The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons and Ornaments, of Great Britain Second Edition, Revised

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The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons And Ornaments, Of Great Britain.

Second Edition, Revised.

by

SIR JOHN EVANS, K.C.B., D.C.L., Sc.D., LL.D., F.R.S., F.S.A., F.G.S., etc., etc.

Correspondant de L’Institut de France.

Longmans, Green, and Co. 39, Paternoster Row, London and Bombay 1897

(All rights reserved.)

London: Printed by J. S. Virtue and Co., Limited. City Road.

|v|

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 collections at my disposal, and by examination of my proofs. Foremost 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 |vi| details of little interest to the ordinary 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 Bouverie 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 localities where the various antiquities have been found.

Now that so 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, Hemel Hempstead, May, 1872._

|vii|

Preface To The Second Edition.

The undiminished interest taken by many archæologists in the 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 much 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 effected, 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 hold good. The new cuts, upwards of sixty in number, that have been added in this edition are distinguished by letters affixed to the No. of the Figure immediately preceding them.

The additions to the text, especially in the portion relating to the Palæolithic 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 |viii| 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. W. Allen Sturge, of Nice.

The two Indices have been carefully 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 skilfully 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. Read, 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. William 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.

_Nash Mills, Hemel Hempstead, May, 1897._

|ix|

Contents.

Chapter I.

Introductory.

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

Chapter II.

On The Manufacture 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 Sawing 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 . . . 55

Chapter IV.

Chipped Or Rough-Hewn Celts.

The Kjökken-Mödding Type — Some possibly 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 Surface 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 Middle — Used in the Hand without Hafting — Polished Celts of Abnormal types — Polished Celts with Depressions and Flutings — Circumstances under which they have been Found — Their Discovery with Objects of Later Date — Their Range in Time — Accompanying Interments — Manner in which Hafted — In their original Handles — Inserted in Sockets in the Hafts — Hafted with Intermediate Sockets — Compared with Axes of modern Savages — Mounted in Forked Hafts — Mounted on Wooden Hafts — Compared with Adzes of modern Savages — Mounted in Withes and Cleft Sticks — Modern methods of Hafting Axes . . . 98

Chapter VII.

Picks, Chisels, Gouges, Etc.

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

Chapter VIII.

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 Grooved 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 And 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 Edge — 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 Duck-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

Chapter XIV.

Borers, Awls, Or Drills.

Found in different Countries — Of Minute Dimensions . . . 321

Chapter XV.

Trimmed Flakes, Knives, Etc.

From different Countries — Some Trimmed Flakes, probably Knives — Knives from Barrows — Some possibly Lance-heads — Knives with one Edge blunt — Of Oval Form — Sharpened by Grinding — Of Circular Form — Of Semicircular and Triangular Form — The so-called “Picts’ Knives” — Like those of the Eskimos — Daggers or Lance-heads — With Notches at the Sides — Found in other Countries — Curved and Crescent-shaped Blades — Curved Knives, probably Sickles — Ripple-marked Egyptian Blades . . . 326

Chapter XVI.

Javelin And Arrow Heads.

Their earliest occurrence — Thought to fall from the Heavens — Superstitions attaching to them — Worn as Amulets — An Egyptian Arrow — Javelin-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 Triangular 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 . . . 360

Chapter XVII.

Fabricators, Flaking Tools, Etc.

Their probable Uses — Used for working in Flint . . . 412

Chapter XVIII.

Sling-Stones And Balls.

Sling-stones Roughly Chipped from Flint — Ornamented Balls principally from Scotland — The use of “Bolas” . . . 417

Chapter XIX.

Bracers, And Articles Of Bone.

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

Chapter XX.

Spindle-Whorls, Discs, Slickstones, Weights, And Cups.

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

Chapter XXI.

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 Barrows — Lucky Stones and Amulets — Conclusions as to the Neolithic Period . . . 452

_Implements Of The PalæOlithic Period._

Chapter XXII.

Cave Implements.

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 Hammers from Kent’s Cavern — Bone Harpoon-heads from Kent’s Cavern — Fauna of Kent’s Cavern — Animal Remains associated with Works of Art — Correlation of Kent’s Cavern with Foreign Caves — Brixham Cave — Trimmed Flakes from the Brixham Cave — The Wookey Hyæna Den — The Gower and other Welsh Caves — The Caves of Creswell Crags — General Considerations . . . 473

Chapter XXIII.

Implements Of The River-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 — Redhill, Thetford — Santon Downham — Bromehill, Weeting — Gravel Hill, 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 — Peasemarsh, 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 Foreland, Isle of Wight — Bemerton, Salisbury — Fisherton and Milford Hill, Salisbury — Bournemouth and Barton Cliff — Valley of the Axe . . . 526

Chapter XXIV.

Forms And Characteristics Of Implements From The River-Drift.

Flint Flakes — Trimmed Flakes — Pointed Implements — Sharp-rimmed Implements — 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 Valley of the Thames — Deposits 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.

