XIV. BORERS, AWLS, OR DRILLS…

XIV. BORERS, AWLS, OR DRILLS

Another of the purposes to which flint flakes were applied appears to have been that of boring holes in various materials. Portions of stags’ horns, destined to serve either as hammers, or as sockets for hatchets of stone, had either to be perforated or to have recesses bored in them; and holes in wood were, no doubt, requisite for many purposes, though in this country we have but few wooden relics dating back to the time when flint was the principal if not the only material for boring-tools. To form some idea of the character of the objects in the preparation of which such tools were necessary, we cannot do better than refer to the vivid picture of ancient life placed before us by the discoveries in the Swiss Lake-dwellings. Besides perforated stone axes and hammers, such as have been already described in these pages, we find stag’s horn and wooden hafts or helves, with holes and sockets bored in them, plates of stone, teeth of animals, bone and stag’s horn instruments, and wooden knife handles pierced for suspension, and portions of bark perforated, so as to serve like corks for floating fishing-nets.

Even in the caverns of the Reindeer Period of the South of France we find the reindeer horns with holes bored through them in regular rows, and delicate needles of hard bone with exquisitely formed eyes drilled through them—one of which has also been found in Kent’s Cavern—as well as teeth, shells and fossils perforated for suspension as ornaments or amulets. So beautifully are the eyes in these ancient needles formed, that I was at one time much inclined to doubt the possibility of their having been drilled by means of flint flakes; but the late Mons. E. Lartet demonstrated the feasibility of this process, by himself drilling the eye of a similar needle with a flint borer, found in one of the French caves. I have myself bored perfectly round and smooth holes through both stag’s horn and wood with flint flakes, and when a |322| little water is used to facilitate the operation, it is almost surprising to find how quickly it proceeds, and how little the edge of the flint suffers when once its thinnest part has been worn or chipped away, so as to leave a sufficient thickness of flint to stand the strain without being broken off.

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The most common form of boring tool, to which by some writers the name of awl or drill[1442] has been given, is that shown in Fig. 227, from the Yorkshire Wolds. It is formed from a flat splinter of flint, and shows the natural crust of the stone at the broad end. At the other, each edge has been chipped away from the flat face, so as to reduce it by a rapid curve on each side to a somewhat tapering blade, with a sharp point. The section of this portion of the blade is almost of the form of half a hexagon when divided by a line joining opposite angles. A borer of this kind makes a very true hole, as whether turned round continuously or alternately in each direction, it acts as a half-round broach or rimer, enlarging the mouth of the hole all the time it is being deepened by the drilling of the point. The broad base of the flake serves as a handle by which to turn the tool. Several boring instruments of this form were found in the pits at Grime’s Graves,[1443] already so often mentioned.

A borer of this kind has been experimentally[1444] tried and found efficient for drilling a hole in jet.

Borers of the same character occur in Ireland[1445] and in Scotland,[1446] where natural crystals[1447] of quartz seem also occasionally to have been used as drills. I have also seen several found near Pontlevoy, France, in the collection of the Abbé Bourgeois.

Similar boring instruments of flint have been found in Denmark, in company with scrapers and other tools. Two of them have been engraved by Mr. C. F. Herbst.[1448]

They are common in some parts of North America, and finely chipped tools of the kind occur in Patagonia.[1449] They are also found in Natal[1450] and in Japan.

Sometimes the borer consists of merely a long narrow pointed flake, which has had the point trimmed to a scraping edge on either side. A specimen of the kind, found near Bridlington, is shown in Fig. 228. The point, for about a |323| sixteenth of an inch in width, has been ground to a nearly square edge, so that it acts like a drill. Such a form was probably attached to a wooden handle for use, but I doubt whether any mechanical means were used for giving it a rotary motion as a drill, and regard these borers rather as hand-tools to be used much in the same way as a broach or rimer.

Some implements from the lake settlement at Meilen, regarded by Dr. Keller[1451] as awls or piercers, are perforated at one end, and appear to be ground over their whole surface.

Occasionally some projecting spur at the side of the flake has been utilized to form the borer, as is the case in Fig. 229, also from the Yorkshire Wolds. In this instance, the two curved sweeps, by which the boring part of the tool is formed, have been chipped from the opposite faces of the flake, so that the cutting edges are at opposite angles of the blade, which is of rhomboidal section. This is the case with some of the Scottish specimens,[1452] which closely resemble Fig. 229. Such a tool seems best adapted for boring by being turned in the hole continuously in one direction. In some instances the projecting spur is so short that it can have produced but a very shallow cavity in the object to be bored.

The tools, of which a specimen is shown in Fig. 230, also appear to have been intended for boring. It is, however, possible that after all they may have served some other purpose. That here engraved was found near Bridlington, and is weathered white all over. It is made from a flake, and the edge of the blade on the left in the figure is formed as usual by chipping from the flat face. The other edge is more acute, and has been formed by secondary chipping on both faces. The spur to the left, which may have served as a handle for turning the tool round when in use, has originally been longer, but the end has been lost through an ancient fracture. The edges at the point of the tool are somewhat worn away by friction.

I am uncertain whether the instruments shown in Figs. 231 and 232 |324| can be with propriety classed among boring tools, as it is possible that they may have been intended and used for some totally different purpose, such, for instance, as forming the tips of arrows, for which, from their symmetrical form, they are not ill adapted. Though the points of those, like Fig. 231, are much rounded, it may be that they were mounted like the chisel-edged Egyptian flint arrow-heads, of which hereafter. A number of instruments of this form have been found in Derbyshire and Suffolk, but that here figured came from the Yorkshire Wolds, and has been made from a part of a thin flat flake, one edge of which forms the base opposite to the semicircular point. The side edges, which expand with a sweep to the base, are carefully chipped to a sharp angle with the face of the flake; but in some instances this secondary working extends over a greater or less portion of both faces. Some specimens are also much longer in their proportions. The original edge of the flake, which extends along the base, is usually unworn by use, so that if these objects were boring tools this part may have been protected by being inserted in a notch in a piece of wood, which in such a case would serve as a handle for using the tool after the manner of an auger. A few examples of this kind have been found on the Culbin Sands[1453], Elginshire. The same form has been found in the Camp de Chassey[1454] (Saône et Loire).

Fig. 232 is also from the Yorkshire Wolds. Though more acutely pointed than Fig. 231, it seems to have been intended for much the same purpose, and it has been formed in a similar manner. The secondary working is principally on the convex face of the flake, but owing to an irregularity in the surface of the flat face, a portion of it has been removed by secondary chipping along one edge, so as to bring it as nearly as possible in the same plane as the other. For whatever purpose this instrument may have been designed, its symmetry is remarkable.

I have a somewhat similar instrument from Bridlington, but triangular in form, with the sides curved slightly inwards, and the two most highly wrought edges produced by chipping almost equally on both faces of the flake. Such a form approximates most closely to some of those which there appears reason for regarding as triangular arrow-heads. In America, some forms which might be taken for arrow-heads have been regarded as drills.

There is a series of minute tools of flint to which special attention |325| has been called by Mr. J. Allen Brown, F.G.S., the Rev. Reginald A. Gatty[1455], and Mr. W. J. Lewis Abbott, F.G.S.[1456] Through the kindness of the last, specimens from a kjökken mödding at Hastings are shown in Figs. 232A, 232B, and 232C. They have been made from small flakes and are of various forms, though I have only selected three for illustration. In two of these the end of the flake has been chipped into a straight scraping edge at an acute angle to the body of the flake, so as to form a tool which can be held in the hand and used for scraping a flat surface, perhaps of bone. Whether the chipping of the edge is intentional or the result of wear, or arising partly from both of these causes, is a question of secondary importance. The oblique ends resemble those of the flakes from Kent’s Cavern, Figs. 398–400, and the selci romboidale[1457] of Italian antiquaries. In the other form, one side of a flake has been chipped in a similar manner, so as to form a segment of a circle, or occasionally an obtuse angle; the other side being left intact. This may possibly have been inserted in wood, and the tool thus formed may have been used for scraping or carving. Mr. Abbott disagrees with this view, and thinks that many of the flakes may have been utilized in the formation of fish-hooks. Such tools have been found in Lancashire, far from the sea, and a series from hills in the eastern part of that county has been presented to the British Museum by Dr. Colley March. Owing to their diminutive size they may readily escape observation. Mr. Gatty has found some thousands of these “Pygmy flints” on the surface in the valley of the Don between Sheffield and Doncaster. They no doubt exist in many other districts.

