IX. PERFORATED AND GROOVED HAMMERS…

IX. PERFORATED AND GROOVED HAMMERS

Closely allied to the axe-hammers, so closely indeed that the forms seem to merge in each other, are the perforated hammer-heads of stone, which are found of various shapes, and are formed of several different kinds of rocks. In many instances, the whole of the external surface has been carefully fashioned and ground into shape, but it is at least as commonly the case that a symmetrical oval pebble has been selected for the hammer-head, and has been thus used without any labour being bestowed upon it, beyond that necessary for boring the shaft-hole. By some antiquaries, these perforated pebbles have been regarded as weights, for sinking nets, or for some such purpose; but in most cases this is, I think, an erroneous view—firstly, because the majority of these implements show traces, at their extremities, of having been used as hammers; and, secondly, because if wanted as weights, there can be no doubt that the softer kinds of stone, easily susceptible of being pierced, would be selected; whereas these perforated pebbles are almost invariably of quartzite or some equally hard and tough material.

There are some instances, indeed, in which the perforation would appear to be almost too small for a shaft of sufficient strength to wield the hammer, if such it were; but even in such cases, where hard silicious pebbles have been used, they must, in all probability, have been intended for other purposes than for weights. I am inclined to think that some means of hafting, not now in use, may have been adopted in such cases, and that possibly the handles may have been formed of twisted hide or sinews, passed through the hole in a wet state, secured by knots on either side, and then allowed to harden by drying. Such hafts would be more elastic and tough than any of the same size in wood; but it must be confessed that there is no evidence of their having been actually employed, though there is of the stones having been in use |218| as hammers. I have an Irish specimen, 3 3∕4 inches long, with the perforation tapering from about 1 3∕4 inch diameter on either side, to less than 1∕2 an inch in the middle, and yet each end of the stone is worn away by use, to the extent of 1∕4 inch below the original oval contour. It is possible that these deep cavities may have been intended to assist in keeping a firm hold of the stone when used in the hand as a hammer without any shaft, in the same manner as did the shallow indentations, which occasionally occur on the faces of pebbles which thus served; but this is hardly probable when the cavities meet in the centre to form a hole exactly like the ordinary shaft-holes, except in its disproportionately small size. It is worthy of notice, that even in axe-hammers the shaft-hole appears to be sometimes absurdly small for the size of the implement. I have a Danish specimen of greenstone, carefully finished, 6 3∕4 inches long, and weighing 1 lb. 15 ozs. avoirdupois, and yet the shaft-hole is only 3∕4 inch in diameter on either side, and but 1∕2 an inch in the centre. The axe from Felixstowe, already mentioned, presents the same peculiarity.

It has been suggested that one of the methods of hafting these implements with the double bell-mouthed perforations, was by placing them over a branch of a tree, and leaving them there until secured in their position by the natural growth of the wood, the branch being then cut off at the proper places, and serving as a handle. I have, however, found by experience that even with a fast-growing tree, such a process requires two or three years at the least, and that when removed, the shrinkage of the branch in drying, leaves the hammer-head loose on its haft. Such a system of hafting would, moreover, imply a fixity of residence on the part of the savage owners of the tools, which appears hardly compatible with the stage of civilization to which such instruments are probably to be referred.

At the same time, it must be remembered that the Caribs of Guadaloupe and the Hurons are, as has been mentioned at page 155, credited with an analogous system of hafting imperforate hatchets.

It has also been suggested that some of these pierced stones were offensive weapons, having been attached by a thong of leather to a handle,[775] and used as “flail-stones,” after the manner of the “morning-stars” of the middle ages. Such a method of mounting, though possible, appears to me by no means probable in the |219| majority of cases, though among the Eskimos[776] a weapon has been in use, consisting of a stone ball with a drilled hole, through which a strip of raw hide is passed to serve as a handle.

* * * * *

The first specimen that I have selected for illustration, Fig. 144, might, with almost equal propriety, have been placed among the perforated axes, though it has three blunt edges instead of one or two. It was found at Balmaclellan, in New Galloway, and is now in the National Museum at Edinburgh. It is of very peculiar triangular form, 1 1∕2 inches in thickness, and with a perforation expanding from an inch in diameter in the centre, to 1 3∕4 inches on each side. An engraving of it is given in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.[777] This I have here reproduced on a larger scale, so as to correspond in its proportions with the other woodcuts.

A curious hammer, of brown hæmatite, not quite so equilateral as the Scotch specimen, and much thicker in proportion, found in Alabama, has been engraved by Schoolcraft.[778] The holes, from each side, do not meet in the middle.

The specimen shown in Fig. 145 was found in the Thames, at London, and is now in the British Museum. In form it is curiously like |220| a metallic hammer, swelling out around the shaft-hole, and tapering down to a round flat face at each extremity. So far as I know, it is unique of its kind in this country. It is more probably the head of a war mace than that of an ordinary hammer. A somewhat similar hammer, of porphyry, is in the museum of the Deutsche Gesellschaft at Leipzig. It is, however, shorter in its proportions.

A stone hammer found at Claycrop, Kirkinner,[779] Wigtownshire, is, by the courtesy of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, shown in Fig. 145A. In form, it is very like Fig. 136A from Wick, but blunter at the edge.

The instrument shown in Fig. 146 is perhaps more like a blunted axe-hammer than a simple hammer. It has at one end a much-rounded point, and at the other is nearly straight across, though rounded in the other direction. It would appear to be a weapon |221| rather than a tool. It is formed of greenstone, and was found near Scarborough, being now in the museum at the Leeds Philosophical Hall. A similar form has been found in Italy.[780]

A beautifully finished hammer-head, cross-paned at both ends, and with a parallel polished shaft-hole, is shown in Fig. 147. It is of pale mottled green gneissose rock, with veins of transparent pale green, like jade, and was found in a barrow in Shetland. It is preserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh, where is also another of the same form, but broader and much more weathered, which was found at Scarpiegarth,[781] also in Shetland. Mr. J. W. Cursiter has another of these ruder examples (3 1∕2 inches) from Firth. He has also a very highly polished specimen made of serpentine (4 inches) subquadrate in section, and with hemispherical ends, from Lingrow, Orkney. The perforation is conical, being 1 inch in diameter on one face and only 1∕2 inch on the other. A remarkably elegant instrument of this kind, formed of a quartzose metamorphic rock, striped green and white, and evidently selected for its beauty, is in the well-known Greenwell Collection. It was found in Caithness. It is polished all over, and 4 1∕4 inches long, of oval section, with the ends slightly rounded. The shaft-hole is parallel, 1∕2 inch in diameter, and about 3∕4 inch nearer to one end than to the other. In the same collection is another specimen, rather more elongated in form, and of more ordinary material, found near Harome, in Yorkshire, in a district where a number of stone implements of rare types have been discovered. It is of clay-slate, 5 1∕4 inches long, and of oval section. The shaft-hole tapers from 1 inch at the faces to 9∕16 inch in the centre. A shorter hammer, of gneiss, 3 3∕4 inches long, and of similar section, |222| with a parallel shaft-hole 5∕8 inch in diameter, was found near Blair-Drummond, and is now in the National Museum at Edinburgh. It has a thin rounded edge at one end, and is obtuse at the other, as if it had been broken and subsequently rounded over. The form occasionally occurs in the South of England. In the British Museum is a beautiful specimen (4 1∕4 inches) from Twickenham, and another of more ordinary stone from the Thames, which was formerly in the Roots Collection.

Another polished hammer (of grey granite) with curved sides, and narrower at one end than the other, was found in a cairn in Caithness,[782] in company with a flint flake ground at the edge, some arrow-heads, and scrapers. By permission of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, it is shown in Fig. 148. A somewhat similar form of hammer has been obtained in Denmark.[783]

The hammer-head shown in Fig. 149 resembles the Shetland implements in character, though, besides being far less highly finished, it is shorter and broader, and shows more wear at the end. The hole, also, is not parallel, but tapers from both faces. It is stated to have been found 12 feet deep in gravel, while sinking for foundations for the works of the North-Eastern Railway in Neville Street, Leeds. It is formed of greenstone, and has all the appearance of having been made out of a portion of a celt.

I have a somewhat smaller hammer-head, of much the same form, from Reach Fen, Cambridge, which also seems to have been made from a fragment of a broken celt. I have seen one of the same kind, found near Brixham, in Devonshire.

I have another specimen, from Orwell, Wimpole, Cambs., in which a portion of an implement of larger size has also been utilized for |223| a fresh purpose. In this case the sharper end of a large axe-head of stone, probably much like Fig. 131, having been broken off, the wedge-shaped fragment, which is about 3 inches long and 2 inches broad, has been bored through in a direction at right angles to the edge, and probably to the original shaft-hole, and a somewhat adze-like hammer-head has been the result, what was formerly the edge of the axe being rounded and battered.

Fragments of celts which, when the edge was lost, subsequently served as hammers, but without any perforation, have not unfrequently been found, both here and on the Continent. The Eskimo hammer, already mentioned, has much the same appearance and character as if it had been made from a portion of a jade celt.

The form of hammer shown in Fig. 150, may be described as a frustum of a cone with convex ends. The specimen here figured is of quartzite, and was found near Rockland, Norfolk. It is preserved in the Norwich Museum. The hole, as usual with this type, is nearly parallel. The lower half of a similar hammer, but of flint, 2 inches in diameter, and showing one-half of the shaft-hole, which is 5∕8 inch in diameter, is in the British Museum. It came from Grundisburgh, Suffolk.

A more conical specimen, tapering from 2 3∕8 inches to 1 7∕8 inches in diameter, and 3 inches long, with a shaft-hole 7∕8 inch in diameter within 3∕4 inch of the top, is in the Greenwell Collection. It is of basalt, and was found at Twisel, in the parish of Norham, Northumberland.

Some rather larger and more cylindrical instruments of analogous form have been obtained in Yorkshire. One such, about 4 inches long, and with a small parallel shaft-hole about 3∕4 inch in diameter, was found with an urn in a barrow at Weapon Ness, and is in the museum at Scarborough. With it was a flint spear-head or javelin-head. It is described as rather kidney-shaped in the Archæologia.[784] I have the half of another, made of compact sandstone, and found on the Yorkshire Wolds.

The same form occurs in Ireland, but the sides curve inwards and the section is somewhat oval. Sir W. Wilde[785] describes two such of polished gneiss, and a third is engraved in Shirley’s “Account of Farney.”[786] Sir William suggests that such implements were, in all probability, used in metal working, especially in the manufacture of gold and silver. Certainly, in most cases, they can hardly have been destined for any ordinary purposes of savage life, as the labour involved in boring such shaft-holes in quartzite, and especially in |224| flint, must have been immense. It seems quite as probable that these were weapons as tools, and, in that case, we can understand an amount of time and care being bestowed on their preparation such as in modern days we find savages so often lavishing on their warlike accoutrements. Another argument in favour of these being weapons, may be derived from the beauty of the material of which they are sometimes composed. That from Farney is of a light green colour and nicely polished, and one in my own collection, found near Tullamore, King’s County, is formed of a piece of black and white gneissose rock, which must have been selected for its beauty. One in the British Museum from Lough Gur is of black hornblende.

The type with the oval section is not, however, confined to Ireland. In the Greenwell Collection is a beautiful hammer of this class, which is represented in Fig. 151. It is made of a veined quartzose gneiss, and was found on Heslerton Wold, Yorkshire. As will be seen, it is somewhat oval in section. The sides are straight, but the faces from which the hole is bored are somewhat hollow. I have a specimen of the same form, but made of greenstone (3 inches), from the neighbourhood of Sutton Coldfield,[787] Warwickshire.

A barrel-shaped hammer (3 3∕4 inches) was found on the hill of Ashogall,[788] Turriff, Aberdeenshire, and a rude triangular hammer on the Gallow Hill of Turriff.

A smaller hammer-head, curiously like those from Farney and Tullamore, both in form and material, was found with a small “food vessel” accompanying an interment near Doune,[789] Perthshire. It is 2 5∕8 inches long, with a parallel shaft-hole 5∕8 inch in diameter.

Another, of small-grained black porphyry, neatly polished, and about 3 1∕4 inches long, similar in outline to Fig. 150, but of oval section, and little more than an inch in thickness, was dredged up in the Tidal Basin, at Montrose, and is preserved in the local museum.

A cylindrical hammer of grey granite (2 3∕4 inches) only partially bored from both faces, was found in the parish of Glammis,[790] Forfarshire. Mr. J. W. Cursiter, of Kirkwall, has a beautiful specimen formed of striped gneiss (3 1∕4 inches) with well-rounded ends, and the sides much curved inwards. It was found at Whiteness, Shetland. Another of his hammers (2 3∕4 inches) with a parallel hole (7∕8 inch) has the sides straight and is of oval section. It is of beautifully mottled gneiss.

Another variety, allied to the last, has an egg-shaped instead of a quasi-conical form; the shaft-hole being towards the small end of the egg. The specimen here engraved, Fig. 152, is apparently of serpentine, and was found at Hallgaard Farm, near Birdoswald, Cumberland. It is in the Greenwell Collection.

I have a smaller but nearly similar specimen in greenstone, from |225| the neighbourhood of Flamborough, Yorkshire. The hole in this is more bell-mouthed than in the other specimen, and a little nearer the centre of the stone.

One of nearly similar form, but rather flatter on one face, 3 1∕4 inches long, found in Newport, Lincoln, is engraved in the Archæological Journal.[791]

Another in size and shape, much like Fig. 152, was dug up at Llanrhaiadr-yn-Mochnant, Montgomeryshire.[792] Another in the British Museum came from the neighbourhood of Keswick.

An egg-shaped hammer, 3 inches long, of mica schist, and found in the Isle of Arran,[793] is in the National Museum at Edinburgh. The shaft-hole is in the centre.

Sometimes these hammer-heads are, in outline, of an intermediate form between Figs. 151 and 152, being oval in section, and more rounded at the smaller end than the larger, which is somewhat flattened. One such, in the Christy Collection, is formed of granite, and was found at Burns, near Keswick, Cumberland. Another, of quartzite, 3 1∕4 inches long, found on Breadsale Moor, is in the Museum at Derby. Neither of them presents the same high degree of finish as Fig. 151. They seem, indeed, to have been made from pebbles, which were but slightly modified in form by their conversion into hammer-heads.

Occasionally, though rarely, flint pebbles naturally perforated have been used as hammers. In excavating a barrow at Thorverton,[794] near Exeter, the Rev. R. Kirwan discovered a flint pebble about 3 3∕4 inches long, with a natural perforation rather nearer one end than the other, but which on each face has been artificially enlarged. Each end of the pebble is considerably abraded by use. No other relics, with the |226| exception of charcoal, were found in the barrow. Mr. Kirwan suggests that the stone may have been used by placing the thumb and forefinger in each orifice of the aperture; but not improbably it may have been hafted. In the Museum at Copenhagen are one or two axes of flint, ground at the edge, but with the shaft-holes formed by natural perforations of the stone. And in M. Boucher de Perthes’ Collection[795] were two hammer-heads, with central holes of the same character.

The beautiful and elaborately finished hammer-head found at Maesmore, near Corwen, Merionethshire, and now in the National Museum at Edinburgh, is to some extent connected in form with those like Fig. 152. It is shown in Fig. 153, on the scale of 1∕2 linear, but a full size representation of it is given elsewhere.[796] It is of dusky white chalcedony, or of very compact quartzite, and weighs 10 1∕2 ounces. “The reticulated ornamentation is worked with great precision, and must have cost great labour. The perforation for the haft is formed with singular symmetry and perfection; the lozengy grooved decoration covering the entire surface is remarkably symmetrical and skilfully finished.” The Rev. E. L. Barnwell,[797] who presented it to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, has observed that “the enormous amount of labour that must have been bestowed on cutting and polishing, would indicate that it was not intended for ordinary use as a common hammer.” “Some have considered it as the war implement of a distinguished chief; others, that it was intended for sacrificial or other religious purpose, or as a badge of high office.” Other conjectures are mentioned which it is needless to repeat. My own opinion is in favour of regarding it as a weapon of war, such as, like the jade mere of the New Zealander, implied a sort of chieftainship in its possessor. At the time of its discovery it was unique of its kind. But since then a second example has been found, though in an unfinished condition,[798] at Urquhart, near Elgin, and has also been placed in the museum at Edinburgh. It is rather smaller, but of similar type and material to the Welsh specimen. The shaft-hole is finished, but the boring process has not been skilfully carried out, the meeting at the centre of the holes bored from either face not having |227| been perfect; and though the hole has been made straight by subsequent grinding out, there is still a lateral cavity left. The faceted pattern is complete at the small end, and commenced on both sides. Along the edge of the face small notches are ground, showing the manner in which the pattern was laid out before grinding the hollow facets.

A third but ruder example of the same kind was found in the Thames, at Windsor,[799] and was exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries in 1895 by Mr. F. Tress Barry, F.S.A., who has kindly presented it to me. It is of nearly the same size as the others, but the perforation is natural, and there is no attempt at ornamentation, though much of the surface has been ground in irregular facets.

The end of a naturally perforated flint nodule from Aldbourne, Wilts, in the collection of Mr. J. W. Brooke, seems to be part of a hammer. It is neatly faceted like the nucleus, Fig. 189, and has been rounded by grinding. The hole has been partially ground.

A very peculiar hammer, discovered by Sir Richard Colt Hoare,[800] in Bush barrow, near Normanton, Wilts, is reproduced in Fig. 154. It lay on the right side of a skeleton, which was accompanied by a bronze celt without side flanges, a magnificent bronze dagger, the handle of which was ornamented with gold, a lance-head of bronze, and a large lozenge-shaped plate of gold. The hammer-head is “made out of a fossil mass of tubularia, and polished, rather of an egg form,” or “resembling the top of a large gimlet. It had a wooden handle, which was fixed into the perforation in the centre, and encircled by a neat ornament of brass, part of which still adheres to the stone.” As it bore no marks of wear or attrition, Sir Richard hardly considered it to have been used as a domestic implement, and thought that the stone as containing a mass of serpularia, or little serpents, might have been held in great veneration, and therefore have been deposited with the other valuable relics in the grave. Judging from the other objects accompanying this interment, it seems more probable that this hammer was a weapon of offence, though whether the material of which it was formed were selected from any superstitious motive, rather than for the beauty of the stone, may be an open question. I have already mentioned instances of serpula[801] limestone having been employed as a material for celts of the ordinary character. The hole in this instrument appears to be parallel, and may possibly have been bored with a metallic tool. The occurrence of this hammer in association with such highly-finished and |228| tastefully-decorated objects of bronze and gold, shows conclusively that stone remained in use for certain purposes, long after the knowledge of some of the metals had been acquired.

The hammer-heads of the next form to be noticed are of a simpler character, being made from ovoid pebbles, usually of quartzite, by boring shaft-holes through their centres. The specimen I have selected for illustration, Fig. 155, is in my own collection, and was found in Redgrave Park, Suffolk. It is said to have been exhumed ten feet below the surface, by men digging stone in Deer’s Hill. The pebble is of quartzite, probably from one of the conglomerates of the Trias, but more immediately derived from the gravels of the Glacial Period, which abound in the Eastern Counties. The hole as usual tapers towards the middle of the stone. The pebble is battered at both ends, and slightly worn away by use. I have a rather smaller, and more kidney-shaped hammer, also slightly worn away at the ends, found at Willerby Carr, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and one (4 inches), that is considerably worn at both ends, from Stanifield, Bury St. Edmunds. An example was found at Normandy,[802] near Wanborough, Surrey. I have seen one formed from a sandstone pebble (4 1∕2 inches) found near Ware.

In the Greenwell Collection is a large specimen, made from a flat pebble (7 1∕2 inches) obtained at Salton, York, N.R.

Fig. 156 shows a smaller variety of the same type, but rather square in outline, and with the shaft-hole much more bell-mouthed. The original is in my own collection, and was found in Redmore Fen, near Littleport, Cambridgeshire. I have others from Icklingham (2 3∕8 inches) and Harleston, Norfolk (3 1∕4 inches). Hammers of this and the preceding type are by no means |229| uncommon. Mr. Joshua W. Brooke has one (3 1∕4 inches) from Liddington, Wilts. One of quartzite, 5 inches long, was found in a vallum of Clare Castle, Suffolk,[803] and is in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries; another (4 1∕2 inches) at Sunninghill, Berks;[804] another (2 1∕2 inches) near Reigate.[805] One, in form like Fig. 156 (4 1∕4 inches), was discovered in Furness.[806] Others were found at Pallingham Quay,[807] and St. Leonard’s Forest,[808] Horsham (5 inches), both in Sussex. What seems to be a broken hammer (2 3∕8 inches) and not a spindle-whorl was obtained at Mount Caburn,[809] Lewes. Another, circular in outline, and 3 inches in diameter, was found at Stifford,[810] near Grays Thurrock, and is engraved in the Archæological Journal.[811] I have here reproduced the figure (Fig. 157), though the scale is somewhat larger than that of my other illustrations.

In the British Museum is a specimen, originally about 3 1∕2 inches by 2 1∕4 inches, and 3∕4 inch thick, with the end battered, which was found in a tumulus at Cliffe, near Lewes. Another, 3 3∕4 inches in diameter, from the Thames; a subtriangular example from Marlborough (4 1∕4 inches); and an oval one (3 7∕8 inches) from Sandridge, Herts, are in the same collection.

A longer form (6 1∕4 inches by 3 1∕8) was found at Epping Uplands, Essex,[812] and another about 5 inches, rather hoe-like in form, in the Lea, at Waltham. Another (4 1∕2 inches) was found in London.[813]

In the Norwich Museum are two hammer-heads of this type, one from Sporle, near Swaffham (3 1∕8 inches), of quartzite; and the other of jasper, from Eye, Suffolk, 5 inches by 2 3∕4 inches. In the Fitch Collection are also specimens from Yarmouth (3 1∕2 inches), from Lyng (5 inches), and Congham, Norfolk (6 inches), as well as a fragment of one found at Caistor.

The late Mr. Warren, of Ixworth, had one from Great Wratting, near Haverhill (4 inches), and the late Mr. James Carter, of Cambridge, one 3 1∕4 inches in diameter, from Chesterton.

In the Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society is one of irregular form, found near Newmarket. A thin perforated stone, 6 inches by 3 inches, from Luton,[814] in Bedfordshire, may belong to this class, though it was regarded as an unfinished axe-head.

In the collection formed by Canon Greenwell is one found at Coves Houses, Wolsingham, Durham (3 1∕2 inches), and another of quartzite (4 1∕2 inches), with both ends battered, from Mildenhall Fen. He discovered another of small size, only 2 1∕4 inches in length, with the perforation not |230| more than 7∕16 inch in diameter in the centre, in the soil of a barrow at Rudstone,[815] near Bridlington.