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

Chapter I.

Introductory.

1. Egypt . . . 8

Chapter II.

On The Manufacture Of Stone Implements In Prehistoric Times.

2. Flint Core with Flakes replaced upon it . . . 20

2A. Gun Flint, Avlona, Albania . . . 21

3. Nucleus—Pressigny . . . 29

4. —   —   . . . 30

5. —   —   . . . 30

6. Flake —   . . . 31

7. —   —   . . . 31

8. Eskimo Arrow-flaker . . . 38

9.* —   —   —   . . . 38

10. —   —   —   . . . 38

Chapter III.

Celts.

11.* Celt with Gnostic Inscription . . . 61

Chapter IV.

Chipped Or Rough-Hewn Celts.

12. Near Mildenhall . . . 68

13. —   —   . . . 68

14. Near Thetford . . . 69

15. Oving, near Chichester . . . 70

16. Near Newhaven . . . 71

17. Near Dunstable . . . 72

18. Burwell Fen . . . 72

19. Mildenhall . . . 73

20. Bottisham Fen . . . 73

21. Near Bournemouth . . . 74

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. Sawdon, 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, Bridlington . . . 96

42. North Burton . . . 96

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

52. Burwell Fen . . . 107

52A.* Berwickshire . . . 108

53. Botesdale, Suffolk . . . 111

54. Lackford, Suffolk . . . 112

55. Dalmeny, Linlithgow . . . 113

56. Sprouston, near Kelso . . . 114

57. Nunnington, Yorkshire . . . 115

58. Burradon, Northumberland . . . 116

59. Livermere, Suffolk . . . 116

60. Ilderton, Northumberland . . . 117

61. Near Pendle, Lancashire . . . 118

62. Ness . . . 119

63. Gilling . . . 120

64. Swinton, near Malton . . . 121

65. Scamridge Dykes, Yorkshire . . . 121

66. Whitwell, 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. Acklam Wold . . . 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—Gaveoë Indians, Brazil . . . 156

96. Axe of Montezuma II . . . 157

97. Axe—Nootka Sound . . . 158

98. Axe in Stag’s-horn 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 . . . 166

105.* Axe—Northern Australia . . . 168

106.* Hatchet—Western Australia . . . 170

Chapter VII.

Picks, Chisels, Gouges, Etc.

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.

118. Hunmanby . . . 185

119.* Hove . . . 186

120. Llanmadock . . . 188

121. Guernsey . . . 189

122. Fireburn Mill, Coldstream . . . 190

123. Burwell Fen . . . 191

124. Stourton . . . 192

125. Bardwell . . . 193

126. Potter Brompton Wold . . . 194

127. Rudstone . . . 195

128. Borrowash . . . 196

129.* Crichie, Aberdeenshire . . . 197

130. Walsgrave-upon-Sowe . . . 199

131. Wigton . . . 201

132. Wollaton Park . . . 203

133. Buckthorpe . . . 204

134. Aldro’ . . . 205

135. Cowlam . . . 206

136. Seghill . . . 207

136A.* Wick, Caithness . . . 208

137. Kirklington . . . 209

138.* Winterbourn 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 And 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

152. Birdoswald . . . 225

153. Maesmore, Corwen . . . 226

154. Normanton, Wilts . . . 227

155. Redgrave Park . . . 228

156. Redmore Fen . . . 228

157.* Stifford . . . 229

158. Sutton . . . 231

159.* Ambleside . . . 236

Chapter X.

Hammer-Stones, Etc.

160. Helmsley . . . 239

161. Winterbourn Bassett . . . 240

161A.* Goldenoch . . . 241

162. St. Botolph’s Priory . . . 242

163. Bridlington . . . 242

164. —   . . . 243

165. —   . . . 243

166. Scamridge . . . 246

167 & 168. Yorkshire Wolds . . . 248

168A.* Culbin Sands . . . 249

169. Bridlington . . . 249

170.* Holyhead . . . 251

171.* Ty Mawr . . . 253

172.* Holyhead . . . 254

173.* Pulborough . . . 254

174.* Shetland . . . 256

175.* —   . . . 256

176.* —   . . . 256

177.* —   . . . 256

178.* —   . . . 256

179.* —   . . . 257

180.* Balmaclellan . . . 260

Chapter XI.

Grinding-Stones And Whetstones.

180A.* Lamberton Moor . . . 264

181. Dorchester . . . 265

182. Rudstone . . . 265

183. Fimber . . . 266

184. Cowlam . . . 267

185. Amesbury . . . 267

186.* Hove . . . 268

187.* Ty Mawr . . . 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

197. Nussdorf . . . 292

198. Australia . . . 293

199. Willerby Wold . . . 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. Helperthorpe . . . 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. Bridlington . . . 322

229. Yorkshire Wolds . . . 323

230. Bridlington . . . 323

231. Yorkshire Wolds . . . 324

232. —   —   . . . 324

232A. Hastings . . . 325

232B. —   . . . 325

232C. —   . . . 325

232D.* Vindhya Hills . . . 325

232E.* —   —   . . . 325

232F.* —   —   . . . 326

Chapter XV.