Curiously enough, identical forms have been found in some abundance on the Vindhya Hills[1458] and the Banda district, India; at Helouan,[1459] Egypt, in France, and in the district of the Meuse,[1460] Belgium. Such an identity of form at places geographically so remote does not imply any actual communication between those who made the tools, but merely shows that some of the requirements of daily life, and the means at command for fulfilling them being the same, tools of the same character have been developed, irrespective of time or space.

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XV. TRIMMED FLAKES, KNIVES, ETC

Besides being converted into round-ended scrapers, and pointed boring-tools, flint flakes were trimmed on one or both faces into a variety of forms of cutting, scraping, and piercing tools, and weapons. In one direction these forms pass through daggers and lance-heads, into javelin and arrow heads; and in another through cutting tools, wrought into symmetrical shape, and ground at the edges, into hatchets or celts adapted for use in the hand without being hafted.

The first I shall notice are flakes trimmed into form by secondary working on both edges, but only on the convex face, the flat face being left either almost or quite intact. The illustrations of these forms are no longer full size, but on the scale of one half, linear measure.

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The simplest form of such instruments is when merely the edge of the flake is worked, so as to reduce it to a regular leaf-like shape. A beautiful specimen of this kind is preserved in the Christy Collection, and is shown in Fig. 233. It was probably found in the neighbourhood of Cambridge, having formed part of the collection of the late Mr. Litchfield of that town. It is of grey flint, curved lengthwise, as is usually the case with flint flakes, and worked to a point at each end, though rather more rounded at the butt-end of the flake. Such instruments have sometimes been regarded as poignards, though not improbably they were used for various cutting and scraping purposes.

They rarely occur in Britain of so great a length as this flake, which is 5 1∕2 inches long, but those of shorter proportions are not uncommon.

In Ireland also the long flakes are scarce.

In France they are more abundant, though still rare. Some of those formed from the Pressigny flints were, judging from the cores, as much |327| as 12 inches long, but none have as yet been found of this length. One trimmed on both edges, and 8 1∕4 inches long, was dredged from the bed of the Seine[1461] at Paris, and is now in the Musée d’Artillerie, with another nearly as long found about the same time in the same place. Both appear to be of Pressigny flint. Others have been found in different parts of France.[1462] A beautiful flake, 8 3∕4 inches long, trimmed on its external face, and found near Soissons,[1463] was in the collection of M. Boucher de Perthes. I have one of the same character, 8 1∕2 inches long and 1 3∕8 inches broad in the middle, most symmetrically shaped and perfectly uninjured, which was formerly in the collection of M. Meillet, of Poitiers. It is said to have been found at Savanseau, and in places has a red incrustation upon it, as if it had been embedded in a cave. In the Grotte de St. Jean d’Alcas,[1464] was found a blade of the same kind, together with some lance-heads of flint worked on both faces. Occasionally they are found in the dolmens. The Allée couverte[1465] of Argenteuil furnished one, 7 1∕4 inches long; and one of the dolmens in the Lozère[1466] another, 8 inches in length. One almost 10 inches long and 1 inch broad, found at Neuilly-sur-Eure,[1467] has on the convex face the delicate secondary working, like ripple marks, such as is seen in perfection on some of the Danish and Egyptian blades of flint.

Others have been found in the dolmen at Caranda[1468] (Aisne), du Charnier[1469] (Ardèche), and in the Grotte Duruthy (Landes).[1470]

Curiously enough, the long flakes found in some abundance in Scandinavia are rarely, if ever, worked on the convex face alone, but are either left in their original form, or converted by secondary working on both faces, into some of the more highly finished tools or weapons.

In the Swiss Lake-dwellings flakes trimmed at the edges and ends are of not unfrequent occurrence. Some of these, as already described, have been regarded as saws.

Two long trimmed flakes, from Chevroux, tied to wooden handles, both string and handle partially preserved, are in the Museum at Lausanne.[1471] There is a small pommel at the end of the handle.

A remarkably fine Italian specimen of a ridged flake, 11 inches in length, and carefully trimmed along both edges, is in the British Museum. It is stated to have been found at Telese, near Pæstum.[1472]

Many of these trimmed flakes, as well as in some cases those entirely untrimmed, have been called by antiquaries spear-heads and lance-heads. They have frequently been found with interments in barrows.

Not to mention numerous instances recorded by Mr. Bateman, I may cite a flake found in company with a barbed flint arrow-head at |328| the foot of a contracted skeleton in a barrow[1473] at Monkton Down, Avebury, and a “triangular spear-head of stone curiously serrated at the edges,” found with a flint arrow-head and perforated boar’s tusk, in an urn at the foot of a skeleton, in a barrow on Ridgeway Hill,[1474] Dorsetshire.

Among the flint implements occurring on the surface of the Yorkshire Wolds and elsewhere, flakes trimmed to a greater or less extent along both edges, and over the convex face, are frequently found. The point as well as the base is often neatly rounded, though the former is sometimes chipped to a sharp angle.

There is a considerable difference in the inclination of the edge to the face, it being sometimes at an angle of 60° or upwards, like the edge of some scrapers, at other times acute like a knife-edge.

There is so great a range in the dimensions and proportions of this class of instruments that it is almost impossible to figure all the varieties. I have, therefore, contented myself with the selection of a few examples, and will commence with those having the more obtuse edges.

Fig. 234, from the Yorkshire Wolds, is an external flat flake, weathered white, and trimmed all round the face, showing the natural crust of the flint, to a point in form like a Gothic arch. A part of the edge is bruised, but it is impossible to say for what weapon such an instrument was intended. It can hardly have been for a javelin-head, though from the outline it would seem well adapted for such a weapon; for in that case the edge would not have become bruised. It may possibly be an abnormal form of scraper.

A nearly similar specimen, but narrower in proportion, was found by the late Lord Londesborough[1475] in a barrow near Driffield, and is described as a spear-head.

Another form, usually very thick in proportion to its breadth, and neatly worked over the whole of the convex face, is shown in Fig. 235. This specimen, also from the Yorkshire Wolds, is in the Greenwell Collection, now Dr. Sturge’s. I have seen another from a barrow near Hay, Breconshire; and in the National Museum at Edinburgh is a specimen found near Urquhart, Elgin. In an implement of the same form in my own possession some small irregularities on the flat face have been removed by delicate chipping. I have several examples from Suffolk. There is nothing to guide us in attempting to determine the use of such instruments, but if inserted in handles they would be well adapted for boring holes in wood or other soft substances. The same form occurs in Ireland. In the Greenwell Collection is an Irish specimen ground all along the ridge, and over the whole of the butt-end. A pointed flattish flake (4 1∕2 inches), worked over the whole of the outer face, from Rousay,[1476] Orkney, has been figured. |329|

Another much coarser but somewhat similar form is shown in Fig. 236. The instrument in this case is made from a very thick curved flake, roughly chipped into a boat-like form, and then more carefully trimmed along the edges. It may possibly have been used as a borer, as the edges near the point show some signs of attrition. It is of flint weathered grey, and was found near Bridlington. I have found a similar scaphoid form in Ireland.[1477]

A rather thick external flake, worked over nearly the whole of its convex face and reduced to about half its breadth for about a third of its length from the point, is shown in Fig. 237. The narrower part is nearly semicircular in section. It is difficult to imagine a purpose for this reduction in width; and it hardly seems due to wear. I have, however, another specimen, also from the Yorkshire Wolds, reduced in the same manner along fully three-quarters of its length.

Some of the worked flakes from the Dordogne Caves[1478] show a somewhat similar shoulder, but it seems possible that with them the broader part may have been protected by some sort of handle, as the original edge of the flake is there preserved.

I now come to the instruments with more acute edges, made by dressing the convex face of flint flakes. Of these the form shown in Fig. 238 is allied to that of Fig. 235, but is considerably flatter in section and more distinctly oval in outline. The original was found near Bridlington. A hard particle of the flint has interfered with the regular convexity of the worked face, but in some specimens the form is almost as regular as a slice taken lengthways off a lemon, though in others the outline presents an irregular curve. The flat face is generally more or less curved longitudinally, and the ends are sometimes more pointed than in the specimen engraved. I have an exquisitely chipped and perfectly symmetrical implement of this character (3 inches) from the neighbourhood of Icklingham, Suffolk, in which county the type is not uncommon. The flaking on the convex surface is very even and regular, and produces a slightly corrugated surface, with the low ridges following each other like ripple marks on sand. The edge is minutely and evenly chipped, and is very sharp. The instrument may perhaps be regarded as a sort of knife.

The form is well known in Ireland, but I do not remember to have seen it in foreign collections.

