances the whole of the 
armature is of stone. As each tri//iO is j)rovided with some hun- 
dreds of chipped stones, we can readily understand what a number 
of rough flakes might be left in the soil at places where they were 
long in use, in addition to the flakes and splinters which for cen- 
turies have been used for striking a lio-ht. 

Flakes and splinters of silicious stone, whether flint, jasper, 
chert, iron-stone, quartzite, or obsidian, are to be found in almost 
all known countries, and belong to all ages. They are in fact 

^ Isaiah, chap. xli. ver. 15. 

- •' De re Rust.," lib. i. cap. 52. 

3 Smith's "Diet, of Gk. and Rom. Ant.," *.r. Tribulum. "Wilkinson's " Anc. 
Egyptians," vol. ii. p. 190; iv. 94. Arch, per rAnt. e In Etn.." vol. xxiii. 57 ; 
vol. xxvi. p. 53. Fellows. "Jonm. in Asia iMinor," 1838. p. 70. Paul Lucas, 
" Vorage en Ade," Paris. 1712, p. 231. -V. and Q.. 7th S., vol. vii. p. 36. 

* For the u.se of this cut I am indebted to Sir A. Wollaston Franks, F.R.S. 



THE KOMAN T11I15ULUM. 



285 



the most catholic of all stone implements, and have been in use 
" semper, ubique, et ab omnibus." Whether we look in our old 




ScaU -^ 



rii,'. I'Jl — Tiibuluin from Alriipu. 



liiver-gravcis of the age of the mammoth, in our old cave-deposits, 
our ancient encampments, or our modern gun-flint manufactories, 



286 FLINT FLAKES, CORES, ETC. [CHAP. XII. 

there is tlie inevitable flake. And it is almost universally the 
same in other countries — in Greenland or South Africa, on the field 
of Marathon or in the backwoods of Australia, among the sands of 
Arabia ^ or on the plains of America, — wherever such flakes and 
splinters are sought for, they are almost sure to be found, either in 
use among the savage occupants of the country at the present day, 
or among civilized nations, left in the soil as memorials of their 
more or less remote barbarian ancestors. 

Flint flakes are foimd in great abundance in Ireland, especially in 
Ulster, where the raw material occurs in the chalk. At Toome 
Bridge, on the shores of Lough Xeagh, man}- tliousands have beeu 
foimd, and they occur in abundance in the valle}' of the Bann,- and in 
.shghtly raised beaches along the sliores of Belfast Lough. They are 
rarely more than 4 or 5 inches in length; and sj-mmetrical, flat, 
parallel flakes are extremel}' rare. Many pointed liakes have been 
sHghtly trimmed' at the butt-end, and converted into a sort of lance- 
head without further preparation. Such flakes may have pointed 
fishing-spears. They are occasionally formed of Lydian stone. 

In Scandinavia, the art of flaking flint attained to great perfection, 
and flat or ridged sjTnmetrical flakes, as much as G inches long, and not 
more than ^-ineh wide, are by no means uncommon. Occasionally 
they are no less than 13 inches long.* Two in the Museum at Copen- 
hagen' (9 inches) fit the one on the other. The ridge is sometimes 
formed by cross-chipping. The bulk of the flakes from the kji'kken- 
mtiddings are of a rude character, though very many show traces 
of use. 

In Germany, long flakes of flint are rare, but one about 6i inches 
long, found in Ehenish-Hesse, is engraved by Lindenschmit.* 

In some parts of France they are extremely plentiful, especially on 
and around the sites of ancient flint ateliers. Some flakes, like those 
j^roduced at Pressigny, were of great length. One not less than 
13J inches long, and not more than l\ inches broad at the butt, found 
at Pauilhac, in the Valley of the Gers, has been flgured in the Revue 
de Gascogne.' A flake from Gergovia, 9 inches long, is in the Museum 
at Clermont Ferrand. 

One 8 J inches long was found in the Camp de Catenoy "* (Oise). 

Long flakes found in France have been engraved by numerous 
authors, '■* and some from Belgium by Le Hon.''^ 

Obsidian cores and flakes have been found in Lorraine," the material 
having been brought from Auvergne. 

^ Pioc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. vi. p. 253. - Jonrn. Anth. Inst., vol. x. p. 150. 

3 Arch., vol. xli. p. 404. See also Wilde, "Cat. Mus. R. I. A.," p. 10. 

* See Lubbock, " Preh. Times," 4th ed.. p. 94. 

5 Mim. .%c. R. des Ant. da Xord., 1686—91, p. 232. Aarb. f. Oldkynd, 1886, 
p. 227. 

•i "Alt. u. h. v.," vol. ii. Heft. viii. Taf. i. 4. • Tom. vi. 1865. 

* Ponthieux, pi. xxvi. 

* Chantre, "Etudes Paleoethnol.," 1867. "Watelet, " L'Age de Pierre dans le 
Dep. de I'Aisne," 1866. De Ferry, •■ Anc. de I'Homme dans le Maconnais," 1867. 

10 " L' Homme Fossile," 2nded".,p. 150. 

" Comptes Rendiis, 1866, vol. Ixii. p. 347; 1867, vol. Ixv. p. 116. 



IN OTHER I'ARTS OF THE WORLD. 287 

Flakes occur, Lut not so abundantly, in Spain and Portugal. A 
fragment of a ridged ilake of jasper, found in the cave of Albunol in 
Spain,' is l.V inches long. In one of the Genista Caves'- at Gibraltar 
there was found one of the long flakes, but of wliich a part had been 
broken off. Another was GV inches long and | inch wide. In 
Algarve,' Portugal, they have been found up to 15 inches in length ; 
some of them are beautifully serrated at the edges. 

In Italy they are by no means uncommon, sometimes of great 
length. One, 7 inches long, is figured by Nicolucci.* 

Among the Swiss Lake-dwellers considerable use was made of flint 
flakes, not only as the material for arrow-heads, but for cutting tools. 
So great was the abimdance of flint left on the site of some of their 
habitations, as at Nussdorf,' that in after ages the spot was resorted to 
for generations, in order to procure flints for use with steel. It was 
by their being thus known as flint-producing spots that some of the 
Lake-dwellings were discovered. A flake nearly 7 inches long, from 
peat, in the Canton de Yaud, has been engraved by De Bonstetten.'' 

A flake 9 inches long from Transcaucasia' has been figured. 

In Egjqit" flakes of flint have been found in considerable numbers 
in certain localities, some of them associated with polished stone 
hatchets ; others are possibly of no extreme antiquity, though un- 
doubtedly of artificial origin, and not of merely natural formation, as 
has been suggested by Lepsius.'-" That distinguished antiquary has, 
however, found a number of well-formed ridged and polygonal flakes 
in Egypt, some of them in a grave which he has reason to assign to 
about 2500 B.C. 

A vast number of discoveries of flint flakes and other forms of 
worked flints has, of late years, been made in Egypt. It will probably 
be sufficient to indicate in a note'" some of the principal memoirs 
relating to the subject. They are found also in the Libyan" desert. 
The discoveries at Helouan will be subsequently mentioned. 

The presence of numerous flakes, scrapers and other forins of flint 
instruments, has also been noticed in Algeria.'- They are for the most 
part rude and small. 

Flint flakes and tools are found on Mount Lebanon,'^ and on the 
Nablus'^ road from Jerusalem there are mounds entirely composed of 
flint chij)pings. 

* De Gongora, "Ant. Preh. de Andalusia," p. 49, fig. GO. 
- Tram. I'reh. Cong., 18G8, pi. viii. 3. 

3 " Ant. do Algarve ; " da Vciga, 188C, vol. ii. p. 1G2, pi. viii. 

* " Di alcuni armi ed Utensili in Pietra," 18G3, Tav. ii. 
'■^ Keller, " Pfahlbaiiten," 6 tcr, Ber, p. 272. 

^ "Supp. au Rec. d'Ant. Suisses," pi. i. 5. 

' Zeitsch. f. Ethn., vol. xvi. p. (105), pi. iii. 

® liev. Arch., vol. xx. p. 441. MaUriaitx, vol. v. p. 399 bis ; Comptes llendus, 
1869, vol. Ixix. p. 1312. Arcelin, " Ind. prim. en. Egypte et en Syrie," 1870. 

^ Zeitschrift fiir JEgypt. Sprache, &c., Juli 1870. 

^0 Journ. Anth. Inst., vol.iv. p. 215 (Lubbock): vii. p. 290. Zeitsch. f. Ethn., 
vol. xxi. pi. iv. v. "Die Stein-zeit Afrika's," R. Andrec. Intern. Archiv, vol. iii. 
p. 81. "-^gypten's vor-metallische Zoit." Much, "Wiirzburg, 1880. Nature, \o\. 
xx.xii. p. 161 ; xxxiii. 311 (Wady Haifa). 

" Tr. (Jung. Freh. Stockholm, 1S74, p. 76. 

'- Coi-iptes Itendiis, 1869, vol. Ixviii. pp. 196, 340. 

'■' Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. i. pp. 337, 442. 

'* Quart. St. I'akist. Expl. Fund, 1874, p. 158. 



288 



FLINT FLAKES, CORES, ETC. 



[CIIAP 



XII. 




Fig. 193. — Admiralty Islands. 



lu Southern Africa,' near Capetown and Gra- 
liamstown, Hakes abound on tlio surface of tlie 
ground, sometimes of chert or Hint, but often of 
basaltic rock. I have one from Grahamstown 
8 inches in lengtli. 

Their occurrence in India has alreadj' been 
noticed. The flakes from Jubbuli^ore - are for 
the most part of small size, b\it some of those 
removed from the cores found in the river Indus 
must have been at least 5 or G inches long. 

In America, flint, or rather horn-stone flakes, are 
not uncommon, though not so often noticed as the 
more flnished forms. Some found in the mounds 
of Ohio are of considerable length, one engraved 
by Squier and Davis' being 5 A inches long. 
Some of the Mexican flakes of obsidian are fully 
6 inches in length. 

In ancient times the IchthyopLagI are de- 
scribed by Diodorus* as using antelopes' horns 
and stones broken to a sharp edge in their 
fishing, " for necessity teaches everything." 
Flakes are still in some cases used without 
any secondary chipping or working into form. 

We find, for instance, flakes of flint or obsi- 
dian, and even of glass, almost in the condition in 
which they were struck from the parent block, 
employed as lance and javelin-heads, among 
several savage people, such as the natives of 
Australia,^ ,and of the Admiralty Islands.^ 
One of those said to be in use among the latter 
people is shown, half-size, in Fig. 195,^ and 
exhibits the method of attachment to the shaft. 
The butt- end of the flake is let into a socket 
in a short tapering piece of wood, into the 
other extremity of which the end of the long 

1 Trans. Cong. Treh. Arch., 1868, p. 69. Geol. Mag., 
vol. V. p. 532. Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. xi. p. 124. Camb. 
Ant. Cumin., vol. v. p. 67. 

- Froc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 38. Journ. of Ant. 
Soc. of Cent. Frov., vol. i. p. 21. Journ. Ethii. Soc, N. S., 
vol. i. p. 175. 

•■ " Anct. Mon. of Mississ. Vail.," p. 215. 

^ Lib. iii. c. 15. 

■'■' "Wood, "Nat. Hist, of Man," vol. ii. p. 38. 

'' Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. \i. p. 409, pi. xx. 

'' For the use of this block I am indebted to the executors 
of the late Mr. Henry Christy. See also Lubbock, " Preh. 
Times," 4th Ed., p. 93. 



THE USES OF FLAKES. 289 

light shaft is inserted ; both flake and shaft are next secured by 
tying, and then the whole of the socket and ligatures is covered 
up with a coating of resinous gum, occasionally decorated with 
zigzag and other patterns. Some flukes are mounted as daggers. 

Some of the long parallel flakes also appear to have been haftcd. 
One such, probably from Mexico, has been engraved by Aldro- 
vandus as a cnltcr Idpideus} A tool in use among the natives 
of Easter Island^ consisted of a broad flake of obsidian, with a 
roughly chipped tang which was inserted in a slit in the handle 
to which it was bound, the binding being tightened by means 
of wooden wedges driven in under the string. 

To return, however, to the flakes of flint which were used in this 
country for scraping or cutting purposes, at an early period, when 
metal was either unknown or comparatively scarce. Each flake, 
when dexterously made, has on either side a cutting edge, so 
sharp that it almost might, like the obsidian flakes of Mexico, be 
used as a razor. Some flakes indeed seem to have served as 
surgical instruments, as the practice of trephining was known in 
the Stone Period. So long as the edge is used merely for cutting 
soft substances it may remain for some time comparatively unin- 
jured, and even if slightly jagged its cutting power is not im- 
paired. If long in use, the sides of the blade become rather polished 
by wear, and I have specimens, both English and foreign, on 
which the polish thus produced can be observed. If the flake 
has been used for scraping a surface, say, for instance, of bone or 
wood, the edge will be found to wear away, by extremely minute 
portions chipping off nearly at right angles to the scraping edge, 
and with the lines of fracture running back from it. The coarse- 
ness of these minute chips will vary in accordance with the 
amount of pressure used, and the material scraped ; but generally 
speaking, I think that I am right in saying that they are more 
delicate and at a more obtuse angle to the face, than the small chip- 
ping produced by the secondary working of the edge of a flake, of 
which I shall presently speak. In all cases where any consider- 
able number of flakes of flint occur, such as there appears to be 
good reason for attributing to a remote period, a greater or less 
proportion of them will, on examination, be found to bear these 
signs of wear upon them, extending over, at all events, some 
portion of their edges. 

- " Mu«. Metall," p. 157. 

- Two are figured in I'roc. Soc. Ant. Sett., vol. viii. p. 321. Soo also Ratzel, 
" Volkerk," vol. ii.. 1888, p. 151. 

V 



290 FLINT FLAKES, CORES, ETC. [CHAP. XII. 

It is, however, difficult if not impossible, always to determine 
whether the chipping away of the edge of a flake is merely the 
result of use, or whether it is intentional. There can be no doubt 
that for many purposes the acute edge of a flake, as originally 
formed, was too delicate and brittle, and that it was therefore 
re-worked by subsequent chipping, so as to make the angle more 
obtuse, and thus strengthen the edge of the tool. It is curious to 
observe how rarely the edges of flakes were sharpened by grind- 
ing. It was probably considered less troublesome to form a new 
flake than to sharpen an old one ; in the same way as it is recorded 
that the Mexican barbers threw away their obsidian flakes as soon 
as they were dull and made use of new ones. Dr. E. B. Tyler, 
in the free translation of the passage in Torquemada relating to 
these razors, appears, as has been pointed out by ^Messrs. Daubree 
and Roulin,^ to haye fallen into a mistake in representing them 
to have been sharpened on a hone, the original author having 
merely said that the edge of the obsidian flakes was as keen as if 
they had been forged in iron, ground on a stone, and finished on 
a hone. 

British flakes with ground edges are by no means common. One 
from Yorkshire, in my own collection, is a thin, flat, external flake, 
having both edges (which are parallel) ground from both faces to an 
angle of about 60^. It has, unfortunately, been broken square across, 
about 2 inches from the butt-end, and is 1 inch -wide at the fracture. 
Another, from Bridlington, is an ovate flat external flake, produced, 
not by art, but by natural fracture, and having one side brought to a 
sharp edge by grinding on both faces. AVith the exception of its 
being partially chipped into shape at both ends, this grinding is all 
that has been done to convert a mere splinter of flint into a serviceable 
tool. It is an interesting example of the selection of a natural form, 
where adapted for a particular purpose, in preference to making the 
whole implement by hand. The small celt. Fig. 31, atfords an 
analogous instance. In the Greenwell Cullection are also two or three 
very rude flakes from the Yorkshire Wolds, -n-hich are ground at some 
portion of their edges. 

In a barrow on Seamer Moor, Yorkshire, the late Lord Londes- 
borough^ found, with other relics, a delicate knife made from a flake 
of flint, 4|^ inches long, and dexterously ground. A trimmed flake, 
Like Fig. 239, some small celts, and delicate lozenge-shaped arrow- 
heads, like Fig. 276, were also present. The whole are now in the 
British Musevmi. 

A flake, from Charleston, in the East Eiding. presented to me by 
Canon Greenwell, is shown in Fig. 196. It is of thin triangidar section, 
slightly bowed longitudinally, having one edge, which appears to have 

1 Comptes Rendm, 1868, vol. Ixvii. p. 1296. 
' Arch. Assne. Joiirn., vol. iv., 1848, p. 105. 




FLAKES GROUND AT THE EDGE. 291 

been originally blunt, sharpened by secondary working. The other 
edge has been sharpened to an angle of about 45° by grinding both on 
the inner and outer faces of the Hake. The point, which is irregular 
in shape, is rounded over either by friction or by grinding. 
It seems well adapted for use as a knife Avhon held between 
the ball of the thumb and the end of the first finger, with- 
out the intervention of any handle. 

Another specimen, 4 inches long, ground to a sharp 
edge along one side, was in the collection of the late Mr. 
J. W. Flower, F.G.S., and is now in mine. It was found 
near Thetford. 

Mr. Flower had also a flake from High Street, near 
Chislet, Kent, with both edges completely blunted by 
grinding, perhaps in scraping stone. 

I have two trimmed flakes with the edges carefully 
ground, from the neighbourhood of Icklingham, Suffolk, 
and another ridged flake, 2f inches long, pointed at one end 
and rounded at the other, one side of which has been care- 
fully ground at the edge. I found it in a field of my own, in 
the parish of Abbot's Langley, Herts. Canon Greenwell 
obtained another 2.V inches long, ground on both edges, from Milden- 
haU Fen. 

I have seen a flake about 3 inches long, with the edge ground, that 
had been found on the top of the cliffs at Bournemouth ; and another, 
from a barrow near Stonehenge, in the possession of the late Mr. Frank 
Buckland. 

A flat flake, with a semicircular end, and ground at the edges so as 
to form " a beautiful thin ovoidal knife three and a half inches long," 
was found by Dr. Thurnam,' with many other worked flints, in the 
chambered long barrow at West Kennet, Wilts. Another, carefully 
ground at one edge, was found by Sir R. Colt Hoare,- at Everley. 

An oval knife, about 2 inches long, ground at the edge and over a 
great part of the convex face, found at Micheldean, Gloucestershire, is 
in the museum at Truro. 

A cutting instrument, with a very keen edge, nicely polished, is 
recorded as having been found, with twenty other fliut implements or 
tools of various shapes, accompanying a skeleton, in a barrow near 
Pickering.^ A so-called spear-head, neatly chipped and rubbed, was 
found with burnt bones in another barrow near the same place.* 

A few fiat flakes, ground at the edge, have been discovered in Scot- 
land. One 2^ inches long was found at Cromar,^ Aberdeenshire ; and 
a portion of another in a cairn in Caithness," in conipau}^ with a 
polished perforated hammer and other objects. 

Irish flake* are rarely sharpened by grinding. T liave, however, 
one of Lydian stone,'' found in Lough Neagh, and ground to an edge 
at the end. 

In form the Charleston flake, Fig. 196, much resembles some of the 
Swiss flakes, which, from examples that have been found in the Lake- 

' Arch., vol. xxxviii. p. 417. 

2 " Anc. Wilts," p. 195. "Cat. Devizes Mus.," No. Uix. 

^ "Ten Yeara' Dig.," p. 230. * " T. Y. D.," p. 224. 

* P. S. A. S., vol. vii. p. 320. « Op. cit., vol. vii. p. 499. 

' Arch., vol. xli. p. 404. 

IT 2 




292 FLINT FL.UilES, COKES, ETC. [CHAP. XII. 

dwellings, are proved to have been mounted in handles. One of these, 
from Xussdorf, in the Ueberlinger See,' is in my o\m collection, and is 
shown in Fig. 197. It is fastened into a yew- wood handle by an 
apparently bituminous cement. The edge has been formed by 
secondary chipping on the ridged face of the flake. I am unable to 

say whether the edge of the 
flake still embedded in the 
wood is left as originally 
produced or no, but several 
unmovmted flakes from the 
same locality have been re- 
chipped on both edges. In 
some instances, however. 
Fig. 197.— ^'us^dorf . \ onlj' One edge is thus worked. 

In the case of many of the 
small narrow flakes from the Dordogne caves, one edge is much worn 
away, and the other as sharp as ever, as if it had been protected by 
being inserted in a wooden handle. 

From the hole in the handle, this form of instrument would appear 
to have been carried attached to a string, like a sailor's knife at the 
present day — a similarity probably due to the somewhat analogous 
conditions of life of the old Lake-dwellers to those of seamen. In some 
French and Swiss flakes- which seem to have been used in a similar 
manner, the ends are squared, and a central notch worked in eacli, 
apparently for the reception of a cord. In this case, a loop at the 
end of the cord would answer the same purpose as the hole in the 
handle, which with these flakes seem to have been needless. They 
are abundant at Pressigny. 

A pointed flake in the museimi at Berne ^ is hafted like a dagger, in 
a wooden handle, which is bound round with a cord made from rushes. 
Some of the Swiss handles are not bored, and occasionally they are 
prolonged at one end to twice the length of the flint, so as to form a 
handle like that of a table-knife, the flint flake, though let in to a con- 
tinuation of the handle, projecting and forming the blade. In some 
cases there is a handle at each end, like those of a spoke-shave. The 
handles are of yew. deal, and more rarely of stags'-hom ; and the 
implements, though usually termed saws, are not regularly serrated, 
and may with equal propriety be termed knives. 

The late Sir Edward Belcher showed me an Eskimo "'flensing 
knife," from Icy Cape, hafted in much the same manner. The blade 
is an ovate piece of slate about -5 inches long, and is let into a handle 
made of several pieces of wood, extending along nearly half the cir- 
cimiference, and secured together by resin. Other specimens of the 
same kind are in the British Museum, and in the Ethnological Museum 
at Copenhagen. The stone blades are more Uke the flat Picts' * knives, 

' Others are engraved in Kellers " Pfahlbaut.," Iter Bericht. Taf. iii. 8. Lin- 
denschmit, --Alt. u. h. V.," vol. i., Heft. xii. Taf. i. 15. " Hohenzollemftch. 
Samml.," Taf. xxvii. 18. Mackie, " Xat. Hist. Rep.," v I. i. p. 139. Le Hon, 
"L"hi mme Foss.," •2nded.,p. 175. " Ant. Lac. duMus. de Lausanne," 1896. PI. x. 

- " Mus. preh.," Nos. 276, 277. "Ant. Lac. du Mus. de Lausanne," 1896. 
PI. X., 10. 11. 3 Ze-.lsc/t. f. Ethn., vol. xiv. p. (-531). 

* Keller's " Lake-Dw.," pi. iii. 1 ; xxi. 10 ; xxriii. 9, 10. Trovon, " Hab. Lac," 
pi. V. 11. " Pfahlbanten," 2 ter Ber. Taf. iii. pi. 40. Desor, "Palafittes," fig. 12. 
Rau's "Preh. Fishing," 1&&4, p. 186. 



HAFTED FLAKES. 293 

such as Fig. 263, than ordinary flint flakes. An iron blade, hafted 
in a closely analogous manner by the Eskimos, is engraved by 
Nilsson.' 

As already mentioned, some of the Australian savages about King 
George's Sound make knives or saws on a somewhat similar plan ; 
but instead of one long flake they attach a number of small flakes in a 
row in a matrix of hard resin at one end of a stick. Spears are formed 
in the same manner. 

In other cases, however, flakes are differently hafted. One such is 
fehown in Fig. 198, from an original in the Christy Collection. One 
edge of this flake has been entirely removed by chipping so as to form 
a thick, somewhat rounded back, not unlike that of an ordinary knife- 
blade, though rather thicker in proportion to the width of the blade. 
The butt-end has then had a portion of the hairy skin of some animal 



Fig. 198.— Australia. A 

bound over it with a cord, so as to give it a sort of haft, and effectually 
protect the hand that held it. The material of the flake appears to be 
horn-stone. Another knife of the same character, from Queensland, is 
in the Museum of the Hartley Institution at Southampton. 

Another example, from the Murray River,^ but without the skin 
handle, has been figured. 

A friend in Queensland tried to procure one of these knives for me, 
but what he obtained was a flake of glass made from a gin bottle, and 
the wrapping was of calico instead of kangaroo-skin. Iron blades^ 
are sometimes hafted in the same way with a piece of skin. Some 
Australian jasper or flint knives,^ from Carandotta, are hafted with 
gum, and provided with sheaths made of sedge. These gum-hafted 
knives are in use on the Herbert River ^ for certain surgical operations. 

Some surface-chipped obsidian knives from California are hafted by 
having a strip of otter skin wound round them, and Prof. FHnders 
Petrie^ has found an Egyptian flint knife hafted with fibre lashed 
round with a cord. 

Occasionally flakes of quartz or other silicious stone were mounted 
at the end of short handles by the Australians, so as to form a kind of 
dagger or chisel. One such has been engraved by the Rev. J. G. 

' " Stone Age," pi. v. 86. * P. S. A. S., vol. x. p. 263. 

' Tr. lane, and Chesh. Arch. Soc, vol. iv. p. 377. * Ibid. 

* Zfitsch. f. Ethn., vol., xiv. p. 28. " " Illahun, &c.," 1891, p. 13, pi. xiii. 



294 FLINT FLAKES, CORES, ETC. [cHAP. XII. 

Wood.' Another is in the Museum of the Hartley Institution at 
Southampton. 

In the Berlin Museum- is a curious knife, found, I believe, in Prussia, 
which shows great skill in the adaptation of flint for cutting purposes 
It consists of a somewhat lanceolate piece of bone, about 7| inches 
long, and at the utmost i inch wide, and | inch thick. The section is 
approximately oval, but along one of the narrow sides a groove has 
been worked, and in this are inserted a series of segments of thin 
flakes of flint, so carefully chosen as to be almost of one thickness, 
and so dexterously fitted together that their edges constitute one con- 
tinuous sharp blade, projecting about three-sixteenths of an inch from 
the bone. In some examples from Scandinavia the flint flakes are let 
in on both edges of the blade.* The flakes sometimes form barbs, as 
already mentioned. 

The Mexican* swords, formed of flakes of obsidian attached to a 
blade of wood, were of somewhat the same character, and remains of 
what appears to have been an analogous sword, armed with flint flakes, 
have been found in one of the mounds of the Iroquois country. 

Another use to which pointed flint flakes have occasionally been 
applied is for the formation of fishing-hooks. Such a hook, the stem 
formed of bone, and the returning point made of flint bound at an 
acute angle to the end of the bone, has been engraved by Klemm.* It 
was found in a grave in Greenland. Fishhooks formed entirely of 
flint, and found in Sweden, have bten engraved by Nilsson,® and 
others, presumed to have been found in Holderness, by Mr. T. 
Wright, F.S.A." These latter are, however, in all probability, 
forgeries. 

Besides the flakes which may be regarded as merely tools for 
cutting or scraping, there are some which may with safety be 
reckoned as saws, their edges having been intentionally and 
regularly serrated, though in other respects they have been left 
entirely unaltered in form. 

A specimen, found in a pit which appeared to have been excavated 
by the primitive inhabitants of the district, at Brighthamj)ton, Oxon, 
has been figured ; * and another oblong flint flake, with a regularly 
serrated edge, but the teeth not so deep or well defined as in this 
instance, was found by Dr. Thurnam in a chambered long barrow at 
West Kennet, Wilts, with numerous flakes and " scrapers." ^ 

Figs. 199 to 201 represent similar instruments in my own collection 
from the Yorkshire Wolds. The largest has been serrated on both 
edges, but has had the teeth much broken and worn away on the 
thinner edge. 

1 "Nat. Hist, of Man," vol. ii. p. 32. • See Arckiv. f. Anth., vol. v. p. 234. 

■* Worsaae, " Prim. Ants, of Den.," p. 17. Nilsson, "Stone Age," pi. vi. 125, 
126. Madsen, " Afb.," pi. xl. 

* Wilson's " Preh. Man," vol. i. p. 225. " Anct. Mon. of Missis. Yalley," p. 211. 
Squier, " Abor. Mon. of New York," p. 180. 

^ " Cultnr-wiss.," vol. i. p. 61. " " Stone Age," pi. ii. pp. 28, 29. 

■" " Remains of a Primitive People, &c., in Yorkshire." 

« Proc. 8oc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iv. 233. '' Arch., vol. xxxviii. p. 417. 



FLAKES MADE INTO SAWS. 



295 



Fig. 200 is very minutely toothed on both cdg-es, and has a line of 
brilliant polish on each niai'gin of its flat face, showing the friction the 
saw had undergone in use, not improbably in sawing bone or horn. 

Fig. 201 is more coarsely serrated, and shows less of this characteristic 
polish, Avhich is observable on a large proportion of these flint saws. 
The teeth are on many so minute that witliout careful examination they 
may be overlooked. Others, however, are coarsely toothed. Canon 
Greenwell has found saws in considerable numbers, and varying in the 
fineness of their serration, in the barrows on the Yorkshire Wolds, 
near Sherburn and elsewhere. In the soil of a single barrow at Eud- 
stone there were no less thanseventy- 
eight of these sa^'s. Some have 
been found by Mr. Fj. Tindall in 
barrows near Bridlington,' as well 
as on the surface. Some well-formed 
flint saws have also been found near 
Whitby,- and some of small size 
at West Wickham,^ Kent. In the 
Greenwell Collection is a finely- 
toothed saw, made from a curved 
flake, found at Kenny Hill, Milden- 
hall. 

Five flint saws, finely serrated, 
were found in a barrow at Seaford,* 
and anotlier on St. Leonard's Forest,'' 
Horsham. One was also found in a 
barrow on Overton HiU,'' AVilts. 
Seven saws, thirteen scrapers, and 
other worked flints were among 
the materials of another barrow at 
Rudstone.'' 

The teeth are usually but not 
universally worked in the side edges 
of the flakes. In Fig. 202 it is the 
chisel-like broad end of a flake that 
has been converted into a saw. This 
sperimen was found by the late Mr. 
J. W. Flower, F.G.S., in a barrow 
at West Cranmore, Somerset, in company with numerous flint flakes 
and " scrapers." A bronze dagger was found in the same barrow. 

Near Newhaven, Sussex, I found on the downs a flat flake, about 
2,1 inches long, and slightly curved sideways towards the point. At 
this part the inner curve is neatly worked into a saw, and the outer 
curve carefully chipped into a rounded edge as a scraping tool. 

A flint knife serrated at the back to serve as a saw was found by 
Mr. Bateman in Liff's Low, near Biggin.^ 

In Scotland several saws have been procured fi'om the Cvdbin Sands,* 




Fig. 199.— Willerby 

Wold. ] 



Fig. 200.— Yorkshire 
Wolds. I 



' Arch. Jonrn., vol. xxvii. p. 74. 
■■' Antiq., vol. XV., 1887, pp. •2;37-8. 
* Urns. Arch. Coll., vol. xxvii. p. 177. 
' "Brit. Burr.," pp. 251, 262. 
» P. S. A. S., vol. XXV. p. 497. 



■' Arch. Jnurn., vol. xxix. p. 284. 
* Suss. Arch. Coll., vol. xxxii. p. 175. 
" TFiits Arch. Mag., vol. xx. p. 346. 
« <'Vebt. Ant. Derb.," p. 43. 



296 



FLINT FLAKES, CORES, ETC. 



[chap. xn. 



and near Gleiiliice.' They are also recorded Irom Forglen,- near Banff, 
and Craigsfordmains/ EoxburghsLire. 

In Ireland, flakes converted into saws an- scarce ; they occur occa- 
sionally, though but rarely, wilh neolithic interments in France. In 
the Museum at lo Puy is a ver}- good specimen of a flat flake, neatly 
serrated with small teeth, found with a skeleton near that town. 
Another, found in a dolmen in Poitou,^ has been published by M. de 
Longiiemar. Mortillet* includes several forms under the general 
denomination of scies. 

Similar saws to those first described, aud made from flakes more or 
less coarsely toothed, have been found in the cave-deposits of the 
Eeindeer Period of the South of France, but in some caves, as, for 
instance, that at Bruniquel explored by M. V. Brun, they were mucli 





Fig. 201.— Scamridge. 



Fig. 202.— West Crannioro. \ 



more abundant than in others. In the Yicomte de Lastic's cave at the 
same place but few occurred, and in most of the caves of the Dordogne 
they appear to be absent. An irregularly-notched flake was probably 
almost as efficient a saw as one more carefully and uniformly toothed. 

Flakes of flint, carefully serrated at the edge, have been found in 
the Danish kjokken-moddings^; in Posen," Prussia; and with rehcsof 
the Early Bronze Period in Spain.* One is recorded from the Algerian 
Sahara.^ It has been suggested that some serrated flints were potters' 
tools, by which parallel mouldings were produced on vessels.'-' 

Among the more highly fijiished Scandinavian stone implements 
there is some difficulty in determining exactly which have served the 
purpose of saws. The flat, straight tapering instrument, with sen-ated 
edges, which, from its many teeth at regular distances from each 
other, Nilsson" is disposed to think has probably been a saw. Worsaae'^ 

1 r. S. A. S., vol. xi. p. 584. * F. S. A. S., vol. xii. p. 208. 

« P. S. A. S., vol. xxviii. p. 337. 

* Bull, de la 8oc. dts Ant. de l' Quest, 4 Trim., 1863, fig. 18. 

* " Mu.s. Preh.," pi. xxxiv., xxxv. ^ Madsen, " Aibildninger,'' pi. i. 1.5. 
' Zeits. f. Ethn., vol. xxviii., p. 348. 

" H. and L. Siret, "Le.s premiers Ages du Metal,"' pi. xiii., xvi. Capello, 
"I'Esp. centr.," 1895, p. 70, pi. vi. ' Zeitsch.f. Ethn., vol. xvii. p. 93. 

i« Zeitsch.f. Ethn., vol. xiv. p. (483) ; xv. p. (116). 
" " Stone Agp," p. 80, pi. v. 93. '* "Nord. Ulds.," Xo. 56. 



SERRATED AS THE ARMATURE OF SICKLES. 297 

regards as a lance-point. I am inclined to think tliat they were not saws, 
for on such spec iraons as I have examined minutely I find no trace of 
the teeth being polished by use. They cannot, however, in all cases 
have been lance-heads, as 1 have one of those serrated instruments, 
SI- inches long, with the sides nearly parallel and both ends square. 

Some of the crescent-shaped ' blades have almost similar teeth on the 
straighter edge, and some of these are polished on both faces as if by 
being worked backwards and forwards in a groove, and have no polish 
between the teeth, such as would result from their being used cross- 
ways like combs. From this I infer that such specimens at all events 
have been used for cutting purposes, and not, as may have been the 
case with others, as instruments- for dressing skins, or heckling flax 
or hemp. As has been pointed out by Professor J. J. Steenstrup, 
many of these crescent-shaped blades seem to have had their convex 
edges inserted in wooden handles, which would render them convenient 
for use as saws. Their action on wood, though not rapid, is effectual, 
and with the aid of a little water I have with one of them cut through 
a stick of dry sycamore seven-eighths of an inch in diameter in seven 
minutes. In Thomsen's ^ opinion, these implements with teeth were 
intended for saws. Nilsson ^ also regards some of them in the same 
light. The form seems to be confined to the North of Germany and 
Scandinavia.^ They are frequently found in pairs, one being smaller 
than the other. Mr. T. AVright,*' after engraving one of these Danish 
saws as a British specimen, remarks that several have been found in 
different parts of England. I believe this statement to be entirely 
without foundation, so far as this particular form is concerned. 

I have left what I originally wrote upon this subject with very little 
modification, but Prof. Flinders Petrie's'' discoveries have thrown a flood 
of light upon the purposes for which serrated flints were used. We now 
know that tlie Egyptian sickle was formed of a curved piece of wood 
in shape much like the jaw-bone of a horse, armed along the inner 
edge with a series of serrated flint flakes, cemented into a groove. 
Not only are there numerous pictorial representations of such instru- 
ments going back so far as the 4th dynasty, but the sickles them- 
selves have been found in a complete state, as well as numbers of the 
serrated flakes that formed their edge. Similar flakes, which no doubt 
served the same purpose, were found by Schliemann on the site of 
Troy.^ Others have been found at Helouan.^ The whole subject has 
been treated exhaustively by Mr. Spurrell,'" to whose paper the reader 
is referred." Dr. Munro is, liowcver, inclined to regard most Eui-opean 
examples as saws. 

I now pass on to an instrument of very frequent occurrence in 
Britain. 

' "Nord. Olds.," No. 58. 

'^ Lubbock, "Preh. Times," 4th ed., p. 102. "Flint Chips.' p. 74. 

=> Noxiisk Tidskri/ifor Oldk., 1832, p. 429. * " Stoue Ajre," p. 42. 

* Franks, "Horse Ferales," p. 137. Tiisch, "Frederico-Francisc," p. 145. 

* " Celt, Roman, and Saxon," p. 70. 

'' " Kahun," 1890, p. 29, pi. ix. " lUabun. &c.," 1891. p. oO seqq. " Medura, * 
1892, p. 31 stqq. 

* "Troy," 1875, p. 94. Atlas, pi. xxv. ■' Zeilsch. f. Ethn., vol. xvii. p. (303). 
'" Arch, journ., vol. xlix. p. 53. " Arch. Journ., vol. xlix. p. 164. 



298 



CHAPTER XIII. 



SCRAPERS. 



One of the simple furms into which flakes are susceptible of being 
readily converted has, in consequence of its similarity in character 
to a stone implement in use among the Eskimos for scraping skins 
and other purposes, received the name of a " scraper," or to use 
the term first I believe employed by the late M. E. Lartet, a 
grattoir. A typical scraper may be defined as a broad flake, the 
end of which has been chipped to a semicircular bevelled edge 
round the margin of the inner face, similar in character to that 
of a " round-nosed turnino- chisel." 




Fig. 203.— Eskimo Scrai.vi . 

A very good specimen of an Eskimo scraper of flint, mounted 
in a handle of fossil ivory, is in the Christy Collection, and has 
been engraved for the " Reliquiae Aquitanicac." ^ For the loan of 
the woodcut. Fig. 203, there given, I am indebted to the repre- 

1 Pt. ii. p. 14. One from Alaska of this fonnand anotherwith a long handle are 
figured in Zeitsch. f. Ethn., vol. xvi. p. (222). 



USED IN DRESSING HIDES. 299 

sentatives of the late IMr. Christy. Sometimes the hafts are of 
wood, and they have frequently indentations intended to receive 
the ends of the fingers and thumb, so as to secure a good grasp. 
In the collection of Sir John Lubbock is another specimen much 
like Fig. 203, with a flint blade almost like a lance-hoad in cha- 
racter, but with the more pointed end inserted in the handle ; 
there is also another short straight-sided blade of jade bound in 
a wooden haft, which is notched along one side to receive the 
fingers, and recessed on the face for the thumb. This latter seems 
well adapted for use as a knife or chisel ; in fact. Sir John Lubbock, 
who has figured the instruments in his " Prehistoric Times," ^ 
terms them both knives. Another example has been engraved by 
the Rev. J. G. Wood.^ 

These instruments arc said to be used for scraping skins,^ for 
which indeed they seem well suited, if the flat face of the stone 
be held vertically to the hide that is to be scraped. The handles, 
however, are better adapted for pushing the scrapers forward on a 
flat surface, and judging from the wear upon them they must have 
been so used. The late Sir Edward Belcher * has described them 
as Eskimo planes, for the manufacture of bows and other articles 
of wood, but in this respect he may have been mistaken. 

The scrapers in use among the Fuegians^are drawn towards the 
operator and not pushed. Some North American varieties are 
mounted after the manner of adzes.^ Mr. Otis T. Mason in his 
Paper " on Aboriginal skin-dressing " has exhaustively treated 
the subject. 

A form of Skin-scraper, straight at the edge, was in use among 
the Pennacook tribe ^ of North America, and though some of the 
Eskimo instruments may have been used as planes, no doubt maiiy 
were employed in dressing hides, A peculiar form in use among 
the Gallas^ of Southern Shoa has been figured by Giglioli,'^ who 
has also recorded the fact that flat scrapers of stone are still in 
use in Italy and France for dressing hides. 

Whether the instruments were used vertically as scrapers, or 
horizontally as planes, the term " scrapers " seems almost equally 

» "Prehist. Timef<," 4th ed., p. 513, fig.s. '214—6. 

2 'Niit. Hist, of Man," vol. ii. p. 699. » "Rel. Aquit.," p. 13. 

« Proc. Ethn. Soc, N. S., vol. i. p. 137. See Rep. Bureau of Ethn., 1887-8, p. 294. 

* P. S. A. S.. vol. xxiv. p. 142. 

•' Hep. of U. S. Xaf. Mhs., Washington, 1891, p. 553. 
' Schoolcraft, " Ind. Tribes," vol. iv. p. 175. 

* Intern. Arehir., vol. ii. p. 212. 

» Arch, per PAnt. e la Etn., vol. xxiv., 1894, p. 245. 



300 



SCRAPERS. 



[chap. XIII. 



applicable to them ; and there appears no valid reason w hy, for the 
sake of convenience, the same term should not be extended to their 
ancient analogues, especially as their edges, as will subsequently be 
seen, are in many cases worn away in a manner indicative of their 
having been used for scraping. 

The names of "thumb-flints" and ''finger-flints " which have some- 
times been applied to die shorter and longer varieties of these instru- 
ments, though colloquially convenient, appear to me not sutficiently 
definite in meaning to be worthy of being retained. 

Scrapers may be classified and described — firstly, in accordance with 
the character of the flakes from which they have been made ; and, 
secondly, in accordance with the outline of the portion of the margin 
which has been chipped into form, and the general contour of the 
implement. 

Their outline is in some cases horseshoe-shaped or kite-shaped, in 
others it is discoidal or nearly circular, and in others again it may be 




Fig. 204.— Weaverthorpe 



compared with that of a duck's bill or of an oyster-shell. To these 
may be added side-scrapers, or such as are broader than they are 
long, and the hollow scrapers with a rounded notch in them instead of 
a semicircular end. 

When the flakes have been chipped into the scraper form at both 
ends they may be termed double-ended scrapers — to which class 
circular scrapers also belong ; where a sort of handle has been worked 
they may be termed spoon-shaped, and where the butt has been 
chipped to a sharp chisel-edge, at right angles to the flat face, they 
have been called tanged scrapers. 

In speaking of the sides as right or left, I do it with reference to 
the flat face of the scraper, as shown in the first of the thi-ee views of 
Fig. 204. 

It will be well to pass some of the forms in review before entering 
into any more general considerations. 

The figures are all of full size. Fig. 204, from "Weaverthorpe, on 
the Yorkshire Wolds, is a good example of a symmetrical horseshoe- 
shaped scraper. It is made from a broad flat flake, of rather pink 



HORSESHOE-SHAPED. 



301 



flint, with the point chipped to a neat semicircular bevelled edge, and 
one of the sides trimmed so as to correspond with the other. The 
bulb of percussion visible on the tlat face and side views has been 
slightly splintered by the blow. It gives a graceful ogee curve to tlie 
face longitudinally, which brings forward the scraping or cutting edge 
at the end. In the centre this is slightly rounded and worn away by 
use. 