Trimmed Flakes, Knives, Etc.

233. Cambridge (?) . . . 326

234. Yorkshire Wolds . . . 328

235. Yorkshire . . . 328

236. Bridlington . . . 329

237. Yorkshire . . . 329

238. Bridlington . . . 329

239. Castle Carrock . . . 329

240. Ford, Northumberland . . . 330

240A.* Etton . . . 330

241. Weaverthorpe . . . 331

242. Wykeham Moor . . . 331

243. Potter Brompton Wold . . . 332

244. Snainton Moor . . . 333

245. Ford . . . 333

246. Bridlington . . . 334

247. Cambridge Fens . . . 334

248. Scamridge . . . 335

249. Burwell Fen . . . 336

250. Saffron Walden . . . 336

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. Winterbourn Stoke . . . 371

274. —   —   . . . 371

275. —   —   . . . 371

276.* Calais Wold Barrow . . . 372

277.* —   —   —   . . . 372

278.* —   —   —   . . . 372

279.* —   —   —   . . . 372

280. Icklingham . . . 373

281.* Gunthorpe . . . 373

282. Yorkshire Wolds . . . 373

283. —   —   . . . 374

284. Little Solsbury Hill . . . 374

285. Yorkshire Wolds . . . 374

286. Bridlington . . . 374

287 & 288. Yorkshire Wolds . . . 375

289. Lakenheath . . . 375

290 & 291. Yorkshire Wolds . . . 376

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

312. —   —   . . . 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.* Philiphaugh . . . 388

328. Icklingham . . . 390

329. Langdale End . . . 390

330. Amotherby . . . 390

331. Weaverthorpe . . . 391

332. Lakenheath . . . 391

333. Yorkshire Wolds . . . 391

334. —   —   . . . 391

335. —   —   . . . 392

336. Bridlington . . . 392

337. —   . . . 392

338. Fimber . . . 393

339. Hungry Bentley . . . 394

340.* Caithness . . . 394

341. Lakenheath . . . 395

342. Urquhart . . . 395

342A.* Fyvie, Aberdeenshire . . . 408

343. Switzerland . . . 408

344. Fünen, Denmark . . . 409

345.* Modern Stone Arrow-head . . . 409

Chapter XVII.

Fabricators, Flaking Tools, Etc.

346. Yorkshire Wolds . . . 412

346A.* Corennie . . . 413

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 Articles Of Bone.

353. Isle of Skye . . . 425

354. Evantown . . . 426

355. Devizes . . . 426

356.* Isle of Skye . . . 428

Chapter XX.

Spindle-Whorls, Discs, Slickstones, 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. Butterwick . . . 453

370. —   . . . 453

371. Rudstone . . . 454

372. —   . . . 454

373. Crawfurd Moor . . . 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 Burn Cave . . . 464

382.* Jet—Guernsey . . . 464

383.* Bronze—Guernsey . . . 464

384. Kent’s Cavern . . . 465

385.* Ty Mawr . . . 466

Chapter XXII.

Cave Implements.

386. Kent’s Cavern . . . 493

387. —   —   . . . 493

388. —   —   . . . 494

388A.* —   —   . . . 495

389. —   —   . . . 496

390. —   —   . . . 496

391. —   —   . . . 498

392. —   —   . . . 499

393. —   —   . . . 499

394. —   —   . . . 500

395. —   —   . . . 500

396. —   —   . . . 501

397. —   —   . . . 501

398. —   —   . . . 502

399. —   —   . . . 502

400. —   —   . . . 502

401. —   —   . . . 503

402. —   —   . . . 503

403. —   —   . . . 505

404. —   —   . . . 505

405. —   —   . . . 505

406. —   —   . . . 506

407. —   —   . . . 506

408. —   —   . . . 506

409. Brixham Cave . . . 514

410. —   —   . . . 515

411. —   —   . . . 515

412. —   —   . . . 516

413.* Wookey Hyæna Den . . . 518

413A.* Robin Hood Cave . . . 522

413B.* —   —   —   . . . 523

413C.* —   —   —   . . . 523

413D.* —   —   —   . . . 523

413E.* —   —   —   . . . 523

413F.* —   —   —   . . . 524

413G.* Church Hole Cave . . . 524

413H.* —   —   —   . . . 524

Chapter XXIII.