The late Mr. H. Durden, of Blandford, had two fragments of these hammers, made from quartzite pebbles, one of them from Hod Hill, Dorset, and the other from the same neighbourhood. A perforated oval boulder of chert was also found near Marlborough.[816]

Both round and oval hammer-stones are in the Leicester Museum.[817] One (6 1∕2 inches) was found at Doddenham, Worcestershire, and others (3 3∕8 inches) at Silverdale,[818] Torver,[819] and elsewhere in Lancashire.[820] A large specimen (8 inches) was found at Abbey Cwm Hir,[821] Radnorshire, and a small one near Rhayader,[822] Montgomeryshire. A circular example (4 1∕4 inches), with a very small central hole, was discovered in Pembrokeshire.[823] Quartzite pebbles converted into hammer-heads occur also in Scotland. The hole in one from Pitlochrie[824] is only 1∕8 inch in diameter at its centre. In one from Ythanside, Gight,[825] Aberdeenshire (4 3∕4 inches), it is only 1∕4 inch.

Besides quartzite and silicious pebbles, these hammer-heads were made from fragments of several other rocks. The Rev. S. Banks had one of greenstone, 5 3∕4 inches by 3 1∕4 inches, found at Mildenhall. A disc of dolerite[826] (4 inches) with convex faces and perforated in the centre in the usual manner, was found at Caer Leb, in the parish of Llanidan, Anglesea. Several hammer-stones of this kind were obtained by the late Hon. W. O. Stanley, M.P., in his researches in the Island of Holyhead.[827] One of them, now in the British Museum, is of trap, 4 1∕2 inches long and 3 inches broad, somewhat square at the ends; another is of schist, 3 3∕8 inches long, and much thinner in proportion. Both were found at Pen-y-Bonc. A fragment of a third, formed of granite (?), was found at Ty Mawr, in the same island. One of granite (?)[828] was found at Titsey Park, Surrey. A small one of “light grey burr stone,” 2 3∕8 inches in diameter, was found at Haydock,[829] near Newton, Lancashire. I have a subquadrate example (4 inches) of felsite, from Belper, Derbyshire. The Scottish specimens are often of other materials than quartzite. A circular “flailstone,” found at Culter, Lanarkshire, has been figured,[830] but the material is not stated. The same is the case with an oval one, 4 inches long, found near Longman,[831] Macduff, Banff; another from Forfarshire;[832] and a third, 4 inches by 3 inches, from Alloa.[833]

Others from Portpatrick[834] (6 3∕4 inches), and from a cist at Cleugh,[835] Glenbervie, Kincardineshire, have been figured. I have a disc (3 inches), nearly flat round the circumference like a Danish “child’s |231| wheel” from Ballachulish, Inverness. It is formed of hornblendic gneiss. A hammer-stone of this kind from Poyanne, Landes,[836] has been recorded.

Some of these circular pebbles may have formed the heads of war-maces, such as seem to have been in use in Denmark in ancient times and in a modified form, among various savage tribes in recent days.

A curious variety of this type, flat on one face and convex on the other, is shown in Fig. 158. It is made from a quartzite pebble, that has in some manner been split, and was found at Sutton, near Woodbridge. It is now in the collection of General Pitt Rivers, F.R.S.

In the Christy Collection is another implement of much the same size, material, and character, which was found at Narford, Norfolk. The ends are somewhat hollowed after the manner of a gouge, but the edges are rounded. It seems to occupy a sort of intermediate position between a hammer and an adze.

One of similar, but more elongated form, found at Auquemesnil[837] (Seine Inférieure), has been figured by the Abbé Cochet.

It is difficult to say for what purpose hammers of this perforated kind were destined. I can hardly think that such an enormous amount of labour would have been bestowed in piercing them, if they had merely been intended to serve in the manufacture of other stone implements, a service in which they would certainly be soon broken. If they were not intended for weapons of war or the chase, they were probably used for lighter work than chipping other stones; and yet the bruising at the ends, so apparent on many of them, betokens their having seen hard service. We have little, in the customs of modern savages, to guide us as to their probable uses, as perforated hammers are almost unknown among them. The perforated spheroidal stones of Southern Africa[838] act merely as weights to give impetus to the digging sticks, and such stones are said to have been in use in Chili[839] and California.[840] The perforated discs of North America appear to be the fly-wheels of drilling sticks. Some quartz pebbles perforated with small central holes, and brought from the African Gold Coast,[841] seem to have been worn as charms. |232|

In Ireland, perforated hammer-stones are much more abundant than in England. They are usually formed of some igneous or metamorphic rock, and vary considerably in size, some being as much as 10 or 12 inches in length. Sir W. Wilde observes that stone hammers, and not unfrequently stone anvils, have been employed by smiths and tinkers in some of the remote country districts until a comparatively recent period. If, however, these hammers were perforated, there can be but little doubt that they must have been ancient tools again brought into use, as the labour in manufacturing a stone hammer of this kind would be greater than that of making one in iron, which would, moreover, be ten times as serviceable. If, however, the stone hammers came to hand ready made, they might claim a preference. For heavy work, where iron was scarce, large mauls, such as those shortly to be described, might have been in use rather than iron sledges; but the more usual form of stone hammer would probably be a pebble held in the hand, as is constantly the case with the workers in iron of Southern Africa. Even in Peru and Bolivia, the late Mr. David Forbes, F.R.S., informed me that the masons skilful in working hard stone with steel chisels, make use of no other mallet or hammer than a stone pebble held in the hand. The anvils and hammers used in Patagonia[842] in working silver are generally of stone, but the latter are not perforated.

In Germany, as already[843] incidentally remarked, anvils formed of basalt were in frequent use in the sixteenth century.

In Scandinavia and Germany the same forms of hammers as those found in the British Isles occur, both in quartzite and in other kinds of stone. They are not, however, abundant. Worsaae does not give the type in his “Nordiske Oldsager,” and Nilsson gives but a single instance.[844] Lindenschmit[845] engraves a specimen from Oldenstadt, Lüneburg, and another from Gelderland.[846]

In Switzerland they are extremely rare. In the Neuchâtel Museum, however, is a perforated hammer, formed from an oval pebble, and found in the Lake-habitations at Concise; another, 2 inches in diameter, with a small perforation deeply countersunk on each face, has been regarded by M. de Mortillet[847] as a sink-stone for a net.

I have a lenticular mace-head, 3 inches in diameter and 2 inches thick, formed of a silicious breccia from Pergamum. The hole tapers from 3∕4 inch to 1∕2 inch.

The half of a small perforated hammer made of greenstone and polished is recorded to have been found at Arconum,[848] west of Madras. A perforated stone, possibly a hammer, was found in the Jubbulpore district, Central India;[849] and a fine example from the Central Provinces,[850] rather more oval than Fig. 157, has been figured by the late Mr. V. Ball.

In the British Museum is a perforated ball of hard red stone of a different type from any of those which I have described, which came from Peru. It is about 3 inches in diameter, with a parallel hole an inch across. Around the outside are engraved four human faces, each surmounted by a sort of mitre. It may be the head of a mace. |233|

Spherical mace-heads of marble and of harder rocks occur among Egyptian antiquities. They are sometimes decorated by carving.

* * * * *

In this place perhaps it will be well to mention a class of large hammer-stones, or mauls, as they have been termed, which, though belonging to a period when metal was in use, are in all probability of a high degree of antiquity. They consist, as a rule, of large oval pebbles or boulders, usually of some tough form of greenstone or grit, around which, somewhere about the middle of their length, a shallow groove has been chipped or “picked,” from 3∕4 inch to 1 inch in width. On the two opposite sides of the pebble, and intersecting this groove, two flat or slightly hollowed faces have often been worked, the purpose of which is doubtless connected with the method of hafting the stones for use as hammers. This was evidently by means of a withe twisted round them, much in the same manner as a blacksmith’s chisel is mounted at the present day. In the case of the mauls, however, the withe appears to have been secured by tying, like the haft of one form of Australian stone hatchets (Fig. 105), and then to have been tightened around the stone by means of wedges driven in between the withe loop and the flat faces before mentioned.

A[851] German stone axe seems to have been fastened to its haft in the same manner.

* * * * *

In many of the Welsh specimens about to be mentioned, the flat faces are absent, and the notch or groove does not extend all round the stone, but exists only on the two sides through which the longer transverse axis of the pebble passes. In this case the wedges, if any, were probably driven in on the flatter side of the boulder.

The ends of the pebbles are usually much worn and broken by hammering, and not unfrequently the stone has been split by the violence of the blows that it has administered. It is uncertain whether they were merely used for crushing and pounding metallic ores, or also in mining operations; but with very few exceptions they occur in the neighbourhood of old mines, principally copper-mines.

In some copper mines at Llandudno,[852] near the great Orme’s Head, Carnarvonshire, an old working was broken into about sixty years ago, and in it were found a broken stag’s horn, and parts of what were regarded as of two mining implements or picks of bronze, one about 3 inches and the other about 1 inch in length. In 1850, another ancient working was found, and on the floor a number of these stone mauls, described as weighing from about 2 lbs. to 40 lbs. each. They had been formed from water-worn boulders, probably selected from |234| the beach at Pen-maen-mawr. One of the mauls in the Warrington Museum[853] is 6 5∕8 inches long, and weighs 3 lbs. 14 ozs. One of basalt, measuring nearly a foot in length, was found in ancient workings at Amlwch Parys Mine,[854] in Anglesea. Others have been discovered in old workings in Llangynfelin Mine,[855] Cardiganshire, and at Llanidan,[856] Anglesea.

A ponderous ball of stone, about 5 inches in diameter, probably used in crushing and pounding the ore, a portion of stag’s horn, fashioned so as to be suited for the handle of some implement, and an iron pick-axe, were found in some old workings in the Snow Brook Lead Mines, Plinlimmon, Montgomeryshire.[857]

Two of these hammer-stones, 4 1∕2 and 5 inches in length, were obtained by the late Hon. W. O. Stanley, within hut circles, possibly the remains of the habitations of copper miners in ancient times, at Ty Mawr, in the Island of Holyhead. Some of these mauls are figured in the Archæological Journal,[858] and are of much the same form as Fig. 159, the original of which probably served another purpose. Others of the same character, formed of quartzite, were found at Pen-y-Bonc,[859] Holyhead, and Old Geir,[860] Anglesea. They have also been found at Alderley Edge,[861] Cheshire.

A boulder, like those from Llandudno, but found at Long Low, near Wetton, Staffordshire, is in the Bateman Collection.[862] One from Wigtownshire[863] has been regarded as a weight.

They are of not uncommon occurrence in the south of Ireland,[864] especially in the neighbourhood of Killarney, where, as also in Cork, many of them have been found in ancient mines. They have, in Ireland, been denominated miners’ hammers. One of them is engraved in “Flint Chips.”[865] I have seen an example from Shetland.

They have also been found in ancient copper mines in the province of Cordova,[866] at Cerro Muriano, Villanueva del Rey,[867] and Milagro, in Spain; in those of Ruy Gomes,[868] in Alemtejo, Portugal; and at the salt mines of Hallstatt,[869] in the Salzkammergut of Austria, and at Mitterberg,[870] near Bischofshofen.

A large hammer of the same class, but with a deeper groove all round, has been recorded from Savoy.[871]

They are not, however, confined to European countries, for similar stone hammers were found by Mr. Bauerman in the old mines of Wady Maghara,[872] which were worked for turquoises (if not also for |235| copper ore) by the ancient Egyptians, so early as the third Manethonian Dynasty. It is hard to say whether the grooved stone found by Schliemann at Troy[873] was used as a hammer or a weight.

What is more remarkable still, in the New World similar stone hammers are found in the ancient copper mines near Lake Superior.[874] As described by Sir Daniel Wilson,[875] “many of these mauls are mere water-worn oblong boulders of greenstone or porphyry, roughly chipped in the centre, so as to admit of their being secured by a withe around them.” They weigh from 10 to 40 lbs., and are found in enormous numbers. M. Marcou[876] has given an account of the discovery of some of those mauls in the Mine de la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest, at Point Kievenau, Lake Superior. He describes them as formed of leptynite (quartz and felspar), quartz, and porphyry, and weighing from 5 to 8 lbs. each; and mentions having seen one of quartz weighing about 5 lbs., which was in the possession of some Kioway Indians, and was bound to a handle with a strip of bison skin.

This similarity or identity in form of implements used in countries so wide apart, and at such different ages, does not, I think, point of necessity to any common origin, nor to any so-called “continuity of form,” but appears to offer another instance of similar wants with similar means at command, resulting in similar implements for fulfilling those wants. Grooved hammers for other purposes, as evinced by their smaller size, and a few grooved axes, occur in Scandinavia. An example among one of the lower races in modern times is afforded by a large crystal of quartz, with its terminal planes preserved at both ends, which has been slightly grooved at the sides for the purpose of attaching it to a handle, and was brought by Captain Cook, from St. George’s Sound, where it appears to have been used as a hammer or pick. It is now in the British Museum, and has been described by Dr. Henry Woodward.[877]

Even in Britain the hammer-stones of this form are not absolutely confined to mining districts. Canon Greenwell, in one of the barrows at Rudstone,[878] near Bridlington, found on the lid of a stone-cist two large greenstone pebbles 8 and 9 3∕4 inches long, each with a sort of “waist” chipped in it, as if to receive a withe, and having marks at the ends of having been in use as hammers.

Closely connected in form and character with the mining hammers, though as a rule much smaller in size, and in all probability intended for a totally different purpose, is the class of stone objects of one of which Fig. 159 gives a representation, reproduced from the Archæological Journal.[879] This was found in company with two others at Burns, near Ambleside, Westmorland; and another, almost precisely similar in size and form, was found at Percy’s Leap, and is preserved at Alnwick Castle. Another, from Westmorland, is in the Liverpool Museum, and they have, I believe, been observed in some numbers in that district. A stone of the same character, but more elaborately worked, |236| having somewhat acorn-shaped ends, was found by the late Hon. W. O. Stanley, at Old Geir,[880] Anglesea. Others from Anglesea,[881] one of them ornamented, have been figured. They were originally regarded as hammer-stones, but such as I have examined are made of a softer stone than those usually employed for hammers, and they are not battered or worn at the ends. It is, therefore, probable that they were used as sinkers for nets or lines, for which purpose they are well adapted, the groove being deep enough to protect small cord around it from wear by friction. They seem also usually to occur in the neighbourhood either of lakes, rivers, or the sea. A water-worn nodule of sandstone, 5 inches long, with a deep groove round it, and described as probably a sinker for a net or line, was found in Aberdeenshire,[882] and is in the National Museum at Edinburgh; and I have one of soft grit, and about the same length, given me by Mr. R. D. Darbishire, F.G.S., and found by him near Nantlle, Carnarvonshire.

Many of these sink-stones are probably of no great antiquity. With two transverse grooves, they are still in use in Shetland.[883]

The Fishing Indians of Vancouver’s Island[884] go out trolling for salmon in a fast canoe, towing behind them a long line made of tough seaweed, to which is attached, by slips of deer hide, an oval piece of granite perfectly smooth, and the size and shape of a goose’s egg. It acts as a sinker, and is said to spin the bait. A net-sinker, formed of a pebble slightly notched or grooved, is among the antiquities from |237| Lake Erie, engraved by Schoolcraft.[885] Others have been found in the State of New York.[886] See C. Rau’s “Prehistoric Fishing.”[887]

Sink-stones are by no means rare in Ireland, and continue in use to the present day. One of the same class as Fig. 159, but grooved round the long axis of the pebble, is engraved by Sir W. Wilde.[888] Similar stones occur in Denmark, and were regarded by Worsaae[889] as sink-stones, though some of them, to judge from the wear at the ends, and the hardness of the material, were used as hammers. I have seen, in Sweden, the leg bones of animals used as weights for sinking nets.

Another form of sink-stone, weight, or plummet, was formed by boring a hole towards one end of a flattish stone. Such a one, weighing 14 1∕4 oz., was dredged from the Thames at Battersea.[890]

Another, of oval form, pierced at one end, from Tyrie,[891] Aberdeenshire, is in the National Museum at Edinburgh; and a wedge-shaped perforated stone from Culter, Lanarkshire,[892] was probably intended for the same purpose. These may have been in use for stretching the warp in the loom when weaving. They are found of this form with Roman remains.[893]

|238|

X. HAMMER-STONES, ETC

Under this head I propose to treat of those implements which have apparently been used as hammers, but which, for that purpose, were probably held in the hand alone, and not provided with a shaft, as the groove or shaft-hole characteristic of the class last described, is absent. At the same time there are some hammer-stones in which there are cavities worked on either face, so deep and so identical in character with those which, in meeting each other, produce the bell-mouthed perforations commonly present in the hammers intended for hafting, that at first sight it seems difficult to say whether they are finished implements, or whether they would have become perforated hammer-heads had the process of manufacture been completed. Certainly in some cases the cavities appear to be needlessly deep and conical for the mere purpose of receiving the finger and thumb, so as to prevent the stone slipping out of the hand; and yet such apparently unfinished instruments occur in different countries, in sufficient numbers to raise a presumption that the form is intentional and complete. There are some instances where, as was thought to be the case with a quartz pebble from Firth,[894] in Orkney, the unfinished implements may have been cast aside owing to the stone having cracked, or to the holes bored on each face not being quite opposite to each other, so as to form a proper shaft-hole.

In other instances, as in Figs. 160 and 161, the battering of the end proves that the stones have been in actual use as hammers. It is of course possible that these cavities may have been worked for the purpose of mounting the stones in some other manner than by fixing the haft in a socket. A split stick may, for instance, have been used, with a part of the wood on each side of the fissure worked away, so as to leave projections to fit the |239| cavities, and have then been bound together so as to securely grasp the pebble. A stone mallet, consisting of a large pebble mounted between two curved pieces of wood, somewhat resembling the hames of a horse collar, and firmly bound together at each end, is still used by the quarrymen of Trichinopoly,[895] in India. Another method of hafting stones, by tying them on to the side of a stick with little or no previous preparation, is practised by the Aymara Indians of Bolivia and Peru.[896] Mr. D. Forbes, F.R.S., in his interesting account of this people, has engraved a pebble thus mounted, which was in use as a clod crusher. One of them is preserved in the Christy Collection. Among the Apaches,[897] in Mexico, hammers are made of rounded pebbles hafted in twisted withes.

* * * * *

A remarkable hammer-head, found at Helmsley, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, is in the collection formed by Canon Greenwell. It is shown in Fig. 160, and has been made from a rather coarse-grained quartzite pebble, both ends of which have, however, been worn away by use to an extent probably of an inch in each case, or of two inches in the whole pebble. The worn ends are rounded, but somewhat hollow in the middle, as if they had at that part been used for striking against some cylindrical or sharp surface. The funnel-shaped cavities appear almost too deep and too sharp at their edges to have been intended merely to assist in holding the hammer in the hand, and it seems possible that their original purpose may have been in connection with some method of hafting. The hammer has, however, eventually been used in the hand alone, for the wear of the ends extends over the face, quite to the margin of one of the cavities, and at such an angle, that it would have been almost impossible for any handle to have been present. But if the stone be held in the hand, with the middle finger in the cavity, the wear is precisely on that part of the stone which would come in contact with a flat surface, in hammering upon it. What substance it was used to pound or crush it is impossible to determine, but not improbably it may have been animal food; and bones as well as meat may have been pounded with it.

A quasi-cubical hammer-stone, with recesses on two opposite faces, found at Moel Fenlli,[898] Ruthin, Denbighshire, has been figured. It is now in my collection. |240|

The specimen engraved as Fig. 161 has been made from a quartzite pebble, and has the conical depression deeper on one face than the other. It was found at Winterbourn Bassett, Wilts, and is now in the British Museum.

In the Norwich Museum is a similar pebble, from Sporle, near Swaffham. It is 3 3∕4 inches long, recessed on each face, with a conical depression, the apex rounded. These cavities are about 1 1∕4 inches diameter on the face of the stone, and about 3∕4 inch in depth. The Rev. W. C. Lukis, F.S.A., had a hammer-stone of this kind, 3 inches long, found at Melmerby, Cumberland. One (6 inches) was found at Langtree,[899] Devon, another (3 1∕8 inches) at Trefeglwys,[900] Montgomeryshire. I have one (3 inches) from Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Coventry, and a thinner example, 2 3∕4 inches, much worn at the ends, from Litlington, Cambs.

A circular rough-grained stone, 3 inches in diameter, with deep cup-like indentations on each face, found on Goldenoch Moor, Wigtownshire,[901] is in the National Museum at Edinburgh; where is also another hammer formed of a greenstone pebble (3 1∕2 inches), with broad and deep cup-shaped depressions on each face, and much worn at one end, which came from Dunning, Perthshire. There are other examples of the same kind in the same museum. Many have, indeed, |241| been found in Scotland. A good example from Machermore Loch,[902] Wigtownshire, and several others,[903] have been figured.

That from Goldenoch, shown in Fig. 161A,[904] has a deep recess on each face. Others from Fife[905] have the recess on one face only. In the case of one from the Island of Coll[906] the recesses are at the sides instead of on the faces.

In some cases the depressions are shallower, and concave rather than conical. I have a flat irregular disc of greenstone, about 2 1∕4 inches diameter and 5∕8 inch thick, thinning off to the edges, which are rounded, and having in the centre of each face a slight cup-like depression, about 5∕8 inch in diameter. It was found in a trench at Ganton, Yorkshire. In the Greenwell Collection is a somewhat larger disc of sandstone, worn on both faces and round the whole edge, and with a slight central depression. It was found in a cairn at Harbottle Peels, Northumberland. In form, these instruments are identical with the Tilhuggersteene[907] of the Danish antiquaries, and it is possible that some of them, especially those of the circular form, may have been used for the purpose of chipping out other kinds of stone implements.

The type is not of uncommon occurrence in Ireland.[908] It is rare in France, but a broken example from the neighbourhood of Amiens is in the Blackmore Museum.

I have a specimen which might be mistaken for Danish or Irish, but which was brought me from Port Beaufort, Cape of Good Hope, by Captain H. Thurburn, F.G.S. It must have been in use there at no very remote period.

An oval stone, with what appears to be a cup-shaped depression on one face, 3∕8 inch deep, is engraved by Schoolcraft[909] as a relic of the Congarees. Another, from the Delaware River, of the Danish form, is described by Nilsson[910] as a tool for making arrow-points. He also engraves one from Greenland. Other so-called hammer-stones in the same plate are more probably “strike-a-light” stones, and under any circumstances belong to the Early Iron Period. Abbott[911] and Rau[912] also describe Indian hammer-stones, some like Fig. 161.

Highly polished, and deep cup-shaped or conical depressions are occasionally to be observed occurring on one or both faces of large pebbles, usually of quartz, and sometimes in two or three places on |242| the same face. Though very similar to the hollows on the hammer-stones, they are due to a very different cause, being merely the results of stone bearings or journals having been employed, instead of those of brass, for the upright spindles of corn mills. It seems strange that for such a purpose stone should have gone out of use, it being retained, and indeed regarded as almost indispensable for durability, in the case of watches, the pivot-holes of which are so frequently “jewelled.”

Fig. 162, which I have reproduced from the Sussex Archæological Collections[913] on the same scale as the other figures, shows a pivot-stone of quartzite (?) found in the ruins of St. Botolph’s Priory, Pembrokeshire, a few yards from a pebble (4 1∕2 inches) of similar material, in which a hole had been bored to the depth of half an inch apparently by the friction of the pointed end of the smaller pebble. Another pivot-stone of the same kind was found at Bochym,[914] Cornwall. Such socket-stones were, until recently, in use in Scotland[915] and Piedmont[916] for the iron spindles of the upper mill-stones of small water-mills. Pivot-stones with larger socket-stones were also used for field-gates. Similar socket-stones occur in Switzerland,[917] and have puzzled Dr. Keller.