I have other specimens almost identical in form from other parts of 
the Yorkshire Wolds, from Suffolk, Sussex, and Dorsetshire. The}' 
are abundantly found of smaller dimensions, and occasionally of 
larger, sometimes as much as 2^ inches in diameter. 

Fig. 205 shows another horseshoe-shaped scraper, which has become 
white and grey by exposure. I picked it up on the Downs near Berliug 
Gap, on the Sussex coast, a few miles west of Eastbourne ; a district 
so prolific, that I have there found as many as twenty of these instru- 




Fig. 205. — Sussex Downs. 

meuts, of various degrees of perfection, within an hour. In this case 
tlie scraper has been made from a broad ridged flake, and it will be 
observed that not only the end but one of tlie sides has been carefully 
trimmed, while the other has been left untouched, and has, more- 
over, a flat facet on it, as shown in the side view. It would appear 
from this that probably the side as well as the end was used for 
scraping purposes, that whoever used it was right-handed and not 
left-handed, and, moreover, that it is doubtful whether the implement 
was ever inserted in a handle, at all events at the butt-oud. I have a 
nearly similar specimen, but trimmed at the end only, which I found 
in the vallum of the camp of Poundbury, near Dorchestor, Dorset. I 
have smaller instruments of the same form which I have found on 
the surface of the ground at Abbot's Ijangley, Herts; at Oundle, North- 
amptonshire ; and in the ancient encampment of Maiden liower, near 
Dunstable. Large scrapers are abundant in some jiarts of Suffolk. 

The form is of common occurrence in Yorkshire, in all sizes from 
2^ inches to one inch in length. To show the great range in size, and 



302 



SCRAPERS. 



[chap, XIII. 



the variations in the relative thickness of the instruments, I have 
engraved, in Fig, 206, a small specimen from the Yorkshire Wolds, 




Fis. 206.— Yorkshire. 



When the chipping to an edge is continued beyond a semicircle, in 
the case of scrapers made from broad short flakes, an almost circular 
instrument is the result. These discoidal scrapers are of extremely 




common occurrence on the Yorkshire Wolds, Fig, 207 shows a speci- 
men from Helperthorpe, 

They are not unfrequently formed from external flakes or splinters, 
and are sometimes made from fragments broken from long flakes, in- 
asmuch as there is no bulb of percussion on the flat face. In rare 
cases the flat face is the result of a natural fracture, and, more rarely 
still, it is the external face of a flint nodule. 

"VMien the instrument is broader than it is long, it has been termed 
a side scraper. One in what is now white flint, made from a portion 
of a flake, and showing no bulb on the flat face, is engraved in 




Fig. 208.— Weaverthorpe. 



Fig. 208. It was foimd at Weaverthorpe. Occasionally the arc is 
flatter and longer in proportion to the height than in this instance. 

Fig. 209 may be called a long horseshoe-shaped scraper. It has 
been made from a thick flat flake, which there had evidently been 



KITE-SHAPED AND DUCK-BILL-SHAPED. 



303 



some difficulty in shaping, as at least two blows had failed of their 
desired effect before the iiake was finally dislodged. The back of the 
scraper is disfigured by the marks of the abortive flakes produced by 




Fig. 209. — Sussex Downs. 



these two blows. The end, and part of the right side are neatly 
trimmed into form. This specimen also I found on the Sussex Downs, 
near Berling Gap. 

The implements of this form are often neatly chipped along both 




I'ig. "J 10. — Vurkshire. 




Fig. 211.— Yorksliire Wolds. 



sides as well as at the end. An example of the kind is given in Fig. 
210, the original of which is in milky chalcedouic flint, and was found 
on the Yorkshire Wolds. 

Fig. 211 shows another specimen from the Yorkshire Wolds. It is 



304 



SCRAPERS. 



[chap. XIII. 



made from a flat flake, considerably curved longitudinally, and trimmed 
at the end as well as along a small portion of the left side. Some are 
more oval in form, and have been chipped along the sides, and some- 
what rounded at the butt. In several instances the chipped edge at 
the butt-end is slightly worn away by friction, the edge of the rounded 
end being unworn. 

Fig. 212 gives a kite-shaped scraper from Yorkshire, also made from 
a flat flake, but showing a considerable extent of the original crust of 





Fig. 212.— Yorkshire "Wold< 



Fig. 213.— Sussex Dowiis. 



the flint of which it was made. It comes almost to a point at the 
butt-end, and both edges are somewhat chipped away as if the instru- 
ment had at that end been used as a boring tool. The point is some- 
what rounded by friction. Occasionally, scrapers of this form are 
chipped on both faces at the pointed base, so as to make them closely 
resemble arrow-heads. It seems possible that this pointing was for 
the purpose of hafting the tool more readily in 
wood. 

Fig. 213 shows one of what may be termed 
the duck-biU scrapers. It is made from a flat 
flake as usual, somewhat curved, and showing 
all along one side the original crust of the 
flint. It is neatly worked to a semicircular 
edge at the end, but the sides are left en- 
tirely untouched. I found it on the Sussex 
Downs, near Cuckmare Haven. 

A smaller analogous instrument, from the 
Yorkshire Wolds, is shown in Fig. 214. It is 
made from an external flake, struck from 
a nodule of flint of small diameter. The end alone is trimmed. 
Scrapers made from such external flakes and splinters of flint are by 
no means uncommon. I have one which appears to have been made 




Fig, 214.— Yorkshire WolJs 



SOME LIKE OYSTER SHELLS IN FOIIM. 



305 



from a splinter of a hammer-stone — a portion of the surface being 
bruised all over. 

In Fig. 21.3 is shown another duck-bill scraper, with parallel sides, 
found by myself on the Sussex Downs, near Berling Gap. It is a 
thick instrument, with botli sides and end trimmed into form, tlic flake 
from which it is made having in all probability been originally much 
broader, and more circular. The bulb of percussion is not in the middle 
of the butt, but withiu three-eighths of an inch of the left side. 

Another form of these instruments is not unlike the flat valve of an 
03^ster shell, being usually somewhat unsj'mmetrieal either to the right 
or to the left. A specimen of this class from the Downs, near Berling 
Gap, is shown in Fig. 216. The end is neatly chipped to an almost 
elliptical sweep, but the sides in this instance are left untrimmed ; the 




right side shown in the side view being flat and almost square with 
the face. In some instances the trimming of the sides extends all the 
way round to the butt. 

Occasionally, though rarely, one of the sides, either right or left, is 
trimmed in such a manner that its more or less straight edge meets 
the curved edge of the end at an angle, so as to form an obtuse point. 
An example of this kind is shown in Fig. 217, from the Downs, near 
Berling Gap. This instrument is made from an external splinter of 
flint, the edge at the end and front of one side alone being carefullv 
chipped into shape. It approaches in form to the grattoir-hec^ of 
French antiquaries. 

In most scrapers the bulb of percussion of the flake from which they 
have been made is, as has already been said, at the opposite end to 
that which has been trimmed to form the curved edge ; but this is by no 
means universally the case, for sometimes the bulb is at the side of 
the scraper, and sometimes, though more rarely, it has been at the 
end which has been worked to the scraper edge. 

It seems needless to engrave examples of these varieties, which are 
' Bull. Soc. cCAnth. de Paris, 4th S. vol. vli., 1896, p. 374. 



J06 



SCRArERS. 



[CHAF. XI 11. 



only indicative of the maniLfacturers of the implements having made 
iise of that part of the piece of flint Avhich seemed best adapted to 




Fig. 216.— Sussex Dotms, 



be chipped into the form they required. For the same reason we find 
scrapers of an endless variety of forms, some of them exceedingly 




Fig. 217.— Sussex Downs. 

irregular, as any one who has examined a series from the Yorkshire 
Wolds will know, I have not, however, thought it necessary to give 



DOUBLE-ENDED AND SPOON-SHAPED. 



307 



representations of all these minor varieties, as even more than enough 
arc engraved to show the general character of the instruments. It is 
perhaps worth mentioning, that the flakes selected for conversion into 
scrapers are iisuall}' such as expand in width at the point. It is 
doubtful whether the long narrow flakes worked to a scraper-like 
termination at one or both ends properly come under the category of 
scrapers. I shall consequently treat of them under the head of wrought 
flakes. 

I must now jiass on to the consideration of the forms showing a 
greater extent of trimming at the edge than those hitherto described. 
Of these the double-ended scrapers, or those presenting a semicircular 
edge at either end, first demand notice. They are of by no means 
common occurrence. Those I have seen have been for the most part 
found in Yorkshire and Suffolk. Fig. 218 exhibits a specimen from 





Jridliiigtuii. Fig. 219.— Bridlington. 

Bridlington. As is not unfrequently the case, it is rather thinner at 
the end nearest to what was the butt-end of the flake. The sides are 
left almost untrimmed, but each end is worked to a nearly semicircular 
curve. In the Greenwell Collection is a specimen from one of the 
barrows at Eudstone ; as well as a large one from Lakenheath, and 
others from Suffolk. Occasionally the length and breadth are so 
nearly the same, that the scraper assumes the form of a disc, with 
sharp edges — a kind of plano-convex lens. A specimen of this form 
from Bridlington is shown in Fig. 219. It is, however, exceptionally 
regular in form. I have another smaller specimen, not quite so cir- 
cular or so well cliipped, which I found on the Downs between New- 
haven and Brighton, and I have others fi'om 
Suffolk. Such a form was probably not in- 
tended for insertion in a haft. 

Sometimes, where the scraper has been made 
from a flat flake, the trimmed edge curves 
slightly inwards at one part, so as to produce 
a sort of ear-shaped form. I have such, both 
with the inward cixrve on the left side, as 
shown in Fig. 220, and also with it on the 
right side. 

A deej^-notched tool, to which the name of hoUow scraper has been 
applied, will be subsequently mentioned.' 

1 P. 319. 
x2 




Fi?. 220.— Yorkshire Wolds. 



308 



SCRAPERS. 



[chap. XIII. 



There are some scrapers which at the Lutt-cnd of the flake are 
chipped into what has the appearance of being a kind of handle, some- 
what like that of a short spoon. That engraved in Fig. 221 is from 
the Yorkshire "Wolds, and is in the collection of Messrs. Mortimer, 
of Driffield. It is chipped from both faces to an edge at each side in 
the handle-like part. I have an implement of the same character, 
found at Sewerby, the handle of which is slighter but less symmetrical. 
I have from the same district another large discoidal scraper, If inches 
in diameter, and chipped all round, with a rounded projection, about 
f of an inch wide, left at the thicker end of the flake. 

The GreenweU Collection contains specimens of tlie same character 
as Fig. 221, found near Eudstone. 

A nearly .similar implement, iu the Museum of the Eoyal Irish 
Academy, has been engraved by Sir W. "^'ilde.^ 

Some of the large Danish scrapers are provided with a sort of 
handle, and have been termed by Worsaae'- " skee-f ormet, " or spoon- 
shaped. 

It will be well now to refer to some of the published notices of the 




Pig. 221.— Yorkshire Wolds. 

discovery of these implements, which seem to have met with little 
attention from antiquaries until within the last forty years. There is, 
however, in the British Museum a fine horseshoe- shaped scraper, 
which was found long ago by the late Dr. Mantell, in company with 
broken urns and ashes, in a barrow on "Windore Hill, near Alfriston. 
In the same collection are four or five others of various sizes from 
barrows on Lamboum Downs, Berks, as well as those from the Green- 
weU Collection. Sir E. Colt Hoare has recorded the discovery of what 
appear to be two discoidal scrapers, with a flint spear-head or dagger, 
a smaU hone or whetstone, and a cone and ring of jet, like a puUey, 
accompanying an interment, near Durrington "NValls." He terms them 
little buttons of chalk or marl ; but from the engraving it would seem 
that they were scrapers — jDrobably of flint, much weathered, or altered 
in structure. It seems likely that many more may have escaped 
his notice, as they are of common occurrence in the tumuli in Wilt- 
shire, as well as in the other parts of Britain. They are also recorded 

1 "Cat. Mu6. R. I. A.," fig. 8. - " Nord. Olds.," No. 29. 

3 " South Wilts," p. 172, pi. lix. 



FOUND WITH INTERMENTS. 309 

from Morgan's Hill ' and "NVinterbourn Stoke. Tlie late Dean Mero- 
wetlier- found several in barrows on Avebury Down, together with 
numerous flint flakes. 

Some were found with burnt bodies in barrows at Cockmarsli,^ 
Berks, and others in a barrow at Great Shefford.* 

They occurred in barrows at Seaford,' Sussex, and Lichfield," Hants, 
as well as in Devonshire" barrows. 

Ten or twelve were also found by Dr. Thurnam in the chambered 
Long Barrow, at West Kennet,** with about three hundred flint flakes. 
There was no trace of metal, nor of cremation in this barrow. 

A neat scraper was found in a hut-circle on Cam Brc," Cornwall. 

In the Yorkshire barrows they abound in company both with burnt 
and unburnt bodies,'" without any metal being present. Canon Green- 
well lias in some cases found them with the edge worn smooth by 
use. 

^Ir. Bateman found many in Derbyshire barrows, as, for instance, 
at the head of a contracted skeleton on Cronkstone Hill," and witli 
another contracted skeleton with two sets of Kimmeridge coal beads, 
at Cow Low, Buxton,'- and with four skeletons in a cist, in a barrow 
near Monsal Dale.'-* 

They not unfrecj^ueutly occur with interments in association with 
bronze weapons. In a bari-ow on Parwich Moor, Stailordshire,'* called 
Shuttlestone, Mr. Bateman found a skeleton, with a bronze dagger at 
the left arm, and a plain flat bronze celt at the left thigh, and close to 
the head a jet bead and a " circular flint." As before stated, the late 
Mr. J. W. Flower, obtained three, and a bronze dagger, from the same 
barrow as the saw engraved at p. 266. They were also found with 
bronze in barrows in Kushmore Park.'^ 

They are frequentl}^ to be seen on the surface of the gi-ound. One such, 
found by the late Mr. 0. Wykeham Martin, E.S.A., at Leeds Castle. 
Kent,"' has been figured. Others from the neighbourhood of Hast- 
ings, '' the Isle of Thanet, ''^ and Bradford Abbas, Dorset, '^ have also been 
engraved. Many of those from Bradford are said to have a notch on the 
left side, but I am doubtful whether it is intentional. Gen. Pitt 
Pivers has found them at Callow Hill, Oxon,-" and at Potherley. 
They are also recorded from Holyhead Island,-' Anglesea,^" Tun- 

1 Arch., vol. xliii. pp. 420, 421. 
- " Salisb. Vol. Arch. Inst.," p. lOG. 
'■> Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. xii. p. 239. 

* Arch, ylssoc. Joiirn., vol. xxii. p. 450. Arch., vol. xliii. p. 420. 
•'' Suss. Arch. Coll., vol. xxxii. p. 174. Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. vi. p. 287. 
•■• Froc. Soc. Ant., 2nd. S. vol. x. p. 18. 
' Trans. Dev. Assoc, vol. xii. p. 140. 

*" " Cran. Brit.," vol. ii., pi. 50, p. 2. Arch., vol. xxxviii. p. 41G. 
" Itdiq., vol. xxxii., 189G, p. 109. 

'" ^Lich. Joiirn., vol. xiv. p. 8.'j ; xxii. IIG, 245, 251 ; xxvii. 71. lleliquari/, vol. 
ix. p. G9. " Ten Years' Di^'.," pp. 205, 208. " Brit. Bar." pp. 251, 348, s.-aA. passim. 
'1 "T. y. D.,"p. 56. '- "A^est. Ant.Dcrb.," p. 02. 

'•' "T. Y. D.,"p. 78. 

'* " T. Y. D.," p. 35. Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. ini. p. 217. 
'"' Pitt Rivers, " Exc. on Cranb. Chase," vol. ii. pi. Ixvi. and Ixxxix 
"' I'roc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 7G. '" Sussex Arch. Coll., vol. xix. j). 53. 
''^ Journ. Ethn. Soc, vol. i. pi. i. " Arch. Journ., vol. xxv. p. 155. 

'-" Journ. JCthn. Soc, vol. i. p. 4. -' Arch. Catnb., 4th S., vol. ix. p. 37. 

■•'■- Arch. Journ., vol. xxxi. pp. 297, 301. 



310 SCRAPERS. [chat. XIII. 

bridp:e,^ Milton, = and AVest ^'"icljliam." Kent ; Stoke Newington,* 
Middlesex ; and AValton-on-tlie-!N"aze,' Essex. 

I have found them in considerable numbers in and near ancient 
encampments. At Maiden Bower, near Dunstable, a i\avty of three 
or four have on more than one occasion picked uf) upwards of fort}' 
specimens. I have examples from Hod Hill. Eadbury Kings, and 
Poundbury Camp, Dorsetshire ; from Little Solsbury Hill, Bath; Pulpit 
AVood, near Wendover, Bucks, and several localities in Suffolk, 
Cambs, and other counties. Some are very thick, though quite sym- 
metrical in outline. On the Yorkshii-e Wolds, the Sussex Downs," and 
in parts of Wilts and Suffolk, they are extremely numerous ; but in any 
chalk country where Hint is abundant, this form of implement can be 
found. In other districts, into which flint has to be imported, they are 
of course more scarce. They seem, however, to occur in greater or less 
abundance over the whole of England. 

They are very numerous in Scotland, and extensive collections of 
them from Elgin, Wigtown, and other counties are to be seen in the 
National Museimi at Edinburgh. 

Specimens from a crannog in Ayrshire," Urquhart, Elgin," and 
Gullane Links,^ Haddingtonshire, have been published. 

They are found, of nearly similar forms in Ireland, but are there 
rarer than in England, though fairly numerous in Antrim.'" 

In France the same form of instrument occurs, and I have a number 
of specimens from different parts of Belgiiim. 

A spoon-shaped scraper from Neverstorff," Schleswig Holstein, is 
figured. They are likewise found in South Russia. '- 

In Denmark scrapers of various forms are found, and are not 
uncommon in the kjokken-moddings and coast-finds. Sir John Lub- 
bock'^ records having picked up as manj' as thirty-nine scrapers at a 
spot on the coast of Jutland, near Aarhuus. 

In the Swiss Lake-dwellings they occasionally occur. I have a fine, 
almost kite-shaped, specimen from Auvernier, given me by Professor 
Desor, and. others from Nussdorf. Some are engraved by Keller. 
They are also found in Italy. I have a small specimen from the Isle 
of Elba. 

I possess specimens formed of obsidian, from Mexico ; and instru- 
ments of jasper, of scraper-like forms, have been found at the Cape 
of Good Hope.'^ As already mentioned, they are weU known in 
America. Some are found in Newfoundland.'* 

» Troc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. viii. p. 385. 

^ Arch. Cant., vol. xiii. p. 124. " Coll. Cant.," p. 4. 

3 Arch. Cant., vol. xiv. p. 88. ^ H.'sse.v Xat., vol. ii. p. G7. 

•'' Essex Nat., vol. iii. p. 159. 

'■ A considerable number of them are in the Lewes Museum. Suss. Ant. Coll., 
vol. xxx\nii. p. 226 ; xxxix. p. 97. 

' Froc. Soc.Ant. Scot., vol. xv. p. 109. Munro's " Lake-dw.," pp. 109, 174. 

» P. S. A. S., vol. ix. p. 461 ; vol. xLx. p. 250. 

P. S. A. S., vol. xviii. p. 249. 

^" Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. vii. p. 202 ; Lx. pp. 167, 320. 
" Zcitsch. f. Ethn., vol. xvi. p. (356). 
'2 Journ. Anth. Jnst., vol. x. p. 352. 
'3 "Preh. Times," 4th ed. p. 110. 

'* Trans. Preh. Conf/., 1868, p. 69. JoKrn. Ethnol. Soc, vol. i. p. o2. 
'^ Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. v. p. 239, pi. xi., 4. 



EVIDENCES OF WEAR UPON THEM. 311 

Instruments of tlie same cliaraf'ter date back to very remote times, 
as numbers liave been found in tlie cave deposits of tlie Keindeer 
Period of the South of France, as well as in a few in our English bone 
caves, as will subsequently be mentioned. A somewhat similar form 
occurs, though rarely, among the implements found in the ancient 
Kiver Gravels. 

Besides being used for scraping hides, and preparing leatber, it 
has been suggested, by Canon Greenwell/ that tbey might have 
served for making pins and other small articles of bone, and also 
for fabricating arrow-heads and knives of flint. As to this latter 
use I am doubtful, but before entering into the question of the 
purposes which implements of the " scraper " form were in ancient 
times intended to serve, it will bo well to examine the evidence 
of wear afforded by the implements themselves. This evidence is 
various in its character, and seems to prove that the implements 
were employed in more than one kind of work. 

Among some hundreds of scrapers, principally from the York- 
shire Wolds, I have met with between twenty and thirty which 
show decided marks of being worn away along the circular edge, 
by friction. In some, the edge is only worn away sufficiently to 
remove all keenness or asperity, and to make it feel smooth to the 
touch, and this perhaps along one part only of the arc. In others, 
the whole edge is completely rounded, and many of the small 
facets by which it was originally surrounded, entirely effaced. 
The small strioc, resulting from the friction Avhich has rounded 
the edge, are at right angles to the flat face of the implement, and 
the whole edge presents the appearance of having been worn 
away b}'' scraping some comparatively soft siibstance — such, for 
instance, as leather. When w^e consider what an important part 
the skins of animals play in the daily life of most savage tribes, 
and especially of those exposed to a cold climate ; and when we 
remember the amount of preparation, in the way of dressing and 
scraping, the hides require before they can be available for the 
purposes of clothing, or even tent making, it becomes evident that 
some instruments must have been in use by the ancient occupants 
of the country for the purpose of dressing skins ; and the proba- 
bility of these scrapers having been devoted to this purpose is 
strengthened by their being worn in just such a manner as they 
would have been, had they been in use for scraping some greasy 
dressing off not over-clean leather. The scrapers thus worn away 
are for the most part of the horseshoe form. There are some, 
^ Arch. Joio-ii., vol. xxii. p. 101. 



312 SCRAPERS. [chap. XIII. 

however, whicli have the edge worn away, not at the circuhir end 
but along the edge towards the butt. In this case also they 
appear to have been employed for scraping, but the evidence as to 
the character of the substance scraped is not so distinct. It is, 
however, probable that in the fashioning of perforated axes and 
other implements, made of greenstone and other rocks not purely 
siliciou?, some scraping as well as grinding tools may have been 
employed, and possibly the wear of the edge of some of these tools 
may be due to such a cause. Even among the cave-dwellers of 
the Dordogne we find scrapers bearing similar marks of attrition, 
and we also know that flint flakes were used for scraping the hard 
hajmatitic iron ore, to produce the red pigment — the paint with 
which the men of those times seem to have adorned themselves.^ 

It will of course be urged that it is, after all, only a small 
proportion of these implements which bear these unmistakcable 
marks of wear upon them. It must, however, be remembered, that 
to produce much abrasion of the edge of an instrument made of so 
hard a material as flint, an enormous amount of wear against so 
soft a substance as hide would be necessary. It is indeed possible 
that the edge would remain for years comparatively unworn were 
the substance to be scraped perfectly free from grit and dirt. If 
we find identically the same forms of instruments, both worn and 
unworn, there is a fair presumption that both were intended for 
the same purpose, though the one, from accidental causes, has 
escaped the wear and tear visible on the other. 

There are, however, circumstances which iu this case point to 
an almost similar form having served two totally distinct pur- 
poses ; for besides those showing the marks of use already described, 
we find some of these instruments with the edge battered and 
bruised to such an extent that it can hardly have been the result 
of scraping in the ordinary sense of the word. 

To account for such a character of wear, there seems no need of 
going so far afield as among the Eskimos, or any other semi- 
civilized or savage people, to seek for analogies on which to base 
a conclusion — how far satisfactory it must be left to others to 
judge. Among the primary necessities of man (who has been 
defined as a cooking animal) is that of fire. It is no doubt a 
question difficult of solution whether our primitive predecessors 
were acquainted with any more readj' means of producing it than 

' As another purpose to which these instruments may have been applied, Dr. 
Keller (" Lake-DweUing-8," pp. 34, 97) has suggested that some of the scrapera 
foimd in the Swiss Lake-dwellings may have been in use for scaling fish. 



I'OUM) AMTIl I'YRITES. 313 

by friction of two pieces of wood, especially at a time when there 
is reason to suppose they were unacquainted with the existence of 
iron as a metal. I have, however, already mentioned ^ that for 
the purpose of producing sparks, pyrites is as eflfective as iron, and 
was indeed in u?e among the Homans. Now the lower beds of 
our English chalk are prolific of pyrites, though not to the same 
extent as the upper beds are of flint ; and it is not impossible that 
the use of a haramer-stone of pyrites, in order to form some in- 
strument of flint, gave rise to the discovery of that method of 
producing fire, the invention of which the old myth attributed to 
Pyrodes, the son of Cilix. When exposed upon or near the surface 
of the ground, pj'rites is very liable to decomposition, and even if 
occurring with ancient interments it would be very likel}'' to be 
disregarded. This may account for the paucity of ihe notices of 
its discovery. Some, however, exist, and I have already men- 
tioned ^ instances where nodules of pyrites have been discovered on 
the Continent In association with worked flints, both of Neolithic 
and Palaeolithic age. 

There are also instances of Its occurrence in British barrows. 
That careful observer, the late Mr. Thomas Bateman, found, in 
the year 1844, in a barrow on Elton Moor,^ near the head of a 
skeleton, " a piece of spherical iron pyrites, now for the first time 
noticed as being occasionally found with other relics in the British 
tumuli. Subsequent discoveries," he says, "have proved that it 
w;is prized by the Britons, and not unfrequently deposited in the 
grave, along with the weapons and ornaments which formed the 
most valued part of their store." With the same skeleton, in a 
" drinking-cup," with a small celt and other objects of flint, was a 
flat piece of polished iron ore, and twenty-one "circular Instru- 
ments." In another barrow. Green Low,* Mr. Bateman discovered 
a contracted skeleton, having behind the shoulders a drinking-cup, 
a splendid flint dagger, a piece of spherical pyrites or iron ore, and 
a flint instrument of the circular-headed form. Lower down were 
barbed flint arrow-heads and some bone instruments. In Dowe Low,^ 
a skeleton was accompanied by a bronze dagger and an " anmlet 
or ornament of iron ore," together with a large flint implement that 
had seen a good deal of service. A broken nodule of pyrites 
showing signs of friction was found with a bronze dagger in a 

' P. 16. "T. ]'}. 

"■ " Vest. Ant. Derb.," p. 53. 

* Op. cit., p. 59. Jicliff., vol. iii. p. 176. " Ci-an. Brit.," vol. ii. pL xli. 

* " Vest. Ant. Derb.," p. 96. 



314 SCRAPEKS. [chap. Xlll. 

barrow at Angrowse ^ MuUion, Cornwall. In a barrow at Brig- 
milston,- between Everley and Amesbury, Sir li. Colt Hoare found, 
with an um containing ashes, " the fragment of a bone article like 
a whetstone, some chipped flints prepared for arrow-heads, a long 
piece of flint and a p>/t-itcs, both evidently smoothed by usage." 

A piece of iron pyrites with a groove worn in it and a pecu- 
liarly shaped implement of flint with evident marks of use at the 
larger end were found with an interment near Basingstoke Station.^ 
Flint arrow-heads and flakes were also present. 

Xodules of pyrites occurred in such numbers in a barrow on 
Broad Down,^ near Honiton, as to suggest the idea of their having 
been placed there designedly, but none of them are described as 
abraded. 

"We have here, at all eyents, instances of the association of lumps 
of iron pyrites with circular-ended flint instruments in ancient 
interments. Can they haye been in use together for producing 
fire ? In order to judge of this our best guide will probably be, 
so far at all events as the flints are concerned, those in use for the 
same purpose in later times, and even at the present day. 

In the Abbe Hamard's researches at Hermes^ (Uise), two flint 
scrapers moimted in wooden handles round which were iron 
ferrules are said to haye been discovered in Merovingian graves. 

The Abbe Cochet^ describes some of the flints found with 
Merovingian interments as resembling gun-flints ; one of these was 
apparently carried at the waist, in a purse with money and other 

necessaries. A steel and a small piece 
of flint were found in a Saxon grave at 
High Down, Ferring,' Sussex. A simi- 
lar practice of carrying in the pocket a 
piece of flint and some prejiared tinder 
prevails in some parts of Europe to the 
present day ; and, as I have before re- 
Fig. 222.-Frencii " strike-a-Light." marked, flints for this purpose are arti- 
cles of sale. Fig. 222 shows one of these 
modern " strike-a-lights " which I purchased some years ago at 
Pontleyoy, in France. It is made of a segment of a flake, one edge 
and the sides of which haye been trimmed to a scraper-like edge, and 
the other merely made straight. The resemblance between this and 

' "Xaenia Comub.," p. 227. - " South "Wilts," p. 195. Arch., vol. xliii. p. 422. 
^ FitUquary, vol. xxiv. p. 128. * Arch. Jouru., vol. xxv. p. 295. 

^ Cong. Prih. Uahonne, 1880, p. 387. ' " Normandie Souterraiiic," p. 258. 

'' Arch. vol. liv. p. .375. 




THE IMODERN FORM OF STRlKE-A-LIGH'l'. 315 

some of tlie ancient " scrapers " is manifest. Another strike-a- 
lifflit flint, which I boufjht at a stall in Trier, is about 2 inches 
long by 1;^ inches broad, and is made from a flat flake, trimmed to 
a nearly square edge at the butt-end, and to a very flat arc at the 
point, both the trimmed edges being of precisely the same 
character as those of scrapers. I find, moreover, that by working 
such a flint and a steel or briquet together, much the same bruising 
of the edge is produced as that apparent on some of the old. 
" scrapers." I come, therefore, to the conclusion, that a certain 
proportion of these instruments were in use, not for scraping hides 
like the others, but for scraping iron pyrites, and not improbably, 
in later days, even iron or steel for procuring fire. Were they 
used for such a purpose we can readily understand why they 
should so often present a bruising of the edge and an irregularity 
of form. We can also find a means of accounting for their great 
abundance. 

Looking at the question from a slightly different point of view, 
this method of solution receives additional support. Everyone 
will, I think, readily concede that, putting for the moment pyrites 
out of the question, the inhabitants of this country must have been 
acquainted with the method of producing fire by means of flint and 
steel or iron, at all events so long ago as when their intercourse 
with the Romans commenced, if not at an even earlier period. We 
may, in any case, assume that flints have been in use as fire- 
producing agents for something like 2,000 years, and that con- 
sequentl}^ the number of them that have thus served must be 
enormous. What has become of them all ? They cannot, like 
some antiquities, be " only now rare because they were always 
valueless," for in their nature they are almost indestructible. 
Many, no doubt, were mere irregular lumps of flint, broken from 
time to time to produce such an edge as would scrape the steel ; 
but is it not in the highest degree probable that many were of the 
same class as those sold for the same purpose at the present day — 
flakes chipped into a more or less scraper-like form at one end ? 

There is yet another argument. In many instances these 
circular-ended flints, when found upon the surface, have a com- 
paratively fresh and unweathered appearance ; and, what is more, 
have the chipped parts stained by iron-mould. In some cases 
there are jiarticlcs of iron, in an oxidized condition, still adherent. 
Such iron marks, especially on flint which has weathered white, 
may, and indeed commonly do, arise from the passage of harrows 



316 SCRAPERS. [CUAP. XIII. 

and other agricultural implements, and of horses shod with iron, 
over the fields ; but did the marks arise merely from this cause, it 
appears hardly probable that in any instance they should be con- 
fined to the chipped edge, and not occur on other parts of the flint. 
I had written most of the foregoing remarks when, in November, 
LS70, an interesting discovery, made by Canon Greenwell, F.R.S., 
in his exploration of a barrow^ at Rudstone, near Bridlington, in 
Yorkshire, came to corroborate my views. I have already de- 
scribed a whetstone found with one of the interments in this barrow, 
and mentioned that between the knees and the head were found, 
with other objects, the half of a nodule of iron pyrites, and a long 
round-ended flake of flint which lay underneath it. They are 




Fig. 223.— Rudstone. 

both represented full size in accompanying figure (Fig. 223). 
A portion of the outside of the pyrites has been ground smooth, 
and a projecting knob has been worked down, so as to bring it 
to an approximately hemispherical shape, and adapt it for being 
comfortably held in the hand. The fractured surface, where the 
nodule was broken in two, is somewhat oval, and in the centre, in 
the direction of the longer diameter, is worn a wide shallow groove, 
of just the same character as would have been produced by constant 
sharp scraping blows from a round-ended flake or scraper, such as 
that which was found with it. The whole surface is somewhat 
worn and striated, in the same direction as the principal central 
groove ; and the edge of the flat face of the pyrites is more worn 
away at the top and bottom of the groove than at the other parts. 
The scraper is made from a narrow thick external flake, the end 
of which has been trimmed to a semicircular bevelled edge — a 
^ " British Barrows," p. 266. 



rSED WITH I'YRITES FOR PRODUCING FIRE. 



317 



portion of one side has also been trimmed. At the end, and along 
some parts of the sides, this edge is worn quite smooth, and rounded 
by friction, and there are traces of similar wear at the butt-end. 
In a second grave in the same barrow there lay, behind the back, 
two jet buttons and a similar pyrites and flint. There can, I think, 
be no reasonable doubt of their having been, in these instances, 
fire-producing implements, used in the manner indicated in the 
annexed figure. The finding of the two materials together, in two 





Fig. 224. — Method of using Tyritos and "Scrnpor" for Striking a Liglit. 

separate instances, in both of which the pyrites and the flint pre- 
sented the same forms and appearance, establishes the fact of their 
connection ; and it is hard to imagine any other purpose for which 
pja-ites could be scraped by flint except that of producing fire. 
Moreover, in another barrow on Crosby Garrett Fell,^ West- 
moreland, Canon Greenwell found a piece of iron ore (oxidized 
pyrites) held in the hand of a skeleton, and a long thick flake of 
flint, evidently a " flint and steel." 

It cannot have been merely for the purpose of producing a paint 
or colour that they were brought together, as though the outer crust 
of a nodule of pyrites might, if ground, give a dull red pigment, yet 
the inner freshlj^-broken face would not do so ; and, if it would, 
the colour would be more readily prociired by grinding on a flat 
stone than by scraping. It would be interesting to compare these 
objects with the pyrites and pebbles in use among the Fuegians^, 
who employ dried moss or fungus by way of tinder, but ajjpear 
to find some difficulty in producing fire. The Eskimos ^ and some 
North American tribes also obtain fire from pyrites. 

Sir Wollaston Franks has called my attention to another half 

^ " Brit. Ban-.," pp. 26G, 390. 
- Wood, "Nat. Hi.st. of Man," vol. ii. p. 522. 

^ Hough "Fire Making Apparatus" in Rep. of U. S.Nat. Mus., Washington, 
1888, p. 673. 



318 SCRAPEKS. [CIIAP. Xlll. 

nodule of pyrites preserved in the Briti>li Museum, whicli is some- 
what abraded in the middle of its Hat face, though not so much 
so as that from Yorkshire, It was discovered with flint flakes in 
a barrow on Lambourn Down,^ Berkshire, by Mr. E. Martin 
Atkins, in 1850. In a barrow at Flowerburn," Ross-shire, in 1885, 
u similar half nodule and a flint scraper were found, and a dis- 
covery of the same kind was made b}' Lord Xorthesk, at Teindside,^ 
near Minto, Roxburghshire, about 1870. A fine piece of pyrites 
in company with worked flints was found in 1881, in a ruined 
dolmen, in the He d'Arz,^ Brittany, by the Abbe Luco. A well 
striated block of pyrites was also found with numerous objects 
formed of flint and other kinds of stone, on the Eocher de Beg-er- 
Goallenner, Quiberon, by M. F. Gaillard.^ 

A nodule of jDyrites, with a deep scoring u]30u it, and found 
in one of the Belgian bone caves, the Trou de Chaleux, has been 
engraved by Dr. E. Dupont,*' who regards it as having been used 
as a fire-producing agent. The flint that produced the scoring 
appears to have had a pointed, rather than a rounded end. Possibly 
the wearing away of the ends of certain flakes, for which it has 
been difficult to account, may be due to their having been used in 
this manner for striking a light. 

There are yet some other long flakes which are trimmed to a 
scraper-like edge at one or both ends ; but in these cases the 
trimming appears to have been rather for the purpose of enabling- 
the flake to be conveniently held in the hand, so as to make use 
of its cutting edge, than with the intention of converting the 
trimmed end into a scraping or cutting tool. The ends of some 
of the hafted knives or saws found in the Swiss Lake-dwellings 
are thus trimmed. 

On the whole, we may conclude, with some appearance of pro- 
bability, that a certain proportion of these instruments, and more 
especially those of regular shape, and those of large size, were 
destined to be used as scrapers in the process of dressing hides and 
for other purposes ; that others again, and chiefly those of moderate 
size with bruised and battered edges, were used at one period with 
iron pyrites, and at a subsequent date with iron or steel, for the 

' Figured in Arch., vol. xliii. p. 422. 

* Froc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xix. p. 356. 
^ P. .S'. A. S., vol. viii. p. 137. 

* "Expl. des Dolmens," Vannes, 1882, I. p. G. 

■' C. R. de V Assoc, fr. pour Vav. des Sciences, Grenoble, 1885. 

* " Les Cav. de la Belgique," vol. ii. pi. Lx. 2. " L'homme pendant lea Ages de 
la Pierre," 1871, p. 74. 



THE FLAT AND HOLLOWED KOUMS. 319 

production of fire ; and lastly that others have had their ends 
trimmed into shape, so as to render them symmetrical in form, or 
to enable them to be conveniently handled or hafted. 

There are still one or two other forms to which, from the character 
of their edge, the designation of scraper may be given. The instru- 
ment from the Yorkshire Wolds, shown in Fig. 225, may, for instance, 
be called a straight scraper. It is made from a broad fiat flake, with 
a well-developed bulb of percussion on the face, and the counterpart 
of another at the back, so that the section at the base is much curved. 
Tlie point of the flake and its loft side have been chipped away, so 
that thoy are nearly straight, and form between them an angle of 
about GO". The edge is sharper, and the form, I think, more regular 





Fig. 225.— Yurkshire Wolds. Fig. 226.— Yorkshire Wold.s. 

than if it had been used in conjunction with i:)yrites or steel, and I 
am therefore inclined to regard it as a tool. The late Mr. Charles 
Monkman, who gave me this specimen, also gave me another, more 
crescent-shaped in form, the base being roughly chipped to a regular 
sweep. I have another larger flint, similar to Fig. 225, found by the 
late Mr. Whitbourn, F.S.A., in the neighbourhood of Grodalming. 
Before pronouncing definitely as to the degree of antiquity to be 
assigned to such instruments, it will be well to have authenticated 
instances of their discovery in association with other remains, and not 
merely on the surface. In character, however, they much resemble 
other flint instruments of undoubtedly high antiquity, though they 
present the peculiarity of having the edge at right angles to the axis 
of the flake from which they are made, instead of being parallel 
to it. 

A singular flint instrument of a rudely heart-shaped form, with one 
straight serrated edge, is figured with other tools, &c., from the Culbin 
Sands.' 

To another of these forms, of which a not very first-rate example is 
given in Fig. 226, the designation of hollow scraper may be applied, the 
scraping edge being concave, instead of as usual, convex. This speci- 
men also is from the Yorkshire Wolds. I have, however, foimd analo- 
gous instruments on the Sussex Downs, the hollowed edges of which 
appear to have been used for scraping some cylindi'ical objects. In 

1 Froc, Sue. Ant. Scot., vol. xxv. p. 499. 



320 



SCR.\1'ERS. 



[CIIAF. Xlll. 



Ireland this form not imfroquently occurs. I liave several specimens 
with the liollow as regular iu its sweep as any of the scrapers of the 
ordinary form, and I have thought it advisable to figure a typical 
example as Fig. 226a. They seem well adapted for scraping into 
regular shape the stems of arrows or the shafts of spears, or for fash- 





Fig, 226a.— Xorth of Irclaml. 

ioning bone pins. Among modern artificers in wood, bone, ivory, or 
metal, scraping tools play a far more important part than would at 
first sight appear probable, looking at the abundance and perfection 
of our cutting tools and files. The latter, indeed, are merely compound 
forms of "scrapers." 

A less symmetrical hollow scraper from the Culbiu Sands' has been 
engraved ; as has been another which Dr. Joseph Anderson- used in 
the production of an arrow-shaft, and which he found to be a very 
efficient tool. Some writers have regarded these hollos-edged scrapers 
as saws^, but I think erroneousl}'. 

Implements of the same character have been found in Egypt\ and 
in France, and probably exist in other countries. 

^ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xxv. p. 497. 
2 P. fi'. A. -S'., vol. xi. p. 512. 

^ Dr. J. S. Houlder, /oi</-«. Anth. Inst., vol. iii. p. 338 ; iv. p. 19. See also Journ. 
P. H. and Arch. Assoc, of IreL, 4th S., vol. v. p. 124. 
* Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. xi. pi. xxx. 



321 



CHAPTER Xiy. 

BORERS, AWLS, OR DRILLS. 

Another of llie purposes to wbicli flint flakes were applied appears 
to have been that of boring holes in various materials. Portions 
of stags' horns, destined to serve cither as hammers, or as sockets 
for hatchets of stone, had either to be perforated or to have recesses 
bored in them ; and holes in wood were, no doubt, requisite for many 
purposes, though in this country we have but few wooden relics 
dating back to the time when flint was the principal if not the 
only material for boring-tools. To form some idea of the character 
of the objects in the preparation of which such tools were neces- 
sary, we cannot do better than refer to the vivid picture of ancient 
life placed before us by the discoveries in the Swiss Lake-dwell- 
ings. Besides perforated stone axes and hammers, such as have 
been already described in these pages, we find stag's horn and 
wooden hafts or helves, with holes and sockets bored in them, 
plates of stone, teeth of animals, bone and stag's horn instruments, 
and wooden knife handles pierced for suspension, and portions of 
bark perforated, so as to serve like corks for floating fishing-nets. 
Even in the caverns of the Peindeer Period of the South of 
France we find the reindeer horns with holes bored through them 
in regular rows, and delicate needles of hard bone with exquisitely 
formed eyes drilled through them — one of which has also been 
found in Kent's Cavern — as well as teeth, shells and fossils per- 
forated for suspension as ornaments or amulets. So beautifully 
are the eyes in these ancient needles formed, that I was at one 
time much inclined to doubt the possibility of their having been 
drilled by means of flint flakes; but the late Mons. E. Lartet demon- 
strated the feasibility of this process, by bimself drilling the eye 
of a similar needle wiih. a flint borer, found in one of the French 
caves. I have myself bored perfectly round and smooth holes 
through both stag's horn and wood with flint flakes, and when a 



322 



BORERS, AWLS, OR DRILLS. 



[chap. XIV 



little water is used to faciKtate the operation, it is almost surpris- 
ing to find how quickly it proceeds, and how little the edge of 
the flint suffers when once its thinnest part has heen worn or 
chipped away, so as to leave a sufficient thickness of flint to stand 
the strain without being broken off. 