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. Edmunds . . . 541

419B. Bury St. Edmunds . . . 542

419C. Nowton, near Bury St. Edmunds . . . 543

419D. Westley, near Bury St. Edmunds . . . 544

420. Rampart Hill, Icklingham . . . 545

421. Icklingham . . . 546

422. —   . . . 546

423. —   . . . 547

424. —   . . . 548

425. High Lodge . . . 548

426. —   —   . . . 549

426A. —   —   . . . 549

427. Redhill, Thetford . . . 552

428. —   —   . . . 553

429. —   —   . . . 554

430. —   —   . . . 555

431. —   —   . . . 555

432. Whitehill, Thetford . . . 556

433. Santon Downham . . . 557

434. —   —   . . . 558

435. —   —   . . . 559

436. —   —   . . . 560

437. —   —   . . . 561

438. Bromehill, Brandon . . . 562

439. Gravel Hill, Brandon . . . 563

440. —   —   —   . . . 564

441. —   —   —   . . . 564

442. —   —   —   . . . 565

443. —   —   —   . . . 566

444. Valley of the Lark, or of the Little Ouse . . . 567

445. Shrub Hill, Feltwell . . . 570

446. —   —   —   . . . 570

447. —   —   —   . . . 571

448. —   —   —   . . . 571

449. Hoxne . . . 575

450. —   . . . 576

450A. Saltley . . . 579

451. Gray’s Inn Lane . . . 582

452. Hackney Down . . . 583

453. Highbury New Park . . . 585

453A.* Lower Clapton . . . 587

453B.* Stamford Hill . . . 588

453C.* Stoke Newington Common . . . 588

453D.* —   —   —   . . . 589

454. Ealing Dean . . . 590

455. Peasemarsh, Godalming . . . 595

455A.* Caddington . . . 599

455B.* —   . . . 599

455C.* —   . . . 600

455D.* —   . . . 600

455E.* —   . . . 601

455F.* —   . . . 601

455G.* —   . . . 601

455H.* Wheathampstead . . . 601

456. Dartford Heath . . . 606

456A. Bewley, Ightham . . . 609

457. Reculver . . . 612

458. Near Reculver . . . 614

459. —   —   . . . 615

460. Reculver . . . 616

461. —   . . . 616

462. Studhill . . . 618

463. Thanington . . . 619

464. Canterbury . . . 620

464A.* —   . . . 621

464B. Folkestone . . . 622

465. Southampton . . . 623

466. Hill Head . . . 625

467. The Foreland, Isle of Wight . . . 627

468. Lake . . . 628

469. Bemerton . . . 629

470. Highfield . . . 629

471. Fisherton . . . 630

472. Milford Hill, Salisbury . . . 633

473. Fordingbridge . . . 634

474. Boscombe, Bournemouth . . . 635

475. —   —   . . . 636

476. Bournemouth . . . 637

477. Broom Pit, Axminster . . . 638

Chapter I.

Introductory.

In 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 circumstances of their discovery. While reducing the whole series into some sort of classification, as has been done for the stone antiquities of Scandinavia by Worsaae, Montelius, and Sophus Müller, 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 Archæology by instituting comparisons, where possible, between the antiquities 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 necessary, 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 archæological and geological investigations.

At the risk therefore of being tedious, I shall have to notice once more many things already well known to archæologists, 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| 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 different 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 Western 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 by 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] |3|

The late Mr. James Fergusson, in his Rude Stone Monuments,[2] has analyzed the discoveries made by Bateman in his exploration of Derbyshire barrows, and on the analysis has founded an argument 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 _Académie des Inscriptions_ of Paris[3] in 1734, in which he points out that man existed a long time in different countries using implements of stone and without any knowledge of metals; or again, the following passage from Bishop Lyttelton’s[4] “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,”[5] 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[6] 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 attributes, must confess that whatever may have been his mental condition, 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 generation was reckoned at a hundred years, instead of at thirty, as now. |4|

Turning, however, to Greek and Roman authors, we find Hesiod,[7] about B.C. 850, mentioning a time when bronze had not been superseded by iron:—

Τοῖς δ᾿ ἧν χάλκεα μὲν τεύχεα, χάλκεοι δέ τε οἷκοι Χαλκῶ δ᾿ εἰργάζοντο, μέλας δ᾿ οὐκ ἓσχε σίδηρος.

Lucretius[8] is even more distinct in his views as to the successive Periods:—

“Arma antiqua manus, ungues, dentesque fuerunt Et lapides, et item sylvarum fragmina rami— Posterius ferri vis est ærisque reperta; Sed prior æris erat quam ferri cognitus usus— Ære solum terræ tractabant, æreque belli Miscebant 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 archæological and geological collection on record, having adorned one of his country residences “rebus vetustate ac raritate notabilibus, qualia sunt Capreis immanium belluarum ferarumque membra prægrandia quæ dicuntur gigantum ossa et arma heroum.”[9]

We learn from Pausanias[10] 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 Æsculapius, at Nicomedia, which was wholly of bronze. In the same manner Plutarch[11] relates that when Cimon disinterred the remains of Theseus in Scyros 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,[12] 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 Æneid, as well as to some of the people of Italy—

“Æratæque micant peltæ, micat æreus ensis.”[13] |5|

The fact that in the Greek[14] language the words χαλκεύς and χαλκεύειν 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 was also the case with some stone implements which I shall subsequently mention—affords evidence of their comparative antiquity. The Tuscans[15] at the foundation of a city ploughed the pomærium 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[16] a bronze sickle when gathering her magic herbs, and Elissa is represented by Virgil as using a similar instrument for the same purpose. 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,[17] and was so large that it would suffice its possessor for all purposes during five years. Even the Greek word for iron (σίδηρος) may not improbably be connected with the meteoric origin of the first known form of the metal. Its affinity with ἀστήρ, often used for a shooting star or meteor, with the Latin “_sidera_” and our own “star” is evident.