A stone, with a well-polished cavity, found on the site of an old mill near Carluke, Lanarkshire,[918] was exhibited at Edinburgh in 1856. Another was found in Argyllshire; and I have seen other specimens from Ireland. The socket of the hinge of the great gate at Dunnottar Castle is said to have consisted of a similar stone. Stones with highly-polished hollows in them, in which apparently the ends of drill-sticks revolved, are common on the site of ancient Naukratis.[919]

As has already been observed at page 223, it is by no means uncommon to find portions of polished celts which, after the edge has been by some means broken away, have been converted into hammers. Very rarely, there is a cup-like cavity worked on either face in the same manner as in the celts shown in Figs. 87 and 88. A specimen of this character, from the neighbourhood of Bridlington, is shown in Fig. 163. It is of close-grained greenstone, and, to judge from the thickness of the battered end, the celt, of which this originally formed the butt, must have been at least half as long again as it is in its present form. The cavities have been worked out with some kind of pick or pointed tool, and from their position so near the butt-end, it seems probable that they did |243| not exist in the original celt, but were subsequently added when it had lost its cutting edge, and was destined to be turned into a hammer-stone. In the Greenwell Collection is a similar specimen, 4 inches long, found at Wold Newton, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. In the celts with cup-shaped depressions on their faces, but still retaining their edge, the depressions are nearer the centre of the blade.

This hollowing of a portion of the surface is sometimes so slight as to amount to no more than a roughening of the face, such as would enable the thumb and fingers to take a sufficiently secure hold of the stone, to prevent its readily falling out of the hand when not tightly grasped; a certain looseness of hold being desirable, to prevent a disagreeable jarring when the blows were struck. If, as seems probable, many of these hammers or pounders were used for the purpose of splitting bones, so as to lay bare the marrow, we can understand the necessity of roughening a portion of the greasy surface of the stone, to assist the hold.

In Fig. 164 I have represented a large quartz pebble found in Easton Field, Bridlington, which has the roughened depression on both faces rather more strongly marked than usual, especially on the face here shown. It is more battered at one end than the other, and has evidently been long in use. It shows some traces of grinding at the lower end in the figure, as if it had been desirable for it to have a sort of transverse ridge at the end, to adapt it to the purpose for which it was used.

Canon Greenwell found in a barrow at Weaverthorpe,[920] Yorkshire, a hammer-stone of this kind, but nearly circular in form. It is a flat quartz pebble, about 1 3∕4 inches in diameter, battered all round, and broken at one part, and having the centre of one face artificially roughened.

A round hammer (2 1∕2-inches), with depressions on each face, was found at Gatley,[921] Cheshire. Hammer-stones of the same character occurred abundantly on the site of ancient Naukratis.[922] The wallong,[923] or stone used by the Australian natives for grinding nardoo seeds on the yow wi, a large flat stone, is curiously like Fig. 164.

To the same class, belongs the hammer-stone shown in Fig. 165, found at Huntow, near Bridlington. It has been made from a quartz pebble, of the original surface of which but little remains, and has a |244| well-marked depression about 1∕8 inch deep in the centre of each face. The periphery is much worn away by use.

A fine-grained sandstone pebble, in form like a small cheese, about 3 inches in diameter, having the two faces smooth and perfectly flat, was found at Red Hill,[924] near Reigate, and was regarded as a muller or pounding-stone used possibly in husking or bruising grain; or even for chipping flint, its surface bearing the mark of long-continued use as a pestle or hammer.[925] “Precisely similar objects have been found in Northumberland, and other parts of England.”

Canon Greenwell informs me that about twenty such, differing in size and thickness, were found on Corbridge Fell, together with several stone balls. He thinks they may possibly have been used in some game. A paper on the stone hammer and its various uses has been published by Mr. J. D. McGuire.[926]

The circular stone from Upton Lovel Barrow,[927] engraved by Sir R. Colt Hoare, appears to be a hammer or, more probably, a rubbing-stone, but it is worn to a ridge all round the periphery. I have a precisely similar instrument from Ireland. Other mullers from Wiltshire[928] barrows have been figured by Dr. Thurnam. Several such discoidal stones, somewhat faceted on their periphery, were found by the late Hon. W. O. Stanley, in his examination of the ancient circular habitations in Holyhead Island, and some have been engraved.[929]

An almost spherical stone, but flattened above and below, where the surface is slightly polished, was found in Whittington Wood, Gloucestershire, and exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries in 1866.[930] It is of quartzite, about 3 inches in diameter. Another, of the same size, of depressed, spherical form, was found in Denbighshire,[931] and another flat disc of quartz in Aberdeenshire.[932]

Pebbles that have been used in this way, as pounders or mullers, belong to various ages and different degrees of civilization. Some well worn have been found in Yorkshire[933] barrows and elsewhere.[934] One from Philiphaugh,[935] Selkirkshire, has been figured. I have one such, worn into an almost cubical form, which was found with Roman remains at Poitiers, and I have seen several others said to be of Roman date. A pounding-stone of much the same form as Fig. 165, found on the summit of the Mont d’Or, Lyonnais,[936] has been engraved by M. Chantre, with others of the same character. I have seen examples in Germany.

I have a flat granite pebble, about 3 1∕2 inches by 3 inches, the sides straight, the ends round, and with well-marked circular depressions in each face, from Cayuga County, New York. It has certainly been used as a hammer-stone. Such mullers are by no means uncommon in North America. Some of the American[937] stone discs, which are |245| occasionally pierced, appear to have been more probably used in certain games.

Cup-shaped cavities occasionally occur on stones which have not apparently been intended for use as hammers. In the soil of one of the barrows at Rudstone, near Bridlington, Canon Greenwell found a fragment of a greenstone pebble, nearly flat on one face, in which a concave depression, about an inch over and 1∕4 inch deep, had been picked. In the National Museum at Edinburgh is a subquadrate flat piece of grit, 1 inch thick and about 3 1∕2 inches long, on each face of which is a cup-shaped depression about 1 1∕4 inches in diameter. It does not appear to have been used as a hammer. Mr. James Wyatt, F.G.S., had a piece of close-grained grit, in shape somewhat like a thick axe-head, 4 1∕2 inches long, 3 inches wide, and 3 inches thick, with four concave depressions, one on each face and side, found at Kempston Road, near Bedford. What purpose these hollows fulfilled, it is difficult to guess. The stones in which they occur may, however, have been used as anvils or mortars on which to hammer or pound; or the cavities may have served to steady objects of bone, stone, or wood in the process of manufacture. Anvil stones, with pits worn on their faces, probably by flints having been broken upon them, have been found in Scotland.[938] A sandstone[939] with a concave depression on each of its six faces has been regarded by Mortillet as a grindstone for fashioning stone buttons or the convex ends of other implements. I have seen analogous cavities produced, on a larger scale, on blocks of granite which have been used as anvils, on which to break road materials. The cup and ring cuttings[940] common on ancient stone monuments, especially in Scotland, do not come within my province. Flat stones, with cup-shaped markings upon them, sometimes as many as seven on a stone, were found in considerable abundance in some of the Yorkshire[941] barrows examined by Canon Greenwell.

The stones with cup-shaped[942] depressions in them, found in the caves of the Reindeer Period in the south of France, have the hollows, in nearly all instances, upon one of their faces only, and have therefore more probably served as mortars than as hammers. The pebbles, from the same caves, which have been used as knapping or chipping stones, are usually left in their natural condition on the faces, though worn away at the edges, sometimes over the whole periphery. A very few of the hollowed stones show signs of use at the edges.

Stones with cup-shaped[943] depressions, like those from the French caves, are in use in Siberia for crushing nuts and the seeds of the Cembro Pine; and among the natives of Australia[944] for pounding a bulbous root called bellilah, and the roasted bark of trees and shrubs for food. Some Carib examples of the same kind are in the Ethnological Museum at Copenhagen, as well as some from Africa, used in the preparation of poison. |246|

Some of the so-called corn-crushers[945] and mealing-stones from the Swiss Lake-dwellings have shallow depressions on the faces, but for the most part they belong to the class to be subsequently described. I have one of granite, from Nussdorf, with a depression on one face, in which the thumb can be placed, while the forefinger lies in a groove, like that of a pulley, which extends about half-way round the stone. The opposite part of the edge is much worn by hammering. It approximates in form to the pulley-like stones to which the name of sling-stones has been given, but the use of which is at present a mystery.

A hammer-stone, curiously like that which I have engraved as Fig. 165, is among those found in the settlements of the Lac du Bourget,[946] by M. Rabut. This or a similar one is in the British Museum. Another from Picardy[947] has been figured.

A hammer-stone, if so it may be called, of bronze, is among the antiquities from Greenland in the Ethnological Museum at Copenhagen.

Occasionally the depression is reduced to a minimum, and consists of merely a slight notch or roughening on one or both faces of the pebble which has served as a hammer or pounding-stone.

The irregular, flat greenstone pebble, worn away at both ends, shown in Fig. 166, has on one face only a notch, apparently intended to receive the thumb. It was found at Scamridge, Yorkshire, and is in the Greenwell Collection. It will be observed that it is worn into a curved ridge at one end. In the same collection is an oval quartzite pebble (4 1∕2 inches), battered at both ends, and with a slight diagonal ridge at that most worn away. This was found in a barrow at Weaverthorpe,[948] with an unburnt body. I have a flat greenstone pebble from |247| Scamridge, Yorkshire, worn away at one end to a curved ridge somewhat oblique to the faces of the pebble, one of which is slightly polished as if by constant rubbing. There is in the Greenwell Collection a granite pebble (3 1∕2 inches), from the same place, battered at one end, and the other much worn away by use, which also has one face flat and slightly polished. In the camp at Little Solsbury Hill,[949] near Bath, I found two quartzite implements of rudely quadrangular prismatic form, each having one end worn away to a ridge. Another quartzite pebble, rubbed to an obtuse edge at one end, was found by General Pitt Rivers, F.R.S.,[950] within an ancient earthwork at Dorchester, Oxfordshire.

A hammer-stone of close-grained grit, having a ridge all round the periphery, was found in Anglesea.[951] Others with ridged ends have occurred in crannogs at Lochlee,[952] Ayrshire, and in Wigtownshire.[953] Some of them seem to belong to the Iron Age.

Among the specimens just described, there are three peculiarities which, though not occurring together on all, are worthy of notice—the notch on the face, the ridge at the end, and the polished face.

There can be no doubt of the notch on the face being, like the cup-shaped depressions, merely intended as an aid in holding the stone. On the hammer-stones discovered by the late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S., in a post-Roman kjökken-mödding, in the island of Herm,[954] there were usually one or two rough notches or indentations on each face, exactly adapted to receive the ends of the thumb and some of the fingers; and, curiously enough, I have a pebble notched in precisely the same manner from Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania, and no doubt intended for a hand-hammer or pounder.

In the same kjökken-mödding at Herm were several[955] celt-like implements of porphyry and greenstone which, instead of an edge, had the end blunt, but with a ridge obliquely across it, as on these pebbles. Somewhat similar pounding-stones have been found by the late Hon. W. O. Stanley, at Pen-y-Bonc,[956] Holyhead, in some instances provided with a depression fitting the thumb or finger, and several having the ridge at the end.

The same sort of ridge occurs on pounding-stones from Denmark, Portugal,[957] Spain,[958] Ireland, and elsewhere, and occasionally extends all round the stone when it happens to be disc-shaped, like those already mentioned from Upton Lovel and elsewhere. Hammer-stones worn to a ridge are also found in Egypt.[959] It would appear that the face of the hammer was ground away, either by a rocking motion on a flat stone, or by the blows given with it being administered alternately from the right and from the left, so as to keep any matter that was being pounded with it from being driven out of position. |248|

I have, lastly, to notice the more or less polished condition of one of the faces of these stones, which may be due to their being used for grinding the material already pounded by their edges to a finer powder on the slab, which served instead of a mortar. One of the flat pebbles found in the Cave of La Madelaine, Dordogne, appears to have served as a muller for grinding the hæmatite used as paint.

Sometimes these hammer-stones are mere pebbles without any previous preparation, and indeed it is but natural that such should have been the case. Canon Greenwell has found pebbles of quartz and greenstone, worn and battered at the ends, accompanying interments on the Yorkshire Wolds, and such are also occasionally present on the surface, though they are, of course, liable to escape observation. A quartzite pebble that has served as a hammer-stone, and is much worn and fractured by use, was found at Ty Mawr, and is figured in the Archæological Journal,[960] as are also several from hut-circles in Holyhead and Anglesea.[961] A large sarsen-stone pebble, weighing 4 3∕4 lbs., and which had obviously been used as a hammer, was found in the Long Barrow, at West Kennet,[962] Wiltshire. A large conical sort of muller of sarsen-stone,[963] weighing 12 1∕2 lbs., was discovered with twenty-two skeletons, various animal remains, and pottery, in a large cist, in a barrow near Avebury. Mr. G. Clinch has a hammer from West Wickham, made from a nearly cylindrical quartz pebble, much worn at both ends, one of which is more rounded than the other.

On the Downs of Sussex, in the pits of Cissbury, in Yorkshire, Suffolk, Dorsetshire, and other counties, hammer-stones of flint, apparently used for chipping other flints, have been found, but from their rudeness it seems hardly worth while to engrave any specimens. At Grime’s Graves the hammer-stones consisted principally of quartzite pebbles, though some were of flint. In many instances the hammers made of flint seem to be cores from which flakes have been struck, but which, proving to be of refractory stone, have been found more serviceable as hammers. Some of the cores found at Spiennes, near Mons, have been thus used, as well as fragments of celts. Some of the hammer-stones from the French caves consist also of such cores. Stone mullers are in common use in most countries at the present day, for grinding paint and similar purposes. They occur at the Cape of Good Hope,[964] but were there, no doubt, originally intended for other uses.

The general character of the chipped flint hammer-stones will be gathered from Figs. 167 and 168, both from the Yorkshire Wolds. |249| Neither of them shows any trace of the original surface or crust of the flint from which it has been fashioned. The larger one has been chipped with numerous facets somewhat into the shape of a broad bivalve shell, and is much battered round the margin. Fig. 168 is much smaller than usual, and is more disc-like in character.

A large number of discoidal stones, formed from flattish quartzite pebbles, have been found on the Culbin Sands,[965] Elginshire. By the kindness of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, one of them is shown in Fig. 168A. They may be hammer-stones, but show no traces of use.

More commonly, perhaps, the form is approximately spherical. Fig. 169 is, however, a more symmetrical specimen than usual. It was found by Mr. E. Tindall at Grindale, near Bridlington, and its surface is battered all over by continual pounding. I have others of similar character from Icklingham, Suffolk; Jordan Hill, Weymouth; and elsewhere. Two from Old Geir, Anglesea, are engraved in the Archæological Journal.[966]

Others were found in a tumulus at Seaford,[967] and at Mount Caburn,[968] Sussex.

Numerous rude hammer-stones have been found at Carnac,[969] Brittany.

One of chert, 3 inches in diameter, was found in the Isle of Portland,[970] and several have been found in Dorsetshire[971] which were supposed to have been used in fashioning flint implements; and balls of chert, 2 1∕2 inches and 2 1∕4 inches in diameter, found at West Coker, Somersetshire,[972] and another from Comb-Pyne, Devonshire,[973] have been thought to have been “intended for the sling, or else to be tied up in a leather thong attached to a staff, and employed as a sort of mace.” |250|

A globular nodule of flint, one pound in weight, and chipped all over, found with numerous flint flakes in the long-chambered barrow at West Kennet,[974] appeared to Dr. Thurnam to have been used in their production. Several others found together in the parish of Benlochy,[975] near Blairgowrie, were regarded as sling-stones. A lump of red flint found in a barrow near Pickering,[976] in company with a flint spear-head and two arrow-heads at the right hand of a skeleton, was considered by Mr. Bateman to have been used as a hammer for chipping other flints. A more highly-decorated class of stone balls will be described at a subsequent page. Stone balls, such as were in common use for cannon in the Middle Ages, and those thrown by catapults and other military engines, do not come within my province.

* * * * *

Judging from the battered surface of the spherical stones now under consideration, there can be no doubt of their having been in use as hammers or pounders; but they were probably not in all cases used merely for fashioning other implements of stone, but also for triturating grain, roots, and other substances for food, in the same manner as round pebbles are still used by the native Australians.[977] One such root, abundant in this country, is a principal article of food consumed by the Ahts[978] of North America, among whom “the roots of the common fern or bracken are much used as a regular meal. They are simply washed and boiled, or beaten with a stone till they become soft, and are then roasted.” In New Zealand also fern roots are pounded for food, with pestles of basalt. The corn-crushers and mealing-stones found in the Swiss Lake-dwellings have evidently been intended for the purposes which their names denote; and at the present day among many savage tribes, the only form of mill that is known is that of a flat or slightly concave bed-stone, with a stone rolling-pin or muller. Among the Kaffirs[979] and in West Africa the mill is of this character, the bed-stone being large and heavy, slightly hollowed on its upper surface; the muller, a large oval pebble which is used with a peculiar rocking and grinding motion. The corn (maize or millet) is often boiled before grinding. In Abyssinia[980] the bed-stone of gneiss or granite is about 2 feet in length and 14 inches in width. The face of this is roughened by beating it with a sharp-pointed piece of harder stone, such as quartz or hornblende, and the grain is reduced to flour by repeated grinding or rubbing |251| with a stone rolling-pin. Such mealing-stones are also in use in South America.[981] They have been occasionally found in Britain, and the annexed figure shows a pair found in a hut-circle at Ty Mawr,[982] in the island of Holyhead. Others have been found in Anglesea.[983] Similar specimens have been obtained in Cambridgeshire and Cornwall, and Mr. Tindall had a pair found near Bridlington. A mealing-stone with the muller was found in Ehenside Tarn,[984] Cumberland. I have myself found a muller at Osbaston, Leicestershire. A pair of stones from the Fens[985] is in the museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. Some large blocks of flint, having a flat face bruised all over by hammering, have also been found in the Fens, and may have served as mealing-stones.

The same form of mill is found also in Ireland,[986] and not improbably remained in occasional use until a comparatively late period. Fynes Moryson[987] mentions having seen in Cork “young maides, stark naked, grinding corne with certaine stones, to make cakes thereof;” and the form of the expression seems to point to something different from a hand-mill or quern, which at that time was in common use in England. The name of saddle-quern has been given to this form of grinding apparatus. In the Blackmore Museum is one from the pit-dwellings at Highfield,[988] near Salisbury, which are not improbably of post-Roman date; and in the British Museum is one found near Macclesfield. |252|

They are also known in Scotland. One of granite, found near Wick,[989] is in the National Museum at Edinburgh; as is also another, 20 inches by 12 inches, with a rubber 12 inches by 8 inches, found in a cave near Cullen, Banffshire.[990]

They likewise occur in Shetland.[991] Mr. J. W. Cursiter has a long narrow muller with a curved back, in which are five grooves to receive the fingers, so as to give it the appearance of being a fragment of an ammonite.

Saddle-querns of the same character occur also in France.[992] I have a small example from Chateaudun. One from Chassemy[993] (Aisne) has been figured.

Some were likewise found in the Genista Cave at Gibraltar.[994] They are common in West Prussia and in the Island of Rügen, as well as in Scandinavia generally.

A German saddle-quern, from the ancient cemetery at Monsheim, has been engraved by Lindenschmit.[995] Others are mentioned by Klemm.[996] MM. Siret have also found them in their explorations in Spain.

It will have been observed, in the instances I have cited, that the movable muller or grinding-stone is not spherical, but elongated; but what is possibly the more ancient form approached more closely to a pestle and mortar in character, and consisted of a bed-stone with a slight concavity in it, and a more or less spherical stone for a pounder.

* * * * *

A grinding-stone of granite, with a cavity, apparently for bruising grain by a globular stone, was found in Cornwall,[997] and undressed slabs with concavities of the size and shape of an ordinary soup-plate, are of frequent occurrence in the Hebrides.[998] Others have been found in company with stone balls, in the ancient habitations in Anglesea.

Fig. 171 shows a trough of stone, found at Ty Mawr,[999] Holyhead, by the late Hon. W. O. Stanley, who kindly lent me the wood-cuts of Figs. 170 and 171. The cylindrical grinding-stone or muller was found within it, and has a central cavity on each face, to give the hand a better hold in grinding. A similar appliance was found at Pen-y-Bonc[1000] in the same island.

A triturating trough from Cleveland[1001] has been figured. |253|

They have been found in Cornwall[1002] and in Ireland.[1003]

Others have been discovered in Brittany.

Hand-mills of granite formed in much the same manner have been in use until lately in Brandenburg. The lower stones are described as from 2 feet to 4 feet long, and nearly as wide, with channels, after long use, as much as 6 inches deep; the mullers are either spherical or oval, and of such a size that they can be held in the hand.[1004]

A large sandstone, with a small bowl-shaped concavity worked in it, was found near burnt bones, in a barrow at Elkstone,[1005] Staffordshire; and two others in barrows near Sheen.[1006] Another, with a cup-shaped concavity, 2 1∕2 inches in diameter, occurred in a barrow near Pickering;[1007] and in other barrows were found sandstone balls roughly chipped all over, from 4 inches to 1 inch in diameter, in one instance associated with a bronze dagger. A ball of sandstone, 2 1∕2 inches in diameter, was found with flint instruments accompanying a contracted skeleton in a barrow near Middleton.[1008] A round stone like a cannon-ball was also found in a barrow near Cromer,[1009] and three balls of stone, from 2 1∕4 inches to 1 3∕4 inches in diameter, were picked up in a camp at Weetwood,[1010] Northumberland.

Mealing-stones, both flat and hollowed, were found in Schliemann’s[1011] excavations at Troy.

In grinding and pounding a considerable amount of grit must have been worn off the stones and been mixed with the meal. The usual worn condition of the teeth in the skulls from ancient barrows may be connected with this attrition. Mr. Charters-White,[1012] by examination of |254| some teeth from a long barrow at Heytesbury, Wilts, was able to show the presence of grains of sand of different kinds in the dental tartar.