The beautifully wrought blade of flint, shown in Fig. 239, presents |330| a more elongated variety of this form. It was found by Canon Greenwell, with a burnt body, in a barrow at Castle Carrock,[1479] Cumberland. Another blade, curiously similar in workmanship and character, was found by the same explorer in a barrow near Rudstone, Yorkshire, but in this case the body was unburnt. Another, with both ends rounded and the edges more serrated, was found in a barrow at Robin Hood Butts, near Scarborough, and is preserved in the museum of that town. Mounted with it on the same card are arrow-heads—leaf-shaped, lozenge-shaped, and stemmed and barbed. Mr. Carrington[1480] describes a flake flat on one face, and laboriously chipped to a convex shape on the other, as found with burnt bones in a barrow at Musdin, Staffordshire. A similar specimen in Ribden Low accompanied a contracted interment. Mr. Bateman terms them lance-heads. In the Greenwell Collection is a leaf-shaped blade of this kind, flat on one face, found in Burnt Fen. A knife of the same kind (2 inches) was found with an interment at Chollerford,[1481] Northumberland.

The skilful character of the surface chipping on these blades is perhaps better shown in Fig. 240, which is drawn full-size from another specimen, also in Canon Greenwell’s collection, which was found in a cist with the remains of a burnt body, on Ford Common, Northumberland.[1482] |331|

Canon Greenwell found other knives in barrows at Sherburn[1483] and Etton,[1484] Yorkshire. The latter is beautifully serrated and I am enabled to reproduce his figure of it as Fig. 240A.[1485] He found another of the same character in a barrow at Bishop’s Burton,[1486] Yorkshire. Knives not serrated have been found at Carn Brê,[1487] Cornwall; Chagford,[1488] Devon; and Grovehurst[1489] near Milton, Kent.

A serrated knife was found in a barrow at Dalmore,[1490] Alness, Ross-shire, and another, less distinctly serrated, at Tarland,[1491] Aberdeenshire. In some instruments, evidently belonging to the same class, the secondary flaking does not extend over the whole of the convex surface of the blade, but some of the facets of the original flake are still visible, or if it has been an external flake, some portion of the original crust of the flint remains. This is the case with the blade engraved in Fig. 241, which was found by Canon Greenwell in a barrow near Weaverthorpe,[1492] Yorkshire. In another barrow at Rudstone, Yorkshire, also opened by him, was a rather smaller but similar instrument, very neatly formed, and somewhat serrated at the edge. It lay at the feet of a skeleton. General Pitt Rivers found one nearly similar in a pit in the Isle of Thanet.[1493]

Knives of much the same form, but more rudely chipped, from Udny, Aberdeenshire, and Urquhart, Elgin, are in the National Museum at Edinburgh. They have also been found on the Culbin Sands, Elginshire.[1494]

Some of these blades are left blunt at the butt-end of the flake, or else not so carefully worked round at that end, but that the square end of the original flake may be discerned. A very fine specimen of this kind was obtained by Canon Greenwell in a barrow on Wykeham Moor, Yorkshire,[1495] and is shown in Fig. 242. It was found lying side by side with a fluted bronze dagger, affording, as Canon Greenwell observes, a valuable illustration of the contemporaneous use of bronze and stone. He has found others, both with burnt and unburnt bodies, in barrows in Yorkshire and Northumberland. I have a beautiful blade of the same general form, but rather more rounded at the point and curved slightly in the other direction, |332| and but little more than half the length of this specimen, which was found by Mr. E. Tindall, with another nearly similar, in a barrow near Bridlington. Dr. Travis in 1836 described another (2 3∕4 inches) from a barrow near Scarborough. Another (2 inches) was found with food-vessels in a barrow at Marton,[1496] Yorkshire, E.R. A knife of the same kind from a cave at Kozarnia,[1497] Poland, has been figured by Dr. F. Römer.

Among other English examples I may mention a thin flake (4 1∕4 inches), somewhat curved laterally, and trimmed along both edges and rounded at the point, found in Burwell Fen, Cambridge. Another from the same locality (3 3∕4 inches) is even more curved on the concave edge. A recurved flake or knife of flint, 3 1∕2 inches long, finely chipped at the sharp convex edge, was found with jet ornaments and an ovoid instrument of serpentine, accompanying a skeleton, in a barrow near Avebury, Wilts.[1498] I have several from the surface, Suffolk, and from the Cambridge Fens. In a larger instrument from Icklingham, both edges are worn smooth and rounded by use, as if in scraping some soft but gritty substance, possibly hides in the process of preparation as leather.

In some of these instruments the point is sharp instead of being rounded. One of them, found by Canon Greenwell in a barrow on Potter Brompton Wold,[1499] is shown in Fig. 243.

I have a more triangular form of implement, of the same kind, 3 3∕4 inches long, showing the crust of the flint at the base, found near Icklingham, Suffolk. Another from the same locality is of the same form as the figure.

Instruments of the same character as these were discovered by the late Mr. Bateman in many of the Derbyshire Barrows. What appears to be one of the same kind was found with a flake and burnt bones in an urn at Broughton, Lincolnshire.[1500] It may, however, have been convex on both faces. A fragment of another was found at Dorchester Dykes,[1501] Oxfordshire, by General Pitt Rivers.

The sharp-edged instruments of the forms last described seem to have been intended for use as cutting, or occasionally as scraping tools, and may not improperly be termed knives, as has been proposed by Canon Greenwell.[1502] Even the last described, though sharply pointed, cannot with certainty be accepted as a spear-head. To regarding the other form, Fig. 242, as such, Canon Greenwell objects that “the people who fashioned the arrow-heads so beautifully, if they fabricated a spear-head in flint, would not have made one side straight, the other curved, and carefully rounded it off at the sharper end.” One of these pointed instruments (3 inches), trimmed on one face and slightly curved, was found with an urn and a whetstone in a cairn at Stenton,[1503] East Lothian. |333|

Sometimes the secondary working extends over part of both faces of the flake, the central ridge of which is still discernible. Canon Greenwell found a fine instrument of this kind (3 1∕4 inches), made from a ridged flake, with neat secondary chipping along both sides, and on both faces, with a burnt body, in a barrow on Sherburn Wold.[1504] The flint itself is partially calcined. It is difficult to determine the claims of such an instrument to be regarded as a knife or as a lance-head.

The pointed instrument from Snainton Moor, Yorkshire, which is shown in Fig. 244, and was kindly lent to me by the late Mr. C. Monkman, of Malton, has more the appearance of having been a lance-head. A fragment of another weapon of this kind was found in Aberdeenshire.[1505] Larger lance-heads of this form have been found in tumuli in the South of France.[1506] A closely similar javelin-head, found at Vercelli, has been engraved by Gastaldi,[1507] as well as another longer and more distinctly tanged, from Telese.[1508] A third from Tuscany has been engraved by Cocchi.[1509] A fourth of the same form, but slightly notched on each side near the base, was found with skeletons in Andalusia.[1510] In the English specimen the secondary flaking extends over the whole, or nearly the whole, of both faces of the original flake; and the same is the case with the other instruments of this class which I am now about to describe.

Fig. 245 represents an implement of dark grey almost unweathered flint, found with burnt bones in a barrow at Ford.[1511] Northumberland, examined by Canon Greenwell. It has been made from an external flake subsequently brought into shape by working on both faces. Judging from its form only, it would appear to have been a lance-head; but there are some signs of wear of the edge at the |334| butt-end, which seem hardly compatible with this assumption, unless, indeed, like the natives of Tierra del Fuego,[1512] who are said to make use of their arrow-heads for cutting purposes, its owner used it also as a sort of knife. Mr. C. Monkman had a blade of this character (3 3∕8 inches) from Northdale, Yorkshire. Some lance-heads (3 and 2 1∕2 inches) have been found at West Wickham,[1513] Kent; and Carn Brê,[1514] Cornwall.

The original of Fig. 246 was found at West Huntow, near Bridlington. It is boldly chipped on both faces, so that hardly any portion of the original surface of the flake remains. It has a sharp edge all round, which is, however, slightly abraded at the blunter end; a small portion of the point at the other end has been broken off. In character it so closely resembles a leaf-shaped arrow-head that there seem some grounds for regarding this form as that of a lance-head, though from the doubtful character of other specimens of nearby similar form I have thought it better to place it here. A much larger specimen of brown flint (3 3∕4 by 2 3∕8 inches), but of nearly the same form and character, was found by the late Rev. J. C. Clutterbuck, at Hounslow Heath. In the Greenwell Collection is one of almost the same dimensions found on Willerby Wold, and others not quite so large from Rudstone, Yorkshire.