Professor Lauth,[18] moreover, interprets the Coptic word for iron, ⲂⲈⲚⲒⲠⲈ, as “the stone of heaven” (Stein des Himmels) which implies that in Egypt also its meteoric origin was acknowledged.

Among the Eskimos[19] 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,[20] 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 |6| other purposes.[21] 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 purposes?

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,[22] 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 against the use of iron previously to copper or bronze; and, secondly, that even in Eastern Africa, where, above all other places, the conditions 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-producing districts, little if any trace of iron before the twelfth dynasty,[23] and of its use even then the evidence is only pictorial, whereas the copper mines at Maghara are said to date back to the second dynasty, some eight hundred years earlier. Agatharchides,[24] moreover, relates that in his time, _circa_ B.C. 100, there were found buried in the ancient gold mines of Egypt the bronze chisels (λατομίδες χαλκᾶι) 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 effected by flint tools. Admiral Tremlett has found that flakes of jasper readily cut the granite of Brittany.[25]

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 |7| neighbouring and more barbarous nations of Western Europe. Even in the time of Pausanias[26] (after A.D. 174) the Sarmatians are mentioned as being unacquainted with the use of iron; and practically we have good corroborative archæological 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 gradually 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 Ramsauer, of the contents of which a detailed account has been given by the Baron von Sacken.[27] 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.[28]

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 unacquainted 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 centuries before authentic history commences. It is in religious customs 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; |8| and in the same manner as some of the 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,[29] Lactantius,[30] or Lucretius,[31] there is much to be said in favour of Dr. E. B. Tylor’s[32] 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 commonplace 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 Western Asia, the early home of European civilization, we find from Herodotus[33] and from Diodorus Siculus,[34] 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 mentioned in subsequent pages. In character of workmanship 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 Hay collection, still mounted in its original wooden handle, apparently by 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 characters the name of PTAHMES, an officer.

[Illustration: EGYPT.—Fig. 1.]

Curiously enough the bodies of the chiefs or Menceys of the Guanches in Teneriffe[35] were also cut open by particular persons set apart for the office with knives made of sharp pieces of obsidian. |9|

The rite of circumcision 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,[36] it is recorded of Joshua,[37] that in circumcising the children of Israel he made use of knives of stone. It is true that, in our version, the words חַרְבוֹת צוּרִים are translated sharp knives, which by analogy with a passage in Psalm lxxxix. 44 (43 E.V.), is not otherwise than correct; but the Syriac, Arabic, Vulgate, and Septuagint translations all give knives of stone;[38] and the latter version, in the account of the burial of Joshua, adds that they laid with him the stone knives (τὰς μαχαίρας τὰς πετρίνας) with which he circumcised the children of Israel—“and there they are unto this day.” Gesenius (_s. v._ צוּר) 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.”[39] In recent times the Abbé 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.[40]

Under certain circumstances modern Jews make use of a fragment 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 unacquainted with the use of metals, whose stone implements are found mixed up with the bones of the animals which had served them for food.[41]

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 |10| Fetialis[42] sacrificing a pig with a flint stone, which, however, does not appear to have been sharpened. “Ubi dixit, porcum saxo silice percussit.” The “religiosa silex”[43] of Claudian seems rather to have been a block of stone like that under the form of which Jupiter, Cybele, Diana, and even Venus were worshipped. Pausanias informs us that it was the custom among the Greeks to bestow divine honours on certain unshaped stones, and ΖΕΥΣ ΚΑΣΙΟΣ is thus represented on coins of Seleucia in Syria, while the Paphian Venus appears in the form of a conical stone on coins struck in Cyprus. The Syrian god from whom Elagabalus, the Roman emperor, took his name seems also to have been an unhewn 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 mysterious if not a superstitious virtue assigned to them. I need only mention as an instance that, in several beautiful gold necklaces[44] 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 confined to Europe.[45] In Western Africa, when the god Gimawong makes 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 Cæsar’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[46] 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 |11| 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 unacquainted with the use of iron. Even the Caledonians,[47] 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 contemporary 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[48] “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[49] of the present day. In Iceland[50] also, perforated stone hammers are still in use for pounding dried fish, driving in stakes, for forging and other purposes; “knockin’-stones”[51] for making pot-barley, have till recently been in use in Scotland, if not still employed; 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 |12| 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 backwards 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 found 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 find 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 Quaternary gravels, are, so far as at present known, invariably chipped only, and not ground, besides as a rule differing in form.