* * * * *

There are two other forms of grinding apparatus still in use—the pestle and mortar, and the rotatory mill—both of which date back to an early period, and concerning which it will be well to say a few words in this place. The ordinary form of pestle—a frustum of a very elongated cone with the ends rounded, is so well known that it appears needless to engrave a specimen on the same scale as the other objects. In Fig. 172 is shown one of a more than usually club-shaped form, 11 inches long, found in Holyhead Island.[1013]

* * * * *

This cut originally appeared in illustration of an interesting paper by Mr. Albert Way, F.S.A., on some relics found in and near ancient circular dwellings in Holyhead Island, in which paper some of the other discoveries about to be mentioned are also cited. A pestle like a small club, 9 1∕4 inches long, was found in a gravel-pit near Audley End,[1014] with a Roman cinerary urn. Another, of grey granite, more cylindrical in form, and flatter at one end, 11 1∕2 inches long and 2 inches in diameter, was found at Pulborough,[1015] Sussex, and is engraved in Fig. 173. A limestone pestle of the same character, 12 inches long and 2 1∕2 inches in diameter, found at Cliff Hill, is in the museum at Leicester. A fine pestle of granite or gneiss (12 5∕8 inches) from Epping Forest[1016] has been figured, as has been a shorter one from a barrow at Collingbourn Ducis,[1017] Wilts. Another of greenstone, probably a naturally-formed pebble, 10 1∕4 inches long and 2 1∕2 inches in diameter, rounded at both ends, was found with three porphyry celts in a cairn at Daviot,[1018] near Inverness. It is now in the National Museum at |255| Edinburgh. Another of greenstone, 16 inches long, was found near Carlisle[1019]; and the late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S., had one of the same material 10 inches long, tapering from 2 inches in diameter to 1 1∕4 inches, found in Hilgay Fen, Norfolk. A similar pestle-like stone, 6 inches long, found in Styria, is engraved by Professor Unger.[1020] Another of the same length was among the objects found in the Casa da Moura,[1021] Portugal. Many pestles, more or less well finished in form, have been discovered by the late Dr. Hunt, Dr. Mitchell, Mr. Petrie, Mr. Long, and others in the Orkney and Shetland Isles, and in different parts of Scotland.

Those who wish to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the different circumstances of these discoveries, and with the various forms of rough implements brought to light, will have to consult the original memoirs[1022] which have been written concerning them. Both in cists or graves, and in the remains of ancient circular habitations, have numerous hammer-stones and pestles been found, associated with various other articles manufactured from stone and bone. Some of these are extremely rude, and appear hardly deserving of the names of spear-heads, knives, chisels, battle-axes, &c., which have been bestowed upon them. There can, however, be no doubt of their being of human manufacture, whatever purpose they may have served. A few well-formed and polished stone celts were found in company with the objects of this class in the “Underground House of Skaill,” Orkney, which, however, was not, strictly speaking, subterranean. In the building, and in the midden around it, were very great numbers of oval sandstone pounding-stones and of large sandstone flakes, probably knives of a rude kind, a pebble with a groove round it like a ship’s block, and a few celts. In Shetland these rude stone implements have been found with human skeletons interred in cists, sometimes with polished weapons.[1023] A very curious implement, somewhat T-shaped, with pointed extremities, and grooves round the transverse part, was found in the broch of Quoyness,[1024] Sanday, Orkney, and has been figured.

Many of the pestle-like stones are merely chipped into a somewhat cylindrical form, but others have been picked or ground all over, so as to give them a circular or oval section. The ends in many instances are more or less splintered, as if by hammering some hard substance rather than by pounding, and the exact purpose to which they were applied it is extremely difficult to divine.

Four of them are shown, on a small scale, in Figs. 174 to 177.

Some are more club-like[1025] in character, as in Fig. 178, and are even occasionally wrought to a handle at one end, as was the case |256| with one found in the heart of a burnt stone tumulus at Bressay[1026] (Fig. 179), so as to give them much of the appearance of the short batlet or batting-staff used in the primitive mode of washing linen, such as is still so commonly practised in many parts of the Continent. Nearly similar rough instruments have been found at Baldoon,[1027] Wigtownshire. Is it possible that these stone bats can have served a similar purpose? In the Northern counties[1028] a large smooth-faced stone, set in a sloping position by the side of a stream, on which washerwomen |257| beat their linen, is still called a battling-stone,[1029] and the club is called a batter, batlet, battledore, or battling-staff. Such clubs may also have been used in the preparation of hemp and flax.

A stone club, from St. Isabel,[1030] Bahia, Brazil, is described as 13 3∕8 inches long, 2 1∕2 inches wide, and 1 1∕4 inch thick. It may, however, be a celt, like the supposed clubs from Lancashire[1031] and Cumberland.

There can be no doubt of several of the pestles, though probably not all, belonging to the same period as stone implements of other forms. The mortars in which they were used, were probably merely depressions in blocks of stone, or even of wood. Some rude mortars have, as already mentioned, been found in Holyhead Island, and Anglesea, but it is uncertain to what age they belong. A portion of a mortar of granite, with a channelled lip, found with fragments of urns and calcined bones in a grave at Kerris Vaen, Cornwall, is engraved in the Archæologia Cambrensis.[1032]

Very similar stone pestles to those from Orkney were in use among the North American Indians[1033] for pounding maize, and some are engraved by Squier and Davis.[1034]

They also employed[1035] a small form of mortar for pounding quartz, felspar, or shell, with which to temper the clay for pottery. Stone mortars and pestles were in use among the Toltecs and Aztecs in making tortillas, and are found in South Carolina,[1036] and elsewhere in the United States. Among the ancient Pennacooks[1037] of the Merrimac valley, the heavy stone pestle was suspended from the elastic bough of a tree, which relieved the operator in her work; and among the Tahitians[1038] the pestle of stone, used for pounding the bread fruit on a wooden block, is provided with a crutch-like handle.

Some large circular discs of stone, apparently used for grinding, and others with deep cup-shaped depressions in them, found on Dartmoor, and probably connected with some ancient metallurgical operations on the spot, have been engraved and described in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association.[1039] |258|

The hand-mill formed with an upper rotatory stone is a mere modification of the pestle and mortar, and dates back to a very early period, though it has continued in use in some parts of the British Isles even unto our own day. The name quern, by which such mills are usually known, occurs in closely similar forms, in all the Teutonic dialects. In Anglo-Saxon it appears under the form Cweorn or Cwyrn, and in modern Danish as Qværn. An excellent example of this instrument, which had been, up to 1850, in use in the cabin of a Kilkenny peasant, was presented by the Rev. J. Graves to the Archæological Institute, and is described and engraved in their Journal.[1040] The upper stone is of granite, the lower of millstone grit. The lower stone is recessed to receive the upper, and has a central depression, in which a small block of oak is fixed, from which projects a small pin—also of oak—to carry the upper stone. This is about 2 feet in diameter, and is perforated at its centre with a hopper-like hole, across the bottom of which a small bar of oak is secured, having a recess in it to receive the pin, but only of such a depth as to keep the upper stone at a slight distance from the lower. Through the upper stone, and near its verge, a vertical hole is drilled to receive a peg, which forms the handle for turning it. When in use it is worked, as in ancient times among the Jews, by two women seated opposite each other, who alternately seize and propel the handle, so as to drive the stone at considerable speed. The corn, highly dried, is fed by handfuls into the hopper in the runner or upper stone, and the meal passes out by a notch in the rim of the nether stone. Pennant,[1041] in his “Tour in Scotland,” describes querns as still in use in the Hebrides in 1772. They were said to cost about fourteen shillings, and to grind a bushel of corn in four hours, with two pair of hands. He gives a representation of a quern at work, with a long stick, hanging from the branch of a tree, inserted in the hole in the runner, so as to form the handle. A somewhat similar method of driving the hand-mill indoors, taken from a German MS. of the fourteenth century, has been reproduced from a work by Drs. Von Hefner and Wolf in the Archæological Journal.[1042]

A sketch of a hand-mill in use at the present day, at Abbeville, is given in C. Roach Smith’s “Collectanea Antiqua.”[1043]

Even in the neighbourhood of water-mills, when the charge for grinding was at all high, we find these hand-mills in use in mediæval times. Such use, by the townsmen of St. Albans, was, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, a fruitful source of litigation between them and the abbots, who claimed the monopoly of grinding for their tenants.[1044] Thirteen of these, however, maintained their right of using hand-mills, as having been enjoyed of old, and some claims were raised to the privilege of grinding oat-meal only, by means of a hand-mill.

It seems probable that these mediæval hand-mills were of large size, and with a comparatively flat upper stone, like the modern Irish form, which is sometimes 3 feet 6 inches in diameter. One, 3 feet in diameter, found near Hollingbourne,[1045] Kent, was probably of no great antiquity. |259| The same may be said of a six-sided quern, with an iron pivot, found in Edinburgh.[1046] A quern, found at West Coker,[1047] Somerset, with a fleur-de-lis over the passage by which the meal escaped, has been assigned to the thirteenth century. The lower stone of a quern accompanied an apparently Saxon interment at Winster,[1048] Derbyshire. It was of the beehive[1049] shape, and made of millstone grit. Similar querns, with iron pins, have been found at Breedon,[1050] Leicestershire, as well as others with the upper stone more conical. One of this class was also found near Rugby.[1051] They frequently accompany Roman[1052] remains, but these are generally of smaller size, and of a more hemispherical form, the favourite material being the Lower Tertiary conglomerate, or Hertfordshire pudding-stone. Those of Andernach lava, from the Rhine, are usually flat.

A complete quern was found at Ehenside Tarn,[1053] Cumberland. The upper half of another was in a post-Roman circular dwelling, near Birtley,[1054] Northumberland.

Querns of various forms are of frequent occurrence in Wales, especially in Anglesea. An upper stone from Lampeter,[1055] Cardiganshire, has a semicircular projection at the margin round the hole for the handle. In some districts[1056] they have been in use until quite recent times.[1057]

In Scotland, querns are of frequent occurrence in the ancient brochs and hill forts. In one of the former, at Kettleburn,[1058] Caithness, a stone in preparation for a quern was found; in another, in Aberdeenshire, an upper stone, 18 inches in diameter, was discovered. Another stone of the same size, surrounded by four border stones to prevent the scattering of the grain in grinding, was discovered in a subterranean chamber in a hill fort at Dunsinane,[1059] Perth. A curious pot-quern, the lower stone decorated with a carved human face, was found in East Lothian, and is engraved by Wilson.[1060]

Some interesting notices of Scottish querns have been given by Sir Arthur Mitchell.[1061]

The upper stone, ornamented with raised lines, shown in Fig. 180, from a cut kindly lent me by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, was found in trenching a moss in the parish of Balmaclellan, New Galloway, with some curious bronze objects of “late-Celtic” workmanship.[1062]

An upper stone (18 inches), ornamented in a nearly similar way, was found near Stranraer,[1063] Wigtownshire, and another, with a tribrach instead of a cross, at Roy Bridge,[1064] Inverness-shire. |260|

Some ornamentally carved upper stones of querns, one of them with spiral and leaf-shaped patterns upon it, much like those on the bronze ornaments of the “late-Celtic” Period, have been discovered in Anglesea.[1065]

Querns of green sandstone are stated, by Sir R. Colt Hoare,[1066] to be numerous in British villages and pit-dwellings in Wiltshire, as indeed they are in other counties,[1067] though formed of various kinds of grit. They rarely occur in barrows, though burnt granite querns have been found with burnt bones in cromlechs in Jersey.[1068]

Some observations on querns by the Rev. Dr. A. Hume, are published in the Archæologia Cambrensis.[1069] As these utensils belong, for the most part, to Roman and post-Roman times, I have thought it needless to enter into any more minute description of their forms, or of the circumstances under which they have been found.

|261|

XI. GRINDING-STONES AND WHETSTONES

Before proceeding to the consideration of other forms of implements, it will be well to say a few words with regard to those which have served for grinding, polishing, or sharpening tools and weapons, and more especially such as there is every reason to suppose, were employed to give an edge or finish to other materials than metal, though the whetstones of the Bronze Period must not be passed by unnoticed.

I have already mentioned the fact that the grindstones on which stone celts and axes were polished and sharpened, were not like those of the present day, revolving discs against the periphery of which the object to be ground was held; but stationary slabs on which the implements to be polished or sharpened were rubbed. Considering the numbers of polished implements that have been discovered in this country, it appears not a little remarkable that such slabs have not been more frequently noticed, though not improbably they have, from their simple character, for the most part escaped observation; and even if found, there is usually little, unless the circumstances of the discovery are peculiar, to connect them with any particular stage of civilization or period of antiquity. In Denmark and Sweden, however, these grinding-stones, both of the flat and polygonal forms already described, are of comparatively frequent occurrence. Specimens are figured by Worsaae,[1070] Sophus Müller, and others, and were also given by Thomsen,[1071] so long ago as 1832. He states that they have been found in Scandinavia, in barrows and elsewhere in the ground, with half-finished stone celts lying with them, so that there can be no doubt as to the purpose for which they were intended. They are also described by Nilsson[1072] and Montelius.[1073] |262| Both slabs and prismatic pieces of sandstone have been found in the Swiss Lake-dwellings,[1074] several of the former with concavities on one or both faces, resulting from stone hatchets having been ground upon them.[1075]

* * * * *

In France the discovery of numerous ‘polissoirs’ has been noticed, some of them of very large dimensions. They are abundant in the Departments of la Charente[1076] and la Dordogne,[1077] and some fine examples are in the Museum of Troyes (Aube). One, nearly 3 feet long, with hollows of different characters, apparently for grinding different parts of tools and weapons, is figured by M. Peigné Delacourt;[1078] an oval concavity upon it is 2 feet 3 inches long by 1 foot wide, and seems well adapted for grinding the faces of large celts. Another fine example was in the possession of Dr. Léveillé,[1079] at Grand Pressigny, and a large specimen, also from Poitou, is in the Musée de St. Germain. Several have been found in Luxembourg[1080] and Belgium.

Flat grinding-stones of smaller dimensions have been found in the turbaries of the Somme and in the Camp de Catenoy.[1081] A narrow sharpening stone 5 inches long is recorded to have been found with stone hatchets and other implements in the Cueva de los Murciélagos, in Spain.[1082] Polissoirs have also been observed in India.[1083]

The Carreg y Saelhau,[1084] or Stone of the Arrows, near Aber, Carnarvonshire, has numerous scorings upon it, a quarter or half an inch in depth; and, though doubtless used for sharpening tools and weapons of some kind, it seems to belong to the metallic age. Canon Greenwell informs me that he observed a rock close to a camp on Lazenby Fell, Cumberland, with about seventy grooves upon it from 4 to 7 inches long and about 1 inch wide and deep, pointed at either end, as if from sharp-ended tools or weapons having been ground in them. The grooves are in various directions, though sometimes in groups of four or five together, which are parallel with each other. In the course of his investigations in the barrows on the Yorkshire Wolds[1085] he has found a few of the flat slabs for grinding or polishing, though of small size. One of them, formed of a flat piece of red sandstone about 4 1∕2 inches by 3 1∕2 inches, with both faces bearing marks of having been in use for grinding, lay close to a deposit of burnt bones. Another somewhat similar fragment of sandstone (2 3∕4 inches by 2 1∕2 inches), which also bore traces of attrition, was found in a barrow at Helperthorpe.

In another barrow at Cowlam,[1086] Yorkshire, E. R., was a rough piece |263| of grit, 2 1∕4 inches long, with one end slightly hollowed, apparently by grinding celts, and a large flat compact laminated red sandstone pebble about 8 3∕4 inches by 3 inches, with both faces ground away, the one being evenly flat and the other uneven. In the same barrow occurred one of the flint rubbers to be subsequently described, and also a quartzite pebble (2 1∕2 inches long) that had been used as a hammer-stone. A portion of a whetstone of Pennant or Coal-measure sandstone was found in the long barrow at West Kennet, Wiltshire,[1087] in which also occurred a thin ovoidal knife of flint, ground at the edges.

I have in my own collection a very interesting specimen of this kind from Burwell Fen, near Cambridge. It is a thin slab of close-grained micaceous sandstone, about 5 1∕2 by 4 inches, slightly hollowed and polished on both faces by grinding. With it were found two celts of flint, 4 1∕2 and 5 inches long, of pointed oval section, one of them polished all over, and the other at the edge only, which in all probability had been sharpened on this very stone. In the same place were two long subangular fragments of greenstone of the right form, size, and character to be manufactured into celts, and which had no doubt been selected for that purpose.

A grinding-stone with a celt lying in it, found at Glenluce,[1088] Wigtownshire, has been figured.

On the Sussex Downs I have found flat pebbles 3 or 4 inches long, which have evidently been used as hones, but whether for stone or metallic tools it is impossible to say. Fragments of polished celts and numerous flakes and “scrapers” of flint were, however, in their immediate neighbourhood. Among the modern savages of Tahiti[1089] who used hatchets of basalt, a whetstone and water appear to have been always at hand, as constant sharpening was necessary. It seems probable therefore that there must have been a constant demand for such sharpening-stones in this country, and that many of them ought still to exist. With flint hatchets, the constant whetting was, however, no doubt less necessary than with those of the different kinds of basalt. Their edges, if carefully chipped, will indeed cut wood without being ground at all.

* * * * *

Mr. Bateman mentions “a flat piece of sandstone rubbed hollow at one side” as having been found in a barrow at Castern, Staffordshire,[1090] but it is uncertain whether this was a grindstone. It may have been used only as a mortar, for with it was a round piece of ruddle or red ochre, “which from its abraded appearance must have been in much request for colouring the skin of its owner.”[1091] In a barrow on the West Coast of Kintyre, there also occurred a piece of red Lancashire or Westmoreland iron-ore or hæmatite worn flat on the side, apparently by having been rubbed upon some other substance. Nodules of ruddle are also said to |264| have occurred, interspersed with the charcoal in a barrow at Broad Down, near Honiton.[1092]

In one of the ancient habitations in Holyhead,[1093] was a large stone 11 inches long, probably used for grinding hæmatite, with which it was deeply tinged; and a small stone box found with celts and other relics at Skara, Skaill, Orkney,[1094] contained a red pigment.

There can be little doubt of this red pigment having been in use for what was considered a personal decoration by the early occupants of Britain. But this use of red paint dates back to a far earlier period, for pieces of hæmatite with the surface scraped, apparently by means of flint-flakes, have been found in the French and Belgian caves of the Reindeer Period, so that this red pigment appears to have been in all ages a favourite with savage man. The practice of interring war-paint with the dead is still observed among the North American Indians.[1095]

“The paints that warriors love to use Place here within his hand, That he may shine with ruddy hues Amidst the spirit land.”

* * * * *

Some few of the grinding-stones found in this country resemble those of polygonal form found in Denmark,[1096] in so far as they are symmetrically shaped and have been used on all their faces. One 13 1∕2 inches long, found on Lamberton Moor,[1097] Berwickshire, is shown in Fig. 180A., kindly lent by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

In the Christy Collection is such a sharpening-stone, nearly square in section, about 9 1∕4 inches long, and of the form shown in Fig. 181. Both the faces and sides are worn slightly concave, as if from grinding convex surfaces such as the edges of celts, though it is impossible to say with any degree of certainty that this was really the purpose to which it was applied. It is said to have been found near Barcoot, in the parish of Dorchester, Oxon, in 1835, not far from a spot where a |265| stone celt had been found a few years previously. In the same collection is a Danish whetstone of precisely the same character, but rather broader at one end than at the other.

A grinding-stone, 26 inches long, was found at Ehenside Tarn,[1098] Cumberland.

In Fig. 182 is shown, full size, a very curious object formed of compact mica-schist, which has the appearance of having served as a whetstone or hone. It has been ground over its whole surface. The flatter face is towards the middle somewhat hollowed—rather more so than is shown in the section—and shows some oblique scratches upon it as if from rubbing a rather rough object upon it. It was found in 1870 by Canon Greenwell, with other relics accompanying an unburnt body in a barrow at Rudstone, near Bridlington.[1099] About midway between the head and the knees was a series of articles in this descending order. On the top was this whetstone—if such it be—resting on a carved jet ring, like Fig. 372, which lay on the boss of a large jet button. Below this was another jet button, like Fig. 371, face downwards. Close by lay a half-nodule of pyrites and a round-ended flint flake, which will be subsequently noticed. Nearer the face was a dagger-knife of bronze, with three rivets through it, and two more for fastening together the two plates of ox-horn of which the hilt had been composed. The whetstone may have been that used for sharpening this instrument.

An instrument of slate of nearly the same |266| form was found in a cairn at Penbeacon,[1100] Dartmoor, and was regarded by Mr. Spence Bate as a tool used in fashioning clay vessels. Dr. Thurnam[1101] has suggested that if covered with leather these stones may have served as bracers or arm-guards for archers.

Two pieces of a dark-coloured slaty kind of stone, of nearly the same form and size as the Yorkshire specimen, and lying parallel with each other, were found by Sir R. Colt Hoare[1102] at the feet of a skeleton, together with a little rude drinking-cup, in a barrow near Winterbourn Stoke. A stud and ring of jet, probably of the same character as those from Rudstone, and a piece of flint rudely chipped, as if intended for a dagger or spear, were also found. No bronze objects were discovered, but the cist appears to have been imperfectly examined.

* * * * *

I have already mentioned[1103] that in grinding and polishing the concave faces of different forms of perforated stone axes, it is probable that stone rubbers were used in conjunction with sand. Even the smaller flat and rounded faces may have been wrought by similar means. That rubbers of some kind must have been used, is, I think, evident from the character of the surfaces, especially of those which are hollowed; and the most readily available material for the formation of such rubbers, was doubtless stone. There is therefore an à priori probability of such stone grinding-tools having been in use; and if we find specimens which present the conditions which such tools would exhibit, we are almost justified in assuming them to have served such purposes. Now in the collection of Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield, Yorkshire, are several pieces of flint and portions of pebbles of schist, flint, and quartz found in that neighbourhood, which are ground at one end into a more or less rounded form, and exhibit striæ running along, and not across, the rounded surface. They have, in fact, all the appearance of having been used with coarse sand for grinding a concavity in another stone, such, for instance, as the concave face of the stone axe shown in Fig. 125. I am indebted to their kindness for the specimen shown in Fig. 183, which consists of a short piece of a conical nodule of flint, the large end of which has been used for grinding in ancient times, the striated face being now considerably weathered. In the Greenwell Collection is a rubber of the same kind from Weaverthorpe on the Yorkshire Wolds. Mr. H. S. Harland[1104] has found other specimens in Yorkshire, of which he has kindly given me several. Polishers[1105] are also found in Scotland. A polisher of somewhat similar character, but made of serpentine, was found in the |267| Lago di Varese, near Como, where a number of stone implements were also discovered.

At a later period larger rubbers of the same kind were used to smooth the flutings of Doric columns. I have seen some among the ruins of the temples at Selinunto, in Sicily.

Some long narrow rubbers, apparently intended for grinding out the shaft-holes of perforated axes, have been found in the Swiss Lake-dwellings; and I have a slightly conical stone, about an inch in diameter, from Mainz, which may have been used for the same purpose.

* * * * *

In the barrow at Cowlam, already mentioned, besides the grinding-stones of grit, there was a piece of flint roughly chipped into a cubical form, and having one face partly ground smooth. It may have been used for polishing the surfaces of other stone implements, or possibly merely as a muller. It is shown in Fig. 184. The striæ run diagonally of the square face.

In the collection formed by Canon Greenwell, is also a sandstone pebble, 2 1∕2 inches in diameter, which has been “picked” into shape, and has one face smooth as if used for grinding. It was found in a barrow on Ganton Wold, East Riding. A roughly conical piece of oolitic sandstone, 2 1∕2 inches high, in places “picked” on the surface, and with the base apparently used for grinding, was found with a contracted body and some flint flakes, in another barrow on Ganton Wold.[1106]

In the Wiltshire barrows several rubbing-stones (or what appear to be such) of a peculiar form have been found, of which one is shown in Fig. 185. It is of close-grained grit, possibly from the Lower Greensand, and was discovered with two others in a harrow on Normanton Down, near Amesbury. Two more were in the collection of the late Rev. Edward Duke, of Lake, near Salisbury, to whose kindness I am indebted for the loan of the specimen. Both are now in the British Museum. These instruments vary but little in shape, size, or character, being usually of a truncated half-ovoid form, with a rounded groove along the flat surface, and are formed of sandstone.