Some blades, similar in general form, were found, with various other stone implements, in sand-beds, near York, and have been described by Mr. C. Monkman.[1515]

I have collected somewhat similar blades to that here engraved, though of rather smaller dimensions, in the ancient encampment of Maiden Bower, near Dunstable; and I have several found on the surface near Lakenheath and Icklingham, Suffolk. I have seen one of the same character, which was found near Ware, Herts. General Pitt Rivers found in the Isle of Thanet[1516] two lance-heads, curiously like this and the preceding figure.

A far more highly-finished blade, but still preserving the same general character, is shown in Fig. 247. The original, of brown flint, was found in the Cambridge Fens, and is now in my own collection. Though ground on some portions of both faces, apparently for the purpose of removing asperities, the edges are left unground. They are, however, very carefully and delicately |335| chipped by secondary working to a regular sweep. I think this instrument must be regarded rather as a form of knife than as a head for a javelin or lance. In size, and to some extent in shape, it corresponds with the more crescent-like or triangular tools described under Fig. 256. I have a rather smaller example from Bottisham, ground along one side only.

This correspondence is still more evident in a blade now in the Blackmore Museum, Salisbury, of nearly the same shape but somewhat less curved on one edge than the other, which has been ground along the more highly curved edge. It was found at Hamptworth, near Salisbury.

A narrower form of blade is shown in Fig. 248. The original, of flint weathered nearly white, was found at Scamridge, Yorkshire, and is preserved in the Greenwell Collection. It is, as will be observed, slightly unsymmetrical in form, so that it would appear to have been intended for a knife rather than for a lance-head. A remarkably fine specimen in the same collection, found at Flixton, Yorkshire[1517] (5 1∕8 inches), is in form much like that from Scamridge. A part of the edge towards the point on the flatter side is slightly worn. There is a considerable diversity of form amongst the instruments of this character, some having the sides almost symmetrical, while others have them curved in different degrees, so much so as to make the instrument resemble in form some of the crescent-shaped Danish blades. In a specimen which I possess, from Ganton Wold, one side presents the natural crust of the flint along the greater part of its length, and has been left unworked; the other side has been chipped to an obtuse edge, which is considerably bruised and worn. I have others from Suffolk, sharpened by cross-flaking on one edge only. Some such knives are rounded at one or both ends instead of being pointed. A blade from the neighbourhood of Bridlington, in my collection, is pointed at one end but rounded at the other, where also the edge is completely worn away by attrition. In the case of another symmetrical and flat blade, from Icklingham (3 3∕4 inches), rather more convex on one face than the other, the edge on one side at the more pointed end is also completely rubbed away. I have as yet been unable to trace on the face of any of these pointed specimens signs of those polished markings which occur so frequently at a little distance within the more highly curved margin of the Danish semi-lunar blades, and from which Professor Steenstrup has inferred that they were inserted in handles of wood or bone. A specimen from Craigfordmains,[1518] Roxburghshire, has been figured.

A blade of the same kind as Fig. 248, 3 5∕8 inches long, found in the Department of the Charente, is engraved by de Rochebrune.[1519] Others of larger size were found in the Grotto des Morts, Durfort (Gard).[1520] |336|

The view that many of these blades were used as knives rather than as lance-heads, seems to be supported by a specimen from Burwell Fen, in the Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, and engraved in Fig. 249. This blade is rather more convex on one face than the other, and shows along half of its flatter face the original inner surface of the flake from which it was made. One of its side edges has been rounded by grinding along its entire length, so that it can be conveniently held in the hand; the other edge is left sharp, and is polished as if by use.

A remarkably large specimen of this kind, but with no traces of grinding upon it, was found in digging the foundations of a house on Windmill Hill, Saffron Walden, and was in the possession of Mr. William Tuke,[1521] of that town. It is shown in Fig. 250. One face is somewhat flatter than the other, but both faces are dexterously and symmetrically chipped over their whole surface. The small flakes have been taken off so skilfully and at such regular intervals, that, so far as workmanship is concerned, this instrument approaches in character the elegant Danish blades. The form seems well adapted for a lance-head, but on examination the edges appear to be slightly chipped and worn away, as if by scraping some hard material. It would appear, then, more probably to have been used in the hand. In the often-cited Greenwell Collection is a blade of grey flint, also 5 3∕8 inches long, but rather narrower than the figure, and straighter on one edge than the other, found in Mildenhall Fen. In the same collection is a large thin flat |337| blade of flint, 8 3∕8 inches long and 3 inches broad, more curved on one edge than the other, and rounded at one end. The straighter edge is also the sharper. It was found at Cross Bank, near Mildenhall. In general outline it is not unlike some of the Danish lunate implements. It may, however, be only the result of a somewhat unskilful attempt to produce a symmetrical dagger or spear-head, such as Fig. 264. I have several instruments of this kind, found near Icklingham and at other places in Suffolk.

A lance-head of almost the same size and form as Fig. 250, from the neighbourhood of Brescia, has been engraved by Gastaldi.[1522] They are also said to be found in Greece.[1523]

They sometimes occur among American antiquities. One of them, 11 inches in length, pointed at each end, is engraved by Squier and Davis.[1524] I have a beautiful blade of pale buff chalcedony, acutely pointed at one end and rounded at the other, which was found in company with a second of the same size and character, near Comayagua, in Spanish Honduras. It is 6 3∕8 inches long and 1 1∕8 inches broad. Other lance-heads from Honduras have been published.[1525] A flint sword or spear-head 22 inches long, serrated at the end towards the point, is said to have been found in Tennessee.[1526] Lance-heads of flint, not unlike Figs. 249 and 250, are found in South Africa.[1527]

Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield, Yorkshire, have in their collection a remarkable specimen belonging to this class of instrument, which instead of being pointed is almost semicircular at both ends. They have kindly allowed me to engrave it in Fig. 251. It has been neatly chipped from a piece of tabular flint, and not from a flake, and is equally convex on both faces; some of the salient parts along both edges are polished, as if by wear, and on either face are some of the polished “Steenstrup’s markings,” possibly arising from its having been inserted in a handle. This form is perhaps more closely connected with some of those which will shortly follow than with those which precede it. A somewhat similar oval blade 3 3∕4 inches long and 2 3∕4 inches wide, found in the Thames at Long Wittenham, and formerly belonging to the Rev. J. C. Clutterbuck, is ground along both sides, and is now in the Oxford Museum.

A blade of the same form was found in the Grotte des Morts, Durfort (Gard).[1528]

* * * * *

In none of the specimens hitherto figured in this chapter, have the edges been sharpened by grinding; in the only instances |338| where that process has been used, it has been for the purpose of removing, not of sharpening the edge. In the case of the next examples which I am about to describe, one or both edges, and in some the whole of both faces, have been ground.

* * * * *

I have already mentioned instances of untrimmed flakes of flint having been ground on the edge, but knives of a similar character made from carefully chipped blades also occur, though so far as I have at present observed, principally in Scotland.

One of these, carefully worked on both faces, and with one edge sharpened by grinding, was found at Strachur,[1529] Argyllshire, and is shown full size in Fig. 252. Another, 2 1∕2 inches long and 7∕8 inch broad, with less grinding on the surface, was found at Cromar, Aberdeenshire. A third, of almost the same size, with the edge nearly straight and the back curved, and with neatly chipped faces but little ground, was found in a chambered cairn at Camster,[1530] Caithness. A nodule of iron ore was found with it, but whether this was for fire-producing purposes is not apparent. A fragment of another knife of the same kind was found, in 1865, by Messrs. Anderson and Shearer in a cairn at Ormiegill Ulbster, Caithness; and among the numerous articles of flint found at Urquhart,[1531] Elgin, is a very perfect knife of this kind, which is shown in Fig. 253. All five specimens are in the National Museum at |339| Edinburgh. I have two English specimens of the same kind but pointed at the butt, from the neighbourhood of Icklingham.

The sharpened ends of stone celts, when broken off, have occasionally been converted into knives. One such, from Gilling, Yorkshire, with the fractured surface rounded by grinding, is in the Greenwell Collection.

Another form of knife closely allied to the type of Fig. 251, is broader, and has all its edges sharpened. The instrument shown in Fig. 254 was found near Bridlington. It is made from a large broad flake, the outer face of which has been re-worked to such an extent that not more than one-fourth of the original surface remains intact. The inner face, on the contrary, is left almost untouched, except just at the two ends. As will be seen from the engraving, a portion of the original edge has been chipped away, apparently in modern times, by the first finder having used it as a “strike-a-light” flint. What remains of the original edge has been carefully sharpened, and the angles between some of the facets on the convex face have also been removed by grinding. An example of the same kind from Butterlaw,[1532] near Coldstream, has been figured.