The most common form of boring tool, to which by some writers the 
name of awl or di-iU^ has been given, is that shown in Fig. 227, from 
the Yorksliire "Wolds. It is formed from a flat 
splinter of flint, and shows the natural crust of tlie 
stone at the broad end. At the other, each edge 
has been chipped away from the flat face, so as to 
reduce it by a rapid curve on each side to a some- 
what tapering blade, with a sharp point. The sec- 
tion of this portion of the blade is almost of the 
lorm of half a hexagon when divided by a line join- 
ing opposite angles. A borer of tlus kind makes a 
very true hole, as whether turned round continu- 
ously or alternately in each direction, it acts as a 
half-round broach or rimer, enlarging the mouth of 
the hole all the time it is being deepened by the 
drilling of the point. The broad base of the flake 
serves as a handle by which to turn the tool. Several 
boring instruments of this form were found in the pits at Grime's 
Graves,- already so often mentioned. 

A borer of this kind has been experimentally^ tried and found efficient 
for drilling a hole in jet. 

Borers of the same character occur in Ireland' and in Scotland,* 
where natural crystals^ of quartz seem also occasionally to 
have been used as drills. I have also seen several found 
near Pontlevoy, France, in the collection of the Abbe 
Bourgeois. 

Similar boring instruments of flint have been found in 
Denmark, in company with scrapers and other tools. Two 
of them have been engraved by Mr. C. F. Herbst.' 

They are common in some parts of North America, and 
finely chipped tools of the kind occur in Patagouia.* They 
are tJso found in XataP and in Japan. 

Sometimes the borer consists of merely a long narrow 
pointed flake, which has had the point trimmed to a scraping 
edge on eitlier side. A specimen of the kind, found near 
&idi^4oi Bridlington, is shown in Fig. 228. Tiie point, for about a 




ri:r. 2-27.— Yorkshire 

Wul.ls. } 



(\ 



^ Lubbock, " Preh. Times," 4tli ed., p. 
Journ., 1868. 

- Jonm. Ethnol. Soc, voL ii. pi. xxviii. 
•' Arch. Journ., vol. xxix. p. 2S4. 

* See Arch., voL xli. pi. xviii. 5. 

' Proe. Soc. Ant. Scot., toL xi. p. .546 ; 

* P. S. A. S., vol. XV. p. 26.5. 

' Aarboqer f. h'ord. Oldk., 1866, p. 311. 
" P. S. A. S., vol. xiii. p. 106. Journ. 
'■* Journ. Aiith. Intt., vol. viii. p. 1.5. 



103. Monfanan, Yorks. Arch, and Top. 



2, 3. 



XXV. p. 



498. 



Anth. List., vol. iv. p. 311. 



FOUND IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. 323 

sixteenth of an inch in widtli, has been ground to a nearly square edge, 
so that it acts like a drill. Such a form was probably attached to a 
wooden handle for use, but I doubt whether any mechanical means 
wore used for giving it a rotary motion as a drill, and regard these 
borers rather as hand-tools to be used much in the same way as a 
broach or rimer. 

Some implements from the lake settlement at Mellon, regarded by 
Dr. Keller' as awls or piercers, are perforated at one end, and appear 
to be ground over their whole surface. 

Occasionally some projecting spur at the side of the flake has been 
utilized to form the borer, as is the case in Fig. 229, also from the 
Yorkshire Wolds. In this instance, the two curved sweeps, by which 
the boring part of the tool is formed, have been chipped from the 
opposite faces of the flake, so that the cutting edges are at opposite 
angles of the blade, which is of rhomboidal section. This is the case 
with some of the Scottish specimens,- which closely resemble Fig. 229. 
Such a tool seems best adapted for boring by being turned in the hole 
continuously in one direction. In some instances the projecting spur 





Fig. 229.— Yorkshire WolJs. i Fig-. 230.— Bridlington. * 

is so short that it can have produced but a very shallow cavity in the 
object to be bored. 

The tools, of which a specimen is shown in Fig. 230, also appear to 
have been intended for boring. It is, however, j)Ossible that after all 
they may have served some other purpose. That here engraved was 
found near Bridlington, and is weathered white all over. It is made 
from a flake, and the edge of the blade on the left in the figure is 
formed as usual by chipping from the flat face. The other edge is 
more acute, and has been formed by secondary chipping on both faces. 
The spur to the left, which may have served as a handle for turning 
the tool round when in use, has originally been longer, but the end 
has been lost through an ancient fracture. The edges at the point of 
the tool are somewhat worn away by friction. 

I am uncertain whether the instruments shown in Figs. 231 and 232 

1 '• Lake-Dw'elling.«i," p. 25. "Pfahlbauten," later Bericht, p. 76. 
- Froc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xx\'ii. p. 3G1 ; vol. xx\-iii. p. 338. 

y2 



324 BORERS, AWLS, OR DRILLS. [cHAP. XIV. 

can be with, propriety classed among boring tools, as it is possible that 
they may have been intended and used for some totally dilferent 
purpose, such, for instance, as forming the tips of arrows, for which, 
from their s}-mmetrical form, they are not ill adapted. Though the 
points of those, like Fig. 231, are much rounded, it maybe that they 
were mounted like the chisel-edged Eg3-ptian liint arrow-heads, of 
which hereafter. A number of instruments of this form have been 
found in Derbyshire and Suffolk, but that here figured came from 
the Yorkshire AVolds, and has been made from a part of a thin flat 
flake, one edge of which forms the base opposite to the semicircular 
point. The side edges, which expand with a sweep to the base, are 
carefully chipped to a sharp angle with the face of the flake ; but in 
some instances this secondary working extends over a greater or less 
portion of both faces. Some specimens are also much longer in their 
proportions. The original edge of the flake, which extends along the 
base, is usually unworn by use, so that if these objects were boring 
tools this part may have been protected by being inserted in a notch 
in a piece of wood, which in such a ca^o would serve as a handle for 
using the tool after the manner of an auger. A few examples of this 





Fig. 231.— Yorkshire Wolds. i Fig. 232.— Yorkshire Wolds. 



kind have been found on the Culbin Sands', Elginshire. The same 
form has been found in the Camp de Chassey ■ (Saone et Loire). 

Fig. 232 is also from the York:ihire Wolds. Though more acuteh' 
pointed than Fig. 231, it seems to have been intended for much the 
same purpose, and it has been formed in a similar manner. The second- 
ary working is principally on the convex face of the flake, but owing to an 
irregularity in the surface of the flat face, a portion of it has been re- 
moved by secondar\- chipping along one edge, so as to bring it as nearly 
as possible in the same plane as the other. For whatever purpose this 
instrument may have been designed, its s}-mmetry is remarkable. 

I have a somewhat similar instrument from Bridlington, but trian- 
gular in form, with the sides curved slightly inwards, and the two most 
highly wrought edges produced by chipping almost equally on both 
faces of the flake. Such a form approximates most closely to some of 
those which there appears reason for regarding as triangular arrow- 
heads. In America, some forms which might be taken for arrow- 
heads have been regarded as drills. 

There is a series of minute tools of flint to which special attention 

' I'roc. Soe. Ant. Scot., vol. xxv. p. 498. 

^ Perrault, " Note 6ur tm Forer, &c.," pi. ii. 15. 



OF MINUTE DIMENSIONS. 



32-: 



has been called by Mr. J. Allen Brown, F.G.S., tbe Rev. Eeginald A. 
(ratty,' and Mr. W. J, Lewis Abbott, F.G.S.- Through the kindness of 
the last, specimens from a kjokken mtidding at Hastings are shown in 
Figs. 2.')2a, 232i5, and 232c. They have been made from small flakes and 
are of various forms, though I have only selected throe for illustration. 
In two of these the end of the flake has been chipped into a straight 
scraping edge at an acute angle to the body of the flake, so as to form 
a tool which can bo held in the hand and used for scraping a flat sur- 
face, perhaps of bone. "Whether the chipping of the edge is intentional 
or the result of wear, or arising partly from both of these causes, is a 
question of secondary importance. The oblique ends resemble those of 
the flakes from Kent's Cavern, Figs. 398-400, and the selci rotnboidale'^ 
of Italian antiquaries. In the other form, one side of a flake has 
been chipped in a similar manner, so as to form a segment of a circle, 
or occasionally an obtuse angle ; the other side being left intact. Tliis 
may possibly have been inserted in wood, and the tool thus formed may 





Fig. 232a. 



I'ig. 232r 



[Fig. 232d. Fig. 232e. Fig. 232f. 
Vindhya HiUs. 



Fig. 2321!. 
Hastings. 

have been used for scraping or carving. Mr. Abbott disagrees with 
this view, and thinks that many of the flakes may have been utilized 
in the formation of fish-hooks. Such tools have been found in Lan- 
cashire, far from the sea, and a series from hills in the eastern x^art of 
that coimty has been presented to the British Museum by Dr. CoUey 
March, Owing to their diminutive size they may readily escape ob- 
servation. Mr. Gatty has found some thousands of these "Pygmy 
flints " on the surface in the valley of the Don between Sheffield and 
Doncaster. They no doubt exist in many other districts. 

Curiously enough, identical forms have been found in some abun- 
dance on the Vindhya Ilills^ and the Banda district, India ; at Helouan,* 
Egypt, in France, and in the district of the Meuse," Belgium. Such 
an identity of form at places geogi'aphically so remote does not imply 
any actual communication between those wlio made the tools, but merely 
shows that some of the requirements of daily life, and the means at 
command for fulfilling them being the same, tools of the same character 
have been developed, irrespective of time or space. 

' Science Gossip, vol. ii. (189.5) p. 36. 

- Journ. A)ith. Inst., vol. xxv. pp. 122, 137. 

3 Bull, de Valet. It., vol. i. (1875) pp. 2, 17, Ml ; vol. ii. (1876) passim. 

* Troc. Hoc. Ant. Scot., vol. x.wi. p. KiO. The cut is kindly lent by the Society. 
Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. xviii. p. 131. I'rac. Vict. /««^, March, 1889. 

* Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S.. vol. vii. p. 229. P. S. A. S., vol. xii. ji, 614. Journ. 
Anth. Inst., vol. vii. p. 396. De Morgan, " Rech. sur les Orig. de I'Egypte,'' 1896, 
p. 130. He regards the crescents as arrow-heads, but I cannot agree with him. 

^ Pierpout, Bull, de la Soc. Arch, de Brux., 1894 — 5. 



326 



CHAPTER XY. 



TRIMMED FLAKES, KNIVES, ETC. 



Besides being converted into round- ended scrapers, and pointed 
borins-tools, fliot flakes were trimmed on one or both faces into 
a variety of forms of cutting, scraping, and piercing tools, and 
weapons. In one direction these forms pass through daggers and 
lance-heads, into javelin and arrow heads ; and in another through 
cutting tools, wrought into s^Tnmetrical shape, and ground at the 
edges, into hatchets or celts adapted for use in the hand without 
being hafted. 

The first I shall notice are flakes trimmed 
into form by secondary working on both edges, 
but only on the convex face, the flat face 
being left either almost or quite intact. The 
illustrations of these forms are no longer full 
size, but on the scale of one half, linear 
measure. 

The simplest form of such instruments is when 
merely the edge of the flake is worked, so as to 
reduce it to a regular leaf-like shape. A beau- 
tiful specim.en of this kind is preserved in the 
Christy Collection, and is shown in Fig. 233. 
It was probably found in the neighbourhood 
of Cambridge, having formed part of the col- 
lection of the late Mr. Litchfield of that town. 
It is of gre}' flint, curved lengthwise, as is usu- 
ally the case with flint flakes, and worked to a 
point at each end, though rather more roiuided 
at the butt-end of the flake. Such instruments 
have sometimes been regarded as poignards, 
though not improbably they were used for 
various cutting and scraping purposes. 

They rarely occur in Britain of so great a 
length as this flake, which is 5^ inches long, but 
those of shorter proportions are not uncommon. 

In Ireland also the long flakes are scarce. 
In France they are more abundant, though still rare. Some of those 
formed from the Pressigny flints were, judging from the cores, as much 




rig. 233.— Cambridge (!,'. 



FROM DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. 327 

as 12 inches long, but none have as yet been found of this length. One 
trimmed on both edges, and 8^- inches long, was dredged from the bed of 
the 8eino ' at Paris, and is now in the Musee d'Artillerie, with another 
nearly as long found about the same time in the same place. Both 
appear to be of Pressigny flint. Others have been found in different 
parts of France." A beautiful flake, 82 inches long, trimmed on its 
external face, and found near Soissons,^ was in the collection of M. 
Bouclier de Perthes. I have one of the same character, 8^ inches 
long and If inches broad in the middle, most symmetrically shaped 
and perfectly uninjured, which was formerly in the collection of 
M. Meillet, of Poitiers. It is said to have been found at Savanseau, 
and in places has a red incrustation upon it, as if it had been embedded 
in a cave. In the Grrotte de St. Jean d'Alcas,^ was found a blade of 
the same kind, together with some lance-heads of flint worked on both 
faces. Occasionally they are found in the dolmens. The AlUe couverte^ 
of Argenteuil furnished one, 7:} inches long; and one of the dolmens 
in the Lozere "^ another, 8 inches in length. One almost 10 inches 
long and 1 inch broad, found at Neviilly-sur-Eure,' has on the convex 
face the delicate secondary working, like ripple marks, such as is seen 
in perfection on some of the Danish and Egyptian blades of flint. 

Others have been foimd in the dolmen at Caranda '^ (Aisne), du 
Charnier^ (Ardeche), and in the Grotte Duruthy (Landes).^" 

Curiously enough, the long flakes found in some abundance in 
Scandinavia are rarely, if ever, worked on the convex face alone, but 
are either left in their original form, or converted by secondary 
working on both faces, into some of the more highly finished tools or 
weapons. 

In the Swiss Lake-dwellings flakes trimmed at the edges and ends 
are of not unfrequent occurrence. Some of these, as already described, 
have been regarded as saws. 

Two long trimmed flakes, from Chevroux, tied to wooden handles, 
both string and handle partially preserved, are in the Museum at 
Lausanne. '^ There is a small pommel at the end of the handle. 

A remarkabl}' fine Italian specimen of a ridged flake, 1 1 inches in 
length, and carefully trimmed along both edges, is in the British 
Museum. It is stated to have been found at Telese, near Psestum.'- 

Many of these trimmed flakes, as well as in some cases those 
entirely untrimmed, have been called by antiquaries spear-heads and 
lance-heads. They have frequently been found witli interments in 
barrows. 

Not to mention numerous instances recorded by Mr. Bateman, I 
may cite a flake found in company with a barbed flint arrow-head at 

1 Rev. Arch., N. S., vol. ii. p. 129. 

- Marchant, "Notice sur divers insts.," 1866, pi. i. Parentcau, " Inv. Arch." 
1878. pi. ii. 

3 " Ant. Celt, et Anted.," vol. i. p. 379. 

■* Cazalis do Fondouce, " La grotte sep. de St. J. d'Alcas," pi. i. 1. 

■' liev. Arch., N. S., vol. xv. pi. ix. 26. 

' Mortillet, Matiriaiix, vol. v. p. 321. 

' Jiev. de la fiioc. Lit. de VEure, 3rdS., vol. v. 

* "Coll. Caranda," Moreau, 1877, pi. iii. 

' "L'anc. deThomme dans le Vivarais," De ISfarichaud, 1870, pi. xi. o. 

'" Mat., vol. ix. p. 102. " " Ant. Lac. du Mus. de Lausanne," 1S96, pi. ix. 

'- "Hone Ferales," p. 137, pi. ii. 32. 



328 



TRIMMED FLAKES, KNIVES, ETC. 



[chap. XV. 



the foot of a contracted skeleton in a barrow ^ at Monkton Down, 
Avebury, and a " triangular spear-head of stone curiously serrated at 
the edges," found with a flint arrow-head and perforated boar's tusk, 
in an urn at the foot of a skeleton, in a barrow on Eidgewaj- Hill,- 
Dorsetshire. 

Among the flint implements occurring on the surface of the York- 
shire "Wolds and elsewhere, flakes trimmed to a greater or less extent 
along both edges, and over the convex face, are frequently found. 
The point as well as the base is often neatly rounded, though the 
former is sometimes chipped to a sharp angle. 

There is a considerable difference in the inclination of the edge to 
the face, it being sometimes at an angle of GO*^ or upwards, like the 
edge of some scrapers, at other times acute like a knife-edge. 

There is so great a range in the dimensions and proportions of this 
class of instruments that it is almost impossible to 
figure all the varieties. I have, therefore, contented 
m.vself with the selection of a few examples, and 
will commence with those having the more obtuse 
edges. 

Fig. 234, from the Yorkshire AVolds, is an external 
flat flake, weathered white, and trimmed all round 
the face, showing the natural crust of the flint, to a 
point in form like a Gothic arch. A part of the edge 
is bruised, but it is impossible to say for what wea- 
pon such an instrument was intended. It can 
hardly have been for a javelin-liead, though from 
the outline it would seem well adapted for such a 
weapon ; for in that case the edge would not have 
become bruised. It may possibly be an abnormal form of scraper. 

A nearly similar siiecimen, biit narrower in proportion, was found 
by the late Lord Londesborough ^ in a barrow near Driffield, and is 
described as a spear-head. 

Another form, usually very thick in proportion to its breadth, and 
neatly worked over the whole of the convex face, is shown 
in Fig. 235. This specimen, also from the Yorkshire 
Wolds, is in the Greenwell Collection, now Dr. Sturge's. 
I have seen another from a barrow near Hay, Brecon- 
shire ; and in the National Museum at Edinburgh is 
a specimen found near Urquhart, Elgin. In an imple- 
ment of the same form in my own possession some small 
irregularities on the flat face have been removed by 
delicate chipping. I have several examples from Suffolk. 
There is nothing to guide us in attempting to determine 
the use of such instrumenf.s, but if inserted in handles they 
would be well adapted for boring holes in wood or other 
soft substances. The same form occurs in Ireland. 
In the Greenwell Collection is an Irish specimen ground 
all along the ridge, and over the whole of the butt-end. 
A pointed flatfish flake (41 inches), worked over the whole of the outer 
face, from Eousay,* Orkney, has been figured. 




•^ai- — ioriishire 
Wolds. i 



Fig. 235.— Yorlr 
shire. J 



1 "Arch. Inst. Salisb. Vol. 
^ Arch., vol. xxxiv. p. 253. 



105. 



^ Arch., vol. XXX. p. 333. 

* Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xvii. p. 72. 



SOME TKIMMED FLAKES, rUOHAliLY KNIVES. 



329 




y%: 



Fig. 236.— Bridlington. 



Another much coarser but soinewhat similar form is shown in Fig. 
236. The instrument in tliis case is made from a very thick curved 
flake, roughly chipped into a boat-like form, and 
then more carefully trimmed along the edges. It 
may possibly have been used as a borer, as the 
edges near the point show some signs of attrition. 
It is of flint weathered grey, and was found near 
Bridlington. I have found a similar scaphoid 
form in Ireland.^ 

A rather thick external flake, worked over 
nearly the whole of its convex face and reduced 
to about half its breadth for about a third of its 
length from the point, is shown in Fig. 237. 
The narrower part is nearly semicircular in sec- 
tion. It is difiicult to imagine a purpose for this 
reduction in width ; and it hardly seems due to 
wear. I have, however, another specimen, also 
from the Yorkshire "Wolds, reduced, in the same manner along fully 
three-quartei's of its length. 

Some of the worked flakes frona the Dordogne Caves- sli^ow a some- 
what similar shoulder, but it seems possible that with them the broader 
l^art may have been protected by some sort of handle, as the original 
edge of the flake is there preserved. 

I now come to the instruments with more acute edges, made by 
dressing the convex face of flint flakes. Of these the form shown in 
Fig. 2.38 is allied to that of Fig. 23a, 
but is considerably flatter in section 
and more distinctly oval in outline. 
The original was found near Bridling- 
ton. A hard particle of the flint lias 
interfered with the regular convexity 
of the worked face, but in some speci- 
mens the form is almost as regular as 
a slice taken lengthways off a lemon, 
though in others the outline presents 
an irregular curve. The flat face is 
generally more or less curved longi- 
tudinally, and the ends are sometimes 
more pointed than in the specimen 
engraved. I have an exquisitely 
cliipped and perfectly symmetrical 
implement of this character (3 inches) 
from the neighbourhood of Icklingham, Sufi'olk, in which county the 
type is not uncommon. The flaking on the convex surface is very even 
and regular, and produces a slightly corrugated surface, with the low 
ridges following each other like ripple marks on sand. The edge is 
minutely and evenly chipped, and is very sharp. The instrument may 
perlu.ps be regarded as a sort of knife. 

The form is well known in Ireland, but I do not remember to have 
seen it in foreign collections. 

The beautifully wrought blade of flint, shown in Fig. 239, presents 
' Arc/i., vol. xli. pi. xviii. 6. - " Reliq. Aquit.," p. IS. 




FiS.'239. i 
Castle Carrock. 



3:J0 



TRIMMED FLAXES, KNIVES, ETC. 



[CHAF. 



XV 



a more elong^ated variety of this form. It was found Ly Canon Green- 
well, with a burnt body, in a barrow at Castle Carrock,' Cumberland. 
Another blade, curiously similar in workmanship and character, was 
found by the same explorer in a ban-ow near Eudstone. Yorkshire, but 
in this case the body was unbumt. Another, with both ends rounded 
and the edges more serrated, was found in a barrow at Eobin Hood 
Butts, near Scarborough, and is preserved in the museum of that town. 
Mounted with it on the same card are arrow-heads — leaf-shaped, 
lozenge-shaped, and stemmed and barbed. Mr. Carrington- describes a 
flake flat on one face, and laboriously chipped to a convex shape on the 
other, as found with burnt bones in a barrow at Musdin, Staffordshire. 
A similar specimen in Eibden Low accompanied a contracted inter- 





/ 5^*^ 



J(^'' 



■^5^ 



^^ 



24U. — loiU, Xurthiiraberlaiid. 



Fit'. 240a.— E:tvn. 



ment. Mr. Bateman terms them lance-heads. In the GreenweU Col- 
lection is a leaf- shaped blade of this kind, flat on one face, found in 
Burnt Fen. A knife of the same kind ^2 inches) was found with an 
interment at ChoUerford,^ Xorthumberland. 

The skilful character of the surface chipping on these blades is 
perhaps better shown in Fig. 240, which is drawn full-size from another 
specimen, also in Canon Greenwell's collection, which was found in a 
cist with the remains of a burnt body, on Ford Common, Xorthumber- 
land.* 

> " Brit. Barrowp," p. 380. where it is figured full pize. See also pp. 196, 270, &c. 
- "Ten Years' Dip.," p. 1.51. See also p. 227. and " Vest. Ant. Derb.," p. 105. 
3 Proc. Soc. Ant., 2ndS., vol. xi. p. 188. F. S. A. Xeuc.-on-Tyne. N. S., vol. ii. 
p. 171. 

* "Hifit. of Berwicksh. Nat. Club, 1863—68," pi. xiii. 4. "Brit. Bar.," p. 407. 



KNIVES FROM HARROWS. 



331 



Dal- 




Canon Greenwell found other knivea in barrows at Sherburn^ and 
Etton,^ Yorkshire. The latter is beautifully serrated and I am en- 
abled to reproduce his figure of it as Fig. 240a.'' He found another of 
the same character in a barrow at Bishop's Burton/ Yorkshire. 
Knives not serrated have been found at Carn Bre/ 
Cornwall ; Chagford,*' Devon ; and Grovehurst' 
Milton, Kent. 

A serrated knife was found in a barrow at 
more,® Alness, Koss-shire, and another, less distinotl}'' 
serrated, at Tarland," Aberdeenshire. In some instru- 
ments, evidently belonging to the same class, the 
secondary flaking does not extend over the whole of the 
convex surface of the blade, but some of the facets of the 
original Hake are still visible, or if it has been an ex- 
ternal Hake, some portion of the original crust of the 
flint remains. This is the case with the blade engraved 
in Fig. 241, which was found by Canon Greenwell in a 
barrow near Wcaverthorpe,^" Yorkshire. In another 
barrow at Eudstone, Yorkshire, also opened by him, was a rather 
smaller but similar instrument, very neatly formed, and somewhat 
serrated at the edge. It lay at the feet of a ^^^ 

skeleton. General Pitt IJivers found one nearly 
similar in a pit in the Isle of Thanot." 

Knives of much the same form, but more 
rudely chipped, from Udny, Aberdeenshire, and 
TJrquhart, Elgin, are in the National Museum 
at Edinburgh. They have also been found on 
the Culbin Sands, Elginshire. '- 

Some of these blades are left blunt at tlie 
butt-end of the flake, or else not so carefull}' 
worked round at that end, but that the square 
end of the original flake ma}' be discerned. A 
ver}'' fine specimen of this kind was obtained b}' 
Canon Greenwell in a barrow on Wykeham 
Moor, Yoi'kshire," and is shown in Fig. 242. It 
was found lying side b}' side with a fluted bronze 
dagger, afltording, as Canon Greenwell observes, a 
valuable illustration of the contemporaneous use 
of bronze and stone. He has found others, both 
with burnt and unburnt bodies, in barrows in 
Yorkshire and Northumberland. I have a beau- 
tiful blade of the same general form, but rather 
more rounded at the point and curved slightly in the other direction, 



Fig. 241.— Wta- 
verthurpc. \ 



^;fe 



5^ 




1 " Brit. Barrows," p. 153. - Op. cit 

3 By permission of tho delegates of the Clarendon Press. 

* Arch., vol. lii. p. 31. 

^ lUliq. and 111. Archaologist, vol. ii. p. 46. 

* Trains. I)cvon. Assoc, vol. xii. p. 367. 
^ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xiii. p. 254. 

1" "Brit. Barr.," p. 19S. 

" Journ. Ethn. Soc, vol. i. pi. i. 14. 

'■- J\ S. A. S., vol. lis. p. 10 : vol. xxv. p. 498. 

'^ ylreh. Journ., vol. xxii. p. 243. " Brit. Burr.," p. 359 



285. 



"^ Arch. Cntii., vol. xiii. 
' r. S. A. S., vol. xxii. 



1-24. 



332 



TRIMMED ILAKES, KNIVES, El C. 



[chap. 



XV 



and but little more than half the length of this specimen, •which was 
found by Mr. E. Tindall. with another nearly similar, in a barrow near 
Bridlington. Dr. Travis in 1836 described another (2=;', inches) from 
a barrow near Scarborough. Another (2 inches) was found with food- 
vessels in a barrow at Marton,' Yorkshire, E.E. A knife of the same 
kind from a cave at Kozarnia.- Poland, has been figured by Dr. F. Romer. 
Among other English examples I ma}' mention a thin llake {4\ 
inches), somewhat curved laterally, and trimmed along both edges and 
rounded at the point, found in Burwell Fen, Cambridge. Another 
from the same locality (3^ inches) is even more curved on the concave 
edge. A recurved tlake or knife of flint, oh inches long, finely chipped 
at the sharp convex edge, was found with jet ornaments and an 
ovoid instrument of serpentine, accompanying a skeleton, in a 
barrow near Avebury, Wilts. ^ I have several from the surface, 
Suifolk, aud from the Cambridge Fens. In a larger instrument from 
Icklingham. both edges are worn smooth and rounded 
b}' use, as if in scraping some soft but gritty sub- 
stance, possibly hides in the process of preparation 
as leather. 

In some of these instruments the point is sharp 
instead of being rounded. One of them, found by 
Canon Greenwell in a barrow on Potter Bromptou 
Wold,^ is shown in Fig. 243. 

I have a more trianiiular form of implement, of the 
same kind, 3^ inches long, showing the crust of the 
liint at the base, found near Icklingham, Suffolk. 
Another from the same locality is of the same form as 
the figure. 

Instruments of the same character as these were 
discovered by the late Mr. Bateman in many of the 
Derbyshire Barrows. "What appears to be one of the 
same kind was found with a ilake and burnt bones in 
an urn at Broughton, Lincolnshire.^ It may, how- 
ever, have been convex on both faces. A fragment of another was 
found at Dorchester Dykes," Oxfordshire, by General Pitt Elvers. 

The sharp-edged instruments of the forms last described seem to have 
been intended for use as cutting, or occasionally as scraping tools, and 
may not improperly be termed knives, as has been proposed by Canon 
Greenwell." Even the last described, though sharply pointed, cannot 
with certainty be accepted as a spear-head. To regarding the other 
form, Fig. 242, as such, Canon Greenwell objects that "the people who 
fashioned the arrow-heads so beautifully, if they fabricated a spear- 
head in flint, would not have made one side straight, the other curved, 
and carefully rounded it off at the sharper end." One of these pointed 
instruments (3 inches), trimmed on one face and slightly curved, was 
found with an urn and a whetstone in a cairn at Stenton,* East 
Lothian. 

' Trans. F.n. Ant. Sor.. vol. i., 1893, p. 49. 

- " The Bone Caves of Ojcow," 1884, pi. i. 7. 

^ " Cran. Brit.," vol. ii. pi. 58, p. 2. 

■• "Brit. Ban-.," p. 158, and 41, where it is figured full size. 

* Arch. Journ., vol. viii. 1544. ** Journ. Etlmol. Soc, vol. ii. p. 414. 

" Arc/i. Jour)/., vol. xxii. p. 243. ** Troc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xiv. p. 221. 




Pig. 241.- i'ottor 
Bromptoa Wold. 



SOME POSSIBLY LANX'K-HEADS. Cdo 

Sometimes the secondary workino; extends over part of both faces of 
the flake, the central ridg-e of whicli is still discernible. Canon Green- 
"o-ell found a lino instrument of this kind (o] inches), made from a 
ridj^ed flake, with neat secondary chipping along both sides, and on 
both faces, with a burnt body, in a barrow on Sherburn AVold.' The 
flint itself is partially calcined. It is difficult to determine the claims 
of such an instrument to be regarded as a knife or as a lance-head. 

The pointed instrument from Snainton Moor, Yorkshire, which is 
shcTwn in Fig. 244, and was kindly lent to me b}' the late Mr. C. Monk- 
inan, of Malton, has more tin; appearance of having been a lance-head. 
A fragment of another weapon of this kind was found in Aberdeen- 
shire.-' Larger lance-heads of this form have been found in tumuli in 
the South of France.^ A closely similar javelin-head, found at Vercelli, 
has been engraved by Gastaldi,* as well as another longer and more 
distinctly tanged, from Telese.^ A third from Tuscany has been en- 
graved by Cocchi." A fourth of the same form, but slightly notclied 





Fig. 244.— Snuiuton ilo jr. 



Fig. 245.— Ford. 



on each side near the base, was found with skeletons in Andalusia. '^ 
In the English specimen the secondary' flaking extends over the whole, 
or nearly the whole, of both faces of the original flake ; and the same 
is the case with the other instruments of this class which I am now 
about to describe. 

Fig. 245 represents an implement of dark grey almost unweathered 
flint, found with burnt bones in a barrow at Ford." Xorthumborland, 
examined by Canon Greenwell. It has been made from an external 
flake subsequently brought into shape by working on both faces. 
Judging from its form only, it would appear to have been a lance- 
head ; but there are some signs of wear of the edge at the butt- 

^ " Brit. Ban-.," p. 153, fig. 98. - I'roc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. vii. p. 102. 

^ Mat. vol. xvi. p. 239. 

* Jl/tvrt. Ace. li. deUc Sc. di Torino, vol. xxvi. Tav. v. 1. 

* Op. cit., Tav. viii. 20. 

* Le Hon, " L' Homme fos3.," 2n(l ed., p. 184. 

" De Gon^ora, " Ant. Prch. de And.," p. 78, fig. 92. 
» "Brit. Barr.," p. 410. 



334 



TRlMirED FLAKES, KNIVES, ETC. 



[cilAP. XV. 




end, Trhich seem hardly compatible -with this assumption, unless, 
indeed, like the natives of Tierra del Fuego,^ -who are said to make 
use of their arrow-heads for cutting purposes, its 
owner used it also as a sort of knife. Mr. C 
Monkman had a blade of this character (o~ inches) 
from Xorthdale, Yorkshire. Some lance-heads (3 
and 2h inches) have been found at "West "Wick- 
ham,- Kent ; and Carn Bre,-^ Cornwall. 

The original of Fig. 246 was found at West 

Huntow, near Bridlington. It is boldly chipped on 

both faces, so that hardly any portion of the original 

surface of the flake remains. It has a sharp edge 

all round, which is, however, sHghtly abraded at the 

blunter end; a small portion of the point at the 

other end has been broken off. In character it so 

-•-• -i- 7 -— r- : closely resembles a leaf-shaped aiTOw-head that 

there seem some grounds for regarding this form as 

that of a lance-head, though from the doubtful character of other 

.•specimens of nearly similar form I have thought it better to place it 

here. A much larger specimen of brown flint (3f by 2f inches), but 

of nearly the same form and character, was found by the late Eev. J. C. 

Clutterbuck, at Hounslow Heath. In the 

Greenwell Collection is one of almost the 

same dimensions foimd on "VS'iUerby "V\'old, 

and others not qmte so large from Eudstone, 

Yorkshire. 

Some blades, similar in general form, were 
found, with various other stone implements, 
in sand-beds, near Y'ork, and have been 
described by Mr. C. Monkman.' 

I have collected somewhat similar blades to 
that here engraved, though of rather smaller 
dimensions, in the ancient encampment of 
Maiden Bower, near Dunstable ; and I have 
several found on the surface near Laken- 
heath and Icklingham, Suffolk. I have seen 
one of the same character, which was found 
near Ware, Herts. General Pitt Eivers 
found in the Isle of Thanet^ two lance-heads, 
curiously like this and the preceding figure. 
A far more highly-finished blade, but still 
preserving the same general character, is shown in Fig. 247. The 
original, of brown flint, was found in the Cambridge Fens, and is 
now in my own collection. Though ground on some jjortions of both 
faces, apparently for the purpose of removing asperities, the edges 
are left un ground. They are, however, very carefully and dehcately 

' NilsEon, "Stone Age," p. 44. See Col. A. Lane-Fox, ''Prim. "Warfare," 
pt. II. p. 11. 

- Arch. Cant., vol. xiv. p. 87. Autiquar>j, vol. xv. p. 234. 
2 lieliq. and III. Arch., vol. ii. p. 46. 

* Yorkt. Arch, and Top. Jotin,., 1869, figs. 12, 13, 16. Jouni. Ethn. Soc, vol. ii. 
p. 159. 

* Journ. Ethn. Soc, vol. i. pi. i. 15, 17. 




Fig. 247.— <-<Jiiiii-.e Feas. 



KNIVES WITH ONE EDGE ]5LL'NT. 



335 



cliipped by secondary worl^ing' to a regulai^ sweep. I tliink tins instru- 
ment must be regarded rather as a form of knife than as a head for a. 
javelin or lance. In size, and to some extent in shape, it corresponds 
with tlie more crescent-like or triangular tools described under Fig. 25G. 
I have a rather smaller example from Bottisham, ground along one 
side only. 

This correspondence is still more evident in a ])lade now in the 
Blackmore Museum, (Salisbury, of nearly the same shape but somewliat 
less curved on one edge than the other, which has been ground along 
the more highly curved edge. It was found at JIaniptworth, near 
Salisbury. 

A narrower form of blade is shown in Fig. 248. The original, ot 
flint weathered nearly white, was found at Scamridge, Yorkshire, and 
is preserved in the Grecnwell Collection. It is, as will 
be observed, slightly nnsymmetrical in form, so that 
it would appear to have been intended for a kuifo 
rather than for a lance-head. A remarkabl}' fine speci- 
men in the same collection, found at Flixton, York- 
shire' (5 J inches), is in form much like that from' 
Scamridge. A part of the edge towards the point on 
the Hatter side is slightly worn. There is a consider- 
able diversity of form amongst tlie instruments of this 
character, some having the sides almost symmetrical, 
■while others have them curved in different degrees, 
so much so as to make the instrument resemble in 
form some of the crescent-shaped Danish blades. In 
a S2iecimen which I possess, from Gauton Wold, 
one side presents the natural crust of the flint along 
the greater part of its length, and has been left un- 
workcd ; the other side has been chipped to an obtuse 
edge, which is considerably bruised and worn. I have 
others from Suffolk, sharpened by cross-flaking on one 
edge only. Some such knives are rounded at one or both ends instead 
of being pointed. A blade from the neighbourhood of IJridlington, in 
my collection, is pointed at one end but rounded at the other, where also 
the edge is completcl}^ worn away by attrition. In the case of another 
symmetrical and flat blade, from Icklingham {3^ inches), rather more 
convex on one face than the other, the edge on one side at the moro 
pointed end is also completely rubbed away. I have as yet been 
unable to trace on the face of any of these pointed specimens signs of 
those polished markings which occur so frequently at a little distance 
within the more highly curved margin of the Danish semi-lunar blades, 
and from which Professor Stecnstruj) has inferred that they wore in- 
serted in handles of wood or bone. A specimen from Craigfordmains,- 
Eoxburghshire, has been figured. 

A blade of the same kind as Fig. 248, 3| inches long, found in the 
Department of the Charente, is engraved by de liochebrune,^ Others 
of larger size were found in the Grotte des Morts, Durfort (Gard).^ 

' Yorksh. Arch, and Top. Jckdi., 1S68, fig^. 4G. 
- P/OfT. Soc. Alii. Siol., vol. xxviii. p. 339. 
^ " Mem. 6ur lea Ilcstes d'lndust.," &c., pi. x. C. 
* Jftitvriaiix, vol. v. p. 249. 




336 



TRIMMED FLAKES, KNIVES, ETC. 



[chap. XV. 



The view that many of these Llades were used as knives rather than 
as hxnce-heads, seems to be supported by a specimen from Burwell Fen, 
in the Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, and engraved in 
Fig. 249. This blade is rather more convex on one face than the other, 
and shows along half of its flatter face the original inner surface of 
tlie flake from which it was made. One of its side edges has been 
rounded by grinding along its entire length, so that it can be con- 
veniently held in the hand ; the other edge is left sharp, and is polished 
as if by use. 

A remarkably large specimen of this kind, but with no traces of 
grinding upon it, was found in digging the foundations of a house on 
AVindmill Hill, Saffron Walden, and was in the possession of Mr. 





Fi^. 249.— Burwdl Fen. 



Fi°r. 250.— Saffron Walden. 



AVilliam Tuke,^ of that town. It is shown in Fig. 250. One face is 
somewhat flatter than the other, but both faces are dexterously and 
symmetrically chipped over their whole surface. The small flakes have 
been taken oif so skilfully and at such regular intervals, that, so far as 
workmanship is concerned, this instrument approaches in character the 
elegant Danish blades. The form seems well adapted for a lance-head, 
but on examination the edges appear to be slightly chipped and worn 
away, as if by scraping some hard material. It would appear, then, 
more probably to have been used in the hand. In the often-cited Green- 
Avell Collection is a blade of grey flint, also 5§ inches long, but rather 
narrower than the figure, and straighter on one edge than the other, 
found in Mildenhall Fen. In the same collection is a large thin flat 



* Kindly communicated to me by the late Mr. Joseph Clarke, F.S. A. 



OF OVAL FORM. 



337 



blade of flint, Sg inches long and 3 inches broad, more curved on 
one edg-e tlian the otlier, and rounded at one end. The straighter edge 
is also the sharper. It was found at Cross Bank, near Mildenhall. In 
general outline it is not unlike some of the Danish lunate implements. 
It may, however, ))e only the result of a somewhat unskilful attempt to 
l>r(jduce a symmetrical dagger or spear-head, such as Fig. 2G4. I have 
several iustrumeuts of this kind, found near Icklingham and at other 
places in Sutfolk. 

A lance-head of almost the same size and form as Fig. 250, from the 
neighbourhood of Brescia, has been engraved by Grastaldi.' They are 
also said to be found in Greece." 

They sometimes occur among American antiquities. One of them, 
1 1 inches in length, pointed at each end, is engraved by Squier and 
Davis.'' I have a beautiful blade of pale butf chalcedony, acutely 
pointed at one end and rounded at the other, which was found in com- 
pany with a second of the same size and character, near Comayagua, 
in Spanish Honduras. It is 6| inches long and 1| inches broad. Other 
lance-heads from Honduras have been published.^ A flint sword or 
spear-head 22 inches long, serrated at the end 
towards the point, is said to have been found in 
Tennessee.* Lance-heads of flint, not unlike Figs. 
249 and 250, are found in South Africa.* 

Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield, Yorkshire, have 
in their collection a remarkable specimen belong- 
ing to this class of instrument, which instead of 
being pointed is almost semicircular at both ends. 
They have kindly allowed me to engrave it in 
Fig. 251. It has been neatly chipped from a piece 
of tabular flint, and not from a flake, and is equally 
convex on both faces ; some of the salient part^ 
along both edges are polished, as if by wear, and on 
either face are some of the polished •' Steenstrup's 
markings," possibly arising from its having been 
inserted in a handle. This form is perhaps more 
closely connected with some of those which will 
shortly follow than with those which precede it. 
A somewhat similar oval blade of inches long and 
2^ inches wide, found in the Thames at Long 
Wittenham, and formerly belonging to the Eev. J. C. Clutterbuck, is 
ground along both sides, and is now in the Oxford Museum. 

A blade of the same form was found in the Grotte des Morts, Durfort 
(Gard)." 

In none of the specimens hitherto figured in this chapter, have 
the edges been sharpened by grinding ; in the only instances 




Fig. •251.— ±uuber. 



licv. Arch,, vol. XV. p. 17. 
xli. p. 50. 



' " Nuovi Cenni, &c.," Torino, 1862, pi. vi. 16. 
=» " Anc. Mon. of Jlissi.ss. Vail.," p. 211, fig. 3. 

* Froc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. vi. p. 34. Arch. Journ., vol. xl. p. 323 
Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. vi. p. 37. 

* Jone.-*, "Ants, of Teun." (Smithson. Coll.), p. 58. 

•• Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. i. p. xcvi. pi. i. ; vol. xiii. p. 162. 
'' Matiriau.r, vol. v. p. 249. 



:338 



TKIMMKD Kl.AKES, KNIVES. ETC. 



[chap 



XV 



where that process has Leen used, it has been for the purpose of 
removing, not of sharpening the edge. In the case of the next 
examples which I am about to describe, one or both edges, and in 
some the whole of both faces, have been ground. 

I have already mentioned instances of untrimmed flakes of flint having 
been ground on the edge, but knives of a similar character made from 
carefully chipped blades also occur, thougli so far as I have at present 
observed, principally in Scotland. 

One of these, caretully worked on both faces, and with one edge 
sharpened by grinding, was found at Strachur.' Argyllshire, and is 
shown fuU size in Fig. 252. Another, 2h inches long and | inch broad, 










Fig. 252.— Argyllshire. 



Fig. 253.— Glen Urquhart. 



with less grinding on the surface, was found at Cromar, Aberdeenshire. 
A third, of almost the same size, with the edge nearly straight and the 
back curved, and with neatly chipped faces but little ground, was 
found in a chambered cairn at Camster,'- Caithness. A nodide of iron 
ore was foimd with it, but whether this was for fire-producing pui"poses 
is not apparent. A fragment of another knife of the same kind was 
found, in 1865, by Messrs. Anderson and Shearer in a cairn at Onnie- 
gill Ulbster, Caithness ; and among the numerous articles of flint found 
at Urqidiart,'' Elgin, is a very perfect knife of this kind, which is shown 
in Fig. 253. All five specimens are in the National Museum at 



1 P. S. A. S., vol. ix. p. 239. 

- Mem. Anthrop. Soc, vol. ii. p. 248. 