One was found in a barrow at Upton Lovel,[1107] with flint celts, a perforated stone axe-head, various implements of bone, a bronze pin or |268| awl, and other objects. Another occurred in a barrow at Everley,[1108] with a bronze chisel, an unused whetstone of freestone, and a hone of bluish colour; and another with a skeleton, a stone hammer, a bronze celt, a bone tube, and various other articles in a barrow at Wilsford.[1109] Two or three of these sharpening stones, found in a barrow at Roundway, near Devizes, are in the Museum of the Wilts Archæological Society. One of these has been figured.[1110] A pebble with shallow grooves on each face found at Mount Caburn, Lewes,[1111] may possibly belong to this class of implements, though it may have been a hammer. A rubbing-stone of this kind was found at Topcliffe,[1112] Yorkshire, but not in a barrow.

Sir R. C. Hoare considered whetstones of this kind to have been used for sharpening and bringing to a point, pins and other implements of bone, and they seem well adapted for such a purpose, and are still so used by the Eskimos. They may also have served for smoothing the shafts of arrows. Serpentine pebbles with a groove in them are used for straightening arrow-shafts by the Indians of California,[1113] and shaft rubbers of sandstone have been found in Pennsylvania.[1114]

The Rev. W. C. Lukis found a similar stone (4 1∕4 inches) in a barrow in Brittany. It is now in the British Museum. Another from a dolmen in Lozère[1115] has been thought to be for sharpening the points of bone instruments. Stones of the same form have been found in Germany; two from the cemetery near Monsheim[1116] are preserved in the Museum at Mainz. They are rather more elongated than the English examples. A specimen very like Fig. 185 has been found in Denmark.[1117] They seem also to occur in Hungary.[1118] I have a grooved stone of this kind from the Lago di Varese, Como, where the manufacture of flint arrow-heads was carried on extensively. An object found with polished stone instruments in the cave Casa da Moura, Portugal,[1119] not improbably belongs to this class of grooved sharpening stones.

From their association with bronze objects, they appear to belong to the Bronze rather than to the Stone Period; and the same holds good with the more ordinary form of whetstone, of which an example is given in Fig. 186. The original was found in the tumulus at Hove,[1120] near Brighton, which contained the stone axe-head already mentioned, a beautiful amber cup, and a bronze dagger. Another, of compact red sandstone, 3 3∕8 inches long, with the perforated end rounded, was found in a barrow on Bow Hill,[1121] Sussex, and is now in the British Museum. Another, 3 inches long, bluish grey in |269| colour, was found with a bronze dagger and a stone axe-hammer in an urn at Broughton[1122] in Craven, in 1675.

Two perforated whetstones were found with a bronze dagger and pin in the Silk Hill Barrow,[1123] Wilts. Another, with the perforation in a sort of loop at the end, was found with two daggers and a crutched pin of bronze, associated with burnt bones in a barrow at Normanton.[1124] Whetstones, in some cases not perforated, have occurred in other Wiltshire barrows, associated with bronze daggers at Wilsford[1125] and Lake,[1126] and with flint daggers or spear-heads at Durrington.[1127] The smooth stone found with a flint dagger in a barrow near Stonehenge,[1128] may also possibly have been a whetstone. Two from barrows at Knowle,[1129] Dorset, and Camerton, Somerset, have been figured by Dr. Thurnam. Another of the same kind was found in a barrow at Tregaseal,[1130] St. Just, Cornwall, and two others with urns at Brane Common,[1131] in the same neighbourhood. Others not perforated are recorded from Cottenham,[1132] Cambs. One from Anglesea[1133] has been figured.

Two of greenish stone (chlorite?) one 2 5∕8 inches long, perforated at the end, were found at Drewton,[1134] near North Cave, Yorkshire; and another of similar material, 2 inches long, was found near some “Picts’ houses,”[1135] Shapinsay, Orkney. Half of a whetstone was found with a bronze dagger and numerous flint flakes by Mr. Morgan in a barrow at Penhow,[1136] Monmouthshire; and a much-used whetstone was found in a barrow near Scarborough,[1137] but the form of neither is specified. Several, both pierced and otherwise, have been recorded from Scotland.[1138] One with the boring incomplete was found with a flint knife in a cist at Stenton,[1139] East Lothian, and another, perforated, with a thin bronze blade and an urn at Glenluce,[1140] Wigtownshire. It appears possible that some of the stones found in Scotland and perforated at one end, described by Wilson[1141] as flail-stones, may after all be merely whetstones. The perforated form is common in Ireland, and is usually found in connection with metal objects.[1142] I have a narrow hone of rag-stone, perforated at one end, which was found with a remarkable hoard of bronze objects, including moulds for socketed celts and for a gouge, in the Isle of Harty, Sheppey. An almost identical whetstone is in the Zurich Museum.

Whetstones, perforated at one end, have occurred in the Swiss Lake-dwellings.[1143] Most of those found in the ancient cemetery of Hallstatt,[1144] in the Salzkammergut, were perforated in the same manner, and in |270| some cases provided with an iron loop for suspension. They are usually of sandstone, and not formed from slaty rocks.

A whetstone, 5 1∕4 inches long, the two flat faces of which had evidently been used for sharpening flat blades, while in the centre of each is a deep groove, probably caused by sharpening pointed tools, such as awls or needles of bronze, was found at Ty Mawr, Anglesea, near a spot where a number of bronze celts, spear-heads, &c., had previously been dug up. It has been figured by the late Hon. W. O. Stanley,[1145] whose cut is here reproduced as Fig. 187. The ends of the stone are somewhat battered from its having been also used as a hammer.

The same explorer discovered in hut-circles in Holyhead Island[1146] other whetstones of the same character, in one instance with two principal grooves and minor scorings crossing each other at an acute angle, and in another with three parallel grooves in the face of the stone. There can be little doubt that these sharpening stones belong to a period when the use of metal for cutting and piercing instruments was fully established.

* * * * *

There are frequently found in Ireland and Scotland flat pebbles of quartz and quartzite, sometimes ground on the edges or faces, or on both, and having on each face an indentation running in a somewhat oblique direction to the longer axis of the pebble. Specimens[1147] have been figured by Sir William Wilde, who describes them as sling-stones. The flat faces of some have all the appearance of having been abraded by a pointed instrument. I have never met with this form in England, but in the National Museum at Edinburgh is a grooved pebble exactly like those found in Ireland, from the broch, at Kintradwell,[1148] Sutherlandshire, and another from that at Lingrow, Orkney. One from Borness,[1149] |271| Kirkcudbrightshire, has been figured. Others have been found at Dunino,[1150] Fife, and Dunnichen,[1151] Forfarshire. This latter has an oval hollow on one face and a groove on the other.

This pebble variety is rarely found in Scandinavia, but another and probably rather later form, in which the pebbles have been wrought into a long shuttle-like shape, is abundant. Some of these are provided with a groove along the sides, which would admit of a cord being fastened round them, by which to suspend them from the girdle. On one or both faces there is often a similar indentation to those on the Irish specimens, on which, however, it is, as a rule, deeper than on the Scandinavian. On the latter, the grooves have sometimes more the appearance of having been produced by repeated slight blows than by friction. Specimens are engraved by Worsaae[1152] and Nilsson.[1153] The latter regards them as belonging to the Stone Age. They occurred, however, with numerous objects of the early Iron Age at Thorsbjerg,[1154] and have even been found with remains of both bronze and iron bands around them, instead of any more perishable cord.

These grooved stones are not to be confounded with the ordinary form of hammer-stone,[1155] but belong to a distinct category. They were, in all probability, used as a means for obtaining fire, by striking them with a pointed piece of iron. They constitute, in fact, the “flint” part of a modification of the ordinary “flint and steel.”

Whetstones are, of course, commonly found with Roman domestic antiquities; with Saxon, which are usually of a more purely sepulchral character, they are rarely discovered. Canon Greenwell found, however, two whetstones, one as much as 24 inches long, in graves of this period, at Uncleby, Yorkshire.

In one of the German cemeteries on the Rhine, corresponding to ours of Anglo-Saxon date, a small rubbing or sharpening stone, almost celt-like in form, was found.[1156]

In Dutch Guiana[1157] a small form of grinding-stone of quartz, apparently of the same age as the stone hatchets of that country, is known as a thunderstone, and great medicinal powers are ascribed to it by the natives. I must, however, return to the sharper forms of stone implements.

|272|

XII. FLINT FLAKES, CORES, ETC

The different forms of implements and weapons which have been treated of in the preceding pages have, for the most part, been fashioned from larger or smaller blocks of stone, reduced into shape by chipping; the chips having apparently been mere waste products, while the block from which they were struck was eventually converted into the tool or weapon required. With the majority, though by no means all, of the Neolithic forms which we still have to pass in review, the reverse holds good; for the raw materials, if I may so term them, from which the bulk of them were made, were flakes or splinters of flint struck off from larger blocks, in such a manner that it was the splinters that were utilized. The block from which they were struck, instead of being the object of the manufacture, became, when all the available flakes had been removed from it, mere refuse, to be thrown away as useless.

Before considering any of the various tools and weapons into which these flakes or splinters were converted by subsequent or secondary working, it will be well to say a few words about the simpler forms of flakes, and the cores or nuclei from which they were struck.

I have already, in speaking of the manufacture of stone implements, described the manner in which flakes or spalls are, at the present day, struck off by successive blows from the parent block or core, and have suggested the probable methods employed in ancient times for producing similar results. Remarks on the method of production of flint flakes have also been made by Sir W. Wilde,[1158] Sir John Lubbock,[1159] Mr. S. J. Mackie,[1160] Prof. T. McK. Hughes,[1161] and others. I need not, therefore, re-open the subject, |273| though it will be well again to call attention to some of the distinctive marks by which artificially formed flakes may be distinguished from mere splinters of natural origin. The formation of these latter is usually due either to the flint, while still embedded in the chalk, having received some violent shock from disturbance of the stratum; or to unequal expansion, which sometimes causes flints to split up into rudely prismatic forms, much like those assumed by starch in drying, and sometimes causes cracks on the surface, which enable water and frost to complete the work of splitting them. Occasionally, nearly flat planes of fissure are caused by the expansion of some small included particle of a different mineralogical character from the surrounding flint. In such cases a series of concentric and more or less circular rings may usually be traced on the surface surrounding the central particle, which apparently mark the intervals of repose, when its expansion had ceased for a time to exert sufficient force to continue the fissure. This kind of fracture is most prevalent in flints upon or near the surface of the ground, such as those in drift-deposits.

In hardly any instances of natural fracture does the surface of the splinter show any trace of its having been produced by a blow, though the violent impact of one stone upon another, by means of a fall from a cliff, or of other natural causes, might produce a splinter of the same form as if it had been struck off by a hammer. There would, however, be the mark of the blow on one face only of such a splinter, whereas in a perfectly artificial flake the traces of the blow by which each facet was produced would be discernible. On the sea-shore, natural splinters of flint, resulting from the blow of one wave-borne pebble on another, may occasionally be found, some of them having a kind of secondary working at the edges, the result of attrition among the pebbles on the shore.

If a blow from a spherical-ended hammer be delivered at right angles on a large flat surface of flint, the part struck is only a minute portion of the surface, which may be represented by a circle of very small diameter. If flint were malleable, instead of being slightly elastic, a dent would be produced at the spot; but, being elastic, this small circle is driven slightly inwards into the body of the flint, and the result is that a circular fissure is produced between that part of the flint which is condensed for the moment by the blow, and that part which is left untouched. As each particle in the small circle on which the hammer impinges may be considered to rest on more than one other particle, it is |274| evident that the circular fissure, as it descends into the body of the flint, will have a tendency to enlarge in diameter, so that the piece of flint it includes will be of conical form, the small circle struck by the hammer forming the slightly truncated apex. That this is not mere theory will be seen from the annexed woodcut, Fig. 188, showing a cone of flint produced by a single blow of a hammer.[1162]

Sometimes, as has been shown by Prof. T. McK. Hughes, F.R.S., the sides of the cone are in steps, the inclination varying from 30° to 110°. This is probably to some extent due to the character of the blow, and the form of the hammer.

If the blow be administered near the edge, instead of in the middle of the surface of the block, a somewhat similar effect will be produced, but the cone in that case will be imperfect, as a splinter of flint will be struck off, the fissure probably running along the line of least resistance; though, owing to the suddenness of the blow, the conical character of fracture is at first produced at the point of impact. This fracture will vary to some extent in accordance with the angle at which the blow is given, and the character of the hammer; but in all cases where a splinter of flint is struck off by a blow, there will be a bulb or projection, of a more or less conical form, at the end where the blow was administered, and a corresponding hollow in the block from which it was dislodged. This projection is usually known as the “bulb of percussion,” a term, I believe, first applied to it by the late Dr. Hugh Falconer, F.R.S.; and on every flake, all the facets of which are purely artificial, this bulb will be found at the butt-end of the larger flat face, and the hollow depressions, or portions of depressions, on all the other facets. If on a splinter of flint such a bulb occurs, it proves that it must have resulted from a blow, in all probability, but not of necessity, given by human agency; but where the bulb is on the principal face, and analogous depressions, or portions of them, are visible on the several other faces, and at the same end of a flake, all of them presenting the same character, |275| and in a definite arrangement, it is in the highest degree probable that such a combination of blows must be the result of design, and the features presented are almost as good a warrant for the human origin of the flake as would be the maker’s name upon it. When, however, several of such flakes are found together, each bearing these marks of being the result of several successive blows, all conducing to form a symmetrical knife-like flake,[1163] it becomes a certainty that they have been the work of intelligent beings.

In size and proportions flakes vary considerably, the longest English specimens that I have seen being as much as 8 or 9 inches long, while some, which still appear to have been made use of as tools, are not more than an inch in length. Their proportional breadth is almost as variable.

With regard to the classification and nomenclature of these objects, I would suggest that the name of flake should be limited to such artificial splinters of flint as, either in their section or outline, or in both, present a certain amount of symmetry, and appearance of design; and that the ruder forms, such as would result from chipping some large object into shape, without any regard to the form of the parts removed, should be called chips or spalls.[1164] Such as show no bulb of percussion may be termed splinters. The Scottish name for flakes is “skelbs.”

The inner, or flat face of a flake, is that produced by the blow which dislodged it from the parent block, core, or nucleus. The outer, ridged or convex face comprises the other facets, or, in some instances, the natural surface of the flint. The base, or butt-end of a flake, is that at which the blows to form it were administered; the other end is the point.

Flakes may be subdivided into—

1. External, or those which have been struck off by a single blow from the outer surface of a nodule of flint. Many of these are as symmetrical as those resulting from a more complicated process of manufacture, and they have frequently been utilized, especially for scrapers.

2. Ridged flakes, or those presenting a triangular section. One face of these sometimes presents the external crust of the flint, as in Fig. 190. In others, the ridge has been formed by transverse |276| chipping, as is the case with the long flakes from Pressigny (Fig. 6), but this method appears to have been almost unknown in Britain.

3. Flat, where the external face is nearly parallel to the internal, and the two edges are formed by narrow facets, as in Fig. 200.

4. Polygonal, where the external face consists of many facets, as in Fig. 192.

These several varieties may be long or short, broad or narrow, straight or curved, thick or thin, pointed or obtuse. The character of the base may also vary, being rounded or flat, thick or thin, broad or narrow.

The cores from which flakes have been struck are, of course, of various forms, some having had only one or two flakes removed from them, and others several. In the latter case they are often more or less regularly polygonal, though only few of the facets will be of the full breadth of the flakes, as the external face of every successive flake carries off some part of the traces of those previously struck off. Not unfrequently some of the facets are arrested at a little distance from the end where the blows were struck, in consequence of the flake having broken short off, instead of the fissure continuing to the end of the block. Occasionally, and more especially on the Yorkshire Wolds, the nuclei are very small, and much resemble in character those found, with numerous flakes, in India, in the neighbourhood of Jubbulpore.[1165]

It has been suggested[1166] that cores were occasionally made on purpose for use as tools; but this appears very doubtful. Of course, if a core were at hand, and seemed capable of serving some special purpose, it would be utilized.

* * * * *

The core here engraved of the full size in Fig. 189 was found by myself at Weaverthorpe, Yorkshire. I have already suggested that in striking off such small flakes as those removed from this core, some sort of punch may have been used, instead of the blows being administered directly by a hammer. We have no conclusive evidence as to the purpose to which such minute flakes were applied, but they may have been fashioned into drills or scraping or boring tools, of very diminutive size. Such small objects are so liable to escape observation, that though they may exist in considerable numbers, they are but rarely found on the |277| surface of the ground. Numerous flakes, however, quite as minute, with their edges showing evident signs of wear, are present among the refuse left by the cave-dwellers of the Reindeer Period of the South of France. As will subsequently be seen, these minute flakes have been also found in Egypt and in Asia, as well as in Britain. See Fig. 232 A to 232 F. There is a class of ancient Scandinavian harpoon-heads, the stems of which are formed of bone with small flint flakes cemented into a groove on either side so as to form barbs. Knives of the same kind are subsequently mentioned.

Among the Australians[1167] we find very minute splinters of flint and quartz secured to wooden handles by “black-boy” gum, and forming the teeth of rude saws and the barbs of javelins. Some remarkably small flakes have also been found in the diamond-diggings of South Africa in company with fragments of ostrich-egg shell, such as with the aid of the flakes might have been converted into the small perforated discs still worn as ornaments by the Bushmen.

There are but few published notices of the discovery of English cores of flint, though they are to be found in numbers over a considerable tract of country, especially where flint abounds.

I have recorded their finding at Redhill,[1168] near Reigate, and at Little Solsbury Hill,[1169] near Bath. I also possess numerous specimens from Herts, Gloucestershire, Sussex, Bedfordshire, Suffolk, and Yorkshire. In several instances two series of flakes have been struck off, the one set at right angles to the other. More rarely the flakes have been obtained from both ends of the block.

A core from the Fens[1170] is in the Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, and several were found, with other worked flints, in the chambered Long Barrow at West Kennet, Wiltshire.

Numerous specimens from Peter’s Finger, near Salisbury, and elsewhere, are in the Blackmore Museum; and a number were found by General Pitt Rivers in his researches at Cissbury, Sussex, and by Canon Greenwell at Grime’s Graves.[1171] Mr. Joseph Stevens has described specimens from St. Mary Bourne,[1172] Hants. They are recorded also as found with flakes at Port St. Mary,[1173] Isle of Man.

A long bludgeon-shaped nodule of flint, from one end of which a succession of flakes had been struck, was found in a grave, with a contracted skeleton, in a barrow near Winterbourn Stoke,[1174] Wilts.

Illustrations of cores, and of the manner in which flakes have been struck from them, have been given by various authors.[1175]

The existence of flakes involves the necessity of there having been cores from which they were struck; and as silicious flakes occur in almost all known countries, so also do cores. A series of French nuclei is |278| figured by Mortillet,[1176] and a fine example from Olonetz,[1177] Russia, by Worsaae. They have also been found in the Arabian desert.[1178] Those of large size and of regular polygonal form are rare in Britain and Ireland, and, indeed, generally in Europe. Some of the largest and most regular occur in Scandinavia. I have also some good examples from Belgium. Many of the cores from Spiennes, near Mons, were subsequently utilized as celts; and the same was the case to some extent at Pressigny, the large cores from which have already been described. The Mexican[1179] and East Indian[1180] forms, in obsidian and cherty flint, have also been mentioned. They are unsurpassed for symmetry and for the skill exhibited in removing flakes from them.

It is worthy of remark that cores and flakes of obsidian, almost identical in character with those from Mexico, but generally of small size, have been found in Greece, principally in the island of Melos.[1181] Specimens are in the Christy Collection, and I possess several. Obsidian nuclei are also found in Hungary.

Simple flakes and splinters of flint have been found in considerable numbers over almost the whole of Britain. Of the four here shown, Fig. 190 was found near Newhaven, Sussex; Fig. 191 near Reigate, Surrey; Fig. 192 near Icklingham, Suffolk; and Fig. 193 at Seaford, Sussex. At each of these places they occur in great numbers on the surface, and near Reigate some thousands were collected nearly forty years ago by Mr. Shelley,[1182] of whose discoveries I have given an account elsewhere. The counties in which they principally abound are perhaps |279| Cornwall,[1183] Devonshire,[1184] Dorsetshire, Wilts, Hants,[1185] Surrey,[1186] Oxfordshire,[1187] Sussex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Derbyshire, Lancashire,[1188] and Yorkshire; but they may be said to be ubiquitous. In some parts of Devonshire, and especially near Croyde, they occur in great numbers, so great, indeed, as to have led Mr. Whitley[1189] to suppose them to have been formed by natural causes rather than by human agency. Far more rational accounts of them have been given by Mr. Townshend M. Hall,[1190] Mr. H. S. Ellis,[1191] and Mr. C. Spence Bate.[1192]

Flakes and splinters of flint frequently occur in and around ancient encampments and settlements, as well as in association with interments both by cremation and inhumation. Many of the immense number of “spear-heads” collected by Mr. Bateman in his investigations were of the simple flake form, and others were flakes with but slight secondary working at the edges, such as will hereafter be noticed. Many other instruments which he discovered were merely flakes, such as the thick-backed cutting instrument of flint three inches long, with a bronze dagger and two small balls of stone, in a barrow containing a skeleton near Pickering,[1193] which would appear to have been of this character. They occurred with burnt bones in cinerary urns at Broughton,[1194] Lincolnshire, in one case with a flat bronze arrow-head; at Summer Hill,[1195] near Canterbury; with a flint arrow-head at Sittingbourne;[1196] with burnt bones and bronze daggers in a barrow at Teddington,[1197] Middlesex; at Penhow,[1198] Monmouth; and in the Gristhorpe Barrow,[1199] near Scarborough; with burnt bones in a circle of stones near Llanaber,[1200] Merionethshire, where no flint occurs naturally; with burnt bones in an urn beneath a tumulus at Brynbugeilen,[1201] Llangollen; in a barrow near Blackbury Castle,[1202] Devon; and in one on Dartmoor;[1203] and at Hollingsclough and Upper Edge,[1204] Derbyshire. Flakes, not of flint, but of a hard silicious grit, occurred in a cist with burnt bones near Harlech;[1205] and of some other hard stone in a cist in Merionethshire.[1206] Other instances have been cited by General Pitt Rivers,[1207] who found several rough flakes and splinters of grit and felspathic ash in cairns near Bangor, North Wales. Some of these showed signs of rubbing and use on their edges; in some cases they had the appearance of having been scraped by metal. Whether they were the weapons and tools of the people buried in the cairns, or |280| merely votive offerings, appeared to be somewhat doubtful. The urns associated with them were such as might well belong to the Bronze Period.