Others more or less perfect have been found at Glenluce,[1533] Earlston, and on the Culbin Sands.[1534]

A nearly similar instrument, from Sweden, has been engraved by Nilsson,[1535] but its edges are not described as ground.

A more highly finished form of the same implement is shown in Fig. 255. The original was found at Pick Rudge Farm,[1536] Overton, Wilts, in company with the large barbed arrow or javelin-head, Fig. 305, and both are now in the Blackmore Museum. Like Fig. 254, it is flatter on one face than the other; it is, however, polished all over as well as ground at the edges. These are rather sharper at the two ends than at the sides. Another specimen of the same form, and of almost |340| identically the same dimensions, was found at Pentrefoelas,[1537] Denbighshire. A third specimen, 3 1∕2 inches long and 2 1∕4 inches wide, was found at Lean Low, near Newhaven, Derbyshire, and is in the Bateman collection.[1538]

In my own collection are two very fine and perfect specimens of this class of instrument, both from the neighbourhood of Cambridge. The larger of these is 4 1∕4 inches long, 2 3∕4 inches broad at one end, and 2 5∕8 inches at the other. The ends are ground to a regular sweep, and the sides are somewhat hollowed. It has been made from a very broad thin flake, and is ground over nearly the whole of the outer and over part of the inner face, and brought to a sharp edge all round. It was found in Burwell Fen. The smaller instrument has been even more highly finished in the same manner, every trace of the original chipping of the convex face having been removed by grinding. The edge is sharp all round, but the ends are more highly curved than in the larger instrument. It is 3 1∕4 inches long, 2 1∕8 inches broad at one end, and 1 7∕8 inches at the other, and was found in Quy Fen. In the Greenwell Collection is a portion of what appears to have been another of these instruments, ground on both faces and sharp at the edges, from Lakenheath.

I have the half of another, 2 inches wide, found near Bridlington, and one of the same character, but oval in outline, from the same place. The latter has lost one of its ends. Its original dimensions must have been about 3 inches in length by 1 7∕8 inches in extreme breadth, and 3∕16 inch in thickness. Both faces are coarsely ground, the striæ running crossways of the blade. The edges appear to have been sharpened on a finer stone. It has been supposed that these instruments were intended to serve for dressing[1539] the flesh side of skins, or for flaying-knives.[1540] Mr. Albert Way has called attention to the analogy they present to an unique bronze implement found at Ploucour,[1541] Brittany.

The beautifully-formed instrument shown in Fig. 256 belongs apparently to the same class. It was found at Kempston, near Bedford, and was kindly lent to me for engraving by the late Mr. James Wyatt, F.G.S., who afterwards presented it to the Blackmore Museum.[1542] It is of dark flint, the two faces equally convex, and neatly chipped out but not polished. Regarding it as of triangular form, with the apex rounded, the edges on what may be described as the two sides in the |341| [1543] engraving have been carefully sharpened, while that of the base has been removed by grinding. In the same field was found a flint lance-head or dagger of fine workmanship, which will subsequently be mentioned.

Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield, possess an instrument of the same character found near Fimber. It is more equilaterally triangular in form than the Kempston specimen, though the sides are all curved and the angles rounded. It is polished all over on one face, though some traces of the original flaking are still apparent. On the other face, which is rather more convex, the grinding is confined to two sides of the triangle, which are thus brought to a sharp edge. The edge on the third side, which is rather straighter than the others, is very slightly rounded. It seems probable that this blunter edge was next the hand when the instrument was in use.

Another specimen, even more triangular in outline, was found in the Thames, at Windsor; it is of ochreous flint, and the base, which is 3 3∕8 inches long, exhibits the natural crust of the flint; each of the other two sides, which are ground to a sharp edge, is about 2 3∕4 inches long. Another from Lakenheath, 3 1∕4 inches long and 3 inches wide at the unground base, was in the collection of the late Rev. W. Weller Poley, of Brandon.

I have an implement of this kind, much like that from Kempston, but more curved at what is the base in the figure. All along this sweep the edge produced by chipping out the form has been removed by grinding. All round the other sweep the edge has been carefully sharpened by the same means. A portion only of each face is ground. This specimen was found near Mildenhall. I have another, more curved both at the edge and the base, found near Icklingham. From the same district I have the form entirely unground. Other specimens found in Derbyshire are preserved in the Bateman Collection. There are several in the Museum at Oxford.

In Fig. 256A is shown an almost circular knife of this kind found at Willington Mill, near Eastbourne, which was kindly given to me by Mr. R. Hilton, of East Dean.

In the Greenwell Collection is another nearly circular tool, about 2 inches in diameter, ground to an edge along most of the periphery, and found in Yorkshire. Another rather smaller disc, in the same collection, |342| and found at Huntow, near Bridlington, is partly ground on both faces, but not at the edge. A circular knife of the same kind was found at Trefeglwys,[1544] Montgomeryshire. It is 2 3∕4 inches in diameter and ground to an edge all round except at two places at opposite ends of one of its diameters, where for a short distance the edge is left as it was originally chipped out. It is now in the Powysland Museum. A circular knife from Mam Tor,[1545] Derbyshire, is in the Castleton Museum.

In the Greenwell Collection is an implement, about 2 inches in diameter, found at Sherburn Carr, Yorkshire, and in outline like a scraper, but with the greater part of the semicircular edge sharpened by grinding. In character it much resembles some instruments occasionally found both in Britain and Ireland, of which an example is given in Fig. 257. This is a horseshoe-shaped blade of flint, 3 inches over, with the rounded part of the circumference ground to a fine cutting edge, so that it was probably used as a knife. It is in the National Museum at Edinburgh, and was presumably found near Kintore, Aberdeenshire. In the same Museum is another instrument of the same kind, but somewhat kidney-shaped in outline, found in Lanarkshire. It is 3 3∕8 inches in length, and 2 5∕8 inches in extreme width. On a part of the hollowed side it shows the natural crust of the flint, but the rest of the periphery is ground to a sharp edge, and the projections on the faces have been removed by grinding. Others were found at Pitlochrie,[1546] Kincardineshire, and Turriff,[1547] Aberdeenshire. Mr. C. Monkman, of Malton, had a knife much like Fig. 257, 2 3∕4 inches across, which was found at Huntow, near Bridlington. I have an Irish specimen from near Ballymena almost like that from Kintore, as well as one of longer horseshoe shape found at Swan Brake, North Stow, Bury St. Edmunds, another large |343| one more subtriangular (3 8∕10 by 3 1∕2 inches) found near Wallingford, and a broad hatchet-shaped one from the Cambridge Fens.

In the collection (now in the British Museum) of the late Mr. J. F. Lucas, is an instrument of this kind, 3 inches over, found at Arbor Low, Derbyshire, in 1867. He kindly presented me with another, closely resembling Fig. 257, and found at Mining Low. He also possessed a remarkably fine knife of this form, but with the edge unground, which was found at Newhaven, Derbyshire, and is shown in Fig. 258. An example more pear-shaped in outline and ground half-way round the edge, found near Whitby, has been figured.[1548] I have a fine one (4 inches) more rhomboidal from Swaffham Fen, Cambridge, and another smaller from Burwell. From the latter place I have an oval knife made from a broad external flake (2 3∕4 inches) ground along one side, and a thick one also of oval form from Icklingham.

In all the specimens with the circular edge sharpened by grinding, the flat side has been purposely made blunt, as if for being held in the hand. The backs, however, may have been let into wooden handles, in which case these instruments would have been the exact counterparts of the Ulus, or Women’s knives of the Eskimos.[1549]

Though not formed of flint, but of a hard slaty rock of the nature of hone-stone, an implement of much the same form as that from Fimber[1550] may be here described. It was found at Harome, in Ryedale, Yorkshire, and is in the Greenwell Collection, now Dr. Allen Sturge’s. As will be seen from Fig. 259, it approximates in form to an equilateral spherical triangle with the apices rounded. It is carefully polished over the whole of both faces, except where small portions have broken away, owing to the lamination of the stone. Each of the three sides is ground to a cutting edge, which however is not continued over the angles; these are rounded in both directions, as each would probably be in contact with the palm of the hand when the opposite edge was used for cutting. |344|

There can be no doubt that all these triangular instruments, whether of flint or other material, were used as cutting tools; and the name of skinning-knife, which has been applied to them as well as to the quadrangular instruments, not improbably denotes one of the principal purposes for which they were made.