This difference[52] 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 English 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[53] has proposed to call them the Palæolithic and the Neolithic Periods respectively, 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 term Surface Period for the Neolithic, and shall also find it convenient to treat of the Palæolithic Period under two subdivisions—those of the River-gravels and of the |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 the various forms were produced.

|14|

Chapter II.

On The Manufacture Of Stone Implements In Prehistoric Times.[54]

In seeking to ascertain the method by which the stone implements 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 recognized 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 Suffolk, where I have witnessed the process. I have also seen the manufacture at Icklingham, in Suffolk, where thirty years ago, gun-flint factories existed, which have now I believe |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 producing 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 News_[55] 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,[56] and various other localities are recorded by Mr. Skertchly.[57]

In proof of the antiquity of the use of flint as a means of producing fire, I need hardly quote the ingenious derivation of the word Silex as given by Vincent of Beauvais:—“Silex est lapis durus, sic dictus eò quod ex eo ignis exiliat.”[58] 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 been found in both French and Belgian bone-caves belonging 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.[59] 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.[60] The |16| Fuegian 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 πῦρ) is itself sufficient 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[61] speaks of a certain sort of pyrites, “plurimum habens ignis, quos vivos appellamus, 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 (_sulphuratis_) drie puff’s (_fungis_) or leaves, will cause them to catch fire sooner than a man can say the word.”

Pliny also[62] 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 Maccabæus, “made another altar and striking stones they took fire out of them and offered a sacrifice.”[63] 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[64] pictured the Trojan voyager as using steel, when—

“silici scintillam excudit Achates, Suscepitque ignem foliis atque arida circum Nutrimenta dedit, rapuitque in fomite flammam.”

And again, where—

“quærit pars semina flammæ Abstrusa in venis silicis.”[65]

In Claudian[66] we find the distinct mention of flint and steel—

“Flagrat anhela silex et amicam saucia sentit Materiem, placidosque chalybs agnoscit amores.”

At Unter Uhldingen[67] a Swiss lake station where Roman pottery was present, was found what appears to be a steel for striking a |17| light. However the case may have been as to the means of procuring fire, it was not until some centuries after the invention of gunpowder that flints were applied to the purpose of discharging fire-arms. Beckmann,[68] in his “History of Inventions,” mentions that it was 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 with pyrites had in some other places been superseded before that time.

I am not aware of there being any record of flints, such as were in use for tinder-boxes,[69] 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 occur, 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 prepared cotton, by tobacco-smokers. At Brandon[70] 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 consequently 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. Beckmann[71] 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 |18| they were formed by means of red-hot pincers, and many asserted that they were made in mills. The best account of the manufacture with which he was acquainted, was that collected by his brother, and published in the _Hanoverian Magazine_ for the year 1772. At a later date the well-known mineralogist Dolomieu[72] gave an account of the process in the _Mémoires de l’Institut National des Sciences_, and M. Hacquet,[73] 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 process differs in some respects from the English.[74] This has been well described by Dr. Lottin.[75] 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 difficulty 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 |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 1∕16 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 1∕4 inch thick, and inclined at a slight angle to the bench.

The method of manufacture[76] 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,[77] 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 |20| 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.

[Illustration: Fig. 2.—Flint-core with flakes replaced upon it.]

Fig. 2, representing a block from which a number of flakes adapted for gun-flints have been detached and subsequently 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 off. Mr. Spurrell and Mr. Worthington Smith have succeeded in building up flakes of Palæolithic date into the original blocks from which they were struck. The former has also replaced ancient Egyptian flakes,[78] the one upon the other. Mr. F. Archer has likewise restored a block of flint from Neolithic flakes[79] 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, |21| and a skilful workman 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[80] 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 “_caillouteur_” 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 calculation 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 produced in Albania. A specimen, purchased at Avlona[81] 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.

[Illustration: Fig. 2A.—Gun-flint, Avlona, Albania. 1∕1]

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 |22| production of flakes of flint, without having a pointed metallic hammer for the purpose, was a matter of great difficulty, 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.[82]

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[83] 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[84] 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[85] and Germany[86] as well as in Great Britain; such, for instance, as that at the confluence[87] 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 |23| fallen too near the edge of the 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 that a mere stone hammer could have been directed with sufficient 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,[88] 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,[89] in Upper Scinde, and one which I possess from Ghlin, in Belgium, which are suggestive of the same difficulty. 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[90] 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 hands, and set it well home against the edge of the front of the stone (_y ponenlo 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, |24| or of iron in the fire.” Hernandez[91] gives a similar account of the process, but compares the wooden instrument used to a cross-bow, so that it would appear to have had a crutch-shaped end to rest against the breast. So skilful were the Mexicans in the manufacture of obsidian knives, that, according to Clavigero, a single workman could produce a hundred per hour.