Flint flakes are described as found in graves with contracted interments at Amble,[1208] Northumberland; Driffield,[1209] Yorkshire; Ballidon Moor,[1210] Derbyshire; Littleton Drew,[1211] and Winterbourn Stoke,[1212] Wilts. Canon Greenwell[1213] has also found them in great numbers with interments of different characters. They occurred with extended burials at Oakley Park,[1214] near Cirencester. In some of the long barrows they are especially numerous, upwards of three hundred having been found by Dr. Thurnam at West Kennet,[1215] while there were three only in that of Rodmarton,[1216] and two were found at the base of the cairn in the chambered tumulus at Uley,[1217] Gloucestershire. Another accompanied a skeleton in a long barrow near Littleton Drew.[1218] Sir Richard Colt Hoare speaks of a great quantity of chipped flints, prepared for arrows or lances, as having been found in barrows on Long Street Down,[1219] and at Brigmilston, Wilts;[1220] but, as a rule, he seems not to have taken much notice of such simple forms. Others have been discovered with ashes at Helmingham,[1221] Suffolk.

It is, however, needless, to cite more instances of their occurrence with interments belonging to the Stone and Bronze Ages, as the presence of flakes and chippings of flint is in such cases the rule rather than the exception.

In Scotland, where flint is a scarcer natural product, they are also found. As instances, I may cite one found in an urn within a cist at Tillicoultry,[1222] Clackmannanshire; and in a cist in Arran.[1223] In some parts of Aberdeenshire[1224] and Banffshire they are numerous, and in the Buchan district are associated with shell mounds, or kjökken-möddings. They occur also in Lanarkshire and Elgin.[1225] In Orkney[1226] they abound: as also at the Bin of Cullen,[1227] where a manufactory of arrow-heads seems to have existed. In cists in Roxburghshire[1228] were sepulchral urns and numerous flint flakes; and in Argyllshire[1229] there were in a cist with a skeleton flint flakes in such numbers as to form a heap from eighteen inches to two feet in height. Some of white quartz have been found associated with arrow-heads in Banffshire.[1230] Little heaps[1231] of six or eight were found in each corner of a grave at Clashfarquhar, Aberdeen. They abound on the sand-hills near Glenluce and on the Culbin Sands.

Of ancient encampments or settlements where flint flakes occur in |281| numbers, I may mention Maiden Bower, near Dunstable; Pulpit Wood, near Prince’s Risborough; Cissbury,[1232] Beltout Castle, and other encampments in Sussex; Little Solsbury Hill, near Bath; Castle Ring,[1233] Cannock Chase; Avebury,[1234] Wilts; and Callow Hill,[1235] Oxfordshire. They have been found in wonderful abundance on the surface in the counties already mentioned, and their occurrence has been noticed near Bradford Abbas;[1236] near Folkestone;[1237] at Possingworth Manor,[1238] Uckfield; near Hastings;[1239] at Stonham[1240] and Icklingham, Suffolk; near Grime’s Graves, Norfolk;[1241] at St. Mary Bourne,[1242] Hants; and in a turbary at Heneglwys,[1243] Anglesea, an island in which no flint occurs naturally. Two from Carno, Montgomeryshire, are engraved in the Archæologia Cambrensis.[1244] They have also been found under a submerged forest on the coast of West Somerset.[1245] I have seen a few flakes made from Lower Tertiary conglomerate.

In districts where flint was an imported luxury, other stones, usually containing a large proportion of silica, and when broken presenting a conchoidal fracture, served, so far as the material allowed, the same purposes as flint. Of this a few instances have already been given. In some cases even laminated sandstones, shales, and slates seem to have been utilized. Numerous relics of this kind, some so rude that their purposes may appear doubtful, were found by the late Mr. S. Laing,[1246] in Caithness. Large oval flakes, made from sandstone pebbles, occurred in very great numbers in and around the ancient dwelling at Skaill, Orkney. In form, however, these approximate more nearly to the Pict’s knives, of which hereafter, than to ordinary flakes. The method of their manufacture has been described by Mr. Laing.[1247]

A curious stone knife or dagger, found beside a stone cist in Perthshire,[1248] is described as a natural formation of mica-schist, the peculiar shape of which has suggested its adaptation as a rude but efficient implement.

Some rude spear-heads of flint and greenstone are said to have been found near Pytchley,[1249] Northamptonshire; and some of Kentish rag at Maidstone.[1250] I have also seen them made of Oolitic flint.

Flakes of quartzite have been found, together with some of flint and quartz and with polished celts, in some of the caverns inhabited during the Neolithic Period in the Pyrenees of the Ariège,[1251] and also in the Lake Settlement of Greug.[1252]

* * * * *

When we consider how well adapted for cutting purposes were |282| these simple flakes of flint, and how they constituted, as it were, the raw material for so many of the more finished forms, such as arrow-heads, of which the consumption in ancient times must have been enormous; and when, moreover, we take into account that in producing a well-formed flake many waste flakes and mere splinters must probably have been struck off, and that in forming the large implements of flint almost innumerable chips or spalls must have been made, their abundance on the sites of ancient dwelling-places is by no means surprising, especially as the material of which they are formed is almost indestructible.

Such fragments of flint must have been among the daily necessities of ancient savage life, and we can well understand the feeling which led the survivors of the departed hunter to place in his grave not only the finished weapons of the chase, but the material from which to form them, as a provision for him in “the happy hunting grounds,” the only entrance to which was through the gate of Death.

The occurrence of flint chips and potsherds in the soil of which barrows are composed, may in some cases be merely the result of their being made up of earth gathered from the surface of the ground, which from previous occupation by man was bestrewn with such remains. It is, however, often otherwise, especially when the flakes are in immediate association with the interment. The practice of throwing a stone on a cairn is no doubt a relic of an ancient custom.[1253] The “shards, flint, and pebbles” which Ophelia should have had thrown on her in her grave may, as has been suggested by Canon Greenwell,[1254] point to a sacred Pagan custom remembered in Christian times, but then deemed irreligious and unholy.

The presence of flint flakes in ancient graves is not, however, limited to those of the so-called Stone and Bronze Periods, but they occur with even more recent interments. For it seems probable that the flint was in some cases buried as a fire-producing agent, and not as the material for tools or weapons. In a cist at Lesmurdie,[1255] Banffshire, apparently of early date, were some chips of flint which appeared to the discoverer to have been originally accompanied by a steel or piece of iron and tinder. The oxide of iron may, however, have been merely the result of |283| the decomposition of a piece of iron pyrites. At Worle Hill,[1256] Somersetshire, “flint flakes, prepared for arrow-heads,” were found with iron spear-heads and other objects, though it is very doubtful whether they were in true association. In Saxon graves,[1257] however, small nests of chipped flints are not unfrequent, and the same is the case with Merovingian and Frankish interments, sometimes accompanied by the steels or briquets,[1258] at other times without them. I have a wrought flint of this class, curiously like a modern gun-flint, from an early German grave near Wiesbaden. Occasionally flakes of other materials than flint occur. Their presence in graves is regarded by M. Baudot as due to a reminiscence of some ancient rite of sepulchre. In the Anglo-Saxon burial-ground at Harnham Hill,[1259] near Salisbury, and at Ozengal, steels were also found. Canon Greenwell found a steel, in form much like those of modern date, in a Saxon grave at Uncleby in the East Riding of Yorkshire. As has been pointed out by Mr. Akerman, Scheffer[1260] informs us that so late as the seventeenth century, the Lapps were buried with their axe, bow, and arrows, and a flint and steel, to be used both in a life to come and in finding their way to the scene of their future existence.

Flakes and rudely chipped pieces of flint are also of very common occurrence on the sites of Roman occupation, as, for instance, at Hardham,[1261] Sussex, where Prof. Boyd Dawkins found them associated with Roman pottery. At Moel Fenlli,[1262] also, in the vale of Clwyd, there occurred with Roman pottery some flint flakes which have been figured as arrow-heads, and with them what is termed a stone knife, but which is, however, more probably a whetstone used to sharpen those of steel. I have myself noticed flint flakes at Regulbium (Reculver), Verulamium (St. Alban’s), and on other Roman sites. Many of them were no doubt used for producing fire, but the more finished flakes may possibly have served as carpenters’ tools for scraping, in the same way as fragments of glass are in use at the present day.

There is, however, another cause why rude splinters of flint |284| should accompany Roman remains, especially in the case of villas in country districts, for the tribulum, or threshing implement employed both by the Romans and other ancient civilized nations, was a “sharp threshing instrument having teeth,”[1263] in most cases of flint. Varro[1264] thus describes the tribulum:—“Id fit e tabulâ lapidibus aut ferro exasperatâ, quæ imposito auriga aut pondere grandi trahitur jumentis junctis ut discutiat e spicâ grana.” Another form of the instrument was called traha or trahea. In the East, in Northern Africa, Spain, Portugal, Madeira, Teneriffe, and probably other parts of the world, threshing implements, which no doubt closely resemble the original tribula, are still in use. The name is still preserved in the Italian trebbiatrice, the Spanish trilla, and the Portuguese trilho, but survives, metaphorically alone, in our English tribulation. In Egypt their name is nureg, and in Greece ἁλωνίιστρα, from ἁλωνία, a threshing-floor. Drawings of various tribula have been given by various travellers,[1265] and the implements themselves from different countries may be seen in the Christy Collection and in the Blackmore Museum. They are flat sledges of wood, five to six feet in length, and two or three in breadth, the under side pitted with a number of square or lozenge-shaped holes, mortised a little distance into the wood, and having in each hole a flake or splinter of stone. I have seen them in Spain mounted with simple pebbles. In those from Madeira the stone is a volcanic rock, but in that from Aleppo—preserved in the Christy Collection,[1266] and shown in Fig. 194—each flake is of cherty flint and has been artificially shaped. Occasionally there are a few projecting ribs or runners of iron along part of the machine, but in most instances the whole of the armature is of stone. As each trilho is provided with some hundreds of chipped stones, we can readily understand what a number of rough flakes might be left in the soil at places where they were long in use, in addition to the flakes and splinters which for centuries have been used for striking a light.

Flakes and splinters of silicious stone, whether flint, jasper, chert, iron-stone, quartzite, or obsidian, are to be found in almost all known countries, and belong to all ages. They are in fact |285| the most catholic of all stone implements, and have been in use “semper, ubique, et ab omnibus.” Whether we look in our old River-gravels of the age of the mammoth, in our old cave-deposits, our ancient encampments, or our modern gun-flint manufactories, |286| there is the inevitable flake. And it is almost universally the same in other countries—in Greenland or South Africa, on the field of Marathon or in the backwoods of Australia, among the sands of Arabia[1267] or on the plains of America,—wherever such flakes and splinters are sought for, they are almost sure to be found, either in use among the savage occupants of the country at the present day, or among civilized nations, left in the soil as memorials of their more or less remote barbarian ancestors.

* * * * *

Flint flakes are found in great abundance in Ireland, especially in Ulster, where the raw material occurs in the chalk. At Toome Bridge, on the shores of Lough Neagh, many thousands have been found, and they occur in abundance in the valley of the Bann,[1268] and in slightly raised beaches along the shores of Belfast Lough. They are rarely more than 4 or 5 inches in length; and symmetrical, flat, parallel flakes are extremely rare. Many pointed flakes have been slightly trimmed[1269] at the butt-end, and converted into a sort of lance-head without further preparation. Such flakes may have pointed fishing-spears. They are occasionally formed of Lydian stone.

In Scandinavia, the art of flaking flint attained to great perfection, and flat or ridged symmetrical flakes, as much as 6 inches long, and not more than 3∕4-inch wide, are by no means uncommon. Occasionally they are no less than 13 inches long.[1270] Two in the Museum at Copenhagen[1271] (9 inches) fit the one on the other. The ridge is sometimes formed by cross-chipping. The bulk of the flakes from the kjökken-möddings are of a rude character, though very many show traces of use.

In Germany, long flakes of flint are rare, but one about 6 1∕2 inches long, found in Rhenish-Hesse, is engraved by Lindenschmit.[1272]

In some parts of France they are extremely plentiful, especially on and around the sites of ancient flint ateliers. Some flakes, like those produced at Pressigny, were of great length. One not less than 13 1∕4 inches long, and not more than 1 1∕2 inches broad at the butt, found at Pauilhac, in the Valley of the Gers, has been figured in the Revue de Gascogne.[1273] A flake from Gergovia, 9 inches long, is in the Museum at Clermont Ferrand.

One 8 3∕4 inches long was found in the Camp de Catenoy[1274] (Oise).

Long flakes found in France have been engraved by numerous authors,[1275] and some from Belgium by Le Hon.[1276]

Obsidian cores and flakes have been found in Lorraine,[1277] the material having been brought from Auvergne. |287|

Flakes occur, but not so abundantly, in Spain and Portugal. A fragment of a ridged flake of jasper, found in the cave of Albuñol in Spain,[1278] is 1 1∕2 inches long. In one of the Genista Caves[1279] at Gibraltar there was found one of the long flakes, but of which a part had been broken off. Another was 6 1∕2 inches long and 5∕8 inch wide. In Algarve,[1280] Portugal, they have been found up to 15 inches in length; some of them are beautifully serrated at the edges.

In Italy they are by no means uncommon, sometimes of great length. One, 7 inches long, is figured by Nicolucci.[1281]

Among the Swiss Lake-dwellers considerable use was made of flint flakes, not only as the material for arrow-heads, but for cutting tools. So great was the abundance of flint left on the site of some of their habitations, as at Nussdorf,[1282] that in after ages the spot was resorted to for generations, in order to procure flints for use with steel. It was by their being thus known as flint-producing spots that some of the Lake-dwellings were discovered. A flake nearly 7 inches long, from peat, in the Canton de Vaud, has been engraved by De Bonstetten.[1283]

A flake 9 inches long from Transcaucasia[1284] has been figured.

In Egypt[1285] flakes of flint have been found in considerable numbers in certain localities, some of them associated with polished stone hatchets; others are possibly of no extreme antiquity, though undoubtedly of artificial origin, and not of merely natural formation, as has been suggested by Lepsius.[1286] That distinguished antiquary has, however, found a number of well-formed ridged and polygonal flakes in Egypt, some of them in a grave which he has reason to assign to about 2500 B.C.

A vast number of discoveries of flint flakes and other forms of worked flints has, of late years, been made in Egypt. It will probably be sufficient to indicate in a note[1287] some of the principal memoirs relating to the subject. They are found also in the Libyan[1288] desert. The discoveries at Helouan will be subsequently mentioned.

The presence of numerous flakes, scrapers and other forms of flint instruments, has also been noticed in Algeria.[1289] They are for the most part rude and small.

Flint flakes and tools are found on Mount Lebanon,[1290] and on the Nablus[1291] road from Jerusalem there are mounds entirely composed of flint chippings. |288|

In Southern Africa,[1292] near Capetown and Grahamstown, flakes abound on the surface of the ground, sometimes of chert or flint, but often of basaltic rock. I have one from Grahamstown 8 inches in length.

Their occurrence in India has already been noticed. The flakes from Jubbulpore[1293] are for the most part of small size, but some of those removed from the cores found in the river Indus must have been at least 5 or 6 inches long.

In America, flint, or rather horn-stone flakes, are not uncommon, though not so often noticed as the more finished forms. Some found in the mounds of Ohio are of considerable length, one engraved by Squier and Davis[1294] being 5 1∕2 inches long. Some of the Mexican flakes of obsidian are fully 6 inches in length.

* * * * *

In ancient times the Ichthyophagi are described by Diodorus[1295] as using antelopes’ horns and stones broken to a sharp edge in their fishing, “for necessity teaches everything.” Flakes are still in some cases used without any secondary chipping or working into form.

We find, for instance, flakes of flint or obsidian, and even of glass, almost in the condition in which they were struck from the parent block, employed as lance and javelin-heads, among several savage people, such as the natives of Australia,[1296] and of the Admiralty Islands.[1297] One of those said to be in use among the latter people is shown, half-size, in Fig. 195,[1298] and exhibits the method of attachment to the shaft. The butt-end of the flake is let into a socket in a short tapering piece of wood, into the other extremity of which the end of the long |289| light shaft is inserted; both flake and shaft are next secured by tying, and then the whole of the socket and ligatures is covered up with a coating of resinous gum, occasionally decorated with zigzag and other patterns. Some flakes are mounted as daggers.

Some of the long parallel flakes also appear to have been hafted. One such, probably from Mexico, has been engraved by Aldrovandus as a culter lapideus.[1299] A tool in use among the natives of Easter Island[1300] consisted of a broad flake of obsidian, with a roughly chipped tang which was inserted in a slit in the handle to which it was bound, the binding being tightened by means of wooden wedges driven in under the string.

To return, however, to the flakes of flint which were used in this country for scraping or cutting purposes, at an early period, when metal was either unknown or comparatively scarce. Each flake, when dexterously made, has on either side a cutting edge, so sharp that it almost might, like the obsidian flakes of Mexico, be used as a razor. Some flakes indeed seem to have served as surgical instruments, as the practice of trephining was known in the Stone Period. So long as the edge is used merely for cutting soft substances it may remain for some time comparatively uninjured, and even if slightly jagged its cutting power is not impaired. If long in use, the sides of the blade become rather polished by wear, and I have specimens, both English and foreign, on which the polish thus produced can be observed. If the flake has been used for scraping a surface, say, for instance, of bone or wood, the edge will be found to wear away, by extremely minute portions chipping off nearly at right angles to the scraping edge, and with the lines of fracture running back from it. The coarseness of these minute chips will vary in accordance with the amount of pressure used, and the material scraped; but generally speaking, I think that I am right in saying that they are more delicate and at a more obtuse angle to the face, than the small chipping produced by the secondary working of the edge of a flake, of which I shall presently speak. In all cases where any considerable number of flakes of flint occur, such as there appears to be good reason for attributing to a remote period, a greater or less proportion of them will, on examination, be found to bear these signs of wear upon them, extending over, at all events, some portion of their edges. |290|

It is, however, difficult if not impossible, always to determine whether the chipping away of the edge of a flake is merely the result of use, or whether it is intentional. There can be no doubt that for many purposes the acute edge of a flake, as originally formed, was too delicate and brittle, and that it was therefore re-worked by subsequent chipping, so as to make the angle more obtuse, and thus strengthen the edge of the tool. It is curious to observe how rarely the edges of flakes were sharpened by grinding. It was probably considered less troublesome to form a new flake than to sharpen an old one; in the same way as it is recorded that the Mexican barbers threw away their obsidian flakes as soon as they were dull and made use of new ones. Dr. E. B. Tylor, in the free translation of the passage in Torquemada relating to these razors, appears, as has been pointed out by Messrs. Daubrée and Roulin,[1301] to have fallen into a mistake in representing them to have been sharpened on a hone, the original author having merely said that the edge of the obsidian flakes was as keen as if they had been forged in iron, ground on a stone, and finished on a hone.

* * * * *

British flakes with ground edges are by no means common. One from Yorkshire, in my own collection, is a thin, flat, external flake, having both edges (which are parallel) ground from both faces to an angle of about 60°. It has, unfortunately, been broken square across, about 2 inches from the butt-end, and is 1 inch wide at the fracture. Another, from Bridlington, is an ovate flat external flake, produced, not by art, but by natural fracture, and having one side brought to a sharp edge by grinding on both faces. With the exception of its being partially chipped into shape at both ends, this grinding is all that has been done to convert a mere splinter of flint into a serviceable tool. It is an interesting example of the selection of a natural form, where adapted for a particular purpose, in preference to making the whole implement by hand. The small celt, Fig. 31, affords an analogous instance. In the Greenwell Collection are also two or three very rude flakes from the Yorkshire Wolds, which are ground at some portion of their edges.

In a barrow on Seamer Moor, Yorkshire, the late Lord Londesborough[1302] found, with other relics, a delicate knife made from a flake of flint, 4 1∕4 inches long, and dexterously ground. A trimmed flake, like Fig. 239, some small celts, and delicate lozenge-shaped arrow-heads, like Fig. 276, were also present. The whole are now in the British Museum.

A flake, from Charleston, in the East Riding, presented to me by Canon Greenwell, is shown in Fig. 196. It is of thin triangular section, slightly bowed longitudinally, having one edge, which appears to have |291| been originally blunt, sharpened by secondary working. The other edge has been sharpened to an angle of about 45° by grinding both on the inner and outer faces of the flake. The point, which is irregular in shape, is rounded over either by friction or by grinding. It seems well adapted for use as a knife when held between the ball of the thumb and the end of the first finger, without the intervention of any handle.

Another specimen, 4 inches long, ground to a sharp edge along one side, was in the collection of the late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S., and is now in mine. It was found near Thetford.

Mr. Flower had also a flake from High Street, near Chislet, Kent, with both edges completely blunted by grinding, perhaps in scraping stone.

I have two trimmed flakes with the edges carefully ground, from the neighbourhood of Icklingham, Suffolk, and another ridged flake, 2 3∕8 inches long, pointed at one end and rounded at the other, one side of which has been carefully ground at the edge. I found it in a field of my own, in the parish of Abbot’s Langley, Herts. Canon Greenwell obtained another 2 1∕2 inches long, ground on both edges, from Mildenhall Fen.

I have seen a flake about 3 inches long, with the edge ground, that had been found on the top of the cliffs at Bournemouth; and another, from a barrow near Stonehenge, in the possession of the late Mr. Frank Buckland.

A flat flake, with a semicircular end, and ground at the edges so as to form “a beautiful thin ovoidal knife three and a half inches long,” was found by Dr. Thurnam,[1303] with many other worked flints, in the chambered long barrow at West Kennet, Wilts. Another, carefully ground at one edge, was found by Sir R. Colt Hoare,[1304] at Everley.

An oval knife, about 2 inches long, ground at the edge and over a great part of the convex face, found at Micheldean, Gloucestershire, is in the museum at Truro.

A cutting instrument, with a very keen edge, nicely polished, is recorded as having been found, with twenty other flint implements or tools of various shapes, accompanying a skeleton, in a barrow near Pickering.[1305] A so-called spear-head, neatly chipped and rubbed, was found with burnt bones in another barrow near the same place.[1306]

A few flat flakes, ground at the edge, have been discovered in Scotland. One 2 1∕2 inches long was found at Cromar,[1307] Aberdeenshire; and a portion of another in a cairn in Caithness,[1308] in company with a polished perforated hammer and other objects.

Irish flakes are rarely sharpened by grinding. I have, however, one of Lydian stone,[1309] found in Lough Neagh, and ground to an edge at the end.

In form the Charleston flake, Fig. 196, much resembles some of the Swiss flakes, which, from examples that have been found in the |292| Lake-dwellings, are proved to have been mounted in handles. One of these, from Nussdorf, in the Ueberlinger See,[1310] is in my own collection, and is shown in Fig. 197. It is fastened into a yew-wood handle by an apparently bituminous cement. The edge has been formed by secondary chipping on the ridged face of the flake. I am unable to say whether the edge of the flake still embedded in the wood is left as originally produced or no, but several unmounted flakes from the same locality have been re-chipped on both edges. In some instances, however, only one edge is thus worked. In the case of many of the small narrow flakes from the Dordogne caves, one edge is much worn away, and the other as sharp as ever, as if it had been protected by being inserted in a wooden handle.