In the Greenwell Collection is another curious instrument, from the same locality as that last described, which is shown in Fig. 260. It is formed of a hard slaty stone, having one side ground to a regularly curved and sharp edge, and the others rounded by grinding. The two faces, which are equally convex, are also ground to such an extent that but little of the original chipped surface can be discerned. In the face shown in the figure there is a slight central depression, and on the other face two such at about 2 inches apart, and in a line parallel with the top or back of the instrument. When it is held in the right hand, with the fore-finger over the end, the thumb fits into the depression on the one face and the middle and fourth fingers into those on the other, so that it is firmly grasped. It is evident that this must have been a cutting or chopping tool: but the materials on which it was employed would seem to have been soft, as the edge is by no means sharp, and is also entirely uninjured by use. These depressions for the thumb and fingers resemble in character those on the handles of some of the Eskimo[1551] scrapers and knives already described.

Another implement, of nearly the same form, but rather longer and narrower, is in the same collection, and was found in Ryedale, Yorkshire. It is of hard clay-slate, 5 1∕8 inches long at the blade and 2 1∕2 inches wide, with a curved sharp edge, and a straight back rounded transversely. It is bevelled at one end, which is flat, apparently owing to a joint in the slate; and somewhat rounded at the other, where it fits the hand. Neither in this nor in a third instrument of the same class, also from Harome, are there any depressions on the face. This last has been formed from a flat kidney-shaped pebble of clay-slate, the hollow side and one end left almost in the natural condition so as to fit the hand, and the curved side ground to a sharp edge, which is returned round the end almost at a right angle. The edge at the end |345| is polished as if by rubbing, and looks as if it might have been used in the same manner as bookbinders’ tools for indenting lines on leather. This instrument is 6 inches long, 3 inches wide at the butt-end, and 2 1∕2 inches at the sharp end. It is nearly 1 1∕4 inches thick.

Besides the three which I have mentioned several other instruments of the same description have been found in the same part of Yorkshire.

I have never seen any specimens of precisely this character from other localities; but they were apparently destined for much the same purposes as the “Picts’ knives,” shortly to be mentioned, unless possibly they were merely used in the manner just indicated. It is very remarkable that the form should appear to be limited to so small an area in England; and though the specimens occur under the same circumstances as polished celts, it seems probable that for stone antiquities they belong to a late period.

The large thin flat blades, usually subquadrangular or irregularly oval in form, of which a large number has been found in the Shetland Islands, and which are known as “Pech’s knives,” or “Picts’ knives,” apparently belong to the same class of instruments as the quadrangular and triangular tools lately described, and this would therefore appear to be the proper place for making mention of them. They are never formed of flint; the principal materials of which they are made being slate and compact greenstone, porphyry, and other felspathic rocks, and madreporite. Their usual length is from 6 inches to 9 inches, and the breadth from 3 inches to 5 inches; their thickness is rarely more than 1∕2 inch in the middle, and sometimes not more than 1∕10 of an inch. They are usually polished all over, and ground to an edge all round. Sometimes, however, the edge on one or more sides is rounded, and occasionally an end or side is left of the full thickness of the blade, and rounded as if for being held in the hand. I have a specimen, 4 1∕2 inches long, and 3 1∕4 inches wide at the base, formed of porphyritic greenstone, and found at Hillswick, in Shetland, which was given me by the late Mr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys, F.R.S. Its cutting edge may be described as forming nearly half of a pointed ellipse, of which the thick side for holding forms the conjugate diameter. This side is rounded and curved slightly inwards; one of the angles between this base and the elliptical edge is rounded, and a portion of the edge is also left thick and rounded, so that when the base is applied to the palm of the hand the lower part of the forefinger may rest upon it. When thus held it forms a cutting tool not unlike a leather-cutter’s knife. Instruments of this character are extremely rare in England, but in the extensive Greenwell Collection is a specimen which I have engraved as Fig. 261. It was found at Crambe, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and is formed of an oolitic shelly limestone, a material also used for the manufacture of celts in |346| that district. Though smaller, and rather more deeply notched at the base than my Shetland knife, it is curiously like it in general form. The edge, however, only extends along one side, and is not carried round the point.

The specimens that I have engraved as Figs. 262 and 263, are in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of London. They are formed of thin laminæ of what is said to be madreporite, and are sharp all round.[1552] They were found with fourteen others at the depth of six feet in a peat-moss, the whole of them being arranged in a horizontal line, and overlapping each other like slates upon the roof of a house. There are several specimens formed of felspathic rocks, and from various localities in Shetland, preserved in the British Museum. A note attached to one of them states that twelve were found in Easterskild, in the parish of Sandsting. An engraving of one of them is given in the “Horæ Ferales.”[1553] I possess several; one of porphyritic stone, oval, 8 inches long, is polished all over both faces, one side is sharp and the other rounded.

In the National Museum at Edinburgh[1554] are other examples, also from Shetland. Several have been figured.[1555] Some have a kind of haft.[1556] They occasionally have a hole for suspension.[1557] Sir Daniel Wilson[1558] states that a considerable number of implements, mostly of the same class, were found under the clay in the ancient mosses of |347| Blairdrummond and Meiklewood, but in this he was in error. There are some fine specimens from Shetland in the Ethnological Museum at Copenhagen. Mr. J. W. Cursiter, of Kirkwall, has fine examples of such knives from Shetland. One in his collection is 8 inches long and 5 3∕4 inches broad, being in form much like Fig. 262.

There can be little doubt of these implements having been cutting tools for holding in the hand, though they have been described by Dr. Hibbert and Mr. Bryden[1559] in “The Statistical Account of the Shetland Isles” as double or single-edged battle-axes. They appear, however, as Mr. Albert Way[1560] has pointed out, to be too thin and fragile for any warlike purpose. Those with the cutting edge all round were probably provided with a sort of handle along one side, like the flensing-knife from Icy Cape in the possession of Sir Edward Belcher, of which mention has already been made. This is a flat thin blade, about 5 inches long, and of subquadrangular form. It is sharp at the edge, but has a guard or handle along the opposite side, made of split twigs attached by resinous gum. In some Eskimo knives of the same kind in the Christy Collection and in the Ethnological Museum at Copenhagen the |348| wooden back is tied on by a cord which passes through a hole in the blade. It is possible that the “Picts’ knives” may in some cases have been used, like those of the Eskimos, for removing the blubber from whales.

It is difficult to assign a date to these instruments, which are almost peculiar to the Shetland Islands. There are traditions extant of their having been seen in use within the present century, in one instance by an old woman for cutting kail, and in Lewis,[1561] a sharp stone was used in 1829, for cutting out a wedding dress. In the latter case the reason assigned was the want of scissors, but it would appear to have probably been merely an experimental trial of the cutting powers of a stone which may not have been one of these primitive tools. The occurrence of Picts’ knives under so thick a deposit of peat shows, however, that they do not belong to any recent period, though five or six feet of peat do not of necessity indicate any very high degree of antiquity.

When the Princess Leonora Christina[1562] was imprisoned in Copenhagen in 1663 and she was deprived of scissors and cutting instruments, she records, in 1665, that, “Christian had given me some pieces of flint which are so sharp that I can cut fine linen with them by the thread. The pieces are still in my possession, and with this implement I executed various things.”

Stone knives of any form, having the edges ground, are of rare occurrence on the Continent, though in Norway and Sweden[1563] those of what have been termed Arctic types are found. Nearly similar forms occur in North America. A peculiar knife, with a rectangular handle, much like a common table-knife, has been found in the Lake Settlement of Inkwyl.[1564]

A North American knife,[1565] with a somewhat similar handle, has a curved blade very thick at the back.

* * * * *

To return to the implements made of flint. Those which I have next to describe have been termed spear-heads, lance-heads, knives, and daggers. Their ordinary length is from 5 to 7 inches, and their extreme width from 1 1∕2 to 2 1∕2 inches. Their general form is lanceolate, but the greater breadth is usually nearer the point of the blade than the butt, which is in most instances either truncated or rounded. They exhibit remarkable skill in the treatment of flint in their manufacture, being as a rule symmetrical in form, with the edge in one plane, and equally convex on the two faces—which are dexterously chipped into broad flat facets—while the edges are still more carefully shaped by secondary working. Towards the butt, the converging sides are usually nearly straight, and in many, the edge at this part has been rounded by grinding, and the butt-end has had its angles removed in a similar manner. |349| This may have been done either with the view of rendering the instrument more convenient for holding in the hand, or in order to prevent the blade from cutting the ligaments by which it was attached to a handle. For the latter purpose, however, there would be no advantage in rounding the butt-end; and as this, moreover, is frequently the thickest part of the blade, it seems probable that the majority of the instruments were intended for holding in the hand, so that the term dagger appears most appropriate to this form.