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 sufficiently hard to be used for splintering obsidian; and flint is, I believe, tougher and still more difficult of fracture. 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 1885,[92] has published some interesting “observations on stone chipping,” and from the report 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[93] 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[94] 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[95] 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 means 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 |25| mallet are 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 River[96] 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 elsewhere.[97] 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 held 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,[98] 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 Ratzel.[99] Another from Alaska,[100] and several such hammers made of basalt from the Queen Charlotte Islands,[101] have also been figured. It seems doubtful whether the proper use of these hammers was not for crushing bones.[102]

Among the natives of North Australia a totally different method |26| 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 River, where the ground was thickly strewn with fragments of various stones and imperfectly-formed weapons. The method of formation of the weapons, according to Mr. Baines,[103] 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 strikes it so as to detach from the end a piece, leaving a flattened base for his subsequent operations. Then, holding the pebble with its base downwards, 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 necessary, for we saw upon the rocks several places were they had been ground, with a great expenditure 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 finished 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 |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 Pressigny-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,[104] but it will be well here to repeat a portion, at least, of what I have before written on this point.

These large nuclei or _livres-de-beurre_ are blocks of flint, usually 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 dislodged 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 3 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 |28| give it a polygonal outline, the 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 surfaces 10 or 12 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 proceed 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 susceptible of being traced. In some cases they had become so thin that they would not bear re-shaping; in others a want of |29| uniformity in the texture of the flint, probably caused by some included 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 unsuccessful on the one face, the attempt has been made to procure 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 speaking, 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. They 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. |30|

[Illustration: Fig. 3.—Nucleus—Pressigny. 1∕2]

[Illustration: Fig. 4, Fig. 5; Nuclei—Pressigny. 1∕2]

An interesting lecture on the Flint Industry of Touraine was given on the occasion of the annual meeting of the Société Archéologique de Touraine, in 1891, by M. J. de Saint-Venant. |31|

[Illustration: Fig. 6.—Flake—Pressigny. 1∕2]

[Illustration: Fig. 7.—Flake—Pressigny. 1∕2]

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, however, much the same process appears to have been adopted, at all events where flint was the material employed. The hatchets seem to have been rough-hewn by detaching a succession of flakes, chips, 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 |32| roughly-chipped hatchets found in Britain, the depressions of the bulbs of percussion of the flakes struck off 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 kjökken-möddings 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 sufficient cause for believing that any of the stone hatchets found in this country 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 Cissbury pits[105]—of which more hereafter—and I have found similar hammer-stones on the Sussex Downs, near Eastbourne, where also flint implements of various kinds appear to have been manufactured 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 |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 explorations at Grime’s Graves, near Brandon, carried on by Canon Greenwell, F.R.S.[106]

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 diameter, sometimes running into each other so as to form irregularly shaped hollows. They are over 250 in number, and one selected for exploration 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 breaking off 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 was a coating of 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. |34| 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,[107] 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,[108] 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 1∕2 inches long and 1 inch in circumference, rubbed smooth, and showing signs of use at the ends, which, as Canon Greenwell suggests, may have been a punch or instrument for taking off the lesser flakes of flint in making arrow-heads and other small articles. It somewhat resembles the pin of reindeer horn in the Eskimo arrow-flaker, shortly to be mentioned. The shaft had been filled in with rubble, apparently from neighbouring 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 excavations evidently intended for the extraction of flint. Mons. A. Houzeau de Lehaie, of Hyon, near Mons, has most obligingly furnished me with some particulars of these subterranean works, a detailed account of which has also been published.[109] From this |35| account it appears that shafts from 3 feet to 3 feet 6 inches in diameter were sunk through 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 feature 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, Sérifontaine (Oise)[110] and at Mur de Barrez (Aveyron).[111]

Professor J. Buckman[112] has recorded a manufactory of celts and other flint instruments near Lyme Regis.

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,[113] 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,[114] Aberdeenshire, thirty-four leaf-shaped flints, roughly 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 effected in the same manner. The stone employed is almost always of a more or less silicious nature, and such as breaks with a conchoidal fracture. |36|

Dr. F. A. Forel[115] chipped 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, which 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[116] 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 upwards, 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 |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[117] 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[118] is shown in Fig. 9. Another form of |38| instrument 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 Kotzebue Gulf. The bench on which the arrow-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, and then, by pressing the “arrow-flaker” gently along the margin vertically, first on one side and then on the other, as one would 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. |39|

[Illustration: Fig. 8.—Eskimo Arrow-flaker. 1∕2]

[Illustration: Fig. 9.—Eskimo Arrow-flaker. 1∕2]

[Illustration: Fig. 10.—Eskimo Arrow-flaker. 1∕2]

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.[119] 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 movement 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 Pourtalès[120] 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[121] describes the manufacture of arrow-heads among the Shasta and North California 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[122] of San Francisco. Major Powell confirms this account.