3 F. iS'. A. S., vol. ix. p. 239. 



P. -S'. A. S., vol. vi. p. 450. 



SHAUrKXED BY GRINDING. 



339 



Ediiiburgli. I liave two Euglisli w[)eciia(ins of the same kind but 
pointed at the butt, from the nciglibourhood of Icklinghara. 

The sharpened ends of stone celts, when broken off, have occasionally 
been converted into knives. One such, from Gilling-, Yorkshirij, with the 
fractured surface rounded by grinding, is in the (Jreenwell (Jollection. 

Another form of knife closidy allied to the type of Fig. 25 1 , is broader, 
and has all its edges sharpened. The instrument shown in Fig. 254 
was found near Bridlington. It is made from a large broad flake, the 
outer face of which has been re- worked to such an extent that not more 
than one-fourth of the original surface remains intact. The inner face, 
on tlie contrary, is left almost untouched, except just at the two ends. 
As will be seen from the engraving, a portion of the original edge has 
been chipped away, apparently in mod(>rn times, by the iirst tinder 
having used it as a " strike-a-light" iliut. What remains of the 





<L 



FiL'. 255.— OvoiUiii. 



> 



original edge has been carefully sharpened, and the angles between 
some of the facets on the convex face have also been removed by 
grinding. An example of the same kind from Butterlaw,' near Cold- 
stream, has been ligiired. 

Others more or l(!ss perfect have been found at Glenluce,- Earlston, 
and on the Culbin Sands.^ 

A nearly similar instrument, from Sweden, has been engraved by 
Nilsson,'* but its edges are not described as ground. 

A more highly finished form of the same implement is shown in Fig. 
255. The original was found at Pick Rudge Farm,* Overton, Wilts, 
in company with the large barbed arrow or javelin-head. Fig. 305, and 
both are now in the Blackmore Museum. Like Fig. 254, it is flatter 
on one face than the other ; it is, however, polislied all over as well as 
ground at the edges. These are rather sluirper at the two ends than 
at the sides. Another specimen of the same form, and of almost ideu- 

' Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xxviii. p. 324. 

- P. S. A. S., vol. xxiii. p. 201. » P. S. A. S., vol. xxv. p. 499. 

* "Stone Age," pi. x. 206. ' Arch. Jour>i., vol. xii. p. 28r>. 

z2 



340 



TRIMMKD FLAKKS, KNIVES, ETC. 



[chap. XV. 



tically the same dimensious, was found atPentrefoelas,^ Denbighshire. 
A tliird specimen, 3h inches long and 2^ inches wide, was found at Lean 
Low, near Newhaven, Derbyshire, and is in the Bateman collection.^ 
In my own collection are two very fine and perfect specimens of this 
class of instrument, both from the neighbourhood of Cambridge. The 
larger of these is 4^ inches long, 2f inches broad at one end, and 2f 
inches at the other. The ends are ground to a regular sweep, and the 
sides are somewhat hollowed. It has been made from a very broad 
thin flake, and is ground over nearly the whole of the outer and over 
part of the inner face, and brought to a sharp edge all round. It was 
found in Burwell Fen. The smaller instriiment has been even more 
highly tinished in the same manner, everj' trace of the original chipping 
of the convex face having been removed by grinding. The edge is 
sharp all round, but the ends are more highly curved than in the larger 
instrument. It is 3J inches long. 2^ inches broad at one end, and 
l^ inches at the other, and was found in Quy Fen. In the Greenwell 
Collection is a portion of what appears to have been another of these 
instruments, ground on both faces and sharp at the edges, from 
Lakenheath. 




.J 



Fia. 'J56. — Kempston. j 

I have the half of another, 2 inches wide, fotmd near Bridlington, 
and one of the same character, but oval in outline, from the same place. 
The latter has lost one of its ends. Its original dimensions must have 
been about 3 inches in length by If inches in extreme breadth, and 
-i\ inch in thickness. Both faces are coarsely ground, the strise running 
crossways of the blade. The edges appear to have been sharpened on 
a finer stone. It has been supposed that these instruments were 
intended to serve for dressing ■' the flesh side of skins, or for flaying- 
knives.* Mr. Albert Way has called attention to the analogy they pre- 
sent to an unique bronze implement found at Ploucour,* Brittany. 

The beautifully-formed instrument shown in Fig. 256 belongs appar- 
ently to the same class. It was found at Kempston, near Bedford, and 
was kindly lent to me for engraving by the late Mr. James Wyatt, 
F.G.S., who afterwards presented it to the Blackmore Museum.*' It is 
of dark flint, the two faces equally convex, and neatly chipped out but 
not polished. Eegardiug it as of triangular form, with the apex 
rounded, the edges on what may be described as the two sides in the 



' Arch. Joiirn., vol. xi. p. 414 ; xvii. p. 171. 
3 Bateman, "Cat.," p. 6G. 
* Arch. Journ., vol. xi. p. 414; xvii. p. 171. 
' Arch. Camb., 3rd. iS., vol. vi. p. 138. 



- " Cat.," p. 66, No. 18. 



Flint Chips," p. 75. 



OF CIRCULAR FORM. 341 

engraving have been carefully .sharpened, while that of the base has 
been removed by grinding. In the same field was found a flint lance- 
head or dagger of fine workmanship, which will subsequently be 
mentioned. 

Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield, possess an instrument of the same 
character found near Fimber. It is more equilatorally triangular in. 
form than the Kempston specimen, though the sides are all curved and 
the angles rounded. It is polished all over on one face, though some 
traces of the original flaking are still apparent. On th e other face, which 
is rather more convex, the grinding is confined to two sides of the tri- 
angle, which are thus brought to a sharp edge. The edge on the third 
side, Avhich is rather straighter than the others, is very slightly rounded. 
It seems probable that this blunter edge was next the hand when the 
instrument was in use. 

Another specimen, even more triangular in outline, was found in the 
Thames, at Windsor; it is of ochreous flint, and the base, which is 
S^ inches long, exhibits the natural crust of the flint ; each of the other 




Fig. — 25tiA. — iitistboume, j 

two sides, which are ground to a sharp edge, is about 2f inches long. 
Another from Lakenheath, 3^ inches long and 3 inches wide at the 
unground base, was in the collection of the late Eev. W. Weller Foley, 
of Brandon. 

I have an implement of this kind, much like that from Kempston, 
but more curved at what is the base in the figure. All along this sweep 
the edge produced by chipping out the form has been removed by 
grinding. All round the other sweep the edge has boon carefuUy 
sharpened by the same moans. A portion only of each face is ground. 
This specimen was found near Mildenhall. I have another, more curved 
both at the edge and the base, found near Icklinghara. From the 
same district I have the form entirely unground. Other specimens found 
in Derbyshire are preserved in the liateman Collection. There are 
several in the Museum at Oxford. 

In Fig. 2.56a is shown an almost circular knife of this kind found at 
WilHngton Mill, near Eastbourne, which was kindly given to me by 
Mr. K. Hilton, of East Dean. 

In the Greenwell Collection is another nearly circular tool, about 2 
inches in diameter, ground to an edge along most of the periphery, and 
found in Yorkshire. Another rather smaller disc, in the same collection, 
" Pioc. Soc. Ant., '2nd S., vol. v. p Or). 



342 



TIUMMED FLAKES, KNIVES, ETC. 



[chap. 



XV. 



and found at Hnntow, near Bridlington, is partly ground on both faces, 
but not at the edge. A circular knife of the same kind was found at 
Trefeglwys,' Montgomeryshire. It is 2^' inches in diameter and ground 
to an edge all round except at two places at opposite ends of one of its 
diameters, where for a short distance the edge is left as it was originallj- 
(hipped out. It is now in the Powj-sland Museum. A circular knife 
from Mam Tor,- Derbyshire, is in the Castleton Museum. 

In the Greenwell Collection is an implement, about 2 inches in 
diameter, found at Sherburn Carr, Yorkshire, and in outline like a 
scraper, but with the greater part of the semicircular edge sharpened 
by grinding. In character it much resembles some instruments occa- 
sionally found both in Britain and Ireland, of which an examj^le is given 
in Fig. 257. This is a horseshoe-shaped blade of flint, 3 inches over, with 
the rounded part of the circumference ground to a fiiip cutting edge, so 





Fig. 257.— Kintore. 



Fig. '.'5.S— Ni-wiKai-ji, iii-rbyshire. 



that it was probably used as a knife. It is in the National Museum at 
Edinburgh, and was j^resumabh' found near Kintore, Aberdeenshire. 
In the same Museum is another instrument of the same kind, but some- 
what kidney-shajied in outline, found in Lanarkshire. It is 3^ inches 
in length, and 2g inches in extreme width. On a part of the hollowed 
side it shows the natural crust of the flint, but the rest of the periphery 
is ground to a sharp edge, and the projections on the faces have been 
removed by grinding. Others were found at Pitlochrie," Kincardine- 
shire, and Turrift',* Aberdeenshire. Mr. C. Monkman, of Malton, had a 
knife much like Fig. 257, 2| inches across, which was found at Huntow, 
near Bridlington. I have an Irish specimen from near Bally mena 
almost like that from Kintore, as well as one of longer horseshoe shape 
found at Swan Brake, North Stow, Bury St. Edmunds, another large 

1 I^rnr. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v. p. 441. Moutq. Coll., vol. v. p. xxvi. ; vi. p. 
215 ; xii. p. 26 ; xiv. p. 278. 

- Rooke Pennington, "Barrows and Bone-caves of Derbyshire," 1877, p. 62. 
» r. 6'. A. 6'., vol. xi. p. 57G. *■ I'. S. A. -S'., vol. xii p. 207. 



OK SEMICIRCULAR AND TRIANGULAR FORM. 343 

one more subtriangular (3vo by 3tJ inches) found near Wallingford, 
and a broad hatcliet-sliaped one from the Cambridge Fens. 

In the collection (now in the British Museum) of the late Mr. J. F. 
Lucas, is an instrumt'nt of this kind, 3 inches over, found at Arbor 
Low, Derbyshire, in 1867. He kindly presented me with another, 
(dosely resembling Fig. 257, and found at Mining Low. He also pos- 
sessed a remarkably fine knife of this form, but with the edge unground, 
which was found at Newhaven, Derbyshire, and is shown in Fig. 258. 
An example more pear-shaped in outline and ground half-way round 
the edge, found near Whitby, has been figured.^ I have a fine one 
(4 inches)more rhomboidal fromSwaffham Fen, Cambridge, and another 
smaller from Buvwell. From the latter place I have an oval knife 
made from a broad external flake (2£ inches) ground along one side, 
and a thick one also of oval form from Icklingham. 

In all the specimens with the circular edge sharpened by grinding, 
the flat side has been purposely made blunt, as if for being held in the 




Fig. 259.— Iliirome, Yurk^hiri-. J 

hand. The backs, however, may have been let into wooden handles, 
in which case these instruments would have been the exact counterparts 
of the XJlus, or Women's knives of the Eskimos.^ 

Though not formed of flint, but of a hard slaty rock of the nature of 
hone-stone, an implement of much the same form as that from Fimber' 
may be here described. It was found at Harome, in Eyedale, Yorkshire,, 
and is in the Greenwell Collection, now Dr. Allen Sturge's. As will be 
seen from Fig. 259, it approximates in form to an equilateral spherical 
triangle with the apices rounded. It is carefully polished over the 
whole of both faces, except where small portions have broken away, 
owing to the lamination of the stone. Each of the three sides is ground 
to a cutting edge, which however is not continued over the angles : 
these are rounded in both directions, as each would probably be in 
contact with the palm of the hand when the opposite edge was used 
for cutting. 

' Arrh. Journ., vol. xxix. p. 285. 

- Oti.s Mason, Jiep. of U. S. Nat. M>is. for ISOO, Washington. LS92. •'' P. ;{4K 



344 



TKIMMED KI.AKtS, KNIVtS, ETC. 



[cilAP. XV. 



There can be no doubt that all these triangular instruments, whether 
of Hint or other material, were used as cutting tools ; and the name of 
sk inning-knife, which has been ap})lied to them as well as to the quad- 
rangular instruments, not improbably denotes one of the principal 
purposes for which they were made. 

In the Greenwell Collection is another curious instrument, from the 
same locaHty as that last described, which is shown in Fig. 260. It is 
formed of a hard slaty stone, having one side ground to a regiilarly 
curved and sharp edge, and the others rounded by grinding. The two 
faces, which are equally convex, are also ground to such an extent that 
but little of the original chipped surface can be discerned. In the face 
shown in the figure there is a slight central dejiression, and on the 
other face two such at about 2 inches apart, and in a line parallel with 
the top or back of the instrument. "WTien it is held in the right hand, 
with the fore-finger over the end, the thumb fits into the depression on 
the one face and the middle and fourth fingers into those on the other, 




Fig. 260. — Ilaromo, Yortstire. 



•i 



so that it is firmly grasped. It is evident that this must have been a 
cutting or chopping tool: but the materials on which it was employed 
would seem to have been soft, as the edge is by no means sharp, and 
is also entirely uninjured by use. These depressions for the thumb 
and fingers resemble in character those on the handles of some of the 
Eskimo' scrapers and knives already described. 

Another implement, of nearly the same form, but rather longer and 
narrower, is in the same collection, and was found in Eyedale, York- 
shire. It is of hard clay-slate, 5^ inches long at the blade and 2^ inches 
wide, with a curved sharp edge, and a straight back rounded trans- 
versely. It is bevelled at one end, which is flat, apparently owing to 
a joint in the slate ; and somewhat roimded at the other, where it fits 
the hand. Neither in this nor in a third instrument of the same 
class, also from Ilarome, are there any dejiressions on the face. This 
last has been formed from a flat kidney-shaped pebble of clay-slate, 
the hollow side and one end left almost in the natural condition so as 
to fit the hand, and the curved side ground to a sharp edge, which is 
returned roimd the end almost at a right angle. The edge at the end 

P. 299. 



TlIK S()-(;AM,E1) I'lCTS KM\ ES. 



345 



is polished as if by rubbing, and looks us if it might liave been used in 
the same manner as bookbinders' tools for indenting lines on leather. 
This instrument is 6 inches long, 3 inches wide at the butt-end, and 
2^ inches at the sharp end. It is nearly 1| inches thick. 

Besides the three which I have mentioned several other instruments 
of the same description have been foimd in the same part of Yorkshire. 

I have never seen any specimens of precisely tliis character from 
other localities ; but they were apparently destined for much the same 
purposes as the " Picts' knives," slxortly to be mentioned, unless 
possibly they were merely used in the manner just indicated. It is very 
remarkable that the form sliould appear to be limited to so small an 
area in England ; and though the specimens occur under the same cir- 
cumstances as polished celts, it seems probable that for stone antiquities 
they belong to a late period. 

The large thin flat blades, usually subquadrangular or irregularly 
oval in form, of which a large number has been found in the Shet- 
land Islands, and which are known as " Pech's knives," or " Picth' 
knives," apparently belong to the same class of instruments as the 
quadrangular and triangular tools lately described, and this would 
therefore appear to be the proper place for making mention of them. 
They are never formed of flint ; the principal materials of which they 
are made being slate and compact greenstone, porphyry, and other 
felepathic rocks, and madreporite. Their usual length is from 6 inches 
to 9 inches, and the breadth from 3 inches to 5 inches ; their thickness 
is rarely more than 1 inch in the middle, and sometimes not more than 
-i^r of an inch. They are usually polished all over, and ground to an 
edge all round. Sojnetimes, however, the edge on one or more sides 
is rounded, and occasionally an end or side is left of the full thickness 
of the blade, and rounded as if for being held in the hand. I have a 
specimen, 4h inches long, and o| inches wide at the base, formed of 
porphyritic greenstone, and found at Hillswick, in Shetland, which 
"was given me by the late Mr. .T. G^vyn 
Jeffreys, F.Ii.S. Its cutting edge may 
be described as forming nearly half of 
a pointed elli^ise, of which the thick 
side for holding forms the conjugate 
diameter. This side is rounded and 
curved slightly inwards ; one of the 
angles between this base and the ellip- 
tical edge is rounded, and a portion 
of the edge is also left thick and 
rounded, so that when the base is 
applied to the palm of the hand the 
lower part of the forefinger may rest 
upon it. When thus held it forms a 
cutting tool not unlike a leather-cutter's 
knife. Instruments of this character 
are extremely rare in England, but in 
the extensive Greenwell Collection 
is a specimen which I have engraved as Fig. 261. It was found at 
Crambe, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and is formed of an oolitic 
shelly limestone, a material also used for the manufacture of celts in 




Fig. 261. — Crumbc. 



346 



rUIMMEI) FI.AICES, KNIVES, ETC. 



[chap. XV. 



tliat district. Though smaller, and rather more deeply notched at tho 
base than my Shetland knife, it is curiously like it in general form. 
The edge, however, only extends along one side, and is not carried 
round the point. 

The specimens that I have engraved as Figs. 262 and 263, are in the 
Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of London. They are formed of 
thin lamina." of what is said to be madreporite, and are sharp all round.' 
They were found with fourteen others at the depth of six feet in a peat- 
mos!», the whole of them being arranged in a horizontal line, and overlap- 
ping each other like slates upon the roof of a house. There are several 
specimens formed of felspathic rocks, and from various localities in 
Shetland, preserved in the British Museum. A note attached to one of 




Fig. 262.— Walls, Shetland 



them states that twelve were found in Easterskild, in the parish of 
Sandsting. An engraving of one of them is given in the " Hora^ 
Ferales."^ I possess several; one of porphjTitic stone, oval, 8 inches 
long, is polished all over both faces, one side is sharp and the other 
rounded. 

In the National Museum at Edinburgh^ are other examples, also 
from Shetland. Several have been figured.* Some have a kind of 
haft.^ They occasionally have a hole for suspension." Sir Daniel 
Wilson' states that a considerable number of inijilements, mostly of 
the same class, were found under the clay in the ancient mosses of 

1 «« Cat. Ant. Soc. Ant.," p. 14. " Cat. A. I. Mus. Ed.," p. 7. • PI. ii. 15. 

3 Pioc. Soc. ^int. Scot., vol. iii. p. 437 ; iv. p. 52. 

* I'. S. A. S., vol. xii. p. 271 ; xxix. p. 64. ^ />, <^ ^^ ^-^ y^i ^jj ^ .270. 

^ Smith's 'Troh. Man in Ayrsliire, 1895, p. 45. 

'• "Preh. Ann.," vol. i. p. 184. 



T,IK?: THOSE OF THK ESKIMOS. 



347 



IJlairdrummond and Meiklewooil, but in tliis ho was in error. There 
are some fine specimens from Shetland in the Ethnological Museum at 
Copenhagen. Mr. J. W. Cursiter, of Kirkwall, has fine examples of 
such knives from Shetland. One in his collection is 8 inches long and 
5J inches broad, being in form much like Fig. 262. 

There can be little doubt of these implements having been cutting 
tools for liolding in the hand, though they have been described by Dr. 
nibbert and Mr. Bryden' in " The Statistical Account of the Shetland 
Isles " as double or single-edged battle-axes. They appear, however, 
as Mr. Albert Way- has pointed out, to be too thin and fragile for any 




warlike purpose. Those with the cutting edge all round were probably 
provided with a sort of handle along one side, like the flensiuf-knife 
from Icy Cape in the possession of Sir Edward Belcher, of which men- 
tion has already been made. This is a flat thin blade, about 5 inches 
long, and of subquadrangular form. It is sharp at the edge, but has a 
guard or handle along the opposite side, made of split twigs attached 
by resinous gum. In some Eskimo knives of the same kind in the 
Christy Collection and in the Ethnological Museum at Copenha"-en the- 

' " Statist. Account of Zetland," 1.S41, p. 112, et seqq.. quoted at lentrtb iu Mtm. 
Anthrup. Soc. Land., vol. ii. p. 315. The late Dr. Hunt appears to have thought 
that the passage referred to rude pestle-like stone implements sucli as he found iu 
Orkney, and not to these knivpc." 

- "Cat. Arch. Inst. :Muh. Ed.," p. 7. 



348 TRIMMED FLAKES, K.MVES, ETC. [CHAF. XV. 

wooden back is tied on by a cord which passes through a hole in the 
blade. It is possible that the " Picts' knives " may in some cases have 
been used, like those of the Eskimos, for removing the blubber from 
whales. 

It is difficult to assign a date to these instruments, which are almost 
peculiar to the Shetland Islands. There are traditions extant of their 
having been seen in use within the present century, in one instance by 
an old woman for cutting kail, and in Lewis,' a sharp stone was used 
in 1829, for cutting out a wedding dress. In the latter case the reason 
assigned was the want of scissors, but it would appear to have probably 
been merely an experimental trial of the cutting powers of a stone 
which may not have been one of these primitive tools. The occurrence 
of Picts' knives under so thick a depoait of peat shows, however, that 
they do not belong to any recent period, thougli live or six feet of 
peat do not of necessity indicate any very high degree of antiquity. 

"VMien the Princess Leonora Christina- was imprisoned in Copen- 
hagen in 1663 and she was deprived of scissors and cutting instru- 
ments, she records, in 1665, that. "Christian had given me some pieces 
of flint which are so sharp that I can cut tine linen with them by the 
thread. The pieces are still in my possession, and with this imple- 
ment I executed various things." 

Stone knives of any form, having the edges ground, are of rare 
octurrence on the Continent, though in Norway and Sweden' those of 
what have been termed Arctic types are found. Nearly similar forms 
occur in North America. A peculiar knife, with a rectangular handle, 
much like a common table-knife, has been found in the Lake Settle- 
ment of Inkwyl.* 

A North American knife,' with a somewhat similar handle, has a 
curved blade very thick at the back. 

To return to the implements made of flint. Those which I have 
next to describe have been termed spear-heads, lance-heads, knives, 
and daggers. Their ordinary length is from 5 to 7 inches, and 
their extreme width from I5 to 2^ inches. Their general form is 
lanceolate, but the greater breadth is usually nearer the point of 
the blade than the butt, which is in most instances either truncated 
or rounded. They exhibit remarkable skill in the treatment of 
flint in their manufacture, being as a rule symmetrical in form, 
with the edge in one plane, and equally convex on the two faces — 
wl.ich are dexterously chipped into broad flat facets — while the 
€dges are still more carefully shaped by secondary working. 
Towards the butt, the converging sides are usually nearly straight, 
and in many, the edge at this part has been rounded by grinding, 
-and the butt-end has had its angles removed in a similar manner. 

> bee p. S. A. S., vol. xi. p. .579. 

- y. and Q., 4th S., vol. xi. p. 302. 

3 Co*)ff. preh. Stockhohn, 1874, p. 177, ct seqq. 

* De Bonstetten, " Supp. au Rec. d'Ant. MiLsses,"" p\ i. 1. 

■' Schoolcraft. " Ind. Tribes," vol. ii. pi. xlv. 1. 



DAGGERS OR LANUK-IIEADS. 



349 



This may have been done either with the view of rendering the 
instrument more convenient for holding in the hand, or in order 
to prevent the Wade from cutting the ligaments by which it was 
attached to a handle. For the latter purpose, however, there 
would be no advantage in rounding the butt-end ; and as this, 
moreover, is frequently the thickest part of the blade, it seems 
probable that the majority of the instruments were intended 
for holding in the hand, so that the term dagger appears most 
appropriate to this form. 

Other blades, with notches on the opposite sides, seem to have 
been mounted with handles or shafts, and may have served either 
as daggers or possibly as spear- heads. 

I have figured four specimens showing some difference in shape, 
mainly in consequence of the different relative positions of the 
broadest part of the blades. This in Fig. 265 may be, to some 
extent, due to the point having been 
chipped away by successive sharpen- 
ing of the edge by secondary chipping, 
in the same manner as we find some 
of the Danish daggers worn to a 
stump, by nearly the whole of the 
blade having been sharpened away. 

In Fig. 264 is shown a beautiful 
dagger of white flint, which was found 
in a barrow on Lambourn Down, Berks, 
in company with a celt and some ex- 
quisitely-finished stemmed and barbed 
arrow-heads of the same material. It 
is now in the British Museum. Its 
edges are sharp all along, and not 
blunted towards the butt-end. It may 
have been an entirely new weapon, 
buried with the occupant of the barrow 
for use in another state of existence, or 
it may have had moss wrapped round 
that part, so as to protect the hand ; 
like the blade' of flint with Uijpnmn 
brevirostre wrapped round its butt-end to 
form a substitute for a handle, which 
was found in the bed of the liiver Bann, _. „„^ r , ^^ i 

r 1 1 i:i -VT .1 » • ■ Fig. 264.— Lambourn Down. i 

m Ireland, feome iSortn American im- 
plements of similar character are, as Sir Wollaston Franks'- has 
pointed out, hafted by insertion into a split piece of wood in which 




' Arch. Joiirn., vol. viii. p. 
B. I. A., vol. V. p. 17(J, 



329. 



Brist. 



Vol. Arch. lust.," p. lix. 
- *' Hor. For." p. lo7. 



Proc 



360 



TRIMMED FLAKES, KNIVES, ETC. 



[chap. XV. 



they are bound by a cord. Oue from the north-west coast, thus 
mounted, is in the British Museum. 

Professor Nilsson' has eugTaved anotlier American knife, in the 
same collection, but erroneously refers it to New Zealand. 

A good specimen (6i inches was found in 1890 in a field known 
as Little "Wansford, near Great Weldon, Northamptonshire. I have 
specimens (6^ inches) from Fiskerton, Lincolnshire, and from Bottisham 
Fen, Cambs (4| inches). There is a slight shoulder on the latter 
rather nearer the butt than the x)oint. A beautiful specimen (6| inches) 
from a barrow at Garton.- Yorkshire, E. R., has been fissured. 





Fig. '2C5.— Thy 



Fig. 2(Jt3.— llunit Feu. 



The blade shown in Fig. 265 is in the British Museum, having 
■been formerly in the Eoach Smith Collection. It is of nearly black 
flint, and was found in the Thames. Its length is still 7 inches, but 
from the form of the point it seems possible that it may, as already 
suggested, originally have been even longer. There is in the Museum 
another specimen from the Thames,^ 5f inches long, in form like Fig, 
264. Both of these have the edges towards the butt rendered more or 
less blunt, and have had any prominences removed by grinding. The 
same is the case with a blade 6 inches long and 2| inches wide, found 

'J' Stone Age," p. 38, pi. iii. 65. ^ Arch., vol. xliii. p. 413. 

3 "Hor. Fer.," pi. ii. 27. 



WITH NOTCHES AT THE SIDES. 351 

« 

in Qny Fen in 1849, and now in the Museum of the Cambridge 
Antiquarian Society. In the same collection is a smaller specimen, 
4|- inc]ios long and la inches wide, from Burwell Fen. This has its 
edges sharp, and shows the natural crust of the ilint at the butt, as 
does also one 7 inches long by 2.V inches wide, found at .lackdaw HiU, 
near Cambridge.' Another blade (5^ inches) found at Wolseys, near 
Duumow, Essex, is in the British Museum. A blade of this type from 
a garden at Walton-on-TIiames- is recorded. 

A remarkably fine spear-liead of the notched class, 6| inclios long, 
was exhibited some years ago to the British Archaeological Association, 
and their Proceedings,'-^ without giving any information as to the size, 
shape, or character of the specimen, record as an interesting fact that 
it weighs nearly four ounces. It was found in Burnt Fen, Frickwillow, 
Ely, and is now in my own collection. It is engraved as Fig. 266. It 
is of black flint, and has in the first instance been boldly chipped into 
approximately the requisite form, and then been carefully finished by 
neat secondary working at the edges, no part of which has been 
rounded by grinding. On either side, at rather less than half way 
along the blade from the base, are two deep rounded indentations not, 
quite half an inch apai*t, in character much like the notches between 
the barbs and stems of one form of flint arrow-heads. Tlie sam*- 
peculiarity is to be observed in a somewhat smaller spear-head found 
at Carshalton,* in Surrey, and forming part of the Meyrick Collection. 
Of this it is observed that it " was let into a slit in the wooden shaft, and 
bound over with nerves diagonally from the four notches which appear 
on the sides." There can, 1 think, be little doubt of the correctness of 
this view, nor of the method of attachment to the shafts or handles 
having been much the same as that in use among the American tribes 
for their arrow- and lance-heads with a notch on either side. Whether 
the British blades were mounted with a short handle or a long shaft, 
we have no means of judging; but if those with the edges rounded 
towards the butt were knives or daggers, there seems some probability 
of these also having served the same purpose, though provided with 
handles like some North American and Mexican examples, and of their 
not having been spear- or lance-heads. 

I have another blade of this kind found in BurweU Fen, Cambridge, 
about 5f inches in length, and Ig inch in width. At about 3^- inches 
from the point there is on either side a slight notch ; beyond this there 
is a narrow projection, and tlien the width of the blade is suddenly 
reduced by a full eighth of an inch on either side, so as to leave a sort 
of shoulder. Between this and the butt, at intervals of about an inch, 
there are on each side two other notches, as if to assist in fastening 
the blade into a shaft or handle. There has in tliis case been no 
attempt to remove the edges by grinding. 

A flint dagger (6f inches) found in the Thames,^ near London 
Bridge, has a notch on each side 2| inches from the base. A smaller 
notched example was found at Ilurlingham. 

In the Christy Collection is anotlier of tliose blades, 5| inches long, 

* Arch. Journ., vol. xvii. p. 170. - Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. vi. p. 73. 
^ Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. vi. p. 441. 

* Skeltou's " Meyrick's Armour," vol. i. pi. xlvi. ">. 
•'* Land, and Midd. JSotebook, vol. i. (1891), p. 21. 



352 



TRIMMED FLAKES, KNIVES, ET( 



[CH 



AT. XV. 




with a notch on either side about If inches from the butt. It is un- 
certain where it was found. 

One with a notch at each side about mid-length was found at Uare 
Park/ Cambridge. 

A blade remarkably like Fig. "206 was found in the Dolmen of 
Vinnac'- (Ave}Ton). 

A beautifully formed blade, chipped square at the base, and with a 
series of notches along the sides towards the butt, was found at Arbor 
Low, Derbyehu-e. ' The late Mr. J. F. Lucas 
obligingly lent it to me for engraving, as Fig. 
267. It is now preserved in the British 
Museum. 

In the Wiltshire Barrows, explored by Sir E. 
Colt Hoare, were several of these daggers. 
One,* 6i inches long, was foimd with a skeleton 
beneath a large " sarseu stone" near i>urring- 
ton Walls, in company w ith a small whetstone, 
a cone and ring of jet like a pulley, and two 
small discoidal scrapers. Another,'' of much the 
same form and size as Fig. 264, occurred in 
company with a drinking-cup, and what was 
probably a whetstone of " ligniformed asbestos," 
at the feet of a skeleton in a barrow near Stone- 
henge. 
^ ...- Others have been found in the barrows of 

"^ Derbyshire and Yorkshire. In Green Low, on 

Alsop Moor,'^ a dagger-blade of ilint, 6 inches 
long, stemmed and barbed arrow-heads, a bone 
pin, and other bone instruments, were associated 
with a contracted interment. It was in this 
barrow also that the pj-rites and scrapers, pre- 
viously mentioned at p. 313, were found. 
Another leaf-shaped dagger of white iiint, 4^ 
inches long, with the narrow half curiously 
serrated — as boldly as Fig. 266, but with many 
more notches — was found by Mr. Bateman be- 
neath the head of a contracted skeleton in Nether Low.' near CheLmor- 
ton. Another, 4 J inches long, was found with burnt bones in one of 
the Three Lows,- near Wettou. A flint dagger,' elegantly chipped, 5j 
inches long, was found on Blake Low, near Matlock, in 1786. Frag- 
ments of similar daggers have been found with interments in barrows 
near Pickering;^" and in Messrs. Mortimer's rich collection is a fine 
specimen from a barrow on the Yorkshire AVolds. 

One like Fig. 264, but of coarser workmanship, 5j inches long and 
2f inches wide, was found in 1862, with a skeleton and an earthen 
vessel, at Norton, near Daventry, and particulars sent to me by the 

* Arch. Joiini., vol. x\T.i. p. 170. - Mat., vol. xi. p. 87. 

•* Jewitt's " Grave Mounds," ti-;. I'lo, where it is shown full size. 

* " South Wilts," p. 172, pi. xix. "Cat. Devizes Mus.," No. 85b. 
3' " South Wilts," p. 164, pi. xvii. " Cat. Devizes Mus.."' No. 84. 

« " Vest. Ant. Derb.,"' p. .59. " Cran. Brit." pi. 41. p. 3. Beliq., vol. iii. p. 177. 
^ "Ten Years' Dig.," p. 52. '=' Ibid., p. 167. Bateman, •' Cat.," p. 38. 

s " Vest. Ant. Derb.," p. 5. 

" "Ten Years' Dig.," p. 228. Bateman, " Cat.," p. 43. 



ki'A. Ziii . — -Aj Dor Low. 



FOUND IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 353 

late Mr. S. Sharp, 1\S.A., F.Gr.S. ; and what would appear to have 
been an instrument of the same character, 8 inches long, was found 
near Maidstone.' A very good specimen, of fine workmanship, is in 
the Museum at Canterhury, but its place of finding is unknown. 

Another, more like Fig. 267, but not serrated, 6f inches long and 
2 inches broad, was found with an urn at Ty ddu Llanelieu,^ Brecon, 
and has been engraved. 

In the Greenwell Collection is a blade like Fig. 264, 6 inches long 
and 21 inches wide, finely chipped along the edges for 4 inches from the 
point, which was found at Kempston, near Bedford, in the same field as 
that shown in Fig. 2.56. There is also a specimen rather more rudely 
chipped, and pointed at each end, from Irthington, Cumberland, which 
has more of the character of a spear-head. In the Fitch Collection is 
a fine but imperfect dagger from the neighbourhood of Ipswich, and I 
have one in similar condition from Peasemarsh, near Godalming. 

In Scotland one has been found in a cairn at Guthrie, Forfarshire, 
6| inches long and H inches wide, which is engraved in the GenilemarC s 
Magazine:' Sir Daniel Wilson* also mentions one 15 inches long, found 
in a cairn at Craigengelt, near Stirling, but I think there must be some 
error as to the length. 

Mr. J. W. Cursiter, of Kirkwall, has a very symmetrical blade like 
Fig. 264, but smaller, found in Blows Moss, South Ronaldsay, Orkney. 
A blade from Nunraw,' Haddingtonshire (7J inches) with notches at 
the side for hafting, has been engraved. Another (3f inches), was 
found in a cairn near Kirkmichael. AjTshire.*' 

Though occurring in so many parts of England and Scotland, these 
daggers appear to be unknown in Ireland, where, however, some 
large lozenge-shaped blades, ground on both faces, occur. Sword-Uke 
blades made of slaty stone are also found in Ireland" and in Shet- 
land. ■* I have Irish specimens up to 15 inches in length, and have 
seen the sketch of one of subquadrate section, and pointed at each end, 
2 Of inches in length. It was found in the Lower Bann, near Port- 
glenone, co. Antrim. 

In some Continental countries, and especially in Denmark, Sweden, and 
Northern Germany, similar weapons are far more abundant than here. 
The shape is somewhat different, for the English specimens are as a 
rule broader in proportion, and more obtusely pointed than the Scandi- 
navian. These latter frequently exhibit the blunting at the edges 
towards the butt-end, such as has been already mentioned. Occasion- 
ally they have the notches at the sides. Daggers with square or fish- 
tailed handles, like AVorsaae, Nos. 52 and 53, some of which present 
delicately ornamented and crinkled edges, have not as yet been found 
in Britain, though somewhat analogous forms occur in Honduras and 
in North America. The crinkling is seen on some Egyptian knives. 

Nearly similar blades to those from Britain are found in other parts 
of Europe. Two lance-heads, made from flakes 5^ inches and 5£- inches 
long, more or less worked on both faces, and reduced in width at the 

' Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. x. p. 177. 

- Arch. Cainb., 4th S., vol. ii. p. 327- ^ March, 1797, p. 200. 

* " Preh. Ann. of Scot.," vol. i. p. 182. * P. S. A. S., vol. xxiii. p. 18. 

« Smith, "Preh. Man in Ayrshire," 189.5, p. 184. 

' Wilde's '■ Cat. Mas. K. I. A.." p. 34. >* P. S. A. S., vol. xi. p. 170. 

A A 



354 TRIMMED FLAKFS, KNIVES, ETC. [cHAP. XV, 

butt, SO as to facilitate insertion in a handle, were found in the sepul- 
chral cave of St. Jean d'Alcas,' in the Aveyron. Another, worked on 
both faces, about 7 inches long and 1 finches broad, notched in two or 
three places on each side at the base, was found in one of the dolmens 
of the Lozere.- A third, shorter and broader, but also notched at the 
base, was in the dolmen^ of Grailhe (Gard). 

A finely-worked, somewhat lozenge-shaped, blade of flint, 10 inches 
in length, was found at Spiennes,* near Mons, in Belgium. 

A lance-head (6J inches) from the Government of Madimir,* Eussia, 
has been figured. 

A lance-head of flint, 9 inches long and 2^ broad, tanged at the 
butt, and with a notch on each side of the tang, has been figged by 
Gastaldi" from a specimen in the Museum at Naples, found at Telese. 

In Egypt, associated with other objects betokening a considerable 
civilization, have been found several thin blades of flint, of much the 
same character as the highly-finished European specimens. A magni- 
ficent lance-head {1-ii inches', has been presented to the Ashmolean 
Museum by Prof. Flinders Peti-ie". It is delicately serrated along the 
edges for most of its length. A smaller blade is more leaf-shaped and 
minutely serrated all round. Another appears to have been hafted as 
a dagger. In my own collection is a leaf-shaped blade 7 inches long, 
most delicately made and serrated. Others are, however, thick at the 
back, and provided with a tang like a metallic knife. Two of these in 
the Berlin Museum.,* are 7;^ inches and 6f inches long respectively, 
and 2 J inches and 2 inches vriAe ; I have one 5^ inches in length. There 
are other specimens in the Egyptian Museums at Leyden and Tiirin, 
and in the National Museum^ at Edinburgh. A larger blade, and 
even more closely resembling some of the Scandinavian lunate instru- 
ments in form, being leaf-shaped, but more curved on one edge than 
the other, is also in the Berlin Museum.'" It is 9 inches long and 2^ 
inches wide. A curved scimitar-Hke knife from Eg}-pt'' is figured, as 
is one with a notch on each side of the butt.^ Another blade, of ovate 
form, and without tang, 2| inches long and 1 inch wide, is preserved 
in the Mayer Collection in the Museum '" at Liverpool. 

Some other Egyptian blades will be subsequent!}' mentioned. 

A dagger-blade of flint, still mounted in its original handle, is in the 
British Museum,^* and has already been described. 

Some of the dagger-blades in use in Mexico in ancient times were of 

1 Cazalis de Fondouce, " LaGr. sep. de St. J. d'Alcas," 1867, pi. i. 
' ifateriaux. rol. v. p. 321 ; viii. p. 39. ^ Materiaux, vol. v. p. 538. 

^ Cong. Freh. Bruxelks, 1872, pi. 67, 3. Van Overloop, " Les Ages de la 
Pierre," pi. viii. 

5 Cong. Preh. Moscou, 1892, ii. p. 241. 

6 Mem. R. Aee. delle Se. di Torino, xxvi. Tav. viii. 24. See also BuU. di Fal. 
Ital., 1881, pi. vii. 

" Arch. Journ. vol. liii. p. 46. See also Mat., vol. ii. p. 24, and De Morgan, 
" Rech. BUT les Or. de I'Egjpte," 1896, p. 121. 

8 Zeitschr.fur ^gypt. Sprache, &c., July, 1870. "Wilkinson, " Anc. Egyptians," 
vol. iii. p. 262. 

9 P. S. A. S., vol. xivi. p. 399. '" Zeitschr. fUr jEg. Sp., ibid. 

^' Journ. Anth. Jnst., vol. xi. pi. ixxiii. See also vol. xiv. p. 56 ; Proc. Soc. Ant., 
2nd S., vol. vi., p. 21 : and Petrie's " Hawara," 1889, pi. xxviiL 
12 ZeiUeh. f. Ethn., vol. xiii., 1890, p. (516). 
'^ Journ. Arith. Intt., vol. i. p. xcvi. pi. i. 3. '* See Fig. 1 p. 8. 



CURVED AND C.RKSCKN T-SHAPED BLADES. 



355 



miicli the same character as these, being in some cases of flint, in otliers 
of obsidian. A beautiful blade of chalcedony, 8 inches long, found at 
Tezcuco, is in the Christy Collection, as well as another of chert ; but 
the most remarkable is of chalcedony, still in its original wooden 
handle in form of a kneeling figure, encrusted with precious materials, 
including turquoise, malachite, and coral.' An almost similar specimen 
was engraved by Aldrovandus.- 

There are Japanese-^ stone knives and daggers polished all over and 
with the blade and hilt in one piece. Some are as much as 1 5 inches long. 

A peculiar form of knife, closely resembling in character some of 
the crescent-shaped blades from Scandinavia, is shown in Fig. 267a. 
It was found in the parish of Sewerby,^ near Bridlington, and some- 
what resembles the blade fz'om Balveny, subsequently mentioned. I 
have described it in some detail* elsewhere. A similar form occurs in 





Fi?. 267a.— Sewerby. 



J 



Arctic America.^ A wider form from New Jersey* has been regarded 
as a scalping-knife. 

Another form of curved knife — for as such it would seem the instru- 
ment must be regarded — seems to be more abundant in Britain than in 
other European countries, unless possibly in Eussia. A somewhat 
similar form is known in Denmark," of which a highly finished variety 
is engraved by Worsaae ® from an almost, if not quite, unique example. 
Examples of analogous knives from other countries will also be sub- 
sequently cited. As the form has not hitherto received much attention 
from antiquaries, I have engraved three specimens slightly differing 
in character, and found in different parts of England. 



2 " Musfcum Metallicum," p. 156. 

* Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. vii. p. 328. 

* Nature, vol. xii. p. 368. 



^ Arch<eologia, vol. Uv. 391. 

•'» Aarb.f. Oldk., 1879, p. 290. 

* Mat., vol. ix. p. 401, pi. vii. 9 

' "Madsen," pi. xxxvi. 8. 

« '*Nord. Olds.," Fijj. 51 . Mini, de la Soc des Ants, du Nord., 1845—49, p. 139. 

A a2 



356 



TRIMMED FLAKES, KNIVES, ETC. 



[chap. 



XA'. 



Fig. '2GH represeuts a beautifully formed knife, with a curved blade 
tapering to a point, and found in draining at Fimber, Yorkshire. It 
is preserved in the collection of Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield, who have 
kindly allowed me to engrave it. It is about 7 inches in length, formed 
of flint, which has now become ochreous in colour, and exhibits a 
portion of the natural crust at the butt-end. The blade is nearly 
equally convex on the two faces, but thickens out at the butt, which 
seems to have formed the handle, as the side edges which are else- 






Fi<r. 2t>--.— Fimber. 