Other blades, with notches on the opposite sides, seem to have been mounted with handles or shafts, and may have served either as daggers or possibly as spear-heads.

I have figured four specimens showing some difference in shape, mainly in consequence of the different relative positions of the broadest part of the blades. This in Fig. 265 may be, to some extent, due to the point having been chipped away by successive sharpening of the edge by secondary chipping, in the same manner as we find some of the Danish daggers worn to a stump, by nearly the whole of the blade having been sharpened away.

* * * * *

In Fig. 264 is shown a beautiful dagger of white flint, which was found in a barrow on Lambourn Down, Berks, in company with a celt and some exquisitely-finished stemmed and barbed arrow-heads of the same material. It is now in the British Museum. Its edges are sharp all along, and not blunted towards the butt-end. It may have been an entirely new weapon, buried with the occupant of the barrow for use in another state of existence, or it may have had moss wrapped round that part, so as to protect the hand; like the blade[1566] of flint with Hypnum brevirostre wrapped round its butt-end to form a substitute for a handle, which was found in the bed of the River Bann, in Ireland. Some North American implements of similar character are, as Sir Wollaston Franks[1567] has pointed out, hafted by insertion into a split piece of wood in which |350| they are bound by a cord. One from the north-west coast, thus mounted, is in the British Museum.

Professor Nilsson[1568] has engraved another American knife, in the same collection, but erroneously refers it to New Zealand.

A good specimen (6 1∕2 inches) was found in 1890 in a field known as Little Wansford, near Great Weldon, Northamptonshire. I have specimens (6 1∕4 inches) from Fiskerton, Lincolnshire, and from Bottisham Fen, Cambs (4 5∕8 inches). There is a slight shoulder on the latter rather nearer the butt than the point. A beautiful specimen (6 3∕4 inches) from a barrow at Garton.[1569] Yorkshire, E. R., has been figured.

The blade shown in Fig. 265 is in the British Museum, having been formerly in the Roach Smith Collection. It is of nearly black flint, and was found in the Thames. Its length is still 7 inches, but from the form of the point it seems possible that it may, as already suggested, originally have been even longer. There is in the Museum another specimen from the Thames,[1570] 5 3∕4 inches long, in form like Fig. 264. Both of these have the edges towards the butt rendered more or less blunt, and have had any prominences removed by grinding. The same is the case with a blade 6 inches long and 2 3∕8 inches wide, found |351| in Quy Fen in 1849, and now in the Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. In the same collection is a smaller specimen, 4 3∕4 inches long and 1 5∕8 inches wide, from Burwell Fen. This has its edges sharp, and shows the natural crust of the flint at the butt, as does also one 7 inches long by 2 1∕2 inches wide, found at Jackdaw Hill, near Cambridge.[1571] Another blade (5 3∕8 inches) found at Wolseys, near Dunmow, Essex, is in the British Museum. A blade of this type from a garden at Walton-on-Thames[1572] is recorded.

A remarkably fine spear-head of the notched class, 6 3∕4 inches long, was exhibited some years ago to the British Archæological Association, and their Proceedings,[1573] without giving any information as to the size, shape, or character of the specimen, record as an interesting fact that it weighs nearly four ounces. It was found in Burnt Fen, Prickwillow, Ely, and is now in my own collection. It is engraved as Fig. 266. It is of black flint, and has in the first instance been boldly chipped into approximately the requisite form, and then been carefully finished by neat secondary working at the edges, no part of which has been rounded by grinding. On either side, at rather less than half way along the blade from the base, are two deep rounded indentations not quite half an inch apart, in character much like the notches between the barbs and stems of one form of flint arrow-heads. The same peculiarity is to be observed in a somewhat smaller spear-head found at Carshalton,[1574] in Surrey, and forming part of the Meyrick Collection. Of this it is observed that it “was let into a slit in the wooden shaft, and bound over with nerves diagonally from the four notches which appear on the sides.” There can, I think, be little doubt of the correctness of this view, nor of the method of attachment to the shafts or handles having been much the same as that in use among the American tribes for their arrow-and lance-heads with a notch on either side. Whether the British blades were mounted with a short handle or a long shaft, we have no means of judging; but if those with the edges rounded towards the butt were knives or daggers, there seems some probability of these also having served the same purpose, though provided with handles like some North American and Mexican examples, and of their not having been spear-or lance-heads.

I have another blade of this kind found in Burwell Fen, Cambridge, about 5 3∕4 inches in length, and 1 7∕8 inch in width. At about 3 1∕2 inches from the point there is on either side a slight notch; beyond this there is a narrow projection, and then the width of the blade is suddenly reduced by a full eighth of an inch on either side, so as to leave a sort of shoulder. Between this and the butt, at intervals of about an inch, there are on each side two other notches, as if to assist in fastening the blade into a shaft or handle. There has in this case been no attempt to remove the edges by grinding.

A flint dagger (6 3∕8 inches) found in the Thames,[1575] near London Bridge, has a notch on each side 2 7∕8 inches from the base. A smaller notched example was found at Hurlingham.

In the Christy Collection is another of these blades, 5 3∕8 inches long, |352| with a notch on either side about 1 3∕4 inches from the butt. It is uncertain where it was found.

One with a notch at each side about mid-length was found at Hare Park,[1576] Cambridge.

A blade remarkably like Fig. 266 was found in the Dolmen of Vinnac[1577] (Aveyron).

A beautifully formed blade, chipped square at the base, and with a series of notches along the sides towards the butt, was found at Arbor Low, Derbyshire.[1578] The late Mr. J. F. Lucas obligingly lent it to me for engraving, as Fig. 267. It is now preserved in the British Museum.

In the Wiltshire Barrows, explored by Sir R. Colt Hoare, were several of these daggers. One,[1579] 6 1∕2 inches long, was found with a skeleton beneath a large “sarsen stone” near Durrington Walls, in company with a small whetstone, a cone and ring of jet like a pulley, and two small discoidal scrapers. Another,[1580] of much the same form and size as Fig. 264, occurred in company with a drinking-cup, and what was probably a whetstone of “ligniformed asbestos,” at the feet of a skeleton in a barrow near Stonehenge.

Others have been found in the barrows of Derbyshire and Yorkshire. In Green Low, on Alsop Moor,[1581] a dagger-blade of flint, 6 inches long, stemmed and barbed arrow-heads, a bone pin, and other bone instruments, were associated with a contracted interment. It was in this barrow also that the pyrites and scrapers, previously mentioned at p. 313, were found. Another leaf-shaped dagger of white flint, 4 1∕2 inches long, with the narrow half curiously serrated—as boldly as Fig. 266, but with many more notches—was found by Mr. Bateman beneath the head of a contracted skeleton in Nether Low,[1582] near Chelmorton. Another, 4 1∕4 inches long, was found with burnt bones in one of the Three Lows,[1583] near Wetton. A flint dagger,[1584] elegantly chipped, 5 1∕4 inches long, was found on Blake Low, near Matlock, in 1786. Fragments of similar daggers have been found with interments in barrows near Pickering;[1585] and in Messrs. Mortimer’s rich collection is a fine specimen from a barrow on the Yorkshire Wolds.

One like Fig. 264, but of coarser workmanship, 5 3∕4 inches long and 2 3∕8 inches wide, was found in 1862, with a skeleton and an earthen vessel, at Norton, near Daventry, and particulars sent to me by the |353| late Mr. S. Sharp, F.S.A., F.G.S.; and what would appear to have been an instrument of the same character, 8 inches long, was found near Maidstone.[1586] A very good specimen, of fine workmanship, is in the Museum at Canterbury, but its place of finding is unknown.

Another, more like Fig. 267, but not serrated, 6 3∕4 inches long and 2 inches broad, was found with an urn at Ty ddu Llanelieu,[1587] Brecon, and has been engraved.

In the Greenwell Collection is a blade like Fig. 264, 6 inches long and 2 1∕4 inches wide, finely chipped along the edges for 4 inches from the point, which was found at Kempston, near Bedford, in the same field as that shown in Fig. 256. There is also a specimen rather more rudely chipped, and pointed at each end, from Irthington, Cumberland, which has more of the character of a spear-head. In the Fitch Collection is a fine but imperfect dagger from the neighbourhood of Ipswich, and I have one in similar condition from Peasemarsh, near Godalming.

In Scotland one has been found in a cairn at Guthrie, Forfarshire, 6 3∕4 inches long and 1 1∕2 inches wide, which is engraved in the Gentleman’s Magazine.[1588] Sir Daniel Wilson[1589] also mentions one 15 inches long, found in a cairn at Craigengelt, near Stirling, but I think there must be some error as to the length.