The Cloud River Indians[123] and the Fuegians,[124] also fashion their arrow-heads by pressure. Mr. Cushing[125] 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,[126] in a paper on the Cave-dwellers of |40| 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 fragments 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[127] has, however, pointed out that this account of the manufacture requires confirmation; but Mr. Wyeth[128] 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,[129] 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,[130] 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 |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 appearance, 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 occasionally, they are carefully finished implements of a pointed oval or a subtriangular section, and sometimes slightly curved longitudinally. 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 producing 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 difficult 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| 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, however, 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[131] 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 producing 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 of 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,[132] in an interesting article, has suggested that the final flaking was effected 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 |43| 6 inches 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[133] 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 striæ 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 generally 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[134] 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 greenstone, and especially the nephrite celts found in the |44| Swiss Pfahlbauten,[135] 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 fibrolite hatchets from Spain.[136] 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[137] 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 would 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[138] 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 instrument has in some instances cut nearly 3∕4 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 striæ, 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,[139] the American Indians sawed in two their iron fetters, and I succeeded in cutting off the |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 antiquaries are in the right, and that the blocks of stone were sawn both with and without sand, by means of flint flakes, but principally of strips of wood and bone used in conjunction with sand.[140] The reader may consult Munro’s Lake-Dwellings, 1890, p. 505.

Professor Flinders Petrie, in addition to the flint implements of the “New Race,” which he discovered near Abydos, found a number of stone implements at Kahun, and Mr. F. C. J. Spurrell has contributed to his[141] 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 |46| right thickness for a _mere_. The natives[142] 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 greenstone 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 roughening are common in Switzerland, rare in France, and rarer still in England. The greenstone hatchet found in a gravel-pit near Malton[143] (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 de Truguet,[144] of Treytel, in Switzerland, thinks he has found in a lake-dwelling an instrument used for finishing and enlarging the holes. It is a fragment of sandstone about 2 1∕2 inches long, and rounded on one face, which is worn by friction.

But, besides the mode of chipping out the shaft-hole in |47| perforated 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[145] and Sir W. Wilde,[146] 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,”[147] mentions several implements in the form of truncated cones, which he regards as boring-tools (_Bohrstempel_), 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 with 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,[148] and is regarded by him as being probably the result of boring by means of a metal tube; others, from Switzerland, presumably of the Stone Age, are cited by Keller.[149] Bellucci[150] thinks that he has found them in Northern Italy.

Worsaae[151] has suggested that in early times the boring may have been effected with a pointed stick and sand and water; and, |48| indeed, if any grinding process was used, it is a question whether some softer substance, such as wood, in which the sand or abrasive 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 experiments in boring stone by means of a drilling-stock and sand, which are described in the “Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institute for 1868.”[152] 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[153] and Iroquois[154] 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 ordinary bow by the ancient Egyptians;[155] and Ulysses is described by Homer[156] 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”[157] and a “Study of the Primitive Methods of Drilling,”[158] by Mr. J. D. McGuire. |49|

Professor Carl Vogt[159] has suggested that the small roundels of stone (like Worsaae, “Afb.” 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,[160] there is a projecting core[161] at the bottom of the unfinished hole. This is also often seen in[162] 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,[163] 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 collection, 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[164] 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[165] have arrived at the same conclusion as to tubes being used for boring. Von Estorff[166] 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. Lindenschmit[167] 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 commencement of the hole, instead of being a mere depression, is a sunk ring. Similar specimens are mentioned by Lisch.[168] Dr. Keller’s translator, Mr. Lee, cites a friend as suggesting the |50| 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[169] has suggested the use of a hollow bone; but, as already observed, I found bone less effective than wood, in consequence of its not being so good a medium for carrying the sand.

Mr. Sehested,[170] 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[171] suggests may have been formed of a hard and tough cane, the _Arundinaria macrosperma_, which grows abundantly 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,[172] 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.[173] On the whole this suggestion appears to me the most reasonable. Experiments have also been made in boring with stag’s-horn.[174]

M. Troyon[175] 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 |51| means of a bronze tool used in conjunction with sand and water. He mentions some stone axes found in Bohemia, and in the collection 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[176] 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.[177] Not having seen the specimens cited by M. Troyon, 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,[178] 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[179] specimens in which the boring is incomplete there is a small hole in advance of the larger, so that the section is like that of a trifoliated Gothic arch. In this case the borer would appear to have somewhat resembled a centre-bit or pin-drill. In others[180] 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[181] 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, however, that this is an over-estimate. Saws of the same kind were also used.

Kirchner,[182] the ingenious but perverse author of “Thor’s Donnerkeil,” considers that steel boring tools must have been used |52| for the shaft-holes in stone axes; and even Nilsson,[183] who comments on the rarity of the axes with the central core in the holes, is inclined to refer them to the Iron Age. He[184] 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[185] _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[186] 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[187] 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[188] 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 with 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 course, 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 |53| cases wrought into shape by means of a pick or chisel, and subsequently 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 mentioning 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 Palæolithic 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 Palæolithic, River-gravel, or Drift Period, implements 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 Cavern Period 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|

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