Fig. 269.— Yarmouth. 



where sharp are there slightly blunted. The faces present no signs of 
having been ground or polished. 

I have two or three fragments of similar knives also from the York- 
shire Wolds; and one almost perfect, but only 4^ inches long, from 
Granton "Wold. In the Greenwell Collection is a fragment of one from 
AVetwang, and the point of another from Kudstone. I have one(o inches) 
perfect except at the butt, found at North Stow, Bury St. Edmunds. 

Fig. 269 represents a near!}' similar knife, which has, however, been 
already described, though not figured, in the Archceologieal JournaV 
and in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiqiiariesr It was found on 
Gorton Beach, midway between Yarmouth and Lowestoft, and belonged 

' Vol. xxii. p. 75. 

- 2ndS., vol. iii. p. 19, where it is erroneously stated to be only 5 inches in length. 



CURVED KNIVES, PHOHABl.Y SICKI>ES. 



357 



v> 



to the late j\h\ C. Cory, of Yarmouth, who kindly lent it to me for 
engraving'. It has been suggested that it was fixed to a haft, possibly 
of stag's horn or of wood, but there are no indtcup, of this having been 
the case, though the side-edges are blunted towards the butt-end, where 
also remains a considerable portion of the crust 
of the long nodide of flint from which the instru- 
ment was chipped. 

For the loan of the original of Fig. 270 I am 
indebted to the late Mr. Caldecott, of Mead 
Street, near Eastbourne, near which place it was 
found. It is of grey flint, and presents the 
peculiarit}' of having one face partially polished 
by grinding, which extends to the point, but does 
not touch the edges, which, as in the other 
instances, are produced by chipping only. It is 
rather more convex on the polished face than on 
the other, and it appears probable that recourse 
was had to grinding in order to remove a hard 
projection of the flint which had been too refrac- 
tory to be chij)ped off. As usual, there is a por- 
tion of the crust of the original flint visible at the 
butt, where also the side edges have been blunted, 
in this case by grinding. This instrument has 
cdready been described and figiu-ed.^ 

A curved knife (7f inches) now in the British 
Museum, much like Fig. 270, was found at 
Grrovehurst," near INIiltou, Kent. 

In the same m.useum is a beautifiilly-chipped 
knife, 8J inches long, without any traces of 
grinding, and of much the same form as this, but 
with the point more sharply curved. It was 
found in the Thames, at London, in 1868. 

One from Bexley, Kent, is in the Ashmolean 
Museum at Oxford, and another from the Thames 
at Greenwich in the Jermjm Street Museum. 

The (xreenwell Collection contains an implement of this class, but of 
broader proportions, 4 inches long and If inches wide, with a portion 
of the natural crust of the flint left on the convex side, not far from the 
point. It is sharp at the base, which is semicircular, and the edge 
shows signs of wear. It was found on Ileslerton "Wold. 

A thinner form of curved knife (6^ inches), found at Balveny,^ Banff- 
shire, has been figured. 

The point of what appears to have been a curved knife of this cha- 
racter was found in the Lake-dwelling of Bodmann.^ Some curved 
knives from one at Attersee* have been engraved. A long flint knife 
from Majorca,** nearly straight at the edge, but curved at the back, may 
also be mentioned. 

' Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 210. 

- Arch. Cant., vol. xiii. p. 124, xi. Tayne's "Coll. Cant.," 1893, p. S. 

^ J\ S. A. S.. vol. xxiii. p. 18. 

* Keller, " Pfahlbauten,'' Gtor Bcr., Taf. vii. 32. 

* " Phih. Atlas." Wien, 1889, Taf. xiii. 

"^ Cartailhac, " Mon. prim, dee lies Balearea," 1892, p. 64. 




270.— Eastboui-ne. .J 



358 TRIMMED Fl.AKKS, KNIVES, ETC. [cHAP. XV, 

Some curved knives of polished slate, about 5 inches long, notched 
at the base as if for suspension by means of a string, have been found 
in Norway. Small blades of chipped flint with a neck for the same 
purpose are not uncommon in Japan, and occur more rarely in Eussia.' 
In the Greenwell Collection is preserved a curved knife of slate 
sharpened on the concave side, found in Antrim. 

Curved knives of flint, as well as some of the crescent shape, have 
been found in YolhjTiia.- 

1 have seen flint knives in outline very like Fig. 240 in the museums 
at Cracow, Moscow, and Kiev. Some are highly polished by friction 
and may have served as sickles. 

It is difficult to assign any definite use to the British form of knife, 
but as the curvature is evidently intentional, and as probably it was 
more difficult to chip out such curved blades than it would have been 
to make them straight, there mu.st have been some advantage resulting 
from the form. As both edges of the blade are sharp, it is hard to 
say whether the convex or concave edge was the jirincipal object. But 
inasmuch as the convex edge might more readily be obtained, and that 
twice over, in a leaf-shaped blade, it appears that the concave edge 
was the desideratum. The blimting of the edges at the butt-end 
suggests the probability of the instruments having been held immedi- 
ately in the hand without the intervention of any form of haft ; and 
the view of the concave edge being the principal one is supported by 
the circumstance that in the short knife from Granton Wold, already 
mentioned, a considerable portion of the crust of the round-ended 
nodule of flint from which it was made is left along the convex side 
at the butt-end, while on the opposite side the edge extends the whole 
length, so that it cannot be comfortably held in the hand except with 
that edge outwards from the palm. It seems, indeed, adapted for hold- 
ing in the hand and cutting towards rather than from the operator; 
and looking at the form universal!}' adopted for reaping instruments, 
which seem to require a concave edge, so as to gather within them all 
the stalks that have to be cut, I am inclined to think that these curved 
flint knives may not impossibly have supplied the place of sickles or 
reaping hooks, whether for cutting grass to serve as provender or 
bedding, or for removing the ears of com from the straw. We know 
that amongst the inhabitants of the Swiss Lake-dweUings some who 
were unacquainted with the use of metals had already several domesti- 
cated animals, and cultivated more than one kind of cereal, and it is not 
unfair to infer that the same was the case in Britain. It has already 
been suggested that some serrated flint flakes may have served for 
the armature of another form of sickle, like that in use in 'Egypt at an 
earlj' period. 

The analogy in form between these flint blades and those of the 
bronze reaping-hooks occasionally found in Britain is striking, when 
we leave the sockets by which the latter were secured to their handles 
out of view. These also have usually the outer edge sharp as well as 
the inner, but for what purpose I cannot say. 

This seems a fitting place to say a few words with regard to some 

' Cotiff. Preh. Moscoti, 1892, ii. p. 243. 

2 L' Anthrop., vol. vi., 1893, p. 12. De Baye, "C. K. du neuv. Congres russe 
d'Arch.," 1893, p. 54. 



RIPPLE- M ARK KD EGYPTIAN BLADES. 859 

Egyptian flint knives, for the knowledge of \rhicli we are mainly in- 
debted to Prof. Flinders Petrie. and the workmanship of which is 
absolutely unrivalled. They are of two kinds, both presenting an 
outline curved on one or both sides. For the one kind a flake from 8 
to 9 inches long of triangular section with a thick back and sharp edge 
has been taken ; the back has been most carefully retouched and left 
slightly convex ; the ridge of the flake has been wrought so as to 
show a crinkled line like that on the handles of some Danish daggers, 
the edge has been more or less re-worked, producing a bold convex 
sweep, and what was originally the inner face of the flake has 
first been delicately fluted by cross-flaking and then still more finely 
retouched along both the back and the edge. 

For the other kind the whole surface of the original flake has. as 
Mr. Spurrell ^ has pointed out. been carefully ground, one face being 
made rather more convex that the other. The flatter face has been left 
almost imtouched. but one side has been trimmed by flaking at the 
edge into almost a straight or slightly concave line : the other side is 
boldly curved, the general outline having been produced dm-ing the 
grinding process. The more convex face has been fluted or ••ripple- 
marked "' by cross-flaking from either side in the most skilful manner, 
the whole of the original polished surface being sometimes removed. 
The projections at the butt-end between the successive flakes have next 
been levelled down by secondary chipping, and finally the curved edge 
has been minutely serrated, there being about 36 teeth to the inch. 
These blades are from 7 to 9^ inches in length, and occasionally made 
of beautiful chalcedonic flint. They are attributed by Professor Flinders 
Petrie- to a period between the fourth and the twelfth Dynasty, but 
may possibly be of even earlier date. As already mentioned, some 
beautiful leaf-shaped lance-heads with finely-serrated edges have 
been made in the same manner. 

One of the fluted knives in the Ghizeh Museum^ is hafted for a 
distance of about 4 inches in a thin plate of gold, engraved on the 
one face with well-drawn figures of animals, and on the other with 
floral ornaments arranged between two serpents. The plates of gold 
are not soldered together, but se^vn one to the other with gold wire. 

^ Arch. Journ.. voL liii. (IS96' p. 46. See also ZeiUeh. f. Ethn., vol. xx.. 1SS3. 
p. (•209\ (344' ; vol. xxiii., 1S91. (p. 474}, pi. vii. viii. 

- " Naquada and Ballad. '" 1S96, p. 60. 

^ J. De Morgan. '• Reclierches sur les Originea de I'Egypte. L'age de la pierre 
et Les metanx," 1S96, p. 11.5. 



360 



CHAPTER XVI. 

JA^^ELIN A>fD ARROW HEADS. 

I NOW come to a series of flint weapons, small but varying in size, 
whicli though presenting a general resemblance in character to 
each other, are still susceptible of being classified under several 
types. The similarity is probably due to their having been all 
intended for the same purpose — that of piercing the skin, whether 
of enemies in war, or of animals in the chase ; the differences may 
result from some of the weapons hiaving served for warlike and 
others for hunting purposes. The variation in size probably arises 
from some of them having tipped spears to be held in the hand 
for close encounters, while others may have been attached to 
lighter shafts, and formed javelins to be thrown at objects at 
some distance ; and the majority of the smaller kind were, beyond 
doubt, the heads of arrows discharged from bows. 

The possibly successive ideas of pointing a stake as a weapon of 
offence, of hardening the point by means of fire, and of substi- 
tuting a still harder point made of horn, bone, or stone, must have 
occurred to mankind at the earliest period of its history, and 
weapons of one or all of these kinds are to be found among savage 
tribes in all parts of the world. The discovery of the bow, as a 
means of propelling javelins on a small scale to a distance, seems 
to belong to a rather higher grade of culture, and its use is not 
universal among modern savages. The use of the bow and arrow 
was totally unknown to the aborigines of Australia,^ and even the 
Maories ^ of New Zealand — who were by no means in the lowest 
stage of civilization — had, when first discovered, no bows and 
arrows, nor even slings ; in fact, no missile weapon except the 
lance, which was thrown by hand. 

In Europe, however, the use of the bow seems to date back to a 

1 Trans. Ethn. Soc, N. S., vol. iii. p. 266. 

^ See Lubbock, " Preh. Times," 4th ed., p. 478. 



thp:ir earliest occurrence. 361 

very remote period, as in some of the cave-deposits of the Reindeer 
Period of the South of France, what appear to be undoubtedly 
arrow-heads are found. In other caves, possibly, though not cer- 
tainly, inhabited at a somewhat later period, such arrow-heads are 
absent, though what may be regarded as harpoon-heads of bone 
occur ; and in the River Gravel deposits, nothing that can 
positively be said to be an arrow-head has as yet been found, 
though it is barely possible that some of the pointed flakes may 
have served to tip arrows. 

The Greek myth ^ that bows and arrows were invented by 
Scythes, the son of Jove, or by Pcrses, the son of Perseus, though 
pointing to an extreme antiquity for the invention, not improbably 
embodies a tradition of the skill in archery of the ancient Scythians 
and Persians.^ 

The simplest form of stone-pointed spear or lance at present 
in use among savages, consists of a long sharp flake of obsidian, 
or some silicious stone, attached to a shaft, like that shown in 
Fig. 195 ; and arrows, tipped, with smaller flakes, having but little 
secondary working at the sides, beyond what was necessary to 
complete the point, and to form a small tang for insertion into the 
shaft, may also be seen in Ethnological collections. Between 
these almost simple flakes and skilfully and symmetrically- chipped 
lance and arrow heads, all the intermediate stages may be traced 
among weapons still, or until quite recently, in use among savages; 
as well as among those which once served to point the weapons of 
the early occupants of this country. 

It is indeed probable that besides these stone-tipped weapons, 
other seemingly less efiective, but actually more deadly missiles, 
were in use among them in the form of poisoned arrows ; but as 
these at the present day are usually tipped with hard wood or bone, 
as better adapted than stone for retaining the poison, the same was 
probably the case in ancient times ; and while those of wood have 
perished, those of bone, if foimd, have not as yet been recognized. 
Such arrow-heads of bone were also in use without being poisoned, 
as, for instance, among the Finns, or Fenni, as Tacitus calls them, 
whose principal weapons were, for want of iron, bone-pointed 
arrows.^ The use of poisoned arrows had, among the Greeks and 
Romans, long ceased in classical times,^ and is always represented 

' Pliny, "Xat. Hist.," Ub. vii. cap. 56. 

- Herodotus, lib. iv. cap. 132; v. 49 ; vii. 61. 

' " Sola in sagittis spes, quas inopia fcni ossibua asperant." — " Germ.," cap. 46. 

' Smith's "'Diet, of Ant." a. v., Sagitta. 



362 



JAVELIN AND ARRQ-VV HEADS. [cHAP. XVI. 



by authors, from the time of Homer downwards, as a characteristic 
of barbarous nations ; and yet, in our own language, a word in 
common use survives as a memorial of this barbarous custom 
having been practised by the Greeks probably long before the 
days of Homer. For from ro^ou a bow (or occasionally an arrow ^), 
was derived to^ikov — toxiaim — the poison for arrows ; a term which 
gradually included all poisons, even those of the milder form, 
such as alcohol, the too free use of which results in that form of 
poisoning still known among us as intoxication. 

One of the first to mention the discovery of flint arrow-heads in 
Britain was Dr. Plot, who, in his " Xatural History of Stafford- 
shire" 2 (1686), speaking of the use of iron by " the Britains " in 
Caesar's time, observes : " we have reason to believe that, for the 
most part at lest, they sharpen'd their warlike instruments rather 
with stones than metall, especiall in the more northerly and inland 
countries, where they sometimes meet with flints in shape of arrow- 
heads, whereof I had one sent me by the learned and ingenious 
Charles Cotton, Esq., found not far from his pleasant mansion at 
Beresford, exactly in the form of a bearded arrow, jagg'd at each 
side, with a larger stemm in the middle, whereby I suppose it 
was fixt to the wood." " These they find in Scotland in much 
greater plenty, especially in the prefectury of Aberdeen, which, as 
the learned S"" Robert SibbaldMn forms us, they there call EK- 
arrows — Lamia nwi Sa git fas — imagining they drop from the clouds, 
not being to be found upon a diligent search, but now and then 
by chance in the high beaten roads." "Kor did the Britans 
only head their arrows with flint, but also their mafarfs or British 
darts, which were thrown by those that fought in essedis, whereof 
I guess this is one I had given me, found near Leek, by my worthy 
friend Mr, Thomas Gent, curiously jagg'd at the edges with such- 
like teeth as a sickle, and otherwise wrought upon the flat, by 
which we may conclude, not only that these arrow and spear-heads 
are all artificial, whatever is pretended, but also that they had 
anciently some way of working of flints by the toole, which mav 
be seen by the marks, as well as they had of the Egyptian por- 
phyry ; which, as the aforesaid worthy Gent. Sir Robert Sibbald. 
thinks, they learned of the Romans, who, as Aldrovandus * assures 
us, anciently used such weapons made of stones. However, still, 

^ Homer, " I].," viii. 296. '^ P. ,396. " 

3 " Prod. Nat. Hist. Scotia?," pt. 2, lib. iv. c. yii. 
* "Mus. Met.," lib. iv. c. xvii. 



THOUGHT TO FAIJ, FROM THE HEAVENS. 3G3 

it not being lience deducible, but they may be British, they are not 
ill-placed here, whatever original they have had from either 
nation." 

Plot gives engravings both of a stemmed and barbed arrow-head, 
and of a leaf-shaped lance-head or knife. 

Sir llobert Sibbald, in his^ " Scotia Illustrata," 1684, expresses 
his belief that the flint arrow-heads are artificial, lie possessed 
two, one like the head of a lance and the other like the end of an 
anchor, or tanged and barbed. He also relates the account given 
him by the Laird of Straloch, in Aberdeenshire, whicb ho had 
passed on to the historian of Staffordshire. 

It will be observed that Plot alludes to different opinions 
regarding these instruments, it being a matter in dispute whether 
they were artificial, natural, or partly natural ; in the same man- 
ner as at the time when the flint implements were first discovered 
in the Ptiver Gravels doubts were expressed by some as to their 
artificial origin, while others regarded them as fossils of natural 
formation ; and others again carried their unconscious Manichaeism 
so far as to ascribe all fossils, and we may presume these included, 
to diabolical agency. The old Danish collector, Olaf Worm, 
speaks of a flint of a dark colour^ exhibiting the form of a spear- 
head with such accuracy that it may bo doubted whether it is a 
work of art or of nature, and of others like daggers, which, as 
being found in ancient grave-hills, are regarded by some as the 
arms of an early people ; while others doubt whether they are the 
work of art or nature ; and others consider them to be thunderbolts. 
One reason in former times for doubting the artificial origin of 
the most highly finished instruments was ignorance of how such 
objects could have been chipped out. After describing one of the 
beautiful Danish daggers, with the delicately " ripple-marked" 
blade and the square ornamented handle. Worm remarks — " si 
silex ullo modo arte foret tractabilis, potius Arte quam Natura 
elaboratum esse hoc corpus jurarcs."^ 

Aldrovandus ^ engraves a flint arrow-head as a Glossopetra — 
a stone which, according to Pliny,^ " resembleth a man's tongue, 
and groweth not upon the ground, but in the eclipse of the moone 
falleth from heaven," and which " is thought by the magicians to 
be verie necessarie for those that court faire women." 

But perhaps one of the most curious of these early notices of flint 

1 P. 49. - "Mus. Wormiaiium " (1G.5.')), p. 39. » L. e. 85. 

♦ " Mus. Met.," p. G04. ' " Nat. Hist.," xxxvii. c. 10. 



364 JAVELIN AND ARROW HEADS. [cHAP. XVI. 

arrow-heads is that given in the " Catalogue and Description of 
the Natural and Artificial Rarities belonging to the Royal Society 
and preserved at Gresham College," ^ made by Nehemiah Grew. 
M.D., F.R.S. In Part III., Chap. V., Of Regular Stone.s, Dr. 
Grew speaks of " The flat Bolthead — Anchorites. Of affinity with 
that well described by Wormius ^ with the title of Silex renabiili 
ferreum ciispidem ejcade referens. By Moscardo^ with that of 
Pietre Ceraunie ; who also figures it with three or four varieties. 
This like those of a perfect Flint and semiperspicuous. 'Tis like- 
wise, in the same manner, pointed, like a Spcer, having at the 
other end, like those of Moscardo, a short handle. But, moreover, 
hath this peculiar, that 'tis pointed or spiked also backward on 
both sides of the Handle, with some resemblance to an Anchor or 
the head of a Bearded Dart, from whence I have named it. 'Tis 
likewise tooth'd on the edges, and the sides as it were wrought 
with a kind of undidated sculpture, as those before mentioned. 
Another different from the former, in that it is longer, hath a 
deeper indenture, but no handle. Both of them strike fire like 
other ffiiifs." There is a representation given of this Anchorites, 
which shows it to have been a common barbed arrow-head with a 
central stem. 

Moscardo's ^ figures which are here cited represent for the most 
part tanged arrow-heads. He says that Bonardo relates that they 
fall from the clouds, and that those who carry them cannot be 
drowned or struck by lightning. They produce, moreover, pleasant 
dreams. 

Mention has already been made of the superstition attaching to 
flint arrow-heads in Scotland, where they were popularly regarded 
as the missiles of Elves. In speaking of them Dr. Stuart ^ quotes 
Robert Gordon of Straloch, the well-known Scottish geographer, 
who wrote about 1661. After giving some details concerning elf- 
darts, this writer says that these wonderful stones are sometimes 
found in the fields and in public and beaten roads, but never 
by searching for them ; to-day, perhaps one will be found where 
yesterday nothing could be seen, and in the afternoon in places 
where before noon there was none, and this most frequently under 

' London, 1681. - <'Mug.," lib. i.. sect. 3, c. xiii. 

•' "Mu8. Mo.sc," lib. ii. c. 1. 

* Mu8. Mosc. (1672), p. 148. See Mat., vol. xi. p. 1. 

' Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. iv. p. 66. In the T/ieatriim Scotia of Blaeuw's 
" Atlas," is a plate of arrow-bearls found in Aberdeenshire. This has been pointed 
out to me by the late Dr. J. Hill Burton. See his " Hist, of Scot.," vol. i. p. 136 n. 



SUPEK:>T1T10NS ATTACHING TO THEM. 



365 




clear skies and on summer daj^s. He then gives instances related 
to him by a man and a woman of credit, each of whom while riding 
found an arrow-head in their clothes in this unexpected way. 
Mr. F. C. Lukis, F.S.A./ draws a distinction between the elf-shot 
or elf-arrow and the elf-dart, the latter being of larger dimensions 
and leaf-shaped. He gives an engraving of one which has been 
mounted in a silver frame and worn as a charm. The cut is here 
reproduced, as Fig. 271. The 
initials at the back are probably 
those of the owner, who mounted 
the amulet in silver, and of his 
wife. It was worn by an old 
Scottish lady for half a century. 
Others thus mounted were ex- 
hibited in the Museum of the 
Archaeological Institute at Edin- 
burgh in 1856.^ 

Another arrow-head, also thus 
mounted, is engraved by Douglas,^ 
but in this instance it was found in Ireland, where " the peasants 
call them elf-arrows, and frequently set them in silver, and wear 
them on their necks as amulets against the aithadh or elf-shot. 
Others are engraved in the Philosophical Transactions^ and in 
Gough's " Camden's Britannia."^ Sir W. TVilde^ informs us that 
in the North of Ireland, when cattle are sick and the cattle doctor 
or fairy doctor is sent for, he often says that the beast has been 
elf-shot, or stricken by fairy or elfin darts, and by some legerde- 
main contrives to find in its skin one or more poiso'ned weapons, 
which, with some coins, are then placed in the water which is given 
the animal to drink, and a cure is said to be effected. The Rev. 
Dr. Buick,^ in an article on Irish flint arrow-heads, has given 
some particulars as to their use in curing cattle that are bewitched, 
and the Folklore Society ® has published some details as to the 
beliefs still existing with regard to fairy darts. The same view 
of disease being caused by weapons shot by fairies at cattle, and 



Fig. 271.— Elf-Shot. 



- " Cat.," pp. 8 and 127. 
See Vallancey, " Coll. de Keb. Hibem. 



' Reliquary, vol. viii. p. 207. 

•' " Nsenia," pi. xxxiii. 6, p. 1.34. 
N. xiii. pi. xi. 

* Pt. iv. pi. iv. fig. 11. 

" "Cat. Mus. R. I. A.." p. 10. 
and xxii. p. 31G. 

' Jour». R. S. A. of Irel., oth S., vol. v. p. Gl. 

•* Folklore Record, vol. iv. p. 112. Joimi., vol. ii. p. 2G0. See also "Folklore of 
the Northern Counties," p. 18.3. 



5 Vol. iv. p. 232, pi. xviii. 
See also Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xxi. 



p. 323, 



366 JATELIN AND ARROW HEADS. [CHAP. X\a. 

mucli the same method of cure, prevailed, and indeed in places 
even now prevails, in Scotland.^ 

The late Dr. J. Hill Burton informed me that it is still an 
article of faith that eK-bolts after finding should not be exposed 
to the sun, or they are liable to be recovered by the fairies, who 
then work mischief with them. 

Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt has recorded a similar elf-arrow super- 
stition^ as obtaining in Derbyshire, where flint arrow and spear 
heads are by some regarded as fairy darts, and supposed to have 
been used by the fairies in injuring and wounding cattle. It was 
with reference to discoveries near Buxton, in that county, that 
Stukeley wrote — " Little flint arrow-heads of the ancient Britons, 
called elf s'- arrows, are frequently ploughed up here."^ 

The late Sir Daniel "Wilson^ gives many interesting particulars 
regarding the elf-bolt, elf-shot, or elfin-arrow, which bears the 
synonymous Gaelic name of Sciat-hee, and cites from Pitcairn's 
" Criminal Trials," the description of a cavern where the arch- 
fiend carries on the manufacture of elf-arrows with the help of his 
attendant imps, who rough-hewed them for him to finish. He also 
mentions the passage in a letter from Dr. Hickes' to Pepys, 
recording that my Lord Tarbut, or some other lord, did produce 
one of those elf-arrows which one of his tenants or neighbours took 
out of the heart of one of his cattle that died or an usual death 
(sic). Dr. Hickes had another strange story, but very well attested, 
of an elf- arrow that was shot at a venerable Irish bishop by an 
evil spirit, in a terrible noise louder than thunder, which shaked 
the house where the bishop was. 

Similar superstitions prevailed among the Scandinavian^ nations, 
by whom a peculiar virtue was supposed to be inherent in flint 
arrow-heads, which was not to be found in those of metal. 

The fact, already mentioned, of arrow-heads of flint being 
appended to Etruscan^ necklaces of gold, apparently as a sort of 
charm, seems to show that a belief in the supernatural origin of 
these weapons, and their consequent miraculous powers, was of 

^ Pennant's " Tovir," vol. i. p. 115. " Stat. Accountof Scotland," vol. x. p. 15 : 
xxi. 148. Collins' " Ode on Pop. Superst. of the Highlands." " Allan Ramsay's 
Poems," ed. 1721, p. 224. Brand's "Pop. Ant.," 1841, vol. ii. p. 285. 

- Reliqitary, vol. viii. p. 207. 

3 " Itin. Cnr.," (ed. 1776), vol. ii. p. 28. 

* " Preh. Ann. of Scot.," vol. i. p. 178, et seqq. 

* Pepys' " Diary and Cor." (ed. 1849), vol. v. p. 366. 

* See Nilfison's "Stone Age," p. 197. Wilson's "Preh. Ann. of Scot.," vol. i. 
p. 180. 

' Mat., vol. li. p. 540. 



WORN AS AMULETS. 367 

very ancient date. It has still survived in Italy/ where the 
peasants keep flint arrow-heads to preserve their houses from 
lightning, believing that the lightning comes down to strike with 
a similar stone — a superstition which Professor Gastaldi also found 
prevalent in Piedmont. In some instances they are carried on 
the person as preservatives against lightning, and in parts of the 
Abruzzo ^ they are known as liiigae di S. Paolo, and the country- 
man who finds one devoutly kneels down, picks it up with his own 
tongue, and jealously preserves it as a most potent amulet. In 
the Foresi Collection ^ at the Paris Exhibition were some arrow- 
heads mounted in silver as amulets, like those in Scotland, but 
brought from the Isle of Elba. Another has been engraved by 
Dr. C. Rosa." 

M. Cartailhac^ has published an interesting pamphlet on such 
superstitions, and Professor Bellucci has also dilated upon them. 
They are abundant in the neighbourhood of Perugia.^ 

It is a curious circumstance, that necklaces formed of cornelian 
beads, much of the shape of stemmed arrow-heads, with the per- 
foration through the central tang, are worn by the Arabs of 
Northern Africa at the present day, being regarded, as I was 
informed by the Rev. J. Greville Chester, as good for the blood. 
Similar charms are also worn in Turkey. I have a necklace of 
fifteen such arrow-head-like beads, with a central amulet, which 
was purchased by my son in a shop at Kostainicza,' in Turkish 
Croatia, Among the Zunis*^ of New Mexico, stone arrow-heads 
are frequently attached to figures of animals so as to form charms 
or fetishes. 

Enough, however, has been said with regard to the superstitions 
attaching to these arrow-heads of stone ; the existence of such a 
belief in their supernatural origin, dating, as it seems to do, to a 
comparatively remote period, goes to prove that even in the days 
when the belief originated, the use of stone arrow-heads was not 
known, nor was there any tradition extant of a people whose 
weapons they had been. And yet it is probable that of all the 

' Gastaldi, "Lake Habitations of Northern and Central Italy," Chambers's 
transl., p. 6. 

- Nicolucci, " Di Alcune Armi ed Utensili in Pietra," 1863, p. 2. 

* Mortillet, Mat., vol. iii. p. 319. 

* Archivio per V Antr apologia, vol. i. pi. iv. 8. 

* " L'age de Pierre dans les Souvenirs et superstitions populaires," Paris, 1877. 
« Bull, di Palein. It., 1876, pi. iv. 7. 

' A. J. Evans, "Bosniaand Herzegovina," 1876, p. 289 ; 1877, p. 291. 
^ 2nd Ann. Rep. of Bur. of Ethn., 1880—1. Mat., 3rd S., ii., 1886, p. 532. 



368 JAVELIN AND AKROW HEADS. [CHAP. XVI. 

instruments made of stone, arrow-heads would be among the last 
to drop out of use, being both well adapted for the pui"pose they 
served, and at the same time formed of a material so abundant, 
that with weapons so liable to be lost as arrows, it would be pre- 
ferred to metal, at a time when this was scarce and costly. In this 
country, at all events, the extreme scarcity of bronze arrow-heads 
is remarkable, while we know from interments that flint arrow- 
heads were in common use by those who employed bronze for 
other weapons or implements. There appears to be some doubt 
as to whether the arrow-heads, or rather the flakes of black flint or 
obsidian wkich have been found in considerable numbers associated 
with bronze arrow-heads on the field of 3Iarathon, were made in 
Greece, or whether they were not rather in use among some of the 
barbarian allies of the Persian King. M. Lenormant ^ is clearly of 
the opinion that they are not of Greek origin,^ but this is contested 
by others, and probably with reason. Whatever their origin, there 
is a strong argument against stone arrow-heads ha'^'ing been in 
use among the Greeks at so late a period as the battle of Marathon, 
B.C. 490, in the fact that Herodotus,^ writing but shortly after- 
wards, records, as an exceptional case, that in the army of Xerxes, 
circa B.C. 480, the arrows of some of the -I^thiopian contingent 
were tipped with stone, while those of some Indian nations were 
even pointed with iron. So early as the days of Homer the arrow- 
heads of the Greeks were of bronze, and had the three longitudinal 
ribs upon them, like those in that metal found at Marathon, for 
he speaks of the ■^aXfctjpe olotov* and applies to it the epithet 

Even among such rude tribes as the Massagetas and Scythians, 
the arrow-heads, in the days of Herodotus, were of bronze ; as he 
records an ingenious method adopted by one Ariantas,^ a king of 
the Scythians, to take a census of his people by levj-ing an arrow- 
head from each, all of which were afterwards cast into an enor- 
mous bronze vessel. 

Besides the Ethiopians there was another nation which made 
use of stone-pointed arrows in Africa, as is proved by the arrows 
from Eg^-ptian tombs, of which specimens are preserved in several 
of our museums. The head, which is of flint, differs however from 

' Rev. Arch.f vol. iv. p. 145. Leake, " Demi of Attica," p. 100. Dodwell's 
"Class. Tour," vol. ii. p. 159. Arch. Journ., vol. vii. p. 86. 
- See Smith's '• Geog. Diet.," vol. ii. p. 268. 
2 Lib. \-ii. cap. 69. * "II.."' xiii. 650. 

5 "D.," V. 393. « IV. 81. 



AN EGYPTIAN ARROW. 369 

all the ordinary forms, inasmuch as it is chisel-shaped rather than 
pointed, and in form much resembles a small gun-flint. The tip 
of one of these, secured to the shaft by bitumen, is shown in 
Fig. 272. The original is in the British Museum. In my own 
collection are some specimens of such arrows. Their total length 
is about 35 inches and the shafts for about two-thirds of their 
length arc made of reed, the remainder towards the point being 
of wood. Near the notch for the string are distinct traces of there 
having been a feather on either side, in the same plane as the 
notch. It is probable that arrow-heads of similar character may 




Fig. 272.— Egypt. ] 

have been in use in Britain, though they have hitherto almost 
escaped observation, owing to the extreme simplicity of their 
form. To these I shall subsequently recur. 

Some of the Egyptian arrows ^ have supplemental flakes at the 
sides, so as practically to make the edge of the arrow-head wider. 

In October, 1 894, the Ghizeh Museum acquired from a Sixth 
Dynasty tomb at Assiut, two squadrons of soldiers, each of forty 
figures carved in wood. The figures of one set, presumed to be 
Egyptians, have a brown complexion and are armed with bronze- 
tipped spears and with shields. The figures are about 13 inches 
high. The other group is shorter, and the soldiers are black- 
skinned and armed with bow and arrows only ; each has a bow in 
his left hand, and in his right four arrows with chisel-shaped 
heads of flint.^ 

The better-known forms of arrow-heads which occur in Britain 
may be classed as the leaf-shaped, the lozenge-shaped, the tanged 
or stemmed, and the triangular, each presenting several varieties. 
The arrow-heads of the third class are in this country usually 
barbed ; those of the fourth but rarely. 

Whether the forms were successively developed in this order is a 
question difficult of solution ; but in an ingenious paper by Mr. W. 
0. Little, of Liberton, published early in this century, being "An 
Inquiry into the Expedients used by the Scotts before the Discovery of 
Metals,"^ the lozenge-shaped are regarded as the earliest ; next, those 

' See Do Morgan, op. cit. p. 121. ^ Academy, Oct. 27, 1894. 

^ Archccologia Srotica, vol. i. p. 389. 

1? B 



370 JAVELIN AND ARROW HEADS. ' [cHAP. XVI. 

barbed -with two witters/ but no middle tang ; and last, the tanged. 
The same author argues from analogy that the ancients could extend 
this flint manufacture to other purposes, ' ' as the same ingenuity which 
formed the head of an arrow could also produce a knife, a saw, and a 
piercer." 

Colonel A. Lane-Fox, now General Pitt Elvers, in his second lecture 
on "Primitive Warfare,"'* arranges the forms of arrow-heads in the 
same manner as I have here adopted, and shows that the transition from 
one form to the other is easy and natural. There are, indeed, some 
arrow-heads of which it would be impossible to say whether they were 
leaf-shaped or lozenge-shaped, or whether they were lozenge-shaped or 
tanged. 

Sir "William Wilde regards the triangular as the primary form, and 
the leaf-shaped and lozenge-shaped as the last. 

Mr. W. J. Knowles' has suggested a somewhat different classification, 
but it seems unnecessary to alter the arrangement here adopted. He 
does not enter into the question of the development of the forms. An 
exhaustive paper on Irish flint arrow-heads, by the Rev. Dr. Buick,* 
may be usefully consulted. 

Whatever may have been the order of the development of the forms, 
it would, in my opinion, be unwarrantable to attempt any chrono- 
logical arrangement founded upon mere form, as there is little doubt 
of the whole of these varieties having been in use in one and the same 
district at the same time, the shape being to some extent adapted to 
the flake of flint from which the arrow-heads were made, and to some 
extent to the purposes which the arrows were to serve. The arrow- 
heads in use among the North American Indians,* when intended for 
hunting, were so contrived that they could be drawn out of the wound, 
but those destined for war were formed and attached to the shaft in 
such a manner, that when it was attempted to pull out the arrow, its 
head became detached, and remained in the wound. The poisoned 
arrows of the Bushmen of South Africa*^ are in like manner made 
with triangular heads of iron, which become detached in the body if 
an attempt is made to withdraw the arrow from the wound that it has 
caused. 

I have already remarked on the difl&culty of distinguishing between 
javelin and arrow heads ; but, from their size, I think that the late Dr. 
Thurnam was justified in regarding those engi'aved as Figs. 273, 274, 
275, as heads of javelins ; and they may therefore be taken first in 
order. Two of them have already been engraved.' Their beautifullj- 
worked surfaces had, however, hardly had justice done them, and, by 

1 This word, still in use ia Scotland for the barbs of a fishing-spear or hook, is a 
good old English term derived from the Saxon pi^eji. Withther-hooked = 
barbed : — 

" This dragonn hadde a long taile 
That was withther-hooked saun faile." 

".iirthour and Merlin," p. 210. 
HalliweU, " Diet, of Arch, and Prov. "Words," s. v. 

* Journ. R. U. Serv. Inst. 

' Journ. AntJt. Inst., vol. vi. p. 482 

* Journ. E. S. A. of Irel., oth S., vol. v. p. 41. 
= Schoolcraft, " Ind. Tribes," vol. i. p. 212. 

« Wood's "Nat. Hist, of Man," vol. i. p. 284. 
' Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. ii. p. 429. 



JAVELIN HEADS. 



371 



the kindness of Dr. Thurnam, I was able to have them engi'aved afresh 
full size. They were found in 1864, in company with another almost 
identical in form with the middle figure, in an oval barrow on Winter- 
bourn Stoke Down, about a mile and a half north-west of Stonehenge, 
close to the head of a contracted skeleton. They are most skilfully 
chipped on both faces, which are equally convex, and they are not more 
than a quarter of an inch in thickness. Three are leaf-shaped, and one 
lozenge-shaped, and this latter, though larger, is thinner and more 
delicate. They have acquired a milky, porcellanous surface while lying 
in the earth. They are all four now in the British Museum. As has 




Fig. 273. 



Fig. 274. 
Winterboum Stoke. 



Fig. 275. 



been remarked by Dr. Thurnam, objects of this description have 
rarely been found in barrows. 

The two javelin-lieads, if such they be, found by Mr. J. R. Mortimer 
in the Calais Wold barrow, near Pocklington, Yorkshire,' are lozenge- 
shaped and much more acutely pointed, and were accompanied by two 
lozenge-shaped arrow-heads. By the kindness of the late Mr. Llewellynn 
Jewitt they are all four here reproduced as Figs. 27(5 to 279. A similar 
javeHn-head to Fig. 277, 2 J inches long, now in the British Museum, 
was found by the late Lord Londesborough in a barrow on Seamer 

1 Troc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 324. Beliquary, vol. vi. p. 185. 
H H 2 



372 



JAVELIN AND ARROW HEADS. 



[chap, XVI. 



Moor, near Scarborough.' A fine lozenge-shaped javelin-head (5 
inches) was found with arrow-heads, scrapers, and knives, near Long- 
oliffe,- Derbyshire, and some deHcate arrow-heads, broken, at Ilar- 
borough Eocks,^ in the same county. Javelin-heads of much the same 
form as those from Winterbourn Stoke and Calais Wold occur not 
unfrequently in Ireland, but are rarely quite so delicately chipped. 
Lozenge-shaped arrow-heads are recorded from a cairn at Unstan,* 
Orkney, and from the Cidbin Sands. ^ The class haA-ing both faces 
polished, though still only chipped at the edges, like "Wilde's^ Fig. 27, 
has not, except in Portugal, as yet occurred out of Ireland. A few of 




Fig. 277. 
Calais Wold Barrow. 



Fig. 278. 



Fig. 279. 



these may have served as knives or daggers, as they are intentionally 
rounded by grinding at the more tapered end, which at first .sight appears 
to have been intended for the point and not for the handle. The long 
lozenge-shaped form is found in the Government of ^T.adimir, Russia.' 
Large lozenge-shaped lance-heads were occasionally in use among 
the North American Indians ; "* but the more usual form is a long 
blade, notched at the base to receive the ligature which binds it to 
the shaft. 



' Arch. Assoc. Joiirn., vol. iv. p. 103. - Reliq., N. S., vol. iii. pi. iv. 8. 
3 Op. cit., p. 224. * Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xix. 

* P. .5'. S. A., vol. XXV. p. 499. « ggg Wakeman, "Arch. Hib.," 

' Cong. Frih. Mo.scou, 1892, vol. ii. p. 240. 
'' Schoolcraft, "Ind. Tribes," vol. i. pi. xxvi. 4. 



350. 
270. 



LEAF-SHAPED ARROW-HEADS. 



373 



Of leaf-shaped arrow-heads, which form the first class now to be 
described, there are several minor varieties, both in outline and 
section, some being longer in proportion to their breadth than 
others, rounder or more pointed at the base, thicker or thinner, or 
more carefully chipped on one face than the other. A few typical 
examples are given full size in the annexed woodcuts. The originals 
are all in my own collection, unless otherwise specified. 

Fig. 280 is from the neighbourhood of Icklingliam, Suffolk, of flint 
become nearly wliite by weathering, and carefully chipped on both 
faces, one of which is, however, more convex than 
the other. I have a larger but imperfect specimen 
of the same form from Oundle. A nearly similar 
arrow-head, of yellow flint, from Hoxne, Suffolk, 
has been figured.' It was supposed to have occurred 
in the same deposit as that containing large palseo- 
lithic implements and elephant remains ; biit nothing 
certain is known on this point, and from the form 
there can bo no hesitation in assigning it to the 
Neolithic Period. A rather smaller arrow-head, but 
of much the same character, was found at Bradford 
Abbas, Dorset.- Professor Buckman had several leaf- 
shaped arrows from the same neighbourhood. Some 
of them were long and slender, more like Fig. 286. 

In Fig. 281 is shown an arrow-head of rather 
broader proportions, from Gunthorpe, Lincolnshire, 
which has been engraved in the Reliquary,^ whence 
the block is borrowed. I have specimens of the 
same form, delicately chipped on both faces, and 
found near Icklingham and Lakenheath, Suffolk. Occasionally, one face 
of the arrow-heads of this form is left nearly flat. 

Fig. 282 shows a smaller specimen in the extensive Green well Collec- 




Fig. 280.— Icklingham . 





Fig. 281.— Gunthorpe. Fig. 282.— Yorkshire Wolds. 

tion. In this instance, the flake from which the arrow-head was made 
has been but httle retouched on the flat face. It is slightly curved 

> Arch.Journ., vol. xvii. p. 261. ^ Arc/i. Joiini., vol. xxv. p. 156. 

^ Vol. vi. pi. xvi. 6. 



374 



JA^-ELIN AND ARROW HEADS. 



[chap. XVI. 



longitudinally, but probably not to a sufficient extent to affect the 
flight of the arrow. This form is of common occurrence on the York- 
shire ''iVolds, though very variable in its proportions, and also in 
point of symmetry, both as regards outline and similarity of the tsvo 
faces. 
In Fig. 283 is shown another and broader form, from Butterwick, on 





Fi2. 283.— Yorkshire Wolds. 



Fig. 284.— Little Solsbnry Hill. 



the Yorkshire Wolds. It is in the same collection, and is worked on 
both faces. The sides are slightly ogival, so as to produce a sharper 
point 

Occasionally, instead of being sharply pointed, arrow-heads are 
more oval in'form. An instance of this kind is given in Fig. 284, the 
original of which was found by Mr. Francis Galton. F.E.S., on the 
occasion of a visit with me to the camp of Little Solsbury Hill, near 
Bath. It is of flint that has become white with exposure, equally 
convex on the two faces, and rather thick in proportion to its size. I 
have a somewhat similar but broader specimen from the camp of 
Maiden Bower, near Dunstable, and others even more roimded at the 
point, and larger and thinner, from "Willerby Wold, Yorkshire, and 
from Icklingham. I have one Yorkshire specimen, which is almost 





Fig. 265.— Yorkshire "Wolds. 