From the hole in the handle, this form of instrument would appear to have been carried attached to a string, like a sailor’s knife at the present day—a similarity probably due to the somewhat analogous conditions of life of the old Lake-dwellers to those of seamen. In some French and Swiss flakes[1311] which seem to have been used in a similar manner, the ends are squared, and a central notch worked in each, apparently for the reception of a cord. In this case, a loop at the end of the cord would answer the same purpose as the hole in the handle, which with these flakes seem to have been needless. They are abundant at Pressigny.

A pointed flake in the museum at Berne[1312] is hafted like a dagger, in a wooden handle, which is bound round with a cord made from rushes.

Some of the Swiss handles are not bored, and occasionally they are prolonged at one end to twice the length of the flint, so as to form a handle like that of a table-knife, the flint flake, though let in to a continuation of the handle, projecting and forming the blade. In some cases there is a handle at each end, like those of a spoke-shave. The handles are of yew, deal, and more rarely of stags’-horn; and the implements, though usually termed saws, are not regularly serrated, and may with equal propriety be termed knives.

The late Sir Edward Belcher showed me an Eskimo “flensing knife,” from Icy Cape, hafted in much the same manner. The blade is an ovate piece of slate about 5 inches long, and is let into a handle made of several pieces of wood, extending along nearly half the circumference, and secured together by resin. Other specimens of the same kind are in the British Museum, and in the Ethnological Museum at Copenhagen. The stone blades are more like the flat Picts’[1313] knives, |293| such as Fig. 263, than ordinary flint flakes. An iron blade, hafted in a closely analogous manner by the Eskimos, is engraved by Nilsson.[1314]

As already mentioned, some of the Australian savages about King George’s Sound make knives or saws on a somewhat similar plan; but instead of one long flake they attach a number of small flakes in a row in a matrix of hard resin at one end of a stick. Spears are formed in the same manner.

In other cases, however, flakes are differently hafted. One such is shown in Fig. 198, from an original in the Christy Collection. One edge of this flake has been entirely removed by chipping so as to form a thick, somewhat rounded back, not unlike that of an ordinary knife-blade, though rather thicker in proportion to the width of the blade. The butt-end has then had a portion of the hairy skin of some animal bound over it with a cord, so as to give it a sort of haft, and effectually protect the hand that held it. The material of the flake appears to be horn-stone. Another knife of the same character, from Queensland, is in the Museum of the Hartley Institution at Southampton.

Another example, from the Murray River,[1315] but without the skin handle, has been figured.

A friend in Queensland tried to procure one of these knives for me, but what he obtained was a flake of glass made from a gin bottle, and the wrapping was of calico instead of kangaroo-skin. Iron blades[1316] are sometimes hafted in the same way with a piece of skin. Some Australian jasper or flint knives,[1317] from Carandotta, are hafted with gum, and provided with sheaths made of sedge. These gum-hafted knives are in use on the Herbert River[1318] for certain surgical operations.

Some surface-chipped obsidian knives from California are hafted by having a strip of otter skin wound round them, and Prof. Flinders Petrie[1319] has found an Egyptian flint knife hafted with fibre lashed round with a cord.

Occasionally flakes of quartz or other silicious stone were mounted at the end of short handles by the Australians, so as to form a kind of dagger or chisel. One such has been engraved by the Rev. J. G. |294| Wood.[1320] Another is in the Museum of the Hartley Institution at Southampton.

In the Berlin Museum[1321] is a curious knife, found, I believe, in Prussia, which shows great skill in the adaptation of flint for cutting purposes. It consists of a somewhat lanceolate piece of bone, about 7 1∕4 inches long, and at the utmost 1∕2 inch wide, and 1∕4 inch thick. The section is approximately oval, but along one of the narrow sides a groove has been worked, and in this are inserted a series of segments of thin flakes of flint, so carefully chosen as to be almost of one thickness, and so dexterously fitted together that their edges constitute one continuous sharp blade, projecting about three-sixteenths of an inch from the bone. In some examples from Scandinavia the flint flakes are let in on both edges of the blade.[1322] The flakes sometimes form barbs, as already mentioned.

The Mexican[1323] swords, formed of flakes of obsidian attached to a blade of wood, were of somewhat the same character, and remains of what appears to have been an analogous sword, armed with flint flakes, have been found in one of the mounds of the Iroquois country.

Another use to which pointed flint flakes have occasionally been applied is for the formation of fishing-hooks. Such a hook, the stem formed of bone, and the returning point made of flint bound at an acute angle to the end of the bone, has been engraved by Klemm.[1324] It was found in a grave in Greenland. Fishhooks formed entirely of flint, and found in Sweden, have been engraved by Nilsson,[1325] and others, presumed to have been found in Holderness, by Mr. T. Wright, F.S.A.[1326] These latter are, however, in all probability, forgeries.

* * * * *

Besides the flakes which may be regarded as merely tools for cutting or scraping, there are some which may with safety be reckoned as saws, their edges having been intentionally and regularly serrated, though in other respects they have been left entirely unaltered in form.

* * * * *

A specimen, found in a pit which appeared to have been excavated by the primitive inhabitants of the district, at Brighthampton, Oxon, has been figured;[1327] and another oblong flint flake, with a regularly serrated edge, but the teeth not so deep or well defined as in this instance, was found by Dr. Thurnam in a chambered long barrow at West Kennet, Wilts, with numerous flakes and “scrapers.”[1328]

Figs. 199 to 201 represent similar instruments in my own collection from the Yorkshire Wolds. The largest has been serrated on both edges, but has had the teeth much broken and worn away on the thinner edge. |295|

Fig. 200 is very minutely toothed on both edges, and has a line of brilliant polish on each margin of its flat face, showing the friction the saw had undergone in use, not improbably in sawing bone or horn.

Fig. 201 is more coarsely serrated, and shows less of this characteristic polish, which is observable on a large proportion of these flint saws. The teeth are on many so minute that without careful examination they may be overlooked. Others, however, are coarsely toothed. Canon Greenwell has found saws in considerable numbers, and varying in the fineness of their serration, in the barrows on the Yorkshire Wolds, near Sherburn and elsewhere. In the soil of a single barrow at Rudstone there were no less than seventy-eight of these saws. Some have been found by Mr. E. Tindall in barrows near Bridlington,[1329] as well as on the surface. Some well-formed flint saws have also been found near Whitby,[1330] and some of small size at West Wickham,[1331] Kent. In the Greenwell Collection is a finely-toothed saw, made from a curved flake, found at Kenny Hill, Mildenhall.

Five flint saws, finely serrated, were found in a barrow at Seaford,[1332] and another on St. Leonard’s Forest,[1333] Horsham. One was also found in a barrow on Overton Hill,[1334] Wilts. Seven saws, thirteen scrapers, and other worked flints were among the materials of another barrow at Rudstone.[1335]

The teeth are usually but not universally worked in the side edges of the flakes. In Fig. 202 it is the chisel-like broad end of a flake that has been converted into a saw. This specimen was found by the late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S., in a barrow at West Cranmore, Somerset, in company with numerous flint flakes and “scrapers.” A bronze dagger was found in the same barrow.

Near Newhaven, Sussex, I found on the downs a flat flake, about 2 1∕2 inches long, and slightly curved sideways towards the point. At this part the inner curve is neatly worked into a saw, and the outer curve carefully chipped into a rounded edge as a scraping tool.

A flint knife serrated at the back to serve as a saw was found by Mr. Bateman in Liff’s Low, near Biggin.[1336]

In Scotland several saws have been procured from the Culbin Sands,[1337] |296| and near Glenluce.[1338] They are also recorded from Forglen,[1339] near Banff, and Craigsfordmains,[1340] Roxburghshire.

In Ireland, flakes converted into saws are scarce; they occur occasionally, though but rarely, with neolithic interments in France. In the Museum at le Puy is a very good specimen of a flat flake, neatly serrated with small teeth, found with a skeleton near that town. Another, found in a dolmen in Poitou,[1341] has been published by M. de Longuemar. Mortillet[1342] includes several forms under the general denomination of scies.

Similar saws to those first described, and made from flakes more or less coarsely toothed, have been found in the cave-deposits of the Reindeer Period of the South of France, but in some caves, as, for instance, that at Bruniquel explored by M. V. Brun, they were much more abundant than in others. In the Vicomte de Lastic’s cave at the same place but few occurred, and in most of the caves of the Dordogne they appear to be absent. An irregularly-notched flake was probably almost as efficient a saw as one more carefully and uniformly toothed.

Flakes of flint, carefully serrated at the edge, have been found in the Danish kjökken-möddings[1343]; in Posen,[1344] Prussia; and with relics of the Early Bronze Period in Spain.[1345] One is recorded from the Algerian Sahara.[1346] It has been suggested that some serrated flints were potters’ tools, by which parallel mouldings were produced on vessels.[1347]

Among the more highly finished Scandinavian stone implements there is some difficulty in determining exactly which have served the purpose of saws. The flat, straight tapering instrument, with serrated edges, which, from its many teeth at regular distances from each other, Nilsson[1348] is disposed to think has probably been a saw, Worsaae[1349] |297| regards as a lance-point. I am inclined to think that they were not saws, for on such specimens as I have examined minutely I find no trace of the teeth being polished by use. They cannot, however, in all cases have been lance-heads, as I have one of those serrated instruments, 8 1∕4 inches long, with the sides nearly parallel and both ends square.

Some of the crescent-shaped[1350] blades have almost similar teeth on the straighter edge, and some of these are polished on both faces as if by being worked backwards and forwards in a groove, and have no polish between the teeth, such as would result from their being used crossways like combs. From this I infer that such specimens at all events have been used for cutting purposes, and not, as may have been the case with others, as instruments[1351] for dressing skins, or heckling flax or hemp. As has been pointed out by Professor J. J. Steenstrup, many of these crescent-shaped blades seem to have had their convex edges inserted in wooden handles, which would render them convenient for use as saws. Their action on wood, though not rapid, is effectual, and with the aid of a little water I have with one of them cut through a stick of dry sycamore seven-eighths of an inch in diameter in seven minutes. In Thomsen’s[1352] opinion, these implements with teeth were intended for saws. Nilsson[1353] also regards some of them in the same light. The form seems to be confined to the North of Germany and Scandinavia.[1354] They are frequently found in pairs, one being smaller than the other. Mr. T. Wright,[1355] after engraving one of these Danish saws as a British specimen, remarks that several have been found in different parts of England. I believe this statement to be entirely without foundation, so far as this particular form is concerned.

I have left what I originally wrote upon this subject with very little modification, but Prof. Flinders Petrie’s[1356] discoveries have thrown a flood of light upon the purposes for which serrated flints were used. We now know that the Egyptian sickle was formed of a curved piece of wood in shape much like the jaw-bone of a horse, armed along the inner edge with a series of serrated flint flakes, cemented into a groove. Not only are there numerous pictorial representations of such instruments going back so far as the 4th dynasty, but the sickles themselves have been found in a complete state, as well as numbers of the serrated flakes that formed their edge. Similar flakes, which no doubt served the same purpose, were found by Schliemann on the site of Troy.[1357] Others have been found at Helouan.[1358] The whole subject has been treated exhaustively by Mr. Spurrell,[1359] to whose paper the reader is referred.[1360] Dr. Munro is, however, inclined to regard most European examples as saws.

I now pass on to an instrument of very frequent occurrence in Britain.

|298|

XIII. SCRAPERS

One of the simple forms into which flakes are susceptible of being readily converted has, in consequence of its similarity in character to a stone implement in use among the Eskimos for scraping skins and other purposes, received the name of a “scraper,” or to use the term first I believe employed by the late M. E. Lartet, a grattoir. A typical scraper may be defined as a broad flake, the end of which has been chipped to a semicircular bevelled edge round the margin of the inner face, similar in character to that of a “round-nosed turning chisel.”

A very good specimen of an Eskimo scraper of flint, mounted in a handle of fossil ivory, is in the Christy Collection, and has been engraved for the “Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ.”[1361] For the loan of the woodcut, Fig. 203, there given, I am indebted to the |299| representatives of the late Mr. Christy. Sometimes the hafts are of wood, and they have frequently indentations intended to receive the ends of the fingers and thumb, so as to secure a good grasp. In the collection of Sir John Lubbock is another specimen much like Fig. 203, with a flint blade almost like a lance-head in character, but with the more pointed end inserted in the handle; there is also another short straight-sided blade of jade bound in a wooden haft, which is notched along one side to receive the fingers, and recessed on the face for the thumb. This latter seems well adapted for use as a knife or chisel; in fact, Sir John Lubbock, who has figured the instruments in his “Prehistoric Times,”[1362] terms them both knives. Another example has been engraved by the Rev. J. G. Wood.[1363]

These instruments are said to be used for scraping skins,[1364] for which indeed they seem well suited, if the flat face of the stone be held vertically to the hide that is to be scraped. The handles, however, are better adapted for pushing the scrapers forward on a flat surface, and judging from the wear upon them they must have been so used. The late Sir Edward Belcher[1365] has described them as Eskimo planes, for the manufacture of bows and other articles of wood, but in this respect he may have been mistaken.

The scrapers in use among the Fuegians[1366] are drawn towards the operator and not pushed. Some North American varieties are mounted after the manner of adzes.[1367] Mr. Otis T. Mason in his Paper “on Aboriginal skin-dressing” has exhaustively treated the subject.

A form of Skin-scraper, straight at the edge, was in use among the Pennacook tribe[1368] of North America, and though some of the Eskimo instruments may have been used as planes, no doubt many were employed in dressing hides. A peculiar form in use among the Gallas[1369] of Southern Shoa has been figured by Giglioli,[1370] who has also recorded the fact that flat scrapers of stone are still in use in Italy and France for dressing hides.

Whether the instruments were used vertically as scrapers, or horizontally as planes, the term “scrapers” seems almost equally |300| applicable to them; and there appears no valid reason why, for the sake of convenience, the same term should not be extended to their ancient analogues, especially as their edges, as will subsequently be seen, are in many cases worn away in a manner indicative of their having been used for scraping.

* * * * *

The names of “thumb-flints” and “finger-flints” which have sometimes been applied to the shorter and longer varieties of these instruments, though colloquially convenient, appear to me not sufficiently definite in meaning to be worthy of being retained.

Scrapers may be classified and described—firstly, in accordance with the character of the flakes from which they have been made; and, secondly, in accordance with the outline of the portion of the margin which has been chipped into form, and the general contour of the implement.

Their outline is in some cases horseshoe-shaped or kite-shaped, in others it is discoidal or nearly circular, and in others again it may be compared with that of a duck’s bill or of an oyster-shell. To these may be added side-scrapers, or such as are broader than they are long, and the hollow scrapers with a rounded notch in them instead of a semicircular end.

When the flakes have been chipped into the scraper form at both ends they may be termed double-ended scrapers—to which class circular scrapers also belong; where a sort of handle has been worked they may be termed spoon-shaped, and where the butt has been chipped to a sharp chisel-edge, at right angles to the flat face, they have been called tanged scrapers.

In speaking of the sides as right or left, I do it with reference to the flat face of the scraper, as shown in the first of the three views of Fig. 204.

It will be well to pass some of the forms in review before entering into any more general considerations.

The figures are all of full size, Fig. 204, from Weaverthorpe, on the Yorkshire Wolds, is a good example of a symmetrical horseshoe-shaped scraper. It is made from a broad flat flake, of rather pink |301| flint, with the point chipped to a neat semicircular bevelled edge, and one of the sides trimmed so as to correspond with the other. The bulb of percussion visible on the flat face and side views has been slightly splintered by the blow. It gives a graceful ogee curve to the face longitudinally, which brings forward the scraping or cutting edge at the end. In the centre this is slightly rounded and worn away by use.

I have other specimens almost identical in form from other parts of the Yorkshire Wolds, from Suffolk, Sussex, and Dorsetshire. They are abundantly found of smaller dimensions, and occasionally of larger, sometimes as much as 2 1∕2 inches in diameter.

Fig. 205 shows another horseshoe-shaped scraper, which has become white and grey by exposure. I picked it up on the Downs near Berling Gap, on the Sussex coast, a few miles west of Eastbourne; a district so prolific, that I have there found as many as twenty of these instruments, of various degrees of perfection, within an hour. In this case the scraper has been made from a broad ridged flake, and it will be observed that not only the end but one of the sides has been carefully trimmed, while the other has been left untouched, and has, moreover, a flat facet on it, as shown in the side view. It would appear from this that probably the side as well as the end was used for scraping purposes, that whoever used it was right-handed and not left-handed, and, moreover, that it is doubtful whether the implement was ever inserted in a handle, at all events at the butt-end. I have a nearly similar specimen, but trimmed at the end only, which I found in the vallum of the camp of Poundbury, near Dorchester, Dorset. I have smaller instruments of the same form which I have found on the surface of the ground at Abbot’s Langley, Herts; at Oundle, Northamptonshire; and in the ancient encampment of Maiden Bower, near Dunstable. Large scrapers are abundant in some parts of Suffolk.

The form is of common occurrence in Yorkshire, in all sizes from 2 1∕2 inches to one inch in length. To show the great range in size, and |302| the variations in the relative thickness of the instruments, I have engraved, in Fig. 206, a small specimen from the Yorkshire Wolds.

When the chipping to an edge is continued beyond a semicircle, in the case of scrapers made from broad short flakes, an almost circular instrument is the result. These discoidal scrapers are of extremely common occurrence on the Yorkshire Wolds. Fig. 207 shows a specimen from Helperthorpe.

They are not unfrequently formed from external flakes or splinters, and are sometimes made from fragments broken from long flakes, inasmuch as there is no bulb of percussion on the flat face. In rare cases the flat face is the result of a natural fracture, and, more rarely still, it is the external face of a flint nodule.

When the instrument is broader than it is long, it has been termed a side scraper. One in what is now white flint, made from a portion of a flake, and showing no bulb on the flat face, is engraved in Fig. 208. It was found at Weaverthorpe. Occasionally the arc is flatter and longer in proportion to the height than in this instance.

Fig. 209 may be called a long horseshoe-shaped scraper. It has been made from a thick flat flake, which there had evidently been |303| some difficulty in shaping, as at least two blows had failed of their desired effect before the flake was finally dislodged. The back of the scraper is disfigured by the marks of the abortive flakes produced by these two blows. The end, and part of the right side are neatly trimmed into form. This specimen also I found on the Sussex Downs, near Berling Gap.

The implements of this form are often neatly chipped along both sides as well as at the end. An example of the kind is given in Fig. 210, the original of which is in milky chalcedonic flint, and was found on the Yorkshire Wolds.

Fig. 211 shows another specimen from the Yorkshire Wolds. It is |304| made from a flat flake, considerably curved longitudinally, and trimmed at the end as well as along a small portion of the left side. Some are more oval in form, and have been chipped along the sides, and somewhat rounded at the butt. In several instances the chipped edge at the butt-end is slightly worn away by friction, the edge of the rounded end being unworn.

Fig. 212 gives a kite-shaped scraper from Yorkshire, also made from a flat flake, but showing a considerable extent of the original crust of the flint of which it was made. It comes almost to a point at the butt-end, and both edges are somewhat chipped away as if the instrument had at that end been used as a boring tool. The point is somewhat rounded by friction. Occasionally, scrapers of this form are chipped on both faces at the pointed base, so as to make them closely resemble arrow-heads. It seems possible that this pointing was for the purpose of hafting the tool more readily in wood.

Fig. 213 shows one of what may be termed the duck-bill scrapers. It is made from a flat flake as usual, somewhat curved, and showing all along one side the original crust of the flint. It is neatly worked to a semicircular edge at the end, but the sides are left entirely untouched. I found it on the Sussex Downs, near Cuckmare Haven.

A smaller analogous instrument, from the Yorkshire Wolds, is shown in Fig. 214. It is made from an external flake, struck from a nodule of flint of small diameter. The end alone is trimmed. Scrapers made from such external flakes and splinters of flint are by no means uncommon. I have one which appears to have been made |305| from a splinter of a hammer-stone—a portion of the surface being bruised all over.

In Fig. 215 is shown another duck-bill scraper, with parallel sides, found by myself on the Sussex Downs, near Berling Gap. It is a thick instrument, with both sides and end trimmed into form, the flake from which it is made having in all probability been originally much broader, and more circular. The bulb of percussion is not in the middle of the butt, but within three-eighths of an inch of the left side.

Another form of these instruments is not unlike the flat valve of an oyster shell, being usually somewhat unsymmetrical either to the right or to the left. A specimen of this class from the Downs, near Berling Gap, is shown in Fig. 216. The end is neatly chipped to an almost elliptical sweep, but the sides in this instance are left untrimmed; the right side shown in the side view being flat and almost square with the face. In some instances the trimming of the sides extends all the way round to the butt.

Occasionally, though rarely, one of the sides, either right or left, is trimmed in such a manner that its more or less straight edge meets the curved edge of the end at an angle, so as to form an obtuse point. An example of this kind is shown in Fig. 217, from the Downs, near Berling Gap. This instrument is made from an external splinter of flint, the edge at the end and front of one side alone being carefully chipped into shape. It approaches in form to the grattoir-bec[1371] of French antiquaries.

In most scrapers the bulb of percussion of the flake from which they have been made is, as has already been said, at the opposite end to that which has been trimmed to form the curved edge; but this is by no means universally the case, for sometimes the bulb is at the side of the scraper, and sometimes, though more rarely, it has been at the end which has been worked to the scraper edge.

It seems needless to engrave examples of these varieties, which are |306| only indicative of the manufacturers of the implements having made use of that part of the piece of flint which seemed best adapted to be chipped into the form they required. For the same reason we find scrapers of an endless variety of forms, some of them exceedingly irregular, as any one who has examined a series from the Yorkshire Wolds will know. I have not, however, thought it necessary to give |307| representations of all these minor varieties, as even more than enough are engraved to show the general character of the instruments. It is perhaps worth mentioning, that the flakes selected for conversion into scrapers are usually such as expand in width at the point. It is doubtful whether the long narrow flakes worked to a scraper-like termination at one or both ends properly come under the category of scrapers. I shall consequently treat of them under the head of wrought flakes.

I must now pass on to the consideration of the forms showing a greater extent of trimming at the edge than those hitherto described. Of these the double-ended scrapers, or those presenting a semicircular edge at either end, first demand notice. They are of by no means common occurrence. Those I have seen have been for the most part found in Yorkshire and Suffolk. Fig. 218 exhibits a specimen from Bridlington. As is not unfrequently the case, it is rather thinner at the end nearest to what was the butt-end of the flake. The sides are left almost untrimmed, but each end is worked to a nearly semicircular curve. In the Greenwell Collection is a specimen from one of the barrows at Rudstone; as well as a large one from Lakenheath, and others from Suffolk. Occasionally the length and breadth are so nearly the same, that the scraper assumes the form of a disc, with sharp edges—a kind of plano-convex lens. A specimen of this form from Bridlington is shown in Fig. 219. It is, however, exceptionally regular in form. I have another smaller specimen, not quite so circular or so well chipped, which I found on the Downs between Newhaven and Brighton, and I have others from Suffolk. Such a form was probably not intended for insertion in a haft.