Fig. 286.— Bridlington. 



circular in form, and bears traces of grinding on one of its faces. 
In the Greenwell Collection are specimens of almost all intermediate 
proportions between an oval like Fig. 284 and a perfect circle. 



LEAF-SHAPED ARROW-HEADS POINTED AT 150TH ENDS. 



375 



More lanceolate forms are shown in Figs. 285 and 286, both from 
Yorkshire. Fig. 285, though worked on both faces, still exhibits por- 
tions of the original surface of the flake from which it was made ; but 
Fig. 286, from Grindale, near Bridlington, is of transparent chalcedonic 
flint, beautifully and symmetrically worked over both faces. This 
elongated form is not of common occurrence. I have a beautiful ex- 
ample, of the same general character, but pointed at either end, found 
near Icklingham, Suffolk. A large 
example of this form, from Derby- 
shire, in the Bateman Collection, 
may have been a javelin-head. 

Other and shorter forms are shown 
in Figs. 287 and 288, the former of 
which has been made from a flat 
flake, the original surface of which 
remains intact on a large portion of 
each face. Fig. 288, on the con- 
trary, is carefully chipped over the whole of both faces, which are 
equally convex. It has a slightly heart-shaped form. 

It will have been observed that in all these specimens the base 
of the arrow-head is much more rounded that the point. This, 
however, is by no means universally the case with the leaf-shaped 
arrow-heads, the bases of which are in some instances almost, if not 
quite, as acute as the points. It is, in fact, sometimes difficult to 
say which of the ends was intended for the point. 

Fig. 289 shows a large arrow-head from Lakenheath, Suffolk, from 




Figs. 287 and 288.— Yorkshire Wolds. 





Tic. 289.— Lakenheath. 



Figs. 290 and 291. —Yorkshire Wolds 




the collection of the late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G-.S. It is equally 
convex on both faces, and almost equally shai-j) at both ends. In the 
Greenwell Collection are similar specimens from Burnt Fen, Cambs. 



'676 



JAVELIN AND ARROW HEADS. 



LCHAl'. XVI. 



Others, of the same character, but of smaller size, are engraved in 
Figs. 290 and 291. Both the originals are from the Yorkshire 
Wolds. 

That sho-wn in Fig. 290 is in the Green-weU Collection. It is thin, 
slio-htly curved longitudinally, and very neatly worked into shape at the 
edo-es. It is a form of not unfrequent occurrence in the Yorkshire 
Wolds, sometimes of larger dimensions, and more roughly chipped, but 
more commonly of smaller size. I have a beautifully-made arrow-head 
of nearly the same size and shape, found at Lakenheath, Suffolk. It is 
not more than one-eighth of an inch in thickness. One of wider 
proportions from Burnt Fen is in the Greenwell Collection. Fig. 291 
is thicker in proportion to its width, more convex on one face than the 
other, and less acutely pointed at the base. 

In Figs. 292 and 293 are shown some more or less unsymmetrical 
varieties of form. Fig. 292 is, towards the point, equally convex on 

each face ; but at the base the flat 
inner face of the original flake has been 
left untouched, so that the edge is like 
that of a "scraper," or of a round- 
nosed chisel. Though the point is, in 
all respects, identical with that of iin- 
doubted arrow-heads, and though I 
have placed it here among them, it is 
possible that that end may, after aU. 
have been intended for insertion in a 
handle, and that it was a small cutting 
tool, and not an arrow-head. 

There can be no doubt of the pui-- 
pose of Fig. 293, which is of white flint debcately chipped, and is 
equally convex on the two faces. On one side the outline is almost 
angular, instead of forming a regular sweep, so that it shows how easy 
is the passage from the leaf-shape to the lozenge form. 

There are often instances like that afforded b}- the 
arrow-head engraved in Fig. 294, where it is hard to 
say under which form a specimen should be placed. 
The original of this figure forms part of the Greenwell 
Collection, and is neatly worked on both faces. I have 
a somewhat broader arrow-head of the same character, 
which I found in the camp of Maiden Bower, near 
Dunstable. General Pitt Elvers found one of the same 
form, and one like Fig. 311, within an earthwork at 
CaUow HiU,' Oxfordshire. Another was found with a 
perforated hammer, a flint flake ground at the edge, 
some scrapers, and other objects, in a cairn in Caith- 
ness.^ One like Fig. 294, but smaller, was found in the Horned Cairn' 
of Get, at Garrj-whin, Caithness. A large specimen from Glenluce* 
has been figured. Another, very thin, found at Urquhart, Elgin, is 
in the Edinburgh Museum. 

It is to arrow-heads of this leaf-shaped form, but approximating 




FiK. 292 and 293.— York-hire Wold>. 




Fig. 234.— York- 
shire Wolds. 



1 Journ. Ethnol. Soc, vol. i. p. 5. 
3 P. S. A. S., vol. ix. p. 246. 



- P. S. A. S., vol. vii. p. 500. 
* P. 5. A. S., vol. xi. p. 586. 




LOZENGE-SHAPED ARROW-HEADS. 377 

closely to the lozenge-shaped, that Dr. Thuruam^ is inclined to 
assign a connection with the class of tumuli known as long 
barrows ; and in support of this view he has cited several cases of 
their discovery in this form of barrow, in which no barbed arrow- 
heads have hitherto been found. Some leaf-shaped arrow-heads 
were found in a long barrow at Walker's Hill, Wilts.^ 

The annexed cut, kindly furnished by the Society of Antiquaries, 
shows an arrow-head from a long barrow near Fyfield, AVilts. It is 
delicately chipped, and weighs only forty-three 
grains. Another, H inches in length, from a long ,^> 

barrow on Alton Down, is of surprising thinness, / \ 

and weighs only tliirty grains. Others, it would 
seem purposely injured at the point, were found in 
the long chambered barrow at Eodmarton, Glouces- 
tershire.'' Others, again, were found by Mr. Bate- 
man in long barrows in Derbyshire and Stafford- 
shire. One of these, from Eingham Low, is 
2^ inches long and 1 inch broad, yet weighs less 
than fort3^-eight grains. In Long Low, AVetton,* ■ . ,.- "^. 

were three such arrow-heads, and many flakes of ' '^ ' 3 

flint. Dr. Tliuruam, in speaking of the leaf-shaped , ■ f 

as the long-barrow type of arrow-head, does not 
restrict it to that form of tujiiukis, but merely v"' 

indicates it as that which is alone found there. '- .^ 

The form indeed occurred elsewhere, thus, one ^^^ 

was found in a bowl-shaped barrow at Ogbourne,' Fig. 29.5.— Fyfieid. 
Wilts. 

The Calais Wold barrow/ already mentioned as having produced 
four lozenge-shaped javehn and arrow heads, is circular, while that on 
Pistle Down, Dorsetshire,' which contained four beautifully-chipped 
arrow-heads of this type, is oblong. 

Leaf-shaped arrow-heads are mentioned as having been found with 
burnt bones in Grub Low, Staffordshire." The same forms, more or less 
carefully chipped, and occasionally almost flat on the face, are fre- 
quently found on the surface in various parts of Scotland,'-' especially 
in the counties of Aberdeen, BanflP, Elgin, and Moray. One not of 
flint, but apparently of quartzite, was found near Glenluce,'" Wigtown- 
shire. Numbers have been found on the Culbin Sands," and at Urqu- 
hart.^- They are comparatively abundant in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, 
and Suffolk, but rarer in the southern counties of England. They 

• Froc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 170. 

- A. C. Smith, "Ants, of N. Wilts," p. 182. 

3 Frov. Sue. Ant., 2nd S., vol. ii. p. 278 ; iii. p. IGS. 

^ Reliquary, vol. v. p. 28. 

'^ Wilts Arch. Mag., vol. xix. p. 71. A. C. Smith's "Ants, of N. Wilts," p. 19/. 

^ Beliquarij, vol. vi. p. 185. 

' Wame's " Celtic Turn, of Dorset," Errata, pp. 1.5 and 27. 

» "Ten Years' Dig.," p. 148. 

9 See Froc. Soc. Ant., 2nd 8., vol. i. p. 20. Arch. Journ., vol. x. p. 362. Froc. 
Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. iii. p. 362 ; iv. 54, 377, 553 ; v. 13, 185; vi. 41, 208, 234 : vu. 
500 ; viii. 10. "' F. S. A. S., vol. xiv. pp. HI, l-^9- 

»' F. S. A. S., vol. XXV. p. 499. '- /'. S. A. S., vol. xix. p. 251. 



378 



JAVELIN AND ARROW HEADS. 



CHAP. XVI. 




Kg. 296.— BriiUington 



297.— Newton Kettoii. 



have been found at Grovehiirst,' near Milton, Kent, and I have picked 
up a specimen near Kit's Coty House. I have seen specimens found 
at Eedhill, near Eeigate ; - near Bournemouth ; at Prince Town, Dart- 
moor ; and near Oundle ; besides the localities alread}' mentioned. 

Typical lozenge-shaped arrow-heads are, in Britain, and, indeed, in 
other countries, rarer tlian the leaf-shaped. That shown in Fig. 296 

has been made from a flat 
;i^ flake, and is nicel}^ chipped 

\ on both faces, though not 

quite straight longitudinally. 
It was found at Xorthdale 
Farm, Grindale, Bridlington. 
A Scottish specimen, from Ur- 
quhart,^ Elginshire, slightly 
smaller, has been figured. 
The original of Fig. 297 forms 
part of the Greenwell Collec- 
tion, and has been made from 
a very thin, transparent flake. 
It is rather less worked on 
the face opposite to that here 
shown. It was found at New- 
ton Ketton, Durham. One 
like Fig. 297 was found on Bull HiU,* Lancashire. A regularly- 
chipped arrow-head of lozenge sliape is said to have been found at 

Cutterl}^ Clump, Wilts ; ^ and I have seen 
a few specimens from Derbyshire. Those 
from the Calais Wold Barrow have already 
been mentioned. 

A diamond-shaped arrow-head was 
found at Cregneesh,'' Isle of Man; 
and another, as well as one of leaf shape, 
within a stone cii'cle near Port Erin.' 
Lozenge-shaped arrow-heads are fre- 
i^uently found in Scotland. 

A more elongated form is shown in 
Figs. 298 and 299, taken from specimens 
found on the Yorkshire Wolds. Both of 
them are neatly chipped on either face, 
and have but little left of the original 
surface of the flakes from which they 
were formed. One of the shorter sides 
of Fig. 299 is somewhat lioUowed, pos- 
sibly to give a slight shoulder, and thus prevent its being driven into 
the shaft. 

This is more evidently the case with the arrow-head represented in 






Figs. 898 and 299.— Yorkshire Wolds. 



' Arch. Cant., vol. xiii. p. 124. 

* Proe. Soc. A)tt., 2nd S., vol. i. p. 74. Arch. Journ. 
•* Froc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xix. p. 251. 

* Tr. Lane, and Chesh. Arch. Soc, vol. iv. p. 306. 
^ Arch. Journ., vol. xviii. p. 75. 

« " Manx Note-book," vol. i. (1885) p. 72. 

' Trans. Biol. Soc, VpooL, vol. viii., 1S94, pi. xii. 



vol. xvii. p. 171. 



STEMMED ARROW-HEADS. 



379 




Fit'- 300. -Yurk- 
shire Wulds. 



Fig. 300, which., like so many others, comes from the "Wolds of York- 
shire. It is made from a slightly curved flake, and is more convex on 
one face than the other, especially at the stem or tang. 

In the collection of Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield, is another York- 
shire arrow-head, which is leaf -shaped, 
but provided with a sliglit tang. 

Leaf-shaped arrow-heads, with a 
decided stem like that of the leaf, 
found in Arabia and Japan, will be 
mentioned at a subsequent page. 

Another of these stemmed but barb- 
less arrow-heads, from the same dis- 
trict, is shown in Fig. 301. It was 
found at Amothei'by, near jSIalton, and 
was given to me by the late Mr. Charles 
^lonkman, of that place. It has been 
made from a flat flake, and has been 
worked into shaj^te bj' a slight amount 
of chipping along the edges, which does not extend over the face. 
There are numerous arrow-heads of the same class, though not of the 
same form, which have been made from flakes of the proper thickness, 
by a little secondary working to give them a point, 
and by slightly trimming the butt-end of the flake. 
They usually approximate to the leaf-shape in form, 
but, as might be expected, vary considerably in size, 
proportions, and the amount of s^-mmetry disi:)layed. 
It seems needless to engrave specimens. 

The weapon point shown in Fig. 302 is so large 
that possibly it may be regarded as that of a javelin, 
and not of an arrow. In was in the collection of 
^Ir. H. Durden, of Blandford, and is now in the 
British Museum. It was found on Iwerne Minster 
Down, Dorsetshire. It is boldly and symmetrically 
chipped, thick in proportion to its breadth, and 
equally convex on both faces ; though distinctly 
stemmed, it can hardly be said to be barbed. It 
much resembles an Italian specimen in the Arsenal 
of Turin.' 

A somewhat more distinctly-barbed arrow-head 
from the Yorkshire AVolds is represented in Fig. 303. 
Its thickness, -i% inch, is great in proportion to its 
size ; the two faces are equally convex, and the stem 
widens out slightly at the base. The same is the 
case with a smaller and thinner arrow-head in my 
collection, of somewhat similar form, found near the 
camp of Maiden Bower, Dunstable. A third, from 
the Yorkshire Wolds, presents the same peculiaritJ^ 
which is still more apparent in an arrow-head from 
a barrow on Seamer Moor, near Scarborough,' if indeed it has been 
correctly figured. 

J Mortillet, Mat., vol. ii. p. 89. 

* Arch. Assoc. Joiirn., vol. iv. p. 103. 




. 302. — Iweme 
ilinster. 



380 



JAVELIX .OfD ARROW HEAD! 



[CHAr. 



XVI. 



A magmficent specimen of much the same type as Fig. 303, hut 
nearly twice as long, has been kindly lent me for engraving by Messrs. 
Mortimer, of Driffield, Yorkshire. It was found in 
the neighbourhood of Fimber, and is shown in 
Fig. 304. It is neatly chipped over both faces, 
which are equally convex, and the stem is carefully 
shaped and of considerable thickness. The edges, 
as is not unfrequently the case, are serrated. 

The fine arrow-head engraved as Fig. 305 shows 
the barbs or ''witters" still more .strongly deve- 
loped. One of them is. however, less pointed than 
the other. From its size, this and others may have 
formed the heads of javelins rather than of arrows, 
though arrow-heads as large are still in use among 
some savage tribes. It was found at Pick Rudge 
Farm,^ Overton, Wilts, in company with the oblong 
implement engraved as Fig. 255. It is now in the 
Museum, the Trustees of which kindly allowed me to 




303.— YorfcMrt 
Wolds. 



Blackmore 
figrure it. 

I have a very fine specimen with even longer barbs, from Ashwell, 
Herts, which is shown in Fig. 305a. 

Fig. 306 represents another unusually large 



specimen, found on 






Fig. 304.— Yorkshire Wolds. 



Tig. 305.— Pick Budge Farm. 



Sherbum "Wold, Yorkshire. It is nicely worked on both faces, and the 
end of the stem or tang has been carefully chipped to a sharj) semi- 
circular edge, well adapted for fixing into the split shaft. One similar 
to it was found on Bull Hill,- Lancashire. Mr. A. C. Savin, of Cromer, 

1 Areh. Joiini., vol. xii. p. 285. " Cat. Mus. Arch. Inst, at Ed.," p. 40. 
- Tram. Lane, and Cfiesh. Arch. Soc., vol. iv. p. 306. 



STEMMED AND UARIiEI) ARKOW-HEADS. 



381 



has a rather smaller arrow-head of this typo, but with the sides more 
curved outwards, like Fig. 313, found near Aylsham. Barbed arrow- 
heads of various forms and sizes are of frequent occurrence in some 









Fig. 305a.— Ashwcll. 



FifT. 30C.— Sherburn Wold. 



parts of the Yorkshire Wolds and Moors, and in parts of Berkshire, 
Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Suffolk and Derbyshire. 

It would be tedious to attempt to exhibit all the different varieties, but 






Fig. 310. 



Fig. 311. 
Yoikshiio Wolds. 



Fig. 312. 



specimens of the more ordinary forms are given in Figs. 307 to 312, from 
originals principally in the Greenwell Collection. As a rule, there is 
but little difference in the convexity of the two faces, though very 



382 JAVELIN AM) ARROW HEADS. [CHAP. XVI. 

frequently one face is decidedly flatter than the other ; and occasion- 
ally the flat face of the original flake has been left almost untouched. 
Fig. 3 1 1 affords an example of this kind, being nearly flat on the face 
not shown, vrhile the other face still retains part of the crust of the 
flint nodule from which the flake was struck. The central stem or 
tang varies much in its proportions to the size of the arrow-head, and 
occasionally forms but an inconsiderable projection, as in Fig. 309, 
making the form approximate to the triangular. Sometimes, as in 
Fig. 312. the ends of the barbs are carefully chipped straight, as is the 
case -with many arrow-heads from the more southern parts of England, 
some of which will shortly be noticed. An arrow-head like Fig. 312 
was fotind near --Vshwell,' Herts. 

Before quitting the arrow-heads of the Yorkshire Wolds, I must 
insert figures of two other specimens illustrative of another form. Of 










Figs. 313 and 314 — Yorkshire "Wolds. 

these, that shown in Fig. 313 was found at Northdale Farm. Grindale, 
Bridlington. It is thick in proportion to its size, and skilf ullj' chipped 
on both faces. The tang is thin and slight. The other arrow-head 
(Fig. 314) is not so thick in proportion. In both, if the sweep of the 
outline were continued past the barbs, it would about meet the ex- 
tremity of the tang, and give a leaf-shaped form ; 
so that it seems probable that this class was made 
by first chipping out the simple leaf-shaped form, 
and then working in a notch on either side to 
produce the tangs and barbs. The same type 
occTU's in Suffolk. An exaggerated example, 
rather Kke Fig. 320 but broader, found near 
leklingham, is shown in Fig. 314a. 

The next specimen that I have selected for 
Fig.siiA.-ickiingham. engraving, Fig. 315, is from another part of the 
country, having been found by myself in 1866 on 
the surface of a field, at the foot of the Chalk escarpment between 
Eddlesborough and Tring, Herts. It can hardly be regarded as un- 
finished, though one of the surfaces is very rough and the outline far 
from symmetrical. It rather shows how rude were some of the appli- 
ances of our savage predecessors in Britain. Cui-iously enough, some 
barbed flint arrow-heads of nearly similar form, and but little more 

1 Trans. Herts Xat. Hut. Sjc, vol. viii., 1S9G, pi. xil. 1. 




STEMMED AND BARHED ARROW-HEADS. 383 

symmetrical (to judge from the engravings), were found in 17G3 at 
Tring Grove, Herts,' with an extended skeleton. They lay between 
the legs, and at the feet were some of the perforated plates of greenish 
stone of the character of Fig. 354. An arrow-head of much the same 
form was found in a barrow near Tenby, '^ with human bones and a part 
of a curioiis ring-shaped ornament, supposed to bo of ivory. The long 
tapering arrow-head shown in Fig. 310 affords a contrast to this broad 
form. Its barbs are unfortimately not quite perfect, but the form 
being uncommon I have engraved it. It was found in Reach Fen, 
Cambridgeshire. A ruder example of the same form as Fig. 316, from 
Bourn Fen, has been figured in Miller and Skertchly's " Fen-land." ^ A 
longer specimen, almost as acutely pointed, and with square-ended 
barbs, found on Lanchester Common,^ Durham, is in the Museum of 






u^...„...... 

Fig. 315.— Eddlcsborough. Fig. 316.— Reach Fen. Fig. 317.— Islcham. 

the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle. I have several others of the 
same type from Suffolk, some with the sides curved slightly inwards. 

The next Figure (317) is illustrative of the extraordinary amount of 
care and skill that was sometimes bestowed on the manufacture of 
objects so liable to be broken or lost in use as arrow-heads. This 
specimen was found at Isleham, Cambridgeshire, and has unfortunately 
lost its central stem, the outline of which I have restored from a nearly 
similar arrow-head found at Icklingham, Suffolk, which has lost both 
its barbs. It is very thin, so much so that its weight is only thirty- 
eight grains, but it is neatly chipped over the whole of both faces. 
Nothing, however, can exceed the beautiful regularity of the minute 
chipping by which the final outline was given to the edges, extremel}' 
small ffakes having been removed at regular intervals so close to each 
other that there are twenty of them in an inch. The inner sides and 
ends of the barbs are worked perfectly straight, the ends forming right 
angles to the sides of the arrow-head, and the inner sides being nearly 
parallel with each other, so that the barbs are somewhat dovetailed in 
foi-m. 

The broader, but almost equally beautiful arrow-head shown in Fig. 

' Arch., vol. \-iii. p. 429, pi. xxx. - Arch. Camb., 2nd S., vol. ii. p. 292. 

3 P. 579. * Arch. Journ., vol. xra. p. GO. 



384 



JAVELIN AND ARROW HEADS. 



[chap. x^^. 



318 was found in front of the face of an unbiu-nt body, in a baiTOw at 
Eudstone, near Bridlington, by Canon Greenwell. I have a beautiful 
specimen of the same type from Dorchester Dykes, Oxon, given to me 





Fig. 318a.— Uuichi'stcr Dykos. 

by the late Mr. Davey, of Wantage. It is shown in Fig 318a. A less 
highly finished example from Chatteris Fen' has been figiu'ed. 

The ends of the barbs thus chipped straight sometimes, as in Fig. 
312, form a straight line. Occasionally, as in the arrow-heads found 
by Sir R. Colt Hoare- in one of the Everley barrows, the base of the 
barbs forms an obtuse angle with the sides of the arrow-head, so that 
there is a sharp point at the inner side of the barbs. In others the end 
forms an acute angle with the sides of the arrow-head, so that the point 
of each barb is at the outer side. A beautiful specimen of this kind is 
shown in Fig. 319. It is one of six, varying in size and somewhat in 





Fig. 319.— Lumbouni Down. 




Fig. 320.— Fovaiit. 



shape, but all beautifully worked, found in barrows on Lambourn 
Down, lierks, and now in the British Museum. In some few instances 
the sides of the arrow-head are rather ogival in form (like the Scotch 



^ Miller and Skertchly, " Fenland," p. 579. 

2 " South Wilts," pi. xxii. p. 183. " Cat. Devizes Mus.," No. 105. 



UNUSUAL FORMS. 



385 



specimen, Fig. 326), which adds to the acuteness of the point. In one 
of this character from a barrow on the Ridge way Hill,' Dorsetshire, 
and others from one of the Woodyates barrows,* the barbs are also 
acutely pointed at the outer side. I have a rather smaller specimen 
than that figured, from Lakenheath, Suffolk, and others from Thetford 
and Reach Fen, with the sides even more ogival than in Fig. 326. 
Others of the same character, found in Derbyshire, are in the Batemau 
Collection. In some of the arrow-heads^ from the Wiltshire barrows 
the barbs are inordinately prolonged beyond the central tang, which is 
very small. Fig. 320, copied from Hoare,* gives one of those from 
a barrow near Fovant, found with a contracted interment, in com- 
pany with a bronze dagger and pin, and some jet ornaments. One of 
similar character was found in a barrow on AVindmill Hill,'^ Avebury, 
but its barbs are not so long. An arrow-head with equally long barbs, 
but with the central tang of the same length as the barbs, was found 
in a dolmen in the Morbihan, and is in the Musee de St. Germain. 

Before proceeding to notice one or two Scottish specimens, I must 
devote a short space to an exceptional form of 
arrow-head shown in Fig. 321. Like so many 
others, it is from the Yorkshire Moors, and was 
probably either barbed on both sides or intended to 
have been so. But one of the barbs having been 
broken off, possibly in the course of manufacture, 
the design has been modified, and the stump, so to 
speak, of the barb, has been rounded off in a neat 
manner by surface-flaking on both faces. The one- 
barbed arrow-head thus resulting presents some 
analogies with several of the triangular form, such 
as Figs. 336 to 338, about to be described. 

Arrow-heads either accidentally lost before they 
were finished, or thrown away as " wasters," in con- 
sequence of having been spoilt in the making, are occasionally found 
Examples, apparently of both classes, are shown in Figs. 322 and 323 
The originals form part of the 
Greenwell Collection. Fig. 322, 
from Sherburn Wold, appears to 
have been completely finished, 
with the exception of the notch 
on one side of the central tang. 
The face not shown in the figure 
exhibits on the left side a con- 
siderable portion of the surface of 
the original flake, the edge of 
which has been neatly trimmed 
along the right side of the face 
here shown. The base has been chipped on both faces to a sharp 
hoUow edge, in which one notch has been neatly worked to form 
the barb and one side of the stem. There is no apparent reason why 




Fig. 321.— Yorkshire 
Moors. 




Figs. .322 and 323.— Yorkshire Wolds. 



" Tlie Barrow Diggers," p. 75, pi. ii. 7. 
"The Barrow Diggers," pi. ii. p. 6. 
lb., pi. ixxiv. "Cat. Devizes Mus.," No. 
" Salisb. Vol. of Arch. Inst.," p. 94. 

C C 



" South Wilts," pi. xiiiv. 



203. 




386 JAVELIX AND ARROW HEADS. [cHAP. XVI. 

the other notch shovild not have been formed, so that the probability- is 
that the arrow-head was lost just before completion. In the other case 
the arrow-head, after being skilfully chipped on both faces into a tri- 
angular form, has had one of the notches worked in its base : but in 
effecting this the tool has been brought so near the centre of the head 
as to leave insufficient material for the tang, and the barb has also 
been broken off. In this condition it appears to have been thrown 
away as a waster. 

"^Tiether these views be correct or not, one deduction seems allow- 
able, viz., that the barbed flint arrow-heads were, as a rule, finished 
at their points, and approximately brought into shape at their base, 
before the notches were worked to form the central tang and develop 
the barbs. 

A curious double-pointed arrow-head from Brompton,^ Yorkshire, 
is, by the kindness of the Society of Antiquaries, sho-mi in Fig. 323a. 
It had probably at first only a single point, and having 
been broken was trimmed into its present shape. Some 
of the "exceptional" forms from Brionio, in the Veronese, 
approximate to this, but with all respect to the Italian 
archaeologists, I agree with Mi'. Thomas "Wilson,- and 
cannot accept these forms as genuine. 

I must now give a few examples of the stemmed and 
barbed flint arrow-heads found in Scotland, which, how- 
Broinpum - evcr, do not essentially differ in character from those of 
the more southern part of Britain. First among them I 
would place a remarkably fine specimen found in the Isle of Skye,^ 
which has already been pubHshed more than once. It is very acutely 
pointed, and expands at the base so as to give strength to the barbs, 
which are slightly curved inwards. From its size it may have served to 
point a javelin rather than an arrow. 

The edges of some of the Scottish arrows are sometimes neatly ser- 
rated. An example of this kind is given in Fig. 325, from a specimen 
in the National Museum at Edinburgh. It is formed of chalcedonic 
flint, and was found with others of ordinary types at Urquhart,^ Elgin. 
The original of Fig. 326 is in the Museum of the Society of Anti- 
quaries of London, and was found in Aberdeenshire. Its sides (like 
those of some in the National Museum at Edinbtrrgh) are slightly 
ogival, so as to give sharpness to the point. Another from TTrquhart,' 
Elgin, has been figiared, as well as one from Ballachulish,^ with 
straighter sides. One from Montblairy, Banff.' is of the same type, 
as is one fi'om Kilmarnock.- The sides of Fig. 327 are curved out- 
wards. This arrow-head was found in Glenlivet, Banff, a district 
where arrow-heads are common, and is in the Greenwell Collection, 
now the property of Dr. Allen Sturge, at Nice. 

1 Froe. Soc. Ant., •2nd S., vol. vi. p. 398. 

- Aisoe. fianq. pour Vavancem. des Sciences, Xancy, 1881, 16 aOiut. 

s Wilson's "Preh. Ann. of Scot.," p. 127 (2nd ed. p. )82, pi. ii. 15). "Cat. 
Mus. Arch. Inst. Ed.," p. 6, Fig. 9. For the loan of tlus block I am indebted to 
Messrs. Macmillan and Co. 

* P. S. A. S., vol. ix. pp. 240, 262. 

5 F. S. A. S.. vol. xix. p. 251. 

° F. S. A. S., vol. xiiii. p. 93. " P. S. A. S., vol. xxvii. p. 355. 

«• Smith, " Preh. Man in Ayrsh." (1895), p. 105. 



FOUNO IN SCOTLAND. 



38: 



I have already mentioned the counties of Scotland in which " elf- 
bolts " are most abundantly found. I may now enumerate a few of the 





Fig-. 325. — Urquhart. 



Fig. 324.— Isle of Skye. 




Fig. 326. — Aberdeenshire. 



spots, and the characters of the specimens of this form. One much like 

Fig. 327, but with the barbs more pointed, is figured 

by Wilson,' as well as another like Fig. 305, found 

in a tumulus at KUlearn, Stii'lingshire. One from the 

Isle of Skye,'' Kke Fig. 316, and another from 

Shapinsay, Orkney/ like Fig. 312, have been figured 

by the Society of Anti(|uaries of Scotland. Others, 

found with burnt bones in an urn deposited in a 

cairn in Banft", have been engraved by Pennant,^ 

and some from Lanarkshire are given in the Journal 

of the Archd-oloqical Associfftion.'^ 

Stemmed and barbed arrow-heads are recorded to have been found in 




Fig. 327.— Ulenlivet. 



"Preh. Ann. of Scot.," vol. i. pi. ii. 14. 
" Ace. of lust., &c., of S. A. Scot.," p. 3S9. 
"Tour, iu Scot.," vol. i, p. 156, pi. .\xi. 

cc 2 



- "Preh. Ann. of Scot.," p. 1S2. 

* T. S. A. S., vol. xii. p. 183. 

* Vol. xvii. p. 19. 




388 JAVELIN AND ARROW HEADS. [cHAP. XVI. 

Aberdeenshire at the following localities: — Slains,' Forgue," Kintore f 
Kildrummy,* Strathdon,* and Cruden ; "^ one 3 inches long and 2i inches 
wide, at Tarland,' and a large number at Cloister-Seat Farm,* Udny. 

In Banif, at Mains of Auchniedden,^ Eden'" and Bowiebank, King 
Edward; Cullen of Buchan/' Glen Avon/- Alvah,'^ and Longman," 
Macduff. 

In Elgin, at St. Andrew's, Lhanbryd ; '■' Urquhart, and elsewhere. 
In Forfarshire, at CarmyLUe'^ and elsewhere. Some Ayrshire'' speci- 
mens have been figured. 

They have also been found near Gretna Green"" and Linton,'^ Pee- 
bles, and in numbers on the Culbin Sandhills,"" Morayshire, and KU- 
learn,-' Stirlingshire. In Fifeshire. in a cist at Dairsie ;^ 
near Fordoun,^ Kincardineshire ; Glenluce,-* Wigtown- 
sliire; and stemmed but not barbed, at Philiphaugh,^* 
Selkirkshire This last is shown in Fig. 327a. 

Other specimens, of which the form is not mentioned^ 

were exMbited in a temporary Museum of the Archseo- 

Fig. 327a.. logical Institute at Edinburgh from the following 

1 p aug . localities: — Caithness, -'' Cruden, Cromar, Kinellar, 

Aberdeenshire ; Eobgill, EuthweU, Dumfriesshire ; Arbuthnot, Bervde 

and Garvoch, Kincardineshire ; Braid wood and Carluke, Lanarkshire ; 

and Burgh-head, Wigtownshire. 

Other have been found at Elchies, Keith,-' and Oldtown of Rose- 
isle,-* Morayshire ; Abernethy,-^ Inverness ; and at Mortlach^ and Les- 
murdie,^' Banff. 

In this place, also, it will be well to mention some of the discoveries 
of stemmed and barbed flint arrow-heads in England which have not 
already been cited. The following have been engraved : — One much 
like Fig. 303, found in the Kielder Burn,^ North Tyne ; one like Fig. 
327, found with burnt bones in an urn on Baildon Common,^ York- 
shire ; another from Lake, "Wilts ;^* others, like Figs. 312 and 319, 
from the Green Low Barrow,^ Derbyshire ; one like Fig. 308, from 

' Froc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xii. p. 62. 

- Froc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. ii. p. 294. ^ p ,5 4 g^^ ^qI. ^i. p. 2O8. 

* lb., vol. vi. p. 234. 5 /j,^ yol. iv. p. 54 ; vii. 105. 

6 lb., vol, viii. p. 10. '' /*., vol. vi. p. 89. 

8 lb., vol. iv. p. 54 ; v. 185. » F. S. A., 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 19. 

1" lb., 2nd S., vol. i. p. 20. " F. S. A. S.. vol. iv. p. 54 ; v. 13. 

1- Arch. Journ., vol. x. p. 362. ^3 p^qc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. i. p. 20. 

1* F. S. A. S., vol. vi. pp. 41, 234. is lb., vol. iii. p. 362. 

i« lb., vol. V. p. 326 ; iii. 438 ; viii. 50; xiv. 267 ; xxiv. 13. 
" F. S.A.S.,\o\. xxvii. p. 360. See also" Smith's Preh. Man in Ayrshire," (1895). 
IS Arch. Scot., vol. iii. App. 135. F. S. A. S., vol. xii. p. 270. 
18 F. S. A. S., vol. iv. p. 55. ■" lb., vol. iv. pp. 67, 377. 

21 Wilson's "Preh. Ann. of Scot.," vol. i. p. 182. 
" F. S. A. S., vol. xxi. p. 133. 

-' F. S. A. S., vol. xiv. p. 267 ; vol. xxiv. p. 13. For a list of Kincardineshire 
arrow-heads see vol. ix. pp. 461, 499 ; xi. p. 26. 

•* F. S. A. S., vol. xi. p. 585. 2* F. S. A. S., vol. xxviii. p. 341. 

26 <'Cat. Arch. Inst. Mus. Ed.," pp. 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 20. 

•-'7 F. S. A., 1st S., vol. iii. p. 224. 28 j> g ^_ g., vol. iii. p. 490. 

29 Geologist, vol. i. p. 162. ^ F. S. A. S., vol. i. p. 42 ; vol. xix. p. 11 ; xxv. 500. 

•" lb., vol. i. pp. 67, 190. ^2 ^rch. Journ., vol. xvii. p. bO. 

3^ Arch., vol. xxxi. p. 304. " York Vol. of Arch. Inst.," p. 1. 

3* Hoare's " South Wilts, " pi. xxx. 

^^ Feliquari/, vol. iii. p. 177. " Cran. Brit.," vol. ii. pi. 41. p. 3. 



LOCALITIES WHERE FOUND. 389 

Hastings ;' one like Fig. 307, found near urns, scrapers, &c., atWaver- 
tree, near Liverpool ;^ some like Fig. 307, with ashes, at Carno,^^Iont- 
gonieryshire ; and several others from barrows in Wilts,* Dorsetshire, 
and Derbyshire. A considerable number of flint arrow-heads are 
engraved in a plate in the Transactions of the Historical Society of Lan- 
cashire and Cheshire.^ They are, however, for the most part forgeries. 
Others from East Lancashire*^ and Rochdale'' have been described. 
Besides the discoveries recorded by Hoare and Bateman, and those 
made in Yorkshire," such arrow-heads are mentioned as having been 
found in the Thames ; ' in the cemetery at Standlake, '" Oxon ; in West 
Surrey," from which a number of arrow-heads of various forms have 
been figured by Mr. F. Lasham ; St. Leonard's Forest,^^ Horsham; 
Plymouth, ''on Dartmoor,'^ Devonshire ; at Horndean,'* Hants; and in 
large numbers in Derbyshire, esj^ecially on Middleton Moor.'*^ Both the 
leaf-shaped and the barbed forms have been found near Leicester." 
A number have been found at Cam Bre,'* Cornwall. 

Arrow-heads, of which the form is not specified, have been found at 
Wangford,"* Suffolk ; Cliff e,-" near Carlebury, on the Yorkshire side of 
the Tees; Priddy,-^ Somerset; Sutton Courtney," Berks; Lingfield 
Mark Camp,-^ Surrey ; near Ramsgate ;^ Bigberry Hill,^ near Canter- 
bury ; Manton,-®Lincolnshire ; Anstie Camp^' and Chart Park, Dorking. 

Besides specimens already cited, and many from the Yorkshire 
Wolds and Moors, there are in my collection stemmed and barbed 
arrow-heads from the following localities: — One much like Fig. 307, 
from Staunton, near Ixworth, Suffolk ; many others from West Stow, 
Lakenheath, and Icklingham, in the same county ; from Hunsdon, 
near Ware, Brassington, Derbyshire, and Turkdean, Gloucestershire,, 
much like Fig. 308 ; one from Abingdon, like Fig. 327 ; and one from St. 
Agnes, Truro, of the same form as Fig. 317, but not so delicately 
worked ; and others from Wicken and Reach Fens, Cambs. I have alsa 

1 Suss. Arch. Coll., vol. xiii. p. 309. 

- Tr. Hist. Soc. Lane, and Chexh., N. S., vol. viii. p. 131. 

3 Arch. Camb., 3rd. S., vol. iii. p. 303. 

* Hoare's ' ' South Wilts," the " Barrow Diggers," Bateman's " Vestiges," Arch., 
vol. XXX. p. 333; vol. xliii. pp. 418, 420; vol. hi. pp. 48, 53, 61. Wilti Arch. 
Mag., vol. vi. p. 319. 

' Vol. xiv. pi. iii. 

^ Tr. Lane, and Chesh. Arch. Soc., vol. ii. pi. i. Trans. Manch. Geol. Soc, vol. 
xiii. p. 141 ; xiv. p. 284. 
" Op. c'lt., viii. p. 127. Trans. Manch. Geol. Soc, vol. xvi. p. 287. 

* For Yorkshire arrow-heads see Yorksh. Arch, and Top. Journ., vol. i. (1870), 
p. 4. 

" Troc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. i. p. 64. i" Arch., vol. xxxvii. 369. 

'^ Surr. Arch. Coll., vol. xi. ^- Suss. Arch. Coll., vol. xxvii. p. 177. 

'^ Tr. Lev. Assoc, vol. xx. p. 44. •* Op. cit., xxvi. p. 53. 

'■'' Arch. Journ., vol. xx. p. 372. 

'^ Bateman's " Cat.," 47, et seqq. See also the York, Norwich, and Lincoln 
Volumes of the Arch. Inst. 

'" Harrison's " Geol. of Leic. and Rutl.," p. 49. 

'" Rel. and III. Archaol., vol. ii. p. 45. Journ. Roy. List, of Cornw. vol. xiii. 
p. 92. 

'" Arch. Journ., vol. x. p. 354. -" Op. cit., vol. xiv. p. 79. 

-' Op. cit., vol. xvi. p. 151. -- Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. i. p. 309. 

2.T "Trane. Arch. Assoc. atGlouc.,"p. 94. •* A. A. J., vol. iv. p. 152. 

-^ Op. cit., vol. xviii. p. 272. *^ Op. cit., vol. iv., p. 396. 

'" Arch., vol. ix. p. 100. 



390 



JAVELIN AND ARROW HEADS. 



[chap. XVI. 



numerous examples of different forms from Stow-on-the-Wold, Glou- 
cestershire, and trom the neighbourhood of Wallingford. The Earl of 
Ducie has a series found near Sarsden House, Chipping Norton. 

In the British Museum is a stemmed and barbed arrow-head, rather 
more curved at the sides than Fig. 307, found at Hosne, Suffolk. 
Another of the same class, from Necton, Norfolk, is in the Norwich 
Museum, together with a smaller specimen like Fig. 308, from Attle- 
borough. In the Cambridge Antiquarian Society's Museum is one 
like Fig. 306, but with one of the barbs square-ended. It is 2| inches 
long, and 1 A inch wide, and very thin, and was found in Burwell Fen. 
Another, like it, but 2^ inches long, was found near Aldreth, Cambs., 
and was in the collection of the Rev. S. Banks. Canon Greenwell 
obtained one of somewhat similar character, but narrow, from Barton 
Mills, Suffolk ; and the Rev. C. R. Manning found one Like Fig. 31 1 on 
a tumulus near Grime's Graves, Norfolk. One of the same class is in the 
Penzance Museum; and Mr. Spence Bate, F.R.S., has shown me a 
broken one like Fig. 308, found under six feet of peat at Prince Town, 
Dartmoor, where also a leaf-shaped arrow-head was found. Prof. 
Buckman had one much like Fig. 327, found at Barwick, Somerset- 
shire. One like Fig. 309, from Milton, near Pewsey, Wilts, is in the 
collection of Mr. "W. H. Penning, F.G.S. Mr. Durden had one rather 
smaller than Fig. 308 from the neighbourhood of Blandford. I have 
seen them both stemmed and barbed and leaf-shaped, found near 
Boiimemouth. Sir John Lubbock has one with square-ended stem, 
and barbs separated from it by a very narrow notch, found at Shrub 
Hill, Feltwell, Norfolk ; and numerous specimens exist in other col- 
lections. 

Before entering into the circumstances under which fliut arrow- 
heads have been discovered, it will be well to describe the remaining 





Fig. 328.— Icklnigham. 



I'ig. 329. — Langdale End. 




Fig. 330.— Amotherby. 



class — the triangular. Some of these differ only from those last de- 
scribed in the absence of the central stem. Although this form is very 
common in Ireland and in Scandinavia, it occurs but rarely in Britain. 
The arrow-head shown in Fig. 328 was found near Icklingham, 
Suffolk, and was formerly in the collection of Mr. H. Trigg, of Bury 
St. Edmunds. Messrs. Mortimer possess a very similar specimen from 
the Yorkshire AVolds near Fimber. One has also been figured by Mr. 
C. Monkman' as from Yorkshire. An arrow-head from Forfarshire, 
and one or two others of this type, are in the National Museum at 
Edinburgh. One from Ellon,- Aberdeenshire, has been engraved, as 

1 Torksh. Arch, ami Top. Journ., 1868, fig. 5. 
- I'. S. A. S., vol. xiv. p. 267 ; xxiv. p. 13. 



THE TRIANGULAR FORM. 391 

well as one of mucli more elongated form, with a semicircular notcli at 
the base, from Glenluce,' AVigtownshire. A broader arrow-head of the 
same type was found by the Rev. James M. Joass at Grolspie, Suther- 
land, and is now in the Dunrobin Museum. An example was also 
foiind by Canon Greenwell in the material of a barrow at Childrey,- 
Berks. Prof. Flinders Petrie has found the type in Eg3'pt.^ 

A beautiful specimen of another double-barbed triangular form is 
shown in Fig. 329. It was found at Langdale End, on the Moors of 
the North Eiding of Yorkshire, and is in the Greenwell Collection. 
It has been surface-chipped over part of one face, but on the other 
it still shows the central ridge of the flake from which it was made. 
The sides are neatly serrated. 

Fig. 330 represents a broader and less distinctly barbed form. The 
original was found at Amotherby, near Malton, and is chipped over 
both faces. I have another longer specimen from Sherburn, the base 
of which is less indented. Allied to this longer form, but having the 
sides more curved, is that shown in Fig. 331. The original was found 






Fig. 331.— Weaverthorpe. Fig. 332.— Lakenheath. Fig. 333.— Yorkshire Wolds. 

by Canon Greenwell in one of the barrows examined by him at Weaver- 
thorpe, Yorkshire. Varieties of this form, with the sides more or less 
straight, are of not unfrequent occurrence in Yorkshire. The same 
type has been found near Mantua.* 

The more perfectly triangular form shown in Fig. 332 is of rather 
rare occurrence. This arrow-head was found near Lakenheath, Suffolk, 
and is now in the Greenwell Collection. It is neatly chipped over 
both faces, which are equally convex. I possess other specimens from 
Suffolk. Some arrow-heads of the same shape from Gelderland are 
in the Christy Collection. 

In many instances rude triangular arrow-heads have been formed 
from flakes and splinters of flint, which Avere evidently selected as 
being nearly of the desired form, and were brought into shape by the 
least possible amount of subsequent chipping. The secondary working 
on Fig. 333 nowhere extends back so much as an eighth of an inch 
from the edges, and the bulb of percussion of the splinter of flint from 
which it was made is at the right-hand angle of the base, but not on 
the face here figured. 

' P. S. A. S., vol. xi. p. 585. "- Arch., vol. lii. p. 03. 

3 " Kahun, &c." (1890), p. 21, pi. xvi. * Bull, di Pal. ItaL, 1877, pi. v. 25. 



392 



JAVKLIN AND ARROW HEAPS. 



[chap. XVI. 



In Fig. 334 the bulb is at the back of the left-hand angle, but this 
specimen is much thicker, and shows a considerable amount of skilful 
chipping on both faces. The angle at the bulb is rounded, while on 
the opposite side of the base it is somewhat curved downwards, so as 
to form a kind of barb. This obliquity of the face is more apparent 





Fig. 334.— Yorkshire Wolds. 



Fig. 335.— Yorkshire Wolds.; 



in Fig. 335, though the barb is less pronounced. The flat face of the 
original flake is in this instance left nearly untouched, but the ridge 
side has been neatly wrought by removing a series of minute parallel 
flakes. This form occurs in Ireland.^ and has been regarded as rather 
a knife than an arrow-head. I have seen an arrow-head of much the 
same form found at Bournemouth. 

The character of surface-flaking, observable in Figs. 335, 336 and 
337, is almost peculiar to Yorkshire ; and one of the most beautiful 
examples that I have seen of it is on the arrow-head engraved as 




S:m 





Fig. 336.— BridlingtoD. Fig. 337.— Bridlington, 

Fig. 336, which was found on Northdale Farm, Grindale, Bridling- 
ton. The ripple-like flaking extends over nearly two-thirds of one 
face, the remainder of which is a flat portion of the original surface 
of the flake from which the arrow-head was made. On the other 
face a rather larger portion of the original surface is left, but the 
1 Wilde, " Cat. Mus. E. I. A.," p. 15, fig. 7. 



SINGLE-BARBED ARROW-HEADS. 393^ 

surface-chipping, though neat, is not of this regular character. The 
base is cliipped on both faces, so as to leave a sharp edge with a 
delicate projecting barb at one angle only. The other angle is perfect, 
and has never been continued so as to form a barb. I have fragments 
of other arrow-heads of the same kind, from the same neighbourhood, 
and on some the fluting along the base is as regular as that on the 
side, and the two series of narrow shallow grooves " mitre " together 
with great accuracy. I have arrow-heads of the same general form 
and character from the neighbourhood of Icklingham, Suffolk ; and 
in the Greenwell Collection is a small and elegant example from 
Lakenheath ; but these are devoid of the parallel flaking, as are also 
some of the Yorkshire specimens. The late Mr. J. F. Lucas, how- 
ever, had an arrow-head of this form, with the fluted chipping, from 
Middleton Moor, Derbyshire. Such regular fluting can, I think, only 
have been produced by pressure, probably with a pointed instrument 
of stag's-horn, as before described. It comes nearer in character to 
the wonderful "ripple-mark flaking" on some of the Danish daggers 
or lance-heads, and of the Egyptian knives, than the workmanship 
of any other British specimens. 

The same style of work is observable on anotlier arrow-head, Fig. 
337, found on the same farm, though it is not of equal delicacy. In 
this case, however, the flaking extends along both sides, and the two 
series meet in the middle of the face, where but a very small portion 
of the original surface of the flake is visible. The face not shown is 
chipped in the same manner, but less neatly. One of the angles at the 
base has unfortunately been broken off, but there is no appearance of 
there having been more than one barb. 

In some Egyptian arrow-heads from Abydos the surface seems to 
have been made smooth by grinding before the 
final flaking, just as was the case with the large 
blades mentioned on p. 359. 

Less finely executed arrow-heads, with a long 
projecting wing or barb at one of the angles of 
the base, are of common occurrence in Yorkshire 
and Suffolk. They usually retain a considerable 
portion of the surface of the flakes from which 
they have been manufactured. They are also 
found in Gloucestershire^ and Worcestershire." 

An unusually well-finished specimen of this class 
is engraved as Fig. 338. It was found in the neigh- 
bourhood of Fimber, Yorkshire, and is in the col- 
lection of Messrs. Mortimer, who have kindly 
allowed me to figure it. It has been made from 
an external flake, as there is a portion of the crust j,j„ g^g _Fiinber 

of the flint visible on one of the faces, both of 
which are neatly chipped. It is barbed at both angles of the base, 
though the projection is far longer and more curved on the one side 
than on the other. In most instances, however, there can hardly be 
said to be any barb at all at one of the angles. 

The form with the long single barb appears to be common on the 

' rroc. Cottesicold Xat. Field Club, vol. x., 1889—90, p. 22, pi. i. 
* Froc Soc. Ant., March 10, 1897. 




394 



JAVELIN AND ARROW HEADS. 



[chap. 



XVI. 



Derb^'shire jMoors. In one instance a rectangular notch has been 
■worked in the curved side, with what object it is hard to say. This 
specimen, shown in Fig. 339, was found in a barrow at Hungry 
Bentley, Derbyshu-e, by the late Mr. J. F. Lucas. It had been buried 
together with a jet ornament and beads, subsequently described, in 
an urn containing burnt bones. 

The single-winged form is of rare occurrence in Scotland, but what 
appears to be an arrow-head of this kind, from Caithness,^ has been 
engraved by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and the cut is 
here, by their kindness, reproduced. Another from Urquhart and 
several from the Culbin Sands, Elginshire, and Glenluce Sands, 
Wigtownshire, are in the Edinburgh Museum. By some- they are 
regarded as knives, with the tang for insertion in a handle. The same 
form is found in greater abundance in the North of Ireland. A 
somewhat analogous shape from Italy has been figured by Dr. C. 
liosa.^ The type also occurs in Egypt. 

The varieties here engraved of single-barbed triangular arrow- 





Fig. 339.— Hungry Bentley. 



Fig. 340.— Caithness. 



heads of flint are, I think, enough to establish them as a distinct class, 
though they have received but Httle attention among the antiquities of 
any other country than the United Kingdom, nor have they been 
observed in use among modern savages. Many of the early bone 
harpoons, as well as those of the Eskimos, are barbed along one side 
only; and some of the Persian iron arrow-heads, as well as those of 
the Mandingoes,* and of some South American tribes, are also single- 
barbed. The same is the case with some arrow-heads of iron belonging 
to the Merovingian period.' 

Another form of triangular arrow-head is round instead of hollow 
at the base, and bears an affinity with the leaf-shaped rather than 
the barbed variety. One of these from the neighbourhood of Laken- 

1 r. S. A. S., vol. vii. p. 500. 

- F. S. A. S., vol. xxi. p. 201 ; xxii. p. 51. Journ. H. Hist, a ad Arch. Assoc, of 
Ireland, 4th S., vol. viii., 1887—88, p. 241. 

■* Archivio per VAnthrop., &c., vol. i. pi. xii. 16. 
< Wood, " Nat. Hist, of Man," vol. i. p. 679. 
* Ann. de la Soc. Arch, de Xamur, 1859, pi. ii. 9. 



THE CHISEL-ENDED TYPE. 



395 



tpath, in the Greenwell Collection, is shown in Fig. 041. It is 
surface-chipped on both faces. 

The chisel-ended type in use among the ancient Egyptians has 
already been mentioned, and a specimen engraved in Fig. 272. 

Another and much longer ' Egyptian form has now become known. 
It approaches a triangle in form, but the base is indented like 
the tail of many homocercal fishes. The specimens vary in length 
from 3 or 4 inches to as much as 7 or 8 inches, so that some 
appear to have been javelin-heads. The flaking is wonderfully 
delicate, and the edges, for the most part, minutely serrated. Mr. 
Spurrell has described and figured a triangidar blade, 4 A inches 
long, which miich resembles the Egj'ptian form so far as general 
character is concerned. It was found in Cumberland,- and is now in 
the British Museum. I have specimens from Abydos of a small, 
narrow, pointed and tanged arrow-head beautifully serrated at the sides. 
Other forms are figured by De Morgan. 

In Fig. 342 is shown what appears to be a large example of the 
■chisel-ended type, which was found at Urquhart,-' Elgin, and is in 
the National Museum at Edinburgh. The edge is formed by the 





Fif;. 341.— Lakt;iiliu;ilh. 



Fig. 342.— Urquhart. 



sharp side of a flake, and the sharp angles at the two sides of the arrow- 
head have been removed by chipping, probably to prevent their 
cutting the ligaments that attached it to the shaft. Another was 
found at the same place. A small specimen from Suffolk is in 
the Christy Collection, and I have a few from the same count}'. 
Canon Greenwell has obtained others from Yorkshire. It is ques- 
tionable whether the specimens like Fig. 231 ought not also to have 
been classed as arrow-heads. 

A similar form to Fig. 342 occurs in France. In one of the dolmens 
on the plateau of Thorus, near Poitiers, I found a small cliisel-onded 
wrought flint, closely resembling the Egyptian arrow-heads ; and I 
have observed in the collection of the late Eev. W. C. Lukis, F.S.A., 
■others of the same form from chambered tumuli in Brittany. They 
have been discovered with ancient interments in other parts of France,* 

' Arch. Journ., vol. liii., 1896, p. 46, pi. iv. 3, 4. De Morgan, op. rit., p. 124. 

• Op. cit., pi. vi. 11. a />. .V. A. S., vol. ix. pp. •.'40, 262; xi. p. 510. 

* Jier. AreJi., vol. xv. p. 367. 



396 JAVELIN AND ARROW HEADS. [cHAP. XVI. 

and I have specimens found on the surface of the soil near Pontlevoy, 
and given to me by the Abbe Bourgeois. 

Baron Joseph de Baye has found them in considerable numbers in 
sepulchres of the Stone Age in the department of La Marne.^ One 
■was found embedded in a human vertebra. They also occur in the 
Camp de Catenoy, Oise. 

One from St. Clement's, Jersey, is in the British Museum. 

Some are recorded from Namur and other parts of Belgium. - 

Two arrow-heads of this class, found in Denmark, have been en- 
graved by Madsen ; ^ one of them, to which I shall again refer, was 
still attached to a portion of its shaft. 

Nilsson* has also engraved some specimens of this form found in 
Scandinavia. A considerable number of them were found at Lindorma- 
backen in Scania,^ some of which, by the kindness of Dr. Hans 
Hildebrand, are in my collection. I have also specimens from 
Denmark. There are others from the same countries in the Christy 
Collection, where is also an example of the same kind from Southern 
Italy. Several are engraved by BeUucci.^ 

They occur also in Germany,' Spain,* and Portugal.^ Some 
crescent-shaped flints with sharp edges and a central tang, found on 
an island in the Lake of Yarese,'''may possibly be arrow-heads. Forms 
of nearly the same kind have been found near Perugia.'^ 

In General Pitt Eivers's collection are some Persian arrows with 
chisel-edged tips of iron. Crescent-like ^- arrow-heads or bolt-heads, 
with a broad hollowed edge, were used in hunting in the Middle Ages, 
and some are preserved in museums. The Emperor Commodus " is 
related to have shown his skill in archery by beheading the ostrich 
when at full speed with crescent-headed an-ows. 

There still remains to be noticed another form of triangular arrow- 
head, of which, however, I have never had the opportunity of seeing 
a British specimen. It has a notch on either side near the base, which 
is slightly hollowed, and in genernl fonn closely resembles a common 
type of North American arrow-heads. A specimen of this form, said 
to have been foimd at Hamden Hill, ^^ near Hchester, has been engraved. 
Another, described as of much the same shape, was found in a barrow 
in Eookdale, Yorkshire. ^^ A broken specimen, with the base flat in- 
stead of hollowed, and found in Lanarkshire,^^ has also been figured. 

I am not, however, satisfied that this triangular form, with notches 
in the sides, is a really British type, though lance-heads notched in 
this manner have been found in France. 

Both in Yorkshire and on the "Wiltshire Downs arrow-heads have- 
from time to time been found with their surface much abraded. There 

1 " L'Axch. Preli.," p. 191, ed. 1888, p. 253. Her. Art/,. ,\oh xxvii., 1874, pi. 
xi. p. 401. Mat., vol. viii. pi. ii. Bull. Soc. Anthrop., 19 Dec, 1889. 

- Bull. Soc. A>it. de Bruxelles, vol. vi. pi. i. 

- " Afbild.," pi. xxii. 18, 19. See also Aarb.f. Oldk., 1890, p. 325, 329. 

* " Stone Age," pi. ii. 36, 37. * " Antiq. Tidskr. for Sverige." vol. iii. fig. 3. 

*- " Mat. paletnol. dell' Umbria," pi. ix. 

' Zeitsch.f. Ethn., vol. xv. p. 361 ; xvi. p. (118). ^ Siret, p. 10. 

3 Cartailhac, pp. 53, 173. lo Rxv. Arch, della Prov. di Cumo, Dec. 1879. 

II Arch, per V Ant. e al Etn., vol. xiii. (1883), Tav. i. 

'- Arch. Jour)i., vol. ix. p. 118. Lee's " Isca Silurum," p. 112. 

'^ Herodian, lib. i. c. 15. '* Arch. Journ., vol. x. p. 247. 

'' Arch. Journ., vol. x. p. 69. "' Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xvii. p. 19. 



FOUND IN BARROWS. '697 

seems little doubt that this wearing away has been effected during 
their sojourn in the gizzards of bustards. 

Having now descnbed the principal tj'pes of arrow-heads found in 
Britain, it will be well to notice some of the circumstances of their 
discovery in barrows and with interments, which throw light on the 
manners and the stage of civilization of those who used them. 

I am not aware of any well-established discovery of flint arrow- 
heads in this country in association with iron weapons, and cer- 
tainly such a mixture of materials would require careful sifting 
of evidence to establish it. And yet we can readily conceive con- 
ditions under which flint arrow-heads might be present in Saxon 
graves, either from their having been dug in barrows of an earlier 
period, in which case a flint arrow-head might already exist 
in the soil with which the grave was filled ; or from the occupant 
of the tomb having carried an " elf-bolt " as a charm, or even as 
the flint for his briquet a feu. In the Frankish cemetery of 
Samson,^ near ]S^amur, a broken flint arrow-head, almost of a 
lozenge form, accompanied a human skeleton with an iron sword 
and a lance ; and another stemmed arrow-head (now in the !Namur 
Museum) was found in the soil. At Sablonnieres^ (Aisne) flint 
arrow-heads were associated with Merovingian remains, and 
numerous instances of such associations have been adduced by the 
Baron de Baye.^ Even in modern times flint arrow-heads have 
served for this fire-producing purpose. The late Earl of 
Enniskillen informed me that with flint-guns and muskets in 
Ireland* the gun-flint was frequently neither more nor less than 
an " elf-bolt " often but slightly modified in form. 

The occurrence in Northern Italy of a flint arrow-head, in com- 
pany with ten of the degenerate imitations of the gold coin of 
Philip II. of Macedon, known by the Germans as Hegenbogen- 
schiisseln, recorded by Promis,^ may also have been accidental. I 
have in my own collection a stone celt which is said to have been 
found with a hoard of Anglo-Saxon coins of the tenth century in 
Ireland,** but which can hardly be regarded as contemporaneous 
with them. There are, however, as I have already observed, 
many well-attested instances in which flint arrow-heads have been 
discovered in this and other countries in true association with 
weapons of bronz9. Sir P. Colt Hoare records several such in his 

' Atin. de la Soc. Arch, de Namur, 1859, p. 361. 

- Rev. Arch., vol. xxxiv. p. 183. ^ Qong. Preh. Lisbonne, 1880, p. 372. 

* See also Nature, vol. xxiii. p. 218. * Berliner Blatter, vol. iii. p. 172. 
« Num. Chron., N. S., vol. iii. p. 54. 



398 JAVEMN AND ARROW HEADS. [cHAP. XVI. 

examination of the barrows of South Wilts. In one near "Wood- 
yates^ a skeleton in a contracted position was buried with a 
bronze dagger and pin or awl, a jet button and pulley-like orna- 
ment, four arrow-heads (one of thetn engraved as Fig. 320), and 
" some pieces of flint, chipped and prepared for similar weapons ; 
in another bowl-shaped barrow at Wilsford an interment of burnt 
bones was accompanied by a small bronze dagger, some whetstones, 
and instruments formed of stag's horn, an arrow-head of flint, and 
another in an unfinished condition." 

It is stated in the Arc/Kcolor/ia'- that with the well-known inter- 
ment in the hollowed oak-trunk found in the Gristhorpe tumulus, 
near Scarborough, were " a brass and a flint spear-head and flint 
arrow-heads," &c. The flints^ were, however, in this instance, 
merely flakes and the " brass spear-head " a bronze dagger. 

In Borther Low,* near Middleton, Derbyshire, Mr. Bateman 
found by the side of a skel'^ton a flint arrow-head, a pair of canine 
teeth of fox or dog, and a diminutive bronze celt ; and in a barrow 
on Roundway Hill," North "Wilts, a barbed flint arrow-head, like 
Fig. 327, was found close to the skull of a skeleton in a contracted 
posture, with a tanged bronze dagger at its left hand. Another 
bronze fragment, and a small plate of chlorite slate engraved as 
Fig. 355, were found at the same time. Similar plates, as well as 
flint arrow-heads, accompanied the skeleton at Tring Grove,^ Herts, 
and an interment at Cruden, Aberdeen.^ 

A stemmed and barbed arrow-head of calcined flint was found 
in one of the urns containing burnt bones in the cemetery at Stand- 
lake,® Oxfordshire. In another urn was a spiral finger-ring of 
bronze, the only fragment of metal brought to light during the 
excavations. 

Flint arrow-heads have been so frequently found in barrows 
containing both burnt and unburnt interments, and in company 
with other implements of stone and with pottery, that it seems 
needless to adduce all the recorded instances of such discoveries. 
I give a few references below. ^ 

1 " South Wilts," p. 239. - Vol. xxx. p. 460. 

3 See " Cran. Brit.," pi. o2, p. 9 * "Vest, of the Ant. of Derbysh.," p. 48. 

5 " Cran. Brit.," vol. ii. pi. xlii. p. 3. Wilts Arch, and N. H. Mag., vol. iii. p. 185. 

« Arch., vol. viii. p. 429 ; snpra, p. 383. 

' "Cat. Arch. Inst. Mus. Ed.," p. 11. Wilson, " Preh. Ann.," vol. i. p. 224. 

■* Arch., vol. xxxvii. p. 369. 

^ Arch. Jour)t., vol. x^^. p. 151 ; xxii. p. 249. "Ten Years' Diggings," pp. 60, 
95, 96, 116, 127, 167, 178, &c. Arch. Assoc. Jouni., vol. iv. p. 103 ; vii. 215. Arch., 
vol. xxxi. p. 304. "Salisb. Vol. Arch. Inst.," pp. 25 — 105. Hoare'e "South 
Wilts," pp. 182 — 211. Greenwell'f* "British Barrow.<i," pastim. 



IRISH AND FRENCH TYPES. 399 

The stemmed and barbed variety is of the most common occur- 
rence in tumuli ; but, as has already been shown, one leaf-shaped 
form appears to be, to some extent, peculiar to a class of long bar- 
rows, though the stemmed and barbed/ lozenge and leaf-shaped 
forms have been found in the soil of the same grave mound. 

In several instances, stemmed and barbed arrow-heads have been 
discovered with skeletons, accompanied also by the finely-chipped 
leaf-shaped knife-daggers of flint. In Green Low,'* Alsop Moor, 
Derbyshire, the dagger-blade lay behind the shoulders, and three 
arrow-heads behind the back ; in one, as alread}^ mentioned, on 
Seamer Moor, near Scarborough,^ " two beautifully formed knives 
and spear-heads of flint," and four flint celts, accompanied 
" beautifully formed arrow-heads of flint ; " and the dagger (Fig. 
264) appears to have been found in the same barrow as the arrow- 
heads, on Lambourn Down. 

Occasionally arrow-heads are found in the " drinking-cups " 
accompanying the skeleton, as in Mouse Low,^ Staffordshire. 

It remains for me to say a few words as to the points of differ- 
ence and resemblance between the arrow-heads of Britain and 
those of other countries ; and also as to the method of shafting in 
use in ancient times. 

In comparing the arrow-heads of Great Britain with those of 
what is now the sister kingdom of Ireland, we cannot but be 
struck, in the first place, with the far greater abundance found in 
Ireland, especially in its northern parts. How far this is due to 
their use having come down into later times, and how far to the 
character of the country, it is diflficult to say. It is, however, 
evident that over so large an area of morass and bog, the number 
of arrows lost in the chase during a long series of years must 
have been immense ; that when once lost they would be preserved 
uninjured, and remain undiscovered until the operations of drain- 
ing and obtaining peat for fuel again brought them to light ; and 
further, that the former of these operations has only been carried 
on to a large extent within the last few years, while the latter has 
also in all probability increased. On hard and stony soil, on the 
contrary, even assuming an originally equal abundance of arrow- 
heads, agricultural operations, after being carried on for a few 

' " Ten Years' Dig.," p. 223. Arch. Assoc. Joiin/., vol. iv. p. 103. 
2 "Vest. Ant. Derb.," p. 59. " Cran. Brit.," vol. ii. pi. 41, p. 3. 
» A. A. /.. vol. iv. p. 10.5. * "T. Y. D.," p. 116. A. A. J., vol. vii. p. 215. 
* For a comparison of arrow-heads from diflFerent countries see also Westropp's 
" Prehistoric Phases," pi. i. 



400 JAVELIN AMJ AKROW HEADS. [cHAP. XVI. 

centuries, would infallibly destroy a large number of them, and 
what were left would not be so instantly apparent to the eye as those 
in a peaty soil, and would consequently be found in fewer numbers. 
In districts where flint is scarce many ancient arrow-heads must 
have been used as strike-a-lights and gun -flints. In Ireland,^ as 
alreadv stated, they were highly esteemed for the latter purpose. 
Even on land recently enclosed, and where arrow-heads and worked 
flints may exist in abundance, unless some unusual inducement is 
offered, they remain unnoticed by the farm-labourers; and it is only 
owing to the diligence of local collectors that such numbers have 
been found on the Yorkshire Wolds, the Derbyshire Moors, and 
in parts of Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and SuflEblk. There 
seems, howe\er, either from the character of the game pursued, or 
from some different customs of the early occupants of the country, 
to have been a far greater production of arrow-heads in these 
districts than in some other parts of Britain, such, for instance, 
as the Sussex Downs,^ where on land but recently enclosed, 
almost innumerable flakes, scrapers, and other instruments of 
flint may be found, but where I have hitherto never succeeded in 
finding a single arrow-point. It is possible that in some districts, 
bone may have been preferred to stone. 

Apart from the greater general abundance in Ireland, there is 
a far greater relative abundance of some particular forms, espe- 
cially of the barbed triangular arrow-heads without a central stem, 
and of the elongated form with the stem and barbs. Lozenge- 
shaped arrow-heads are also more frequent, and some of the varie- 
ties of this form do not appear to occur in Britain. As a rule, 
Irish arrow-heads are also of larger size than the British. Their 
forms have been described by Sir W. Wilde,^ Mr. "Wakeman* and 
others. 

In France, flint arrow-heads are at least as rare as in England, if 
not indeed rarer. In some of the dolmens of Brittany explored by 
the Eev. W. C. Lukis, F.S.A.,* he has found them both leaf-shaped 
and stemmed and barbed. Among the latter there are some of ex- 
tremely neat workmanship, and closely resembling in form Fig. 312. 
I have seen the same form from the Cotes du Nord. Some beautifid 
examples, more elongated than Fig. 319 and with very small tangs, 
were found in a tumulus at Cruguel,'^ Morbihan. The more common 

1 Nature, vol. xxiii. p. 218. 

* Dr. Mantell, however, found a flint arrow-head in a barrow near Lewes. — 
" York Vol. of Arch. Inet.," p. 1. 

3 " Cat. Mu8. R. I. A.," p. 19 scgq. * " Archseol. Hibera." (1891), p. 269 seqg. 
' Arch. Asuoc. Journ., vol. xxiv. p. 40. 

• liev. Arch., 3rd S., vol. xvi. pi. xvii. p. 304. 



FRENCH TYPES. 401 

French form is like Fig-. 311, but with both stem and barb rather- 
longer and the sides straig-htor. Specimens have been engraved from 
the neighbourliood of Jjondinicres ; ' from a dolmen at Villaigre, 
Poitou;- a lake-liabitation at La Peruse^ (Charente) ; the Valley of 
the Saone,' the department of the Aisno,' the Camp de Chassej/' and 
other places. 

Various forms from the Landes/ Girondo,'' Marne/ Gard,'" and other 
Departmcnits " have been figured. Dr. Leith Adams traced a luanu- 
fat'tory of flint arrow-heads in Guernsey. '- 

I have several tanged, and stemmed and barbed arrow-heads frora 
Poitou, as well as some of triangular form, both with a rounded seg- 
mental base and with barbs. I have also leaf-shaped, lozenge-shaped, 
and tanged and barbed examples from the neighbourhood of Clermont 
Ferrand. Twenty-two of the latter form were found together, in 
company with a bronze dagger, in a cist in Brittany.'^ 

Another common variety is stemmed and but very slightly barbed. 
Some of these approximate in form to a lozenge, with two of its 
sides curved inwards. Specimens from the dolmen of Bernac '* 
(Charente), the Grotte de St. Jean d'Alcas,'^ and Argenteuil (Seine et 
Oise),"^ and the dolmens of Taurine, Pilande, and des Costes (Aveyron), 
may be cited. In several of the latter both leaf-shaped and lozenge- 
shaped specimens were also found. Many are neatly serrated at the 
edges, sometimes so as to form a sort of regular pattern, with only 
two or three projections on each of the sides. A pointed leaf-shaped 
arrow-head in a human vertebra was found in the Grotte du Cas- 
tellet '^ (Gard). 

The same varieties, as well as some triangular arrow-heads, occurred 
in the Camp de Chassey.'^ Some of them are barbed without having 
the central tang. 

A large arrow-head from the dolmen of Bernac, with pointed barbs, 
lias a strongly dovetailed central stem. I have seen other much more 
elongated javelin-heads, four and five inches long, and an inch or an 
inch and a quarter broad, with similar tangs, but without barbs, the 
tang being formed by notches on either side at the base, as is the case 
with so many North American specimens, which these resemble in form. 
They were found at Corente, in Auvergne, and were in the collection 

1 Cochet, " Seine Inferieiire," 2nd ed., p. 528. 

- "Epoques Antcdil. et Celt, du Poitou," p. 102, pi. iv. bis. 3, 4, 5. 

^ De Rochebrune, " Mem. sur les Restes d'Industrie, &c.," pi. x. 8, 9. 

■* Chantre, " Etudes Paleoetlin.," pi. xiii. 7. 

5 Watelet, " L'Agc de Pierre, &c.," pi. iv. 2. Coll. Caranda, Moreau, 1877. 

^ Perrault, " Xote sur un Foj-er, &c.," Chalons, 1870, pi. ii. 

' Iit'v. d'Anthrop., vol. iv. p. 258. * Materiaux, vol. xi. p. 207. 

9 De Baye, "Arch. pr6h.," 1888, pp. 22.5, 255, 291, 292. 
^^ Bull. (Ic la Sor. d' ElU'Ie des sr. iiat. de yimcs, 1894. 
^' MortiUet, "Mus. preh.," pi. xliii. cC seqq. 
1- Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. ii. p. G8. 

'3 Rev. Arch., vol. XX. p. 359. " De Rochebrune, pi. xiii. 2. 

!■' Cazalis de Fondouce, " La Pierre polie duns TAveyron," \A. i. 9 and 10 ; 
pi. iv. 2, 3, &c. Trans. Frch. Conrj., 1867, p. 189; 1868, p. 351. MortiUet, 
Materiaux, vol. ii. p. 146 ; vol. iii. p. 231. 
'8 Rev. Arcli., vol. xv. p. 364. 

1'' Cazalis de Fondouce, "All. couv. de la Provence," 2udMein. pi. ii. 18, Mat.., 
Tol. xii. p. 432, pi. xii. 18. 

^^ Materiaux, vol. v. p. 395. Perrault, op. cit. 

I) D 



402 JAVELIN AXD ARROW HEADS. [cilAl'. XVI. 

of ]\I. Aymard at Le Pay, where was also a leaf-sTiaped arrow-head 
with side notches, from Clermont. Another of the same kind, 4 
inches long, with a more dovetail-like tang and better-developed 
barbs, has been found near Laon.' Others of smaller size were found 
in the Grotte des ^lorts, Durfort (Gard)." 

A somewhat similar form has occurred among the lake-dwellings of 
the Ueberliuger See.^ 

A type much like Fig. 314 also occurs in the lake -habitations of 
Switzerland,^ where, as might have been expected, a large number of 
stone arrow-heads have been found. Some few of them are stemmed 
and barbed, much like Fig. 311, but with the tang and barbs rather 
longer and sharj^er. More of them are tanged only, or but slightly 
barbed, and in man}^, the tang has so slight a shoulder that the out- 
line is almost, and in some quite, lozenge-shaped. The most common 
form, however, appears to be the triangular, with the sides slightly 
curved outwards and the base flat, or even slightly rounded outwards. 
Many are a little hollowed at the base, so much so, in some cases, as 
to be distinctly barbed. At Nussdorf one arrow-head was formed of 
serpentine, and another of translucent quartz. One or two specimens 
are of bone. 

Leaf-shaped and stemmed arrows without barbs, from Hasledon 
and Yvoir, are in the Museum at Namur, in Belgium. Belgian arrow- 
heads have been described by Van Overloop.^ 

In the lake-dwellings of Xorthern Ital}*,'' as, for instance, at Mer- 
curago, near Arena, and Cumarola, near Modena, the tanged arrows 
prevail, though leaf- and lozenge-shaped also occur. The same is the 
case in the south, where numerous discoveries of arrow-heads have 
been recorded by Nicolucei.'' At Cumarola*' some skeletons were found 
interred with flint arrow-heads and weapons of stone, in company 
with others of copper and bronze. 

In the valley of the Vibrata,'-' in the Abruzzo, Dr. C. Eosa has found 
numerous arrow-heads, principally stemmed and barbed, but some 
also triangular and leaf-shaped. One specimen appears to be barbed 
on one side only, and a lance-head has a notch on each side near the 
base like those from Auvergne. 

In the Lake of Varese,^^' where the site of a manufactory of arrow- 
heads was discovered by Captain Angelucci, the principal forms 
were those with a pointed tang and barbs. The roughly-chipped-out 
blocks were of a leaf -shaped form. A fine specimen like Fig. 302, 

' Watelot, " Age de Pierre dans le Dept. de I'Aisne," pi. iv. 4. 

2 Materiaux, vol. v. p. 249. ^ In the AVessenbergischc SammluTig, Constsnce. 

* Keller's "Pfahlbauten," and "Lake-dwellings," jortssfw. Desor's "Palafittes," 
p. 17. Troyon, " Hab. Lac," pi. v. Ant. Lac. du Mus. de-Lausanne, pi. ix. 

5 " Les ages de la pierre," pi. vi. and vii. 

•^ Keller, op. cit., 4ter Ber. Taf. i. and ii. Strobel, "Avanzi Preromani," Parma, 
18G3, 1864. 

■> "Di Alcune armi ed utensile in pietra." Atli della R. Accad. delle Scienze, 
Xapoli, 1863 and 1867. 

*' Gastaldi, "Lake Habs. in Italy," p. 7. "Nuo\-i Cenni, &c.," Torino, 1862, 
p. 10. Mem. Ace. R. di Sc. di Torino, vol. xxvi. (1869). 

" Archirio per V Antropol, &c., vol. i. p. 457. 

'" Mortillet, Math-inux, vol. ii. p. 87. "Promenades," p. 152. A. Angelucci, 
" Lc PalaStte del Lago di Varesc" (1871) ; and llagazzoni, " Uomo preh. di Como " 
(1878). 



niOM VAllIOUS COUNTRIES. 403 

"but rather longer, was found near Civitanova ' (Picono), and the form 
occurs in Central Ital}-. A long leaf-shaped arrow from Italy is en- 
graved by Lindensclimit,- us well as a tanged form without barbs. 
The latter form occurs in tlie Isle of Elba.^ I have a series, from near 
Bergamo, nearly all of wliich are tanged, tliough few of them are dis- 
tinctly barbed. The various forms of lance and arrow heads in the 
province of Perugia^ liavo been described by Prof. Bcllucci. The stone 
arrow-heads frequently cited as liaving been found on the plains of 
INIarathon'* appear to be only llahes,''' as are many of those from 
Tiryns.' At Mycena),'^ however, in the fourth sepulchre, Scliliemann 
found thirty-five beautifulh'-wrought arrow-heads of obsidian. They 
are mainly of triangular form, hollowed at the base, though the long 
leaf shape is also present. In general facies they closely resemble the 
Danish forms. 

In a dolmen in Andalusia'' a broken arrow-head of flint, with 
pointed stem and barbs, was found ; and inasmuch as the fragment is 
engraved by Don INIanuel de Gongora y Martinez as the head of a 
three-pointed dart, it appears that the form is not common in Spain. 

A number of arrow-heads, mostly tanged, have, however, been found 
in the south-east of Spain by MM. Siret."^ In Portugal" the arrow-heads 
are usually triangular, but often with long-projecting wings or barbs. 

Peturning northwards, I may cite a small series of Hint aiTOW- 
hcads in my collection, found near Luxembourg, where they appear 
to bo not uncommon. They present the following forms : leaf-shaped, 
tanged, tanged and barbed, triangidar with a straight base, and the 
same with barbs. 

Numerous arrow-heads of flint have also been found in Gelder- 
land, and a collection of them is to be seen in the Leyden Museum. 
Some are also in the Christy Collection. The most common forms 
are triangular, with barbs, or with a somewhat rounded base, and 
stemmed and barbed. Leaf-shaped and tanged arrow-heads appear 
to be rarer. Some scarce triangular forms are equilateral, and others 
long and somewhat expanding at the base. I have a series from 
Heistert, Roermond, Limburg. 

In Central and Southern Grermany flint arrow-heads appear to be 
rather scarce. In Pomerania the prevailing type is triangular 
hollowed at the base. The same form occurs in Thuringia. In the 
Kunigsberg Museum there are arrow-heads leaf-shaped pointed at 
both ends, lozengc-shapod, slightly tanged, tanged and barbed, and 
triangular with and without the hollowing at the base. Linden- 

1 Mortillot, Miderinitx, p. 89. 

- " Alteith. uus. held. Vorz.," vol. i.. Heft vi. pi. i. 'J. " Hohenz. Samml.,'* 
Taf. xliii. 

^ Mortillot, Mat., vol. iii. p. 319. 

' Air/iirio per I' Ant. e la Etn., vol. ix. p. 289. See also Marinoni, " Abit. lacust, 
in Lombardiii," Milan (18G8), p. 20. 

* Dudwell, " Class. Tour ia Greece," vol. ii. p. 159. Leake, " Demi of Attica," 
p. 100. 

" F. Lenormant in Rev. Arch., vol. xv. p. IIG. 

' Schliemann, " Tirvns," (18S6), pp. 78, 174. 

'^ " Mycenae," (Murray, 1878), p. 272. See also pp. 7G and 1-jS. 

'•' " Anti;riieda<ics Prehistoricas de Andalusia," p. 104. 

^" " Les premiers Ages du Metal, &c.," Anvers, 1887. 

>i "Ant. de Algarve," 1886. Cartailhac, p. 8(i, 159, 170. 

t)d2 



404 JAVELIX AND AKROW HEADS. [CHAP. XVI, 

schmit' engraves specimens, like Figs. 311 and 327, from the Eliine 
and Oldenburg, and a tanged arrovr-head of serpentine from Inzig- 
hofen, near Sigmaringen, on the Danube.- Lisch also engi-aves a few 
specimens from North Germany,^ which resemble the Scandinavian in 
character. Near Egenburg/ in Lower Austria, a considerable 
number have been found. Some Austrian ^ arrow-heads are barbed, 
but without the central tang. 

Considering the wonderful abundance of flint implements in Den- 
mark and Southern Sweden, it is not a little singular that arrow- 
heads should be there comparatively so rare. The leaf-shaped form 
is extremely scarce, but a triangular form, resembling the leaf-shaped 
in all respects but in having a rounded notch at the base in lieu of a 
rounded end, is more common. Stemmed and barbed arrow-heads 
are also very scarce, and those merely tanged are usually flakes 
simply trimmed at the edges, with the exception of those of eqvii- 
lateral triangular section, which are peculiar to Scandinavia. The 
lozenge-shape appears to be unknown ; and by far the greater number 
of arrow-heads are of the triangular form, sometimes but slightly, if 
at all, hollowed at the base, though usually furnished with long pro- 
jecting wings or barbs. The same type occurs in Norway .* Occasion- 
ally the notch between the barbs is square, and the ends of the barbs 
worked at an acgle of about 45°, like Fig. 319, without the central 
stem. In some rare instances the barbs curve outwards at the points, 
giving an ogee form to the sides. In others the barbs curve inwards. 
In many, the sides are delicately serrated, and in most the workman- 
ship is admirable. "WTiat appear to be lance-heads are sometimes notched 
on either side near the base, like the common North American form, and 
like those already mentioned as occurring occasionally in France.' 

In Norway,'^ and more rarely in Sweden,^ stemmed and acutely 
barbed arrow- and lance-heads, made of hard slate ground on the 
surface, are occasionally found. Knives of the same material also 
occur. They much resemble some of those from Greenland, and are 
probably of comparatively late date. Some spear-head-like implements 
of slate, ornamented with incised lines, have been found in a circular 
fort on Dunbuie Hill,"^ near Dumbarton. 

Triangular arrow-heads of flint, more or less excavated at the base 
like those from Scandinavia, are also sometimes found in Russia, 
Specimens from Ekaterinoslav in the South, and Olonetz in the 
North, were exhibited at Paris in 1867. Others from Archangel 
approach more nearly to the North American form. They are occa- 
sionally tanged.'^ 

' " Alterth. u. h. Vorzeit," vol. i. Heftvi. pi. i. "Hohenz. Samml.," Taf. xliii. 17. 

- " Hohenz. Samml.," Taf. xliii. 'Ih. 

' "Frederico-l'rancisceum," 1837, Tab. xxvii. 

* Von Sacken, " Grabfeld von Hallstatt," p. 38. 

* Kenner, "Arch. Funde. i. d. Oesterr. Mon.," 1867, p. 41. 
6 O. Rvgh, "Norske Oldsager," (1881), No. 76. 

' Conf. Madsens " Afbildninger," pi. xxsvii. and xxxix. "Worsaae, " Nord. 
Oldsager," fig. 68 et seqq. NHsson's " ytone Age," pi. iii. and v. Antiq. Tidskrift 
for Sverige, 1864, pi. xxiii. 

* Fore)iingcn til Xotbke lorlidsmindesmerkers Bevaring, Aarsber., 1867, pi. i. ; 1868, 
pi. iii. 8. 

9 Nilsson, "Stone Age," pi. iii. 59. « P. S. A. S., vol. xxx., 1896, p. 291. 

1' VAnthropologie, vol. vi. (1895), p. 14. 



AFRICAN AND ASIATIC TYPES. 405 

In Nortliern Africa flint arrow-heads have been discovered, and the 
leaf-shaped, triangular, and tanged and barbed forms have been found 
in the dolmens of Algeria.^ Some have also been collected in Tunis,'^ 
and simple tanged arrow-heads have been found in the Sahara.^ 

But little is at present known of the stone antiquities of a great 
part of Asia ; but an arrow-head from India ^ was in the possession of 
Prof. Buckman, who obligingly furnished mo with a sketch of it. 
It is acutely pointed, about 2| inches long, and tanged and barbed, 
though the barbs are now broken off. Some small leaf-shaped 
arrow-lieads have been found at Eanchi,'"' in the Chota-Nagpore 
district. Mr. Bauerman, F.G.S., found, at Ghenneh, in Wady Sireh, 
Sinai, a flint arrow-head, neatly chipped on both faces, of a very 
peculiar form, being leaf-shaped, with a tang attached. It is in all 
nearly 2 inches long, of which the leaf-shaped part occupies about 
1 ^ inches, and the slender tang or stalk the other i inch. It lay in 
a tomb " with a lance-head of flint, a bracelet of copper, and a neck- 
lace of spiral shells. A very similar arrow-head, 2.V inches long, 
from Wady Maghara, was presented by jMajor Macdonald ' to the 
British Museum. The form seems also to occur in North America. ■ 

The Abbe Richard found some very finely worked arrow-heads on 
and around Mount Sinai." Two ^" from that locality were presented 
to the Society of Antiquaries in 1872. Flint arrow-heads have been 
found on Mount Lebanon,^' mostly tanged, but without pronounced 
barbs. A few are leaf-shaped and triangular. 

Some obsidian arrow-heads from the Caucasus^- are triangular, with 
a semicircular notch at the base. Some of flint and of leaf -shaped 
form have been found at Hissar, '■' near Damghan, Persia. 

Arrow-heads from Japan '^ are curiously like those from Europe, 
being triangular with or without barbs, and stemmed and slightly 
barbed. For the most part, they are narrower in their proportions 
than the European. Some are formed of obsidian. Besides these, the 
lozenge-shaped, the leaf-shaped, and a peculiar form with broad-ended 
barbs and no central tang, occur. There is a fine series in the Museum 
at Lej'den and in the British Museum. 

In Greenland flat arrow-heads and harpoon-points of chalcedony 
and slate are found, most of which approximate to ordinary North 
American forms. I have one triangular arrow-head with the sides 

' Bonstetten, " Essai sur les dolmens," pi. iv. ZeitscJi.f. Ethn., vol. xvii. p. (93). 

■- V Anthropologie, vol. v. (1894), p. 538. 

3 Rev. Arch., vol. xlii. pi. x. p. 1. ^ Arch. Soc. Journ., vol. xvii. p. 74. 

^ Journ. As. Soc. Bingal, vol. Ivii. 1889, p. 392, pi. iv. 6, 7. 

" Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xxv. p. 35. 

'' Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. i. p. 322. 