Sometimes, where the scraper has been made from a flat flake, the trimmed edge curves slightly inwards at one part, so as to produce a sort of ear-shaped form. I have such, both with the inward curve on the left side, as shown in Fig. 220, and also with it on the right side.

A deeply-notched tool, to which the name of hollow scraper has been applied, will be subsequently mentioned.[1372] |308|

There are some scrapers which at the butt-end of the flake are chipped into what has the appearance of being a kind of handle, somewhat like that of a short spoon. That engraved in Fig. 221 is from the Yorkshire Wolds, and is in the collection of Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield. It is chipped from both faces to an edge at each side in the handle-like part. I have an implement of the same character, found at Sewerby, the handle of which is slighter but less symmetrical. I have from the same district another large discoidal scraper, 1 3∕4 inches in diameter, and chipped all round, with a rounded projection, about 3∕4 of an inch wide, left at the thicker end of the flake.

The Greenwell Collection contains specimens of the same character as Fig. 221, found near Rudstone.

A nearly similar implement, in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, has been engraved by Sir W. Wilde.[1373]

Some of the large Danish scrapers are provided with a sort of handle, and have been termed by Worsaae[1374] “skee-formet,” or spoon-shaped.

It will be well now to refer to some of the published notices of the discovery of these implements, which seem to have met with little attention from antiquaries until within the last forty years. There is, however, in the British Museum a fine horseshoe-shaped scraper, which was found long ago by the late Dr. Mantell, in company with broken urns and ashes, in a barrow on Windore Hill, near Alfriston. In the same collection are four or five others of various sizes from barrows on Lambourn Downs, Berks, as well as those from the Greenwell Collection. Sir R. Colt Hoare has recorded the discovery of what appear to be two discoidal scrapers, with a flint spear-head or dagger, a small hone or whetstone, and a cone and ring of jet, like a pulley, accompanying an interment, near Durrington Walls.[1375] He terms them little buttons of chalk or marl; but from the engraving it would seem that they were scrapers—probably of flint, much weathered, or altered in structure. It seems likely that many more may have escaped his notice, as they are of common occurrence in the tumuli in Wiltshire, as well as in the other parts of Britain. They are also recorded |309| from Morgan’s Hill[1376] and Winterbourn Stoke. The late Dean Merewether[1377] found several in barrows on Avebury Down, together with numerous flint flakes.

Some were found with burnt bodies in barrows at Cockmarsh,[1378] Berks, and others in a barrow at Great Shefford.[1379]

They occurred in barrows at Seaford,[1380] Sussex, and Lichfield,[1381] Hants, as well as in Devonshire[1382] barrows.

Ten or twelve were also found by Dr. Thurnam in the chambered Long Barrow, at West Kennet,[1383] with about three hundred flint flakes. There was no trace of metal, nor of cremation in this barrow.

A neat scraper was found in a hut-circle on Carn Brê,[1384] Cornwall.

In the Yorkshire barrows they abound in company both with burnt and unburnt bodies,[1385] without any metal being present. Canon Greenwell has in some cases found them with the edge worn smooth by use.

Mr. Bateman found many in Derbyshire barrows, as, for instance, at the head of a contracted skeleton on Cronkstone Hill,[1386] and with another contracted skeleton with two sets of Kimmeridge coal beads, at Cow Low, Buxton,[1387] and with four skeletons in a cist, in a barrow near Monsal Dale.[1388]

They not unfrequently occur with interments in association with bronze weapons. In a barrow on Parwich Moor, Staffordshire,[1389] called Shuttlestone, Mr. Bateman found a skeleton, with a bronze dagger at the left arm, and a plain flat bronze celt at the left thigh, and close to the head a jet bead and a “circular flint.” As before stated, the late Mr. J. W. Flower, obtained three, and a bronze dagger, from the same barrow as the saw engraved at p. 266. They were also found with bronze in barrows in Rushmore Park.[1390]

They are frequently to be seen on the surface of the ground. One such, found by the late Mr. C. Wykeham Martin, F.S.A., at Leeds Castle, Kent,[1391] has been figured. Others from the neighbourhood of Hastings,[1392] the Isle of Thanet,[1393] and Bradford Abbas, Dorset,[1394] have also been engraved. Many of those from Bradford are said to have a notch on the left side, but I am doubtful whether it is intentional. Gen. Pitt Rivers has found them at Callow Hill, Oxon,[1395] and at Rotherley. They are also recorded from Holyhead Island,[1396] Anglesea,[1397] |310| Tunbridge,[1398] Milton,[1399] and West Wickham,[1400] Kent; Stoke Newington,[1401] Middlesex; and Walton-on-the-Naze,[1402] Essex.

I have found them in considerable numbers in and near ancient encampments. At Maiden Bower, near Dunstable, a party of three or four have on more than one occasion picked up upwards of forty specimens. I have examples from Hod Hill, Badbury Rings, and Poundbury Camp, Dorsetshire; from Little Solsbury Hill, Bath; Pulpit Wood, near Wendover, Bucks, and several localities in Suffolk, Cambs, and other counties. Some are very thick, though quite symmetrical in outline. On the Yorkshire Wolds, the Sussex Downs,[1403] and in parts of Wilts and Suffolk, they are extremely numerous; but in any chalk country where flint is abundant, this form of implement can be found. In other districts, into which flint has to be imported, they are of course more scarce. They seem, however, to occur in greater or less abundance over the whole of England.

They are very numerous in Scotland, and extensive collections of them from Elgin, Wigtown, and other counties are to be seen in the National Museum at Edinburgh.

Specimens from a crannog in Ayrshire,[1404] Urquhart, Elgin,[1405] and Gullane Links,[1406] Haddingtonshire, have been published.

They are found of nearly similar forms in Ireland, but are there rarer than in England, though fairly numerous in Antrim.[1407]

In France the same form of instrument occurs, and I have a number of specimens from different parts of Belgium.

A spoon-shaped scraper from Neverstorff,[1408] Schleswig Holstein, is figured. They are likewise found in South Russia.[1409]

In Denmark scrapers of various forms are found, and are not uncommon in the kjökken-möddings and coast-finds. Sir John Lubbock[1410] records having picked up as many as thirty-nine scrapers at a spot on the coast of Jutland, near Aarhuus.

In the Swiss Lake-dwellings they occasionally occur. I have a fine, almost kite-shaped, specimen from Auvernier, given me by Professor Desor, and others from Nussdorf. Some are engraved by Keller. They are also found in Italy. I have a small specimen from the Isle of Elba.

I possess specimens formed of obsidian, from Mexico; and instruments of jasper, of scraper-like forms, have been found at the Cape of Good Hope.[1411] As already mentioned, they are well known in America. Some are found in Newfoundland.[1412] |311|

Instruments of the same character date back to very remote times, as numbers have been found in the cave deposits of the Reindeer Period of the South of France, as well as in a few in our English bone caves, as will subsequently be mentioned. A somewhat similar form occurs, though rarely, among the implements found in the ancient River Gravels.

* * * * *

Besides being used for scraping hides, and preparing leather, it has been suggested, by Canon Greenwell,[1413] that they might have served for making pins and other small articles of bone, and also for fabricating arrow-heads and knives of flint. As to this latter use I am doubtful, but before entering into the question of the purposes which implements of the “scraper” form were in ancient times intended to serve, it will be well to examine the evidence of wear afforded by the implements themselves. This evidence is various in its character, and seems to prove that the implements were employed in more than one kind of work.

Among some hundreds of scrapers, principally from the Yorkshire Wolds, I have met with between twenty and thirty which show decided marks of being worn away along the circular edge, by friction. In some, the edge is only worn away sufficiently to remove all keenness or asperity, and to make it feel smooth to the touch, and this perhaps along one part only of the arc. In others, the whole edge is completely rounded, and many of the small facets by which it was originally surrounded, entirely effaced. The small striæ, resulting from the friction which has rounded the edge, are at right angles to the flat face of the implement, and the whole edge presents the appearance of having been worn away by scraping some comparatively soft substance—such, for instance, as leather. When we consider what an important part the skins of animals play in the daily life of most savage tribes, and especially of those exposed to a cold climate; and when we remember the amount of preparation, in the way of dressing and scraping, the hides require before they can be available for the purposes of clothing, or even tent making, it becomes evident that some instruments must have been in use by the ancient occupants of the country for the purpose of dressing skins; and the probability of these scrapers having been devoted to this purpose is strengthened by their being worn in just such a manner as they would have been, had they been in use for scraping some greasy dressing off not over-clean leather. The scrapers thus worn away are for the most part of the horseshoe form. There are some, |312| however, which have the edge worn away, not at the circular end but along the edge towards the butt. In this case also they appear to have been employed for scraping, but the evidence as to the character of the substance scraped is not so distinct. It is, however, probable that in the fashioning of perforated axes and other implements, made of greenstone and other rocks not purely silicious, some scraping as well as grinding tools may have been employed, and possibly the wear of the edge of some of these tools may be due to such a cause. Even among the cave-dwellers of the Dordogne we find scrapers bearing similar marks of attrition, and we also know that flint flakes were used for scraping the hard hæmatitic iron ore, to produce the red pigment—the paint with which the men of those times seem to have adorned themselves.[1414]

It will of course be urged that it is, after all, only a small proportion of these implements which bear these unmistakeable marks of wear upon them. It must, however, be remembered, that to produce much abrasion of the edge of an instrument made of so hard a material as flint, an enormous amount of wear against so soft a substance as hide would be necessary. It is indeed possible that the edge would remain for years comparatively unworn were the substance to be scraped perfectly free from grit and dirt. If we find identically the same forms of instruments, both worn and unworn, there is a fair presumption that both were intended for the same purpose, though the one, from accidental causes, has escaped the wear and tear visible on the other.

There are, however, circumstances which in this case point to an almost similar form having served two totally distinct purposes; for besides those showing the marks of use already described, we find some of these instruments with the edge battered and bruised to such an extent that it can hardly have been the result of scraping in the ordinary sense of the word.

To account for such a character of wear, there seems no need of going so far afield as among the Eskimos, or any other semi-civilized or savage people, to seek for analogies on which to base a conclusion—how far satisfactory it must be left to others to judge. Among the primary necessities of man (who has been defined as a cooking animal) is that of fire. It is no doubt a question difficult of solution whether our primitive predecessors were acquainted with any more ready means of producing it than |313| by friction of two pieces of wood, especially at a time when there is reason to suppose they were unacquainted with the existence of iron as a metal. I have, however, already mentioned[1415] that for the purpose of producing sparks, pyrites is as effective as iron, and was indeed in use among the Romans. Now the lower beds of our English chalk are prolific of pyrites, though not to the same extent as the upper beds are of flint; and it is not impossible that the use of a hammer-stone of pyrites, in order to form some instrument of flint, gave rise to the discovery of that method of producing fire, the invention of which the old myth attributed to Pyrodes, the son of Cilix. When exposed upon or near the surface of the ground, pyrites is very liable to decomposition, and even if occurring with ancient interments it would be very likely to be disregarded. This may account for the paucity of the notices of its discovery. Some, however, exist, and I have already mentioned[1416] instances where nodules of pyrites have been discovered on the Continent in association with worked flints, both of Neolithic and Palæolithic age.

There are also instances of its occurrence in British barrows. That careful observer, the late Mr. Thomas Bateman, found, in the year 1844, in a barrow on Elton Moor,[1417] near the head of a skeleton, “a piece of spherical iron pyrites, now for the first time noticed as being occasionally found with other relics in the British tumuli. Subsequent discoveries,” he says, “have proved that it was prized by the Britons, and not unfrequently deposited in the grave, along with the weapons and ornaments which formed the most valued part of their store.” With the same skeleton, in a “drinking-cup,” with a small celt and other objects of flint, was a flat piece of polished iron ore, and twenty-one “circular instruments.” In another barrow, Green Low,[1418] Mr. Bateman discovered a contracted skeleton, having behind the shoulders a drinking-cup, a splendid flint dagger, a piece of spherical pyrites or iron ore, and a flint instrument of the circular-headed form. Lower down were barbed flint arrow-heads and some bone instruments. In Dowe Low,[1419] a skeleton was accompanied by a bronze dagger and an “amulet or ornament of iron ore,” together with a large flint implement that had seen a good deal of service. A broken nodule of pyrites showing signs of friction was found with a bronze dagger in a |314| barrow at Angrowse[1420] Mullion, Cornwall. In a barrow at Brigmilston,[1421] between Everley and Amesbury, Sir R. Colt Hoare found, with an urn containing ashes, “the fragment of a bone article like a whetstone, some chipped flints prepared for arrow-heads, a long piece of flint and a pyrites, both evidently smoothed by usage.”

A piece of iron pyrites with a groove worn in it and a peculiarly shaped implement of flint with evident marks of use at the larger end were found with an interment near Basingstoke Station.[1422] Flint arrow-heads and flakes were also present.

Nodules of pyrites occurred in such numbers in a barrow on Broad Down,[1423] near Honiton, as to suggest the idea of their having been placed there designedly, but none of them are described as abraded.

We have here, at all events, instances of the association of lumps of iron pyrites with circular-ended flint instruments in ancient interments. Can they have been in use together for producing fire? In order to judge of this our best guide will probably be, so far at all events as the flints are concerned, those in use for the same purpose in later times, and even at the present day.

In the Abbé Hamard’s researches at Hermes[1424] (Oise), two flint scrapers mounted in wooden handles round which were iron ferrules are said to have been discovered in Merovingian graves.

The Abbé Cochet[1425] describes some of the flints found with Merovingian interments as resembling gun-flints; one of these was apparently carried at the waist, in a purse with money and other necessaries. A steel and a small piece of flint were found in a Saxon grave at High Down, Ferring,[1426] Sussex. A similar practice of carrying in the pocket a piece of flint and some prepared tinder prevails in some parts of Europe to the present day; and, as I have before remarked, flints for this purpose are articles of sale. Fig. 222 shows one of these modern “strike-a-lights” which I purchased some years ago at Pontlevoy, in France. It is made of a segment of a flake, one edge and the sides of which have been trimmed to a scraper-like edge, and the other merely made straight. The resemblance between this and |315| some of the ancient “scrapers” is manifest. Another strike-a-light flint, which I bought at a stall in Trier, is about 2 inches long by 1 3∕8 inches broad, and is made from a flat flake, trimmed to a nearly square edge at the butt-end, and to a very flat arc at the point, both the trimmed edges being of precisely the same character as those of scrapers. I find, moreover, that by working such a flint and a steel or briquet together, much the same bruising of the edge is produced as that apparent on some of the old “scrapers.” I come, therefore, to the conclusion, that a certain proportion of these instruments were in use, not for scraping hides like the others, but for scraping iron pyrites, and not improbably, in later days, even iron or steel for procuring fire. Were they used for such a purpose we can readily understand why they should so often present a bruising of the edge and an irregularity of form. We can also find a means of accounting for their great abundance.

Looking at the question from a slightly different point of view, this method of solution receives additional support. Everyone will, I think, readily concede that, putting for the moment pyrites out of the question, the inhabitants of this country must have been acquainted with the method of producing fire by means of flint and steel or iron, at all events so long ago as when their intercourse with the Romans commenced, if not at an even earlier period. We may, in any case, assume that flints have been in use as fire-producing agents for something like 2,000 years, and that consequently the number of them that have thus served must be enormous. What has become of them all? They cannot, like some antiquities, be “only now rare because they were always valueless,” for in their nature they are almost indestructible. Many, no doubt, were mere irregular lumps of flint, broken from time to time to produce such an edge as would scrape the steel; but is it not in the highest degree probable that many were of the same class as those sold for the same purpose at the present day—flakes chipped into a more or less scraper-like form at one end?

There is yet another argument. In many instances these circular-ended flints, when found upon the surface, have a comparatively fresh and unweathered appearance; and, what is more, have the chipped parts stained by iron-mould. In some cases there are particles of iron, in an oxidized condition, still adherent. Such iron marks, especially on flint which has weathered white, may, and indeed commonly do, arise from the passage of harrows |316| and other agricultural implements, and of horses shod with iron, over the fields; but did the marks arise merely from this cause, it appears hardly probable that in any instance they should be confined to the chipped edge, and not occur on other parts of the flint.

I had written most of the foregoing remarks when, in November, 1870, an interesting discovery, made by Canon Greenwell, F.R.S., in his exploration of a barrow[1427] at Rudstone, near Bridlington, in Yorkshire, came to corroborate my views. I have already described a whetstone found with one of the interments in this barrow, and mentioned that between the knees and the head were found, with other objects, the half of a nodule of iron pyrites, and a long round-ended flake of flint which lay underneath it. They are both represented full size in accompanying figure (Fig. 223). A portion of the outside of the pyrites has been ground smooth, and a projecting knob has been worked down, so as to bring it to an approximately hemispherical shape, and adapt it for being comfortably held in the hand. The fractured surface, where the nodule was broken in two, is somewhat oval, and in the centre, in the direction of the longer diameter, is worn a wide shallow groove, of just the same character as would have been produced by constant sharp scraping blows from a round-ended flake or scraper, such as that which was found with it. The whole surface is somewhat worn and striated, in the same direction as the principal central groove; and the edge of the flat face of the pyrites is more worn away at the top and bottom of the groove than at the other parts.

The scraper is made from a narrow thick external flake, the end of which has been trimmed to a semicircular bevelled edge—a |317| portion of one side has also been trimmed. At the end, and along some parts of the sides, this edge is worn quite smooth, and rounded by friction, and there are traces of similar wear at the butt-end. In a second grave in the same barrow there lay, behind the back, two jet buttons and a similar pyrites and flint. There can, I think, be no reasonable doubt of their having been, in these instances, fire-producing implements, used in the manner indicated in the annexed figure. The finding of the two materials together, in two separate instances, in both of which the pyrites and the flint presented the same forms and appearance, establishes the fact of their connection; and it is hard to imagine any other purpose for which pyrites could be scraped by flint except that of producing fire. Moreover, in another barrow on Crosby Garrett Fell,[1428] Westmoreland, Canon Greenwell found a piece of iron ore (oxidized pyrites) held in the hand of a skeleton, and a long thick flake of flint, evidently a “flint and steel.”

It cannot have been merely for the purpose of producing a paint or colour that they were brought together, as though the outer crust of a nodule of pyrites might, if ground, give a dull red pigment, yet the inner freshly-broken face would not do so; and, if it would, the colour would be more readily procured by grinding on a flat stone than by scraping. It would be interesting to compare these objects with the pyrites and pebbles in use among the Fuegians[1429], who employ dried moss or fungus by way of tinder, but appear to find some difficulty in producing fire. The Eskimos[1430] and some North American tribes also obtain fire from pyrites.

Sir Wollaston Franks has called my attention to another half |318| nodule of pyrites preserved in the British Museum, which is somewhat abraded in the middle of its flat face, though not so much so as that from Yorkshire. It was discovered with flint flakes in a barrow on Lambourn Down,[1431] Berkshire, by Mr. E. Martin Atkins, in 1850. In a barrow at Flowerburn,[1432] Ross-shire, in 1885, a similar half nodule and a flint scraper were found, and a discovery of the same kind was made by Lord Northesk, at Teindside,[1433] near Minto, Roxburghshire, about 1870. A fine piece of pyrites in company with worked flints was found in 1881, in a ruined dolmen, in the Ile d’Arz,[1434] Brittany, by the Abbé Luco. A well striated block of pyrites was also found with numerous objects formed of flint and other kinds of stone, on the Rocher de Beg-er-Goallenner, Quiberon, by M. F. Gaillard.[1435]

A nodule of pyrites, with a deep scoring upon it, and found in one of the Belgian bone caves, the Trou de Chaleux, has been engraved by Dr. E. Dupont,[1436] who regards it as having been used as a fire-producing agent. The flint that produced the scoring appears to have had a pointed, rather than a rounded end. Possibly the wearing away of the ends of certain flakes, for which it has been difficult to account, may be due to their having been used in this manner for striking a light.

There are yet some other long flakes which are trimmed to a scraper-like edge at one or both ends; but in these cases the trimming appears to have been rather for the purpose of enabling the flake to be conveniently held in the hand, so as to make use of its cutting edge, than with the intention of converting the trimmed end into a scraping or cutting tool. The ends of some of the hafted knives or saws found in the Swiss Lake-dwellings are thus trimmed.

On the whole, we may conclude, with some appearance of probability, that a certain proportion of these instruments, and more especially those of regular shape, and those of large size, were destined to be used as scrapers in the process of dressing hides and for other purposes; that others again, and chiefly those of moderate size with bruised and battered edges, were used at one period with iron pyrites, and at a subsequent date with iron or steel, for the |319| production of fire; and lastly that others have had their ends trimmed into shape, so as to render them symmetrical in form, or to enable them to be conveniently handled or hafted.

* * * * *

There are still one or two other forms to which, from the character of their edge, the designation of scraper may be given. The instrument from the Yorkshire Wolds, shown in Fig. 225, may, for instance, be called a straight scraper. It is made from a broad flat flake, with a well-developed bulb of percussion on the face, and the counterpart of another at the back, so that the section at the base is much curved. The point of the flake and its left side have been chipped away, so that they are nearly straight, and form between them an angle of about 60°. The edge is sharper, and the form, I think, more regular than if it had been used in conjunction with pyrites or steel, and I am therefore inclined to regard it as a tool. The late Mr. Charles Monkman, who gave me this specimen, also gave me another, more crescent-shaped in form, the base being roughly chipped to a regular sweep. I have another larger flint, similar to Fig. 225, found by the late Mr. Whitbourn, F.S.A., in the neighbourhood of Godalming. Before pronouncing definitely as to the degree of antiquity to be assigned to such instruments, it will be well to have authenticated instances of their discovery in association with other remains, and not merely on the surface. In character, however, they much resemble other flint instruments of undoubtedly high antiquity, though they present the peculiarity of having the edge at right angles to the axis of the flake from which they are made, instead of being parallel to it.

A singular flint instrument of a rudely heart-shaped form, with one straight serrated edge, is figured with other tools, &c., from the Culbin Sands.[1437]

To another of these forms, of which a not very first-rate example is given in Fig. 226, the designation of hollow scraper may be applied, the scraping edge being concave, instead of as usual, convex. This specimen also is from the Yorkshire Wolds. I have, however, found analogous instruments on the Sussex Downs, the hollowed edges of which appear to have been used for scraping some cylindrical objects. In |320| Ireland this form not unfrequently occurs. I have several specimens with the hollow as regular in its sweep as any of the scrapers of the ordinary form, and I have thought it advisable to figure a typical example as Fig. 226A. They seem well adapted for scraping into regular shape the stems of arrows or the shafts of spears, or for fashioning bone pins. Among modern artificers in wood, bone, ivory, or metal, scraping tools play a far more important part than would at first sight appear probable, looking at the abundance and perfection of our cutting tools and files. The latter, indeed, are merely compound forms of “scrapers.”

A less symmetrical hollow scraper from the Culbin Sands[1438] has been engraved; as has been another which Dr. Joseph Anderson[1439] used in the production of an arrow-shaft, and which he found to be a very efficient tool. Some writers have regarded these hollow-edged scrapers as saws[1440], but I think erroneously.

Implements of the same character have been found in Egypt[1441], and in France, and probably exist in other countries.

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