" Schoolcraft, "lad. Tribes," vol. i. pi. x\'ii. 9. 

9 Rev. Arch., vol. xxii. p. 378. Brit. Assoc. Rep., 1871. 

"' Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v. p. 330. 

" La Natnrc, 2.5 juillet, 1896. UAnthrop., vol. vii., 1S9G, p. 571. 

1- Chantre, " Lo Caucase," (1885), pi. i. Zeitsch.f. Ethn., 1885, Supp., pi. viii. 

':' Joarn. R. As. S., 1876, p. 425. Mitth. Anth. Ges. in Wioi, 1884. N. S., vol. iv. 
p. (28). 

" Trans. Preh. Congress, 1868, p. 2G6. Sec also Bull, de la Soc. Roy. (hs Ant. du 
Kord, 1843-45, p. 26. Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. x. p. 395, pi. xviii. Proc. Soc. Ant.. 
2nd S., vol. vi. p. 15. Zcitsch. f. Ethn., vol. xxiv., 1892, p. (432). Materiaux, 
vol. viii. p. 92; xiv., p. 32. T. Kanda, "Anc. St. Impts. of Japan," (Tokio, 
1884). 



406 JAVELIN AND ARROW HEADS. [CHAr. XVI, 

cui-ved outwards and delicately serrated. In Newfoundland' a narrow, 
triangular form prevails, sometimes ground sharp at tlie base. 

One of the ordinary- types in North America," viz., that -with, a 
notch at the base on either side, has already been mentioned more 
than once. This form shades off into that with a central dovetailed 
tang, sometimes with, well-developed barbs. Others again have 
merely a central tang, with little or no attempt at barbs. The tri- 
angular form, usuall}- but little excavated at the base, is also common. 
A rare form terminates in a semicircular edge. The leaf-shaped form 
is rare. For the most part the chipping is but rough, as the material, 
which is usually chert, horn-stone, or even quartz, does not readily 
lend itself to fine work. They were made of various sizes, the smaller 
for boys, and those for men varying in accordance with the purpose to 
■which they were to be applied.^ They have been so fully described by 
others that I need not dilate upon them. Some broken arrow-heads 
have been converted into scrapers. 

As we proceed southwards in America, the forms appear more 
closely to resemble the European. Some of the obsidian and chal- 
cedony ari'ow-heads from Mexico are stemmed and barbed, and 
almost identical in shape with English examples. Don Antonio de 
Salis ^ relates that in the Palace of Montezuma there was one place 
where they prepared the shafts for arrows and another where they 
worked the flint (obsidian) for the points. In Tierra del Fuego^ 
the natives still fashion stemmed arrow-heads tanged and barbed, or 
of a triangular fonu, with a tang extending from the centre of the 
base. In Patagonia,*' triangular, stemmed, and stemmed and barbed 
arrow-heads occur in deposits analogous to the Danish kjokken- 
nioddings. One brought from Eio Grande, and presented to me by 
Lieut. Musters, E.N.. has a broad stem somewhat hollowed at the 
base. Mr. Hudson, ' in giving an account of arrow-heads from the 
valley of the Eio Negro, formed of agate, cr^-stal, and flint of various 
colours, remarks that beauty must have been as much an aim to the 
worker as utility. 

Some of the flint and chalcedony arrow-heads from Chili are 
beautifully made, and closely resemble those from Oregon, farther 
north. A tanged and barbed point, embedded in a human vertebra, 
was found in a burial mound near Copiapo." 

A tanged arrow-head from Araucania, with a well-marked shoulder 
at the base of the triangular head, so that it might almost be called 
barbed, is engraved by the Eev. Dr. Hume.^ It is like an Italian form. 

^ Journ. Ardh. Inst., vol. v. p. 241. pi. xi. 

- Douo-las, " Xaenia Brit.," pi. xxxiii. 8. See Squier and Davis, "Arc. Mon. of 
Miss. Valley," p. 212. Schoolcraft, " Ind. Tribes," vol. i. pi. xvii., xviii. ; vol. ii. 
pi. xxxix. 

3 Schoolcraft, op. cit., vol. i. p. 77. Catlin, "X. A. Ind.." vol. i. pi. xii. See 
also Nature, vol. Ti. pp. 392, 413, 515; xi. pp. 90, 215. Gerard Fowke, "Stone 
Art," IZth Ann. Pup. Bureau of Ethn. (1S91-2), 1896. P. S. A. S., vol. xxiv. p. 
39G. Abbott's " Primitive Industry," (Salem, Mass., 1881). 

* " Conquista de Mejico," bk. iii. chap. 14. 

•^ Lubbock, "Preh. Times," 4th ed. p. 107. Douglas, "Naenia Brit.," pi. xxxiii. 
9, 10. 

* Strobel, "Mat. di Paletnolopria comparata," Parma, 18G8. Journ. AiitJi. Inst., 
vol. iv. p. 311, pi. xxiii. Nadailhac, " I'Amer. preh." (1863), pp. 27. 57. 

' "Idle Days iu Patagonia," 1S93. p. 39. * Arch. Journ., vol. xxxviii. p. 429. 
' " 111. of Brit. Ant. from objects found in South America, 18G9," p. 89. 



SOUTH AMERICAN TYPES. 407 

Stemmed arrow- or liarpoon-lieads of quartz are found in Chili and 
Peru of much the same form as Fig. 303. The barbs, if such they 
may be called, are usually at rather more than a rig-ht angle to the 
stem, and occasionally project considerably from the side of the blade, 
giving it a somewhat cruciform appearance. I have several which 
Avero dug out by the late Mr. David Forbes, F.R.S., from graves close 
to the shore, about tv\-o miles south of Arica.' In some instances they 
are still attached to their shafts, which are unlike those of ordinary 
arrows, being shorter and clumsier. I have them of two sizes, the 
larger 10^ inches long, about 1; inch in diameter at the end, where the 
head has been inserted in a socket, increasing to f in diameter towards 
the other end. At a distance of 2 inches from this, however, there is 
an abrupt shoulder, so that the diameter is increased by at least J of an 
inch, and the shaft then rapidly tapers in the contrary direction. The 
shafts have thus a stopper-like termination, which Mr. Forbes suggests 
ma}' have been inserted in the end of a longer shaft of bamboo, so 
that the whole weapon was a sort of spear or javelin, and not, stri-etly 
speaking, an arrow. The smaller kind of shaft is of the same character, 
but only G inches long, and proportionately smaller. This may possibly 
have served as part of an arrow. The wood of all has been coloured 
with a red pigment. 

One arrow-head from the same spot is of remarkably elegant form, 
and of wonderfully good workmanship. In general outline it is not 
unlike Fig. 324, but the blade expands more rapidly to form the barbs, 
which stand out well from the stem, and are separated from it by a 
.slight hollow. It is 1| inches long. Its greatest width at the barbs 
is but i an inch ; and the extreme acuteness and delicacy of the point 
may be judged of from the fact, that a distance of an inch from the 
apex the width is less than ^ of an inch. The heads appear to have 
been secured in their sockets by binding with thread formed of vege- 
table fibre. In some instances the wooden shaft is furnished with 
barbs made of bronze, tied on a little distance behind the stone 
point. 

Leaf-shaped arrow-heads, as well as tanged and barbed, and barbed 
without a central tang, are found in Peru.- Some leaf-shaped arrows 
with a stalk, from New Granada, are in the Albert Memorial Museum 
at Exeter. 

It will, however, be thought that enough, and more than enough, 
has been said as to the forms of arrow-heads occurring in various 
parts of the world. Allowing for local dificrences, the general 
correspondence in form is so great that we cannot wonder at Dr. 
Woodward's^ suggestion that the first model of flint arrow- 
heads was probably brought from Babel, and preserved after the 
dispersion of mankind. To most, however, it will appear that 
this general similaritj'- affords another proof that in all places, 
and in all times, similar circumstances and similar wants, with 

^ See also Mat., vol. xiv. p. 382. - Camb. Ant. Comm., vol. iv. p. 13. 

3 " Method of Fossils " (1728), p. 43. 



408 



JAVELIN AND ARROW HEADS. 



[cHAr. 



XVI. 



similar materials only at command for gratifying them, result 
in similar contrivances. 

I must, in conclusion, say a few words as to the method of 
mounting these stone points upon the arrows ; and here we are 
not left absolutely to conjecture, though the discoveries of flint 
arrow-heads still attached to their shafts, in any part of the 
Tnited Kingdom, are extremely rare. But in Ballykillen Bog, 
King's County, a stemmed and barbed flint arrow-head was found, 
still remaining in a part of its " briar-wood " shaft, and with a por- 
tion of the gut-tying by which it had been secured, still attached. 
It is in the museum of Mr. Murray, of Edenderry, and has been 
figured by Sir TT. Wilde. ^ Another Irish example was found in 
Xanestown Bog,- co. Antrim, and has been published by Mr. VT. J. 
Knowles. In this case the head was barbed though not stemmed, 
but the shaft was cleft to receive it, and was bound round with 
gut or sinew for a length of about 4 inches. The shaft is thought 
to have been of ash. 

A third example was found in a moss at Fy vie,^ Aberdeenshire, 
^nd has been described by Dr. Joseph Anderson. By the kindness 

of the Society of Antiquaries 
of Scotland it is shown in 
Fig. 342a. The point is leaf- 
shaped, approaching to a 
lozenge. It is inserted in a 
cleft in the tapering shaft, 
which extends almost to the 
point. The nature of the 
tough wood, of which the 
shaft is made, has not been 
determined, and the manner 
in which the head was se- 
cured in the shaft seems un- 
certain ; but there may have 
been a binding which has 
perished. Dr. Anderson was 
able to reproduce the shaft 
in soft wood, making use of flint tools only. 

Specimens have also been found in Switzerland and Germany. 




Fig. 342a.— Fyrie, 
Aberdeenshire. 



343.— Switzerland. 



1 " Cat. Mus. R. I. A.," p. 254, fig. 164. 

- Jot<ru. R. H. and A. A. of Ireland, 4th S. vol. vii., 1SS5. p. 12C. 

' F. S. A. S., vol. xi. p. 509. 



HOW ATTACHED TO THEIR SHAFTS. 



409 



One of the former has been figured by Dr. Keller,^ whose engrav- 
ing I here reproduce, as Fig. 343; in the full size of the original 
arrow, instead of on the scale of one-half. It was found, not in any 
of the Lake habitations, but in the moss of Geissboden. 

The arrow-heads found among theancient Swiss lake- 
dwellings, often bear on their surface some portion of 
the bituminous cement which helped to attach them to 
the shafts. Dr. Clement^ possessed one, apparently 
tanged but not barbed, the base of which is completely 
incrusted with bitumen, with traces of the wood of the 
shaft upon it, and of the cord by which the whole was 
bound together. Another, leaf-shaped, similarly iii- 
crusted, is in the Museum at Lausanne. The attach- 
ment of a conical bone arrow-head to its shaft is of the 
same character. Some single-barbed^ arrows were 
made by tying a bone pin, pointed at each end, diago- 
nally to the extremity of the shaft. 

Another specimen has been engraved by Madsen,'* Fiinen^iJ™. 
who, however, does not appear to have recognised it ^''^^^- ^ 
as an arrow-head. He describes it as " a flint instrument, fastened 
by means of fine bast-fibre to a wooden shaft, of 
which only I5 inch remains." I have here repro- 
duced his engraving, as Fig. 344, and there can I 
think be little doubt that it rejDresents the point 
of an arrow of the same character as those in use 
among the ancient Egyptians.^ It was found in 
a peat moss in the parish of Yissenberg, Odense, 
in the Isle of Fimen. 

Among modern savages, v/e find the stone points 
sometimes attached to the shafts by vegetable 
fibre, not unfrequently aided by some resinous 
gum, and also by means of animal sinew. The 
annexed woodcut, Fig. 345, kindly supplied by 
the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland,^ shows an 
arrow-head, stated to be fiom one of the South 
Sea Islands, but more probably from California, 

' " Pfahlbautcn," 2ter Ber. Taf. i. 5. "Lake-dwellings," pi. xxxix. 15. It is 
curiously like an arrow of the Zoreisch Indiaus, fiijured Mltlli. d. Ant. Gesells. in 
irieii, 1893, p. 119. 

- Mortillet, Mat., vol. ii. p. 512. Mackic, "Nat. Hist. Rep.," vol. i. p. 137. 
"Mus. Prch.," fig. 406. 

^ Le Hod, " L'homme foss.," 2nd ed., p. 184. *• " Afbildniuger," pi. xxii. 19. 

5 See p. 369. ^ iVoc, vol. iv. p. 298. 




Fit?. 345.— Mixlern 
Stono Arrow-head. 



410 JAVELIN AND ARROAV HEADS. [CHAP. XVI. 

attaclied by means of tendon to a reed shaft. The Indians of 
California certainly affix their arrow-heads in a similar manner ; 
hut commonly there are notches on either side of the head at the 
hase, to receive the sinew or split intestine, "which is in the form 
of tape about | inch -wide. The binding extends about an inch 
along the shaft, and is of the neatest description. North Amer- 
ican ^ arrow-heads, fastened in this manner, have been engraved 
by Sir John Lubbock and the Rev. J. G. "Wood. The end of the 
shaft has a shallow notch in it to receive the flint, which is 
cemented into the notch before being bound on. 

Among the Kaffirs," the iron heads of the assagais are usually 
bound to the shafts with strips of wet hide, which contract and 
tighten in drying. 

The shafts of arrows are frequently of reed, in which case there is 
often a longer or shorter piece of solid wood joined on to the reed 
to which the head is attached. This is the case with the ancient 
Egyptian arrows, and with those of the Bushmen,^ in which, how- 
ever, bone and ivory replace the wood ; and the shaft generally 
consists of three pieces — reed, ostrich bone, and ivory, to which 
latter the head of iron is attached. In other cases the shafts con- 
sist of straight-growing shoots of trees. Among the Eskimos,* 
where wood is so scarce, a peculiai* tool — formed of bone, with an 
oval or lozenge-shaped hole through it — is used for the purpose of 
straightening arrow-shafts. The tang of their arrow-heads is 
inserted in a socket, and bound fast with sinew. 

For harpoons there is often a hole in the triangular armature. 
One of these points was found in the bod}- of a seal killed in 
Iceland ^ in 1643, and Olaf "Worm judiciously thought that the seal 
had been wounded b}^ a Greenlander. 

In most countries the shafts are feathered at the bow-string end, 
and such was the case in the earliest historical times. Hesiod ^ 
describes the arrows of Hercules as feathered from the wings of a 
black eagle, and Homer '^ speaks of the TTTepoevre^ o'iaroi! — if 
indeed, as Mr. Yates suggests, this latter refers to the plumes.^ 
Herodotus,^ however, mentions, as a remarkable fact, that the 
arrows of the Lycians in the army of Xerxes, like those of the 
Eushmen and some other savages of the present day, had no 

1 " Preh. Times," 4th ed., p. 107. *'Nat. Hist, of Man," vol. ii. p. 648. 
- Wood, " Nat. Hist, of Man," vol. i. p. 103. 3 /^.^ ^ol. i. p. 284. 

* One is figured in Trnns. Lane, and Chesh. Arch. Soc, vol- iv. p. 369. 

* "Mus. Wonnianum," 1655, p. 350. ® "Scut. Herculis," v. 134. 
" "Iliad," v. 171. 

8 Smith's " Diet, of Ant.," p. 1002. » Lib. vii. cap. 92. 



HOWS IN EARLY TIMES. 411 

feathers, so that this addition to the shaft was not indispensable. 
It is said that some North American arrow-heads arc " bevelled * 
ofC on the reverse sides, apparently to give them a revolving 
motion," so as to answer the same purpose as plumes. But this 
result seems very doubtful. 

From what kind of wood the bows in Britain were made at 
the time when Hint-pointed arrows were in use is uncertain ; the 
yew, however, which is j)robably the best European Avood for the 
purpose, is indigenous to this country. It is not probable that 
the cross-bow was known in these early times, though it was in 
use during the Roman period, as may be seen on a monument in 
the museum at Le Puy. 

I need, however, hardly enter into further details with regard 
to arrows, and I therefore proceed to the consideration of other 
forms of stone implements, including those by which it seems 
probable that some of the arrow-heads were fashioned. 

^ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. i. p. 85. Nature, vol. x. p. 245. 



412 



CHAPTER XYII. 



FABRICATORS, FLAKING TOOLS, ETC. 

Ix treating of the manufacture of stone implements in preliistoric 
times I have already (p. 41) described certain tools of flint witli 
a blunted, worn, and rounded appearance at one or both ends, as 
if resulting from attrition against a hard substance, and I have 
suggested that their purpose may have been for chipping out 
arrow-heads and other small instruments of flint. As, however, it 
was not desirable to introduce unnecessary details when dealing 

only with the processes adopted in the 
manufacture of stone implements, the 
more particular description of some of 
the tools was deferred, until after an 
account had been given of the objects in 
the making of which they had probably 
assisted. 

lu Fig. 346 is shown, full size, a 
characteristic specimen of tlie tool to 
which I have provisionally assigned the 
name of '' flaking tool," or fabricator. It 
is symmetrically chipiied out of grey flint, 
and is cui'ved at one extremity, probabl}^ 
witli the view of adaptin<r it for being 
better held in the hand. The side edges, 
which were originally left sharj), have 
been slightly rounded by grinding, appar- 
ently from the same motive. The angles 
at the curved end have been smoothed ott', 
but the other end is completely rounded, 
and presents the half-polished, worn ap- 
pearance characteristic of these tools. The 
curvature lengthways to some extent re- 
sembles that of theEskimo arrow-flakers en- 
graved as Figs. 8 and •,), and is of common 
occurrence among these tools. They vary much in the amoimt of work- 
mansliip they display; some being mere flakes with the edges rounded 




S46.— Yorkshire Wolds. 



TIJKIK PllOHAliLK USKS, 



413 



by cLipping, and otliors as carefully wrought into form as any flint 
hatchet or chisel. These skilfully-('hip[)e(l specimens are freciuently 
much more convex on one face than the other. They vary in leng-tli 
from about 2 to 4 inches. 

An unusually long- example is, by permission of the Society of Anti- 
quaries of Scotland, shown iu Fig. .'MO.v. It was found on the Hill 
of Corennie,' Aberdeenshire, and closely resembles another imple- 
ment of the same Kind found near Fordoun,^ Kincardineshire. 



m 







340,4. — Coixniiio. 



Fis. 347.— Bridlington. 



The rougher kinds are usually clumsy in their proportions, as if 
strength were an object, and they not unfrequently show a certain 
amount of abrasion at each end. An instrument of this coarser de- 
scription is shown in Fig. 347. It is worn away and rounded, not 
only at the point, but for a considerable distance along the sides, the 
abraded surface having a somewhat bruised appearance. It is re- 
markable that many of the IJanish Hint knife-daggers, especlall}' those 
which have been so long iu iise that their blades have been much 
diminished iu size by having been frequently re-chipped, present at tho 



1 r. S. J. S\, vol. XV. p. 5. 



R S. A. S., vol. xi. p. 2.5. 



414 FABRICATORS, FLAKIXG TOOLS, ETC. [cHAP. XVII, 

end and sides of the handles precisely the same kind of worn surface. 
At one time I thought it possible that constant contact with hard 
hands, not free from sand and dirt, might have produced this rounding 
of the angles ; but closer examiuation proves that this cannot have 
been the only cause of the wear, as it is sometimes the case that at 
a certain distance from the end of the hilt, the abraded character dis- 
appears entirely, and, with the exception of a slight polish, the anirles 
are as fresh as on the day when the daggers were tirst manufactured. 
This feature is most observable in the poignards with the beautifully- 
decorated handles. I possess one of this kind — like "Worsaae, No. 52 
— with the sides near the blade exquisitely ornamented with a delicate 
wavy edging, and with a line of similar ornament running along the 
centre of one face of the handle, the butt-end having also been edged 
in a similar manner ; but for an inch and a-half from the end the 
whole of tliis ornamentation is completely worn away, and the sides 
are battered and rounded. To such an extent has this part of the 
handle been used, that one of the projecting points of the original 
iishtail-like end has entirely disappeared, and the other is completely 
rounded. The blade is probably now not more than one-third of its 
original size, so that we may infer that it must have been long in use 
for its legitimate x^urposes. But during all this time the hilt must have 
been made to serve some other and less appropriate piu-pose than that 
of a handle, and as a result its original beauty of ornamentation has 
been entirely destroyed. I tliink that tliis purpose must have been the 
chipping, or rather the re-working, of the edges of other flint instruments. 

AVTiether this was effected by pressure or by slight blows it is hard 
to say ; but it appears probable that the ancient possessor of two 
such daggers used the hilt of the one for re-chipping the blade of 
the other, and it may be for re-chipping other implements. An 
indirect inference deducible from this disfigurement of the beautifully 
wrought handles, is that they were not originally made by the owners 
who thus misused them — though they also must have been fairly 
accomplished workers in flint — but that the daggers were procured by 
liarter of some kiud from the cutlers of the period, whose special trade 
it was to work in flint. For we can hardly conceive that those Avho 
had bestowed so much time and skill in the ornamentation of the:>e 
hilts, should afterwards wantonly disfigure their own artistic productions. 
In Britain, where the larger forms of finely-wrought instruments are 
scarcer, it seems most likely that these flakers were principally used 
in the making of arrow-heads, though probably hard bone or stag's 
horn was also employed, as already suggested. 

Against regarding the ends of these tools as having been worm away 
in the manufacture of other instruments of flint, it may be urged that 
the butt-ends of some chisels present a similar appearance, and there- 
fore that the wear may be the result of hammering with some kind of 
hard mallet. It must, however, be remembered that no hammering 
at the ends would psoduce the wearing away apparent on the sides of 
the tools, and that the chisels which present the worn ends are in form 
and size much the same as the "flaking tools," and may, like the 
Danish daggers, have served a double purpose. It is also worthy of 
notice that these " flaking tools " are most abundant in districts where 
flint arrow-heads occur in the greatest numbers, as, for instance, on 



USED FOR AVORKING IN FLINT. 



415 



tlio Yorksliire Wolds. In parts of Suffolk -whoi-e arrow-lieads are 
common they too are abundantly present. I have also found them 
in the camp at Maiden ]io\\er, near Dunstable, iu company with arrow- 
heads. 

In the case of the straig-ht implements, like Fig. 347, it is by no 
means impossible that they were used with a mallet as punches or sets, 
to strike off flakes in the manufacture of arrow-heads and similar 
articles. As already mentioned, some of the American tribes use a 
bone punch for this i^urposo. 

In Figs. 348 and 349 I have engraved two Yorkshire instruments, 
the one from Sawdon, and the other from Acklam Wold ; both from 
the rich Greenwell Collection. At first sight they seem chisel-like in 
character, but the edge in both is sendcivcular, and not ground, but 
merely chii^ped. Fig. 348 is worked on both faces, thougli more 





Fig. 348.— Sawdon. 



Fia:. 349.— Acklam Wold. 



convex on one than on the 'other. Fig. 349 is merely a flake with 
its edges chipped towards its outer face, so that it resembles a long 
narrow scraper. The butt-end in that from Sawdon is much worn and 
rounded, its sides are also worn atva}' for about ^ inch at that eiid ; 
the butt of that from Acklam AVold is also rounded, but principally 
towards the flat face. The edges of both are sharp and uninjured. 
It therefore appears jirobable that these tools were also made witli a 
view to being used at the blunt, and not at the sharp end ; and it is 
possible that the semicircular sharp ends may have been for insertion 
in some form of wooden handle, in which the instruments were tightly 
bound, and their projecting ends then used, it may be, for flaking 
other flints. A flaking-tool from Unstan Cairn, ^ Orkney, is of the 
same character as Fig. 349, but longer. What seems to have been a 
" fabricator " was found at Torre Abbej' Sands,- Torbay. On referring 
to page 38, will be seen some Eskimo arrow-flakers of reindeer horn 



^ P. S. A. S., vol. xix. p. 351. 



" Tr. Dev. Assoc, vol. xv. p. 138. 



416 FABRICATORS, FLAKING TOOLS, ETC. [ciIAP. XVll. 

attached to wooden handles ; and the instrument from Acklam Wold 
8eems -well adapted for similar attachment, with its flat side towards 
the wood. 

Some bone instruments which have been found in barrows may 
possibly have served as arrow-flakers. One from Grreen Low,' Derby- 
shire, has been figured. An implement of deer's horn, with a small 
jiiece of hard bone inserted in the small end, was found intheBroch- 
oi Lingrow, Scapa, Orkney, but seems to belong to the Iron Period. 
Xo flint arrow-heads are recorded from the Broch. 

1 must confess that the suggestions I have olfered with regard to 
the use of these tools are by no means conclusive. I can only hope 
that future discoveries may throw more light upon the subject. 

Canon Greenwell, who has figured a si^ecimen — like Fig. 346 — in the 
Archaological Journal,^ was inclined to think that the other form of 
instrument, like Figs. 348 and 349, was "used in dressing hides, the 
sharp end ior removing the loose parts of the skin, the smooth end 
for rubbirij^ down the seams when the leather was made u\) into a 
garment." I do not think that this can really have been their purpose, 
as for smoothing down the seams a natural pebble would probably be 
preferable, and for cutting or removing the loose parts a flint flake 
woidd answer better. Still, I have seen a somewhat pointed con- 
cretionary nodule of stone, the end and point of which were polished 
from use by a glovemaker, in recent times, in smoothing down the 
seams of coarse leather gloves. The late Mr. (\ Monkman,^ like 
myself, regarded these instruments as punches or fabricators, used 
for chipping arrows and delicate flint weapons into shape. This is 
also Canon Greenwell's present opinion. He has figured an example 
in "British Barrows."^ In Yorkshire thcv aie known as "finger- 
flints." 

The worn ajipearance of the pointed end of some flakes is not im- 
probably due, as has already been observed, to their having been 
employed in " picking" into shape implements — such as hatchets or 
axes — formed of greenstone and other rocks of a somewhat softer 
nature than flint. The ends of the flaking tools, punches, or fabri- 
cators are, however, usually far too blunt for them to have been api^lied 
to such a purpose. 

Another of the causes of the blunted and worn-away appearance of 
the ends, and even sides, of originally sharp flint flakes and instru- 
ments, I have alread}' described when treating of scrapers — namelj', 
the striking off b}- their means particles from a block of pyrites, with a 
view of procuring fire. 

» Arch., xliii. p. 437, %. 136. ^ p,.^^ Soe. A»f. Scot., vol. ix. p. 3.56. 

2 Vol. xxii. p. 246, 101 note. * Torksh. Arch, and Top. Journ., 1868. 
* P. 40, fig. 21. 



417 



CHAPTER XVIIl. 

SLIXG- STONES AND BALLS. 

Passing ou from flint arrow-heuds and the tools which were pro- 
bably used in the process of their manufacture, we come to another 
form of missile weapon — the sling-stone — which also appears to 
have been in use in Britain. It is needless here to enter into 
details as to the early use of the sling among the more civilized 
nations of antiquity, especially as comprehensive articles on the 
subject have already been published in this country by Mr. Walter 
Hawkins ^ and Mr. Syer Cuming.^ 

A stone thrown b}^ hand doubtless constituted the first missile 
weapon, and some form of sling must probably have been among 
the earliest inventions of mankind. What appears to be the 
simplest kind, and one which, like Nilsson^ and Strutt,* I frequently 
used as a boy, consists of a stick split for a short distance down 
one end, so as to form a cleft, in which a stone is placed ; the 
elasticity of the two halves of the stick, which are kept asunder by 
the stone, retaining it there until the proper moment for its discharge. 
Nilsson cites Lepsius as engraving in his great work on Egypt a 
representation of a man armed with such a sling, which he appears 
to use very actively in fight. At his feet there is a heap of small 
stones in readiness for use. Nilsson^ also suggests that it was 
with such a slino: that David was armed when he encountered 
Goliath, who addresses him : " Am I a dog that thou comest to 
me with staves? '"" that is, with the shepherd's staff and the sling 
handle. The most ancient form, however, recorded by classical 
writers is that of the ribbon sling, with a central receptacle for the 
stone, and with strings on either side. The neatly plaited or 
knitted cup or strap of a sling, with a portion of its cord, both 
formed of flax, was among the objects discovered in the Lake- 

' Arch., vol. xxxii. p. 96. Froc. Soc. Ant., vol. i. p. 157. 
- Airfi. Assoc. Joinii., vol. xx. p. 73. See also "Flint Chipf," p. 302. 
^ " Stone Age," p. 4'J. ' •' Sports and Pastimes," ed. 1845, p. ~t\. 

5 "Stone Age," p. 49. "^ 1 Sam. xvii. 43. 

E E 



418 SLING-STONES AND BALLS. [cHAP. XVIII. 

settlement of Cortaillod/ which was remarkably rich in bronze 
objects. This probably is the most ancient sling now in existence. 
The staff-sling reappears in Roman times in a somewhat modified 
form, with a receptacle for the stone attached to the end of a staff. 
To this weapon the name of fnstihahis was given. 

The earliest sling-stones were, no doubt, like those used by David 
against Gohath, the " smooth stones out of the brook ; " but in after- 
times, among the Greeks and the Romans, sling-buUets of an almond 
or acorn-like form were cast in lead, and flattened ovoid missiles were 
formed in terra eotta ; both kinds, from their uniforniitj' in size, ensuring 
greater precision of aim than could be secured with stones, however 
carefully selected, and the former also offering the advantages of less 
resistance from the air, as well as greater concentration of force when 
striking the object. Some pohshed sling-bullets of loadstone or haematite 
are mentioned by Schliemann- as having been found on the presumed site 
of Troy. The advantages of uniformity of size and form are recognized 
among some savage tribes, who make use of the sling at the present 
day ; the shng-stones, for instance, of the New Caledonians being care- 
fully shaped out of steatite, and, what is worthj^ of remark, approxi- 
mating closely in fonn to the Roman glandes, being fusiform or pointed 
ovoids. The same form on a larger scale, about 3 inches in diameter 
and 4 inches long, has been adopted by the natives of Savage Island 
for missiles thrown by the hand. These are wi'ought from calc-spar 
almost as truly as if turned in a lathe. 

Nilsson^ has engraved a sling-stone of this same form, found in 
Sweden, where, however, tbey are by no means common, as he cites 
but five specimens in the museums at Lund and Stockholm. 

Artificially-fashioned shng-stones are^not, however, confined to this 
fusiform shape ; those that were in use among the Charruas of Southern 
iVmerica having been of a lenticular form, though slightly flattened at 
the centre of each face. One in m}' collection is about 3 inches in dia- 
meter and If inches thick in the middle. It has been ground over the 
whole of both faces, and has the edge at its periphery .slightly rounded. 

The objects so frequently found in the Swiss Lake-dwellings, and 
to which the name of sUng-stones has been commonly given, were, as 
Keller* has pointed oat, probably intended for some very different 
purpose. Many of the forms described by Sir William Wilde,' under 
the name of sling-stones, may also, I think, be more properl}' placed in 
some other category. The carefully polished lenticular disc of flint 
(Wilde, Fig. 9) seems better adapted for a cutting tool ; and the flat 
oval stones, usually with " a slight indentation, such as might be 
effected by rubbing with a metal tool," were, as I have already 
observed, more probably used for obtaining fire, like those of the same 
class belonging to the earl}' Iron Age of Denmark,'' which they much 
resemble in character. 

' Keller's " Lake-dwellings," pi. lxxx^^. 2. 

2 " Troy and its Remains," (1878), p. lOL 

3 "Stone Age," pi. v. 115. * " Lake-dwellings, " p. 135. 

* '« Cat. Mus. R. I. A.," pp. 18, 74. 

* Engelbardt, "Nydam Mosefundet," pi. xiii. 65. 




SLING-STONES KOUGHLY CHIPPKU FROM FLINT. 419 

The objects to wliicli iu this country the name of sling-stone has been 
generally applied are more or less roughly- chipped, and appi'oxi- 
mately lenticular blocks of Hint, varying considerably in proportionate 
thickness, and usually from about 1^- to 3 inches in diameter. An 
average specimen from the Yorkshire 
Wolds is shown in Fig. 350. The 
contour is frequently more truly cir- 
cular or oval, and the faces somewhat 
more carefully chipped. They are 
found in considerable numbers on the 
Yorkshire Wolds, in Suffolk, .Sussex, 
and other counties where chalk flints 
are common. Occasionally also they 
■occur in Scotland.' Similar forms 

are also abundant in the Danish Fig. 35o.-Yorkshirc woid 

kjokken-mciddings and "coast-finds." 
In this latter case it appears quite as probable that they may have 
served for net-sinkers as for sling-stones ; although, as Sir John 
Lubbock'^ has remarked, " that some have really served as sling-stoTies 
seems to be indicated by their presence in the peat-mosses, which it is 
difficult to account for in any other way." 

Prof. Nilsson* objects that they are so irregular and sharp-cornered, 
" that they would soon wear out the sling, even if it were made of 
leather." He ];)resumes "that these sharp-cornered stone balls were 
the first hand-missile weapons of the earliest and rudest savages, and 
used by them to throw at wild animals or enemies." This objection 
to regard them as sling-stones seems hardly well founded ; especially if 
we consider them to have been in use with a stick-sling, in which case 
their angularity would have been of some service in retaining them in 
the cleft, while their lenticular form adapts them well for this kind 
of sling. A more valid objection raised by Prof. Nilsson is that no 
one "would give himself all this trouble to fashion sling-stones which 
were to be thrown away the next moment, when he could find many 
natural pebbles t_[uite as suitable." But to this it may be replied, that 
at the present day we do find the New Caledonians, the Tahitians, and 
other tribes, carefully fashioning their sling-stones ; and also that this 
flat lenticular form is better adapted for the stick-sling than a natural 
pebble of the usual oval form. As a fact, however, I think it will be 
found that these flint discs, to which the name of sling-stones is applied, 
are most abundant in those districts where natural rolled pebbles 
happen to be scarce. If the case be really so, we can readily under- 
stand why the cores, from which flakes had been struck for conversion 
into arrow-heads and other instruments, should have been themselves 
utUized as sling-stonos. If these^missLles were necessary, it would be a 
question of which would involve the least trouble, whether to chip into 
the required form a certain number of flints which came readily to 
hand, at the same time making use of the resulting chips ; or to select 
and bring together, possibly from a distant sea-coast, a bed of a stream, 
or some uncovered patch of gravel, a number of pebbles of the right 
size and form for slinging. In the camp at Hod Hill, near Blandford, 

' Wilson, " Prch. Ann. of Scot.," voL i. p. 197. 

♦ "Preh. Times," 4th ed., p. lOo. ,^ " Stone Age," p. 51. 

E E 2 



420 SLING-STONES AND BALLS. [cHAP. XVllI. 

which, however, probably belongs to the Early Iron Period, the latter 
course seems to have been adopted, as several heaps of rounded flint- 
pebbles, either derived from the sea-coast or from some bed of Lower 
Tertiary Age, have been found there, and in all probability consti- 
tuted the munition of the slingers of the camp. 

The late Mr. C. Monkman^ remarked that in Yorkshire he always 
fo\md the small globular sling-stones most plentiful at a short distance 
(50 to 200 yards away) from old entrenchments, and he was inclined to 
class iinder the head of sling-stones, nodules chipped over their whole 
surface, varjdng from an almost globular form to all degrees of 
flatness, and in size from ^ inch to 3 inches in diameter. This is 
perhaps too wide a definition, as most of the larger globular forms 
appear to have been destined for hammer-stones ; and pebbles but half 
an inch in diameter would be almost too light for missiles. It is, how- 
ever, impossible to say with certaintj- that any given specimen was 
undoubtedly a sling-stone, as the flatter forms, which were more pro- 
bably missiles, merge in the form of a roughl^'-chipped oval celt like 
Fig. 17 at one end of the series, and in that of a discoidal scraper with 
a broken edge at the other. Many may be merely cores, from both 
faces of which flakes have been struck, so that the term '' sling- stones," 
if employed for these roughly-chipped discs, must always be used in a 
somewhat doubtful sense, and for convenience rather than precision. 

In Polynesia.- besides rounded pebbles, sharp, angular, and rugged 
stones were used for slinging. These were called Ofai ara, faced or 
edged stones. 

Another class of objects in stone which may possibly have 
served for the purposes of the chase or of war, consists of balls 

with their surface divided into a 
number of more or less projecting 
circles, with channels between them. 
They seem, so far as is known, to be 
confined to Scotland and Ireland. 




That shown in Fig. 351 was found 
in Dumfriesshire.* and has been en- 
graved by Sir Daniel "Wilson. It 
presents six circular faces. Others, 
Bg. 3oi.-i>umine..^.. 3 ^hnost identical in form, have been 
found at Biggar,* Lanarkshire; Dudwick.' Chapel of Garioch^ and 
Migvie,' Tai-land, Aberdeenshire ; Kilmarnock,^ Ayrshire; and Mont- 
blajiy,' Banflshire. Another, about 3 inches in diameter, with three 
faces only, was found on the Tullo of Garvoch,^" Kincardineshire ; and 
one, with four faces, in a cairn at East Braikie, Forfarshire. This 

1 Yorkih.Arch. and Top. Jmim., 1868. ^ Ellis, "Polj-n. Researches," vol.i.p. 291. 
^ " Preh. Ann. of Scot.," vol. i. p. 195. I am indebted to Messrs. ilacmillan 
& Co. for the loan of this cut. 

* Arch. Assoc. Joinn., vol. xvii. p. 20. = Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. vii. p. 102. 

* Trans. Lane, and Chesh. A. A., vol. iii. p. 255. 
' P. S. A. S., vol. ix. p. 393. 

« Smith's "Preh. Man in Avrshire," 1895. p. 105. 

' Proe. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. vi. p. 11. '" " Cat. Arch. Just. Mus. Ed.," p. 14. 



ORXAMEXTED BALLS PRINCIPALLY FROM SCOTLAND. 421 

latter is in the Montrose Museum.' One of greenstone, 2^ inches 
in diameter, found at BaUater,- Aberdeenshire, has six plain circular 
discs, with the interspaces partially cut into small knobs or studs, the 
ornaments being possibly in course of formation. Stone balls,'' about 
2^ and 3 inches in diameter, covered over the surface with small 
rounded projections, like enormous petrified mulberries, have been 
found in the Isle of Skye, in Orkney, and at Garvoch Hill, Kincar- 
dineshire. I i^resume the latter to be a different specimen from that 
with three faces, previously described. Others are in the Perth 
Museum.* A series of such balls, some highly ornamented, has been 
described by Dr. John Alexander Smith.* One formed of hornblende 
schist, with six strongl}^ projecting circular faces, was found near 
Ballymena," co. Antrim, in 1850, and is now in the British Museum. 

Probably the most remarkable of all these balls is that shown in 
Fig. 352, from a cut kindly lent me by the Society of Antiquaries of 




Fig. 352.— Towie. 

Scotland. It was found at Towie,' Aberdeenshire, and is about 2^ 
inches in diameter, with four rounded projections, three of which are 
ornamented with different incised patterns, while the fourth is smooth 
and undecorated. From the character of the patterns, this object 
would seem to belong to the Bronze Period rather than to that of Stone, 
if not, indeed, to still later times. In connection with the pattern 
upon it, attention may, however, be called to the remarkable carved 
cylinders of chalk found by Canon Greenwell in a barrow on Folkton 
Wold,^ Yorkshire, and now in the British Museum, which are certainly 
not of later date than the Bronze Age. The ornament on a clay vessel 
found in Devonshire^ may be compared with that of the sides of the 
cylinders. 

' Report Montrose Nat. Mist, and Ant. See., 1868. 

* Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. v. p. 340. » lb., vol. iv. pp. 186, 292 ; vii. p. 209. 

* Wilson, " Prch. Ann. Scot.," vol. i. p. lOo. 

* P. S. A. S., vol. xi. pp. 29, 313. •■' Arrh. Journ., vol. xi. p. 58. 

' Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. iii. p. 439. Wilson, " Preh. Ann. of Scot.," vol. i. 
pi. iii. Photographs of three of the faces are given in the Reliquary and Illust. 
Archteol., vol. iii. (1897) p. 103, q.v. 

* Arch., vol. Iii. p. 14, pi. i. and ii. "^ Tram. Dev. Assoc, vol. xii. p. 124. 



422 . SLIXG-STONES AND BALLS. [cHAP. XVllI. 

These balls appear to me to differ most essentially from the 
ordinary " sink-stones " found in Denmark and Ireland/ with 
"which they have been compared. It is, however, by no means 
easy to suggest the purpose for which they were intended. The 
only suggestions that I have met with are, that they were used 
in some game or amusement ; for defence when slung in a long 
thong or line" ; as mace heads ^ attached to a handle ; or else for 
purposes of divination.^ I must confess that I hardly see in what 
manner the last purpose can have been served, especially as in 
most instances all the faces of the ball are alike. Xor do I see in 
what manner they can have been used in games, though of course 
it is possible that they were so employed. It seems more probable 
chat they were intended for use in the chase or war, when attached 
to a thong, which the recesses between the circles seem well adapted 
to receive. Among savage nations of the present day we find the 
use of the holas, or stones attached to the ends of thongs, over a 
great part of the southern continent of America : ^ while the prin- 
ciple is known to the Eskimos, whose strings of sinew, weighted 
with bunches of ivory knobs, are arranged to wind themselves 
round the bird at which they are thrown, in just the same way as 
the much stouter cords weighted at the ends with two or three 
heavy stone balls which form the holas,^ twist round, and hamper 
the movements of larger game. 

The holas proper, as in use on the Pampas, consist of three 
balls of stone, nearly the size of the fist, and covered with 
leather, which are attached to the ends of three thongs, all 
branching from a common centre. Leaden balls have now 
almost superseded those of stone. The hunter gives to the hoJas 
a rotary motion, and can then throw them to a great distance, in 
such a manner that the thongs entwine roimd the legs, neck, and 
body of his prey and thus render it helpless, so that it can then 
be easily despatched. A hola of small size, but of lead or copper, 
with a single thong about 3 feet long, is also used, and forms both 
the sling and its stone. It likewise serves as a weapon for striking 
in close encounter. Among the Patagonians^ the same two 

' Worsaae, " Xord. Olds.," fig. 87.88. 

- Report Montrose y. H. and Ant. Soc., 1868. 

' P. S. A. S., Tol. li. p. 56. * Arch. Assoc. Joum., voL XTii. p. 20. 

5 Trior, " Edrly Hist, of :Maiik.," p. 179. 

•^ KJemm, " Cuitor-Gesch.," vol. ii. p. 17. " Azara," vol. ii. p. 46. Catlin's 
"Last Rambles," p. 265. " Cult.-Wiss.," vol. i. p. bh. 

' Lubbock, "Preh. Times," 4th ed., p. 547. Falkner's "Patagonia," p. 130. 
A set of these Patagonian tolas is engraved by the Eev. J. G. Wood, " Xat. Hist, 
of Man," vol. ii. p. 529. 



THE USE OF " BOLAS." 423 

varieties are used, but those for hunting have usually only two 
stones, and not three. They sometimes throw the single hola at 
the adversary, rope and all, but generally they prefer to strike at 
his head with it. 

Assuming a difficulty in securing a ball of stone in a leather 
case, and that there