Mr. J. W. Cursiter, of Kirkwall, has a very symmetrical blade like Fig. 264, but smaller, found in Blows Moss, South Ronaldsay, Orkney. A blade from Nunraw,[1590] Haddingtonshire (7 1∕4 inches) with notches at the side for hafting, has been engraved. Another (3 3∕8 inches), was found in a cairn near Kirkmichael, Ayrshire.[1591]

Though occurring in so many parts of England and Scotland, these daggers appear to be unknown in Ireland, where, however, some large lozenge-shaped blades, ground on both faces, occur. Sword-like blades made of slaty stone are also found in Ireland[1592] and in Shetland.[1593] I have Irish specimens up to 15 inches in length, and have seen the sketch of one of subquadrate section, and pointed at each end, 20 3∕4 inches in length. It was found in the Lower Bann, near Portglenone, co. Antrim.

In some Continental countries, and especially in Denmark, Sweden, and Northern Germany, similar weapons are far more abundant than here. The shape is somewhat different, for the English specimens are as a rule broader in proportion, and more obtusely pointed than the Scandinavian. These latter frequently exhibit the blunting at the edges towards the butt-end, such as has been already mentioned. Occasionally they have the notches at the sides. Daggers with square or fish-tailed handles, like Worsaae, Nos. 52 and 53, some of which present delicately ornamented and crinkled edges, have not as yet been found in Britain, though somewhat analogous forms occur in Honduras and in North America. The crinkling is seen on some Egyptian knives.

Nearly similar blades to those from Britain are found in other parts of Europe. Two lance-heads, made from flakes 5 1∕4 inches and 5 3∕4 inches long, more or less worked on both faces, and reduced in width at the |354| butt, so as to facilitate insertion in a handle, were found in the sepulchral cave of St. Jean d’Alcas,[1594] in the Aveyron. Another, worked on both faces, about 7 inches long and 1 1∕4 inches broad, notched in two or three places on each side at the base, was found in one of the dolmens of the Lozère.[1595] A third, shorter and broader, but also notched at the base, was in the dolmen[1596] of Grailhe (Gard).

A finely-worked, somewhat lozenge-shaped, blade of flint, 10 inches in length, was found at Spiennes,[1597] near Mons, in Belgium.

A lance-head (6 3∕4 inches) from the Government of Vladimir,[1598] Russia, has been figured.

A lance-head of flint, 9 inches long and 2 1∕8 broad, tanged at the butt, and with a notch on each side of the tang, has been figured by Gastaldi[1599] from a specimen in the Museum at Naples, found at Telese.

In Egypt, associated with other objects betokening a considerable civilization, have been found several thin blades of flint, of much the same character as the highly-finished European specimens. A magnificent lance-head (14 1∕2 inches) has been presented to the Ashmolean Museum by Prof. Flinders Petrie[1600]. It is delicately serrated along the edges for most of its length. A smaller blade is more leaf-shaped and minutely serrated all round. Another appears to have been hafted as a dagger. In my own collection is a leaf-shaped blade 7 inches long, most delicately made and serrated. Others are, however, thick at the back, and provided with a tang like a metallic knife. Two of these in the Berlin Museum,[1601] are 7 1∕4 inches and 6 3∕4 inches long respectively, and 2 1∕4 inches and 2 inches wide; I have one 5 1∕8 inches in length. There are other specimens in the Egyptian Museums at Leyden and Turin, and in the National Museum[1602] at Edinburgh. A larger blade, and even more closely resembling some of the Scandinavian lunate instruments in form, being leaf-shaped, but more curved on one edge than the other, is also in the Berlin Museum.[1603] It is 9 inches long and 2 1∕2 inches wide. A curved scimitar-like knife from Egypt[1604] is figured, as is one with a notch on each side of the butt.[1605] Another blade, of ovate form, and without tang, 2 3∕4 inches long and 1 inch wide, is preserved in the Mayer Collection in the Museum[1606] at Liverpool.

Some other Egyptian blades will be subsequently mentioned.

A dagger-blade of flint, still mounted in its original handle, is in the British Museum,[1607] and has already been described.

Some of the dagger-blades in use in Mexico in ancient times were of |355| much the same character as these, being in some cases of flint, in others of obsidian. A beautiful blade of chalcedony, 8 inches long, found at Tezcuco, is in the Christy Collection, as well as another of chert; but the most remarkable is of chalcedony, still in its original wooden handle in form of a kneeling figure, encrusted with precious materials, including turquoise, malachite, and coral.[1608] An almost similar specimen was engraved by Aldrovandus.[1609]

There are Japanese[1610] stone knives and daggers polished all over and with the blade and hilt in one piece. Some are as much as 15 inches long.

A peculiar form of knife, closely resembling in character some of the crescent-shaped blades from Scandinavia, is shown in Fig. 267A. It was found in the parish of Sewerby,[1611] near Bridlington, and somewhat resembles the blade from Balveny, subsequently mentioned. I have described it in some detail[1611] elsewhere. A similar form occurs in Arctic America.[1612] A wider form from New Jersey[1613] has been regarded as a scalping-knife.

Another form of curved knife—for as such it would seem the instrument must be regarded—seems to be more abundant in Britain than in other European countries, unless possibly in Russia. A somewhat similar form is known in Denmark,[1614] of which a highly finished variety is engraved by Worsaae[1615] from an almost, if not quite, unique example. Examples of analogous knives from other countries will also be subsequently cited. As the form has not hitherto received much attention from antiquaries, I have engraved three specimens slightly differing in character, and found in different parts of England. |356|

Fig. 268 represents a beautifully formed knife, with a curved blade tapering to a point, and found in draining at Fimber, Yorkshire. It is preserved in the collection of Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield, who have kindly allowed me to engrave it. It is about 7 inches in length, formed of flint, which has now become ochreous in colour, and exhibits a portion of the natural crust at the butt-end. The blade is nearly equally convex on the two faces, but thickens out at the butt, which seems to have formed the handle, as the side edges which are elsewhere sharp are there slightly blunted. The faces present no signs of having been ground or polished.

I have two or three fragments of similar knives also from the Yorkshire Wolds; and one almost perfect, but only 4 1∕2 inches long, from Ganton Wold. In the Greenwell Collection is a fragment of one from Wetwang, and the point of another from Rudstone. I have one (5 inches) perfect except at the butt, found at North Stow, Bury St. Edmunds.

Fig. 269 represents a nearly similar knife, which has, however, been already described, though not figured, in the Archæological Journal[1616] and in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries.[1617] It was found on Corton Beach, midway between Yarmouth and Lowestoft, and belonged |357| to the late Mr. C. Cory, of Yarmouth, who kindly lent it to me for engraving. It has been suggested that it was fixed to a haft, possibly of stag’s horn or of wood, but there are no indiciæ of this having been the case, though the side-edges are blunted towards the butt-end, where also remains a considerable portion of the crust of the long nodule of flint from which the instrument was chipped.

For the loan of the original of Fig. 270 I am indebted to the late Mr. Caldecott, of Mead Street, near Eastbourne, near which place it was found. It is of grey flint, and presents the peculiarity of having one face partially polished by grinding, which extends to the point, but does not touch the edges, which, as in the other instances, are produced by chipping only. It is rather more convex on the polished face than on the other, and it appears probable that recourse was had to grinding in order to remove a hard projection of the flint which had been too refractory to be chipped off. As usual, there is a portion of the crust of the original flint visible at the butt, where also the side edges have been blunted, in this case by grinding. This instrument has already been described and figured.[1618]

A curved knife (7 3∕4 inches) now in the British Museum, much like Fig. 270, was found at Grovehurst,[1619] near Milton, Kent.

In the same museum is a beautifully-chipped knife, 8 1∕4 inches long, without any traces of grinding, and of much the same form as this, but with the point more sharply curved. It was found in the Thames, at London, in 1868.

One from Bexley, Kent, is in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and another from the Thames at Greenwich in the Jermyn Street Museum.

The Greenwell Collection contains an implement of this class, but of broader proportions, 4 inches long and 1 3∕4 inches wide, with a portion of the natural crust of the flint left on the convex side, not far from the point. It is sharp at the base, which is semicircular, and the edge shows signs of wear. It was found on Heslerton Wold.

A thinner form of curved knife (6 1∕2 inches), found at Balveny,[1620] Banffshire, has been figured.

The point of what appears to have been a curved knife of this character was found in the Lake-dwelling of Bodmann.[1621] Some curved knives from one at Attersee[1622] have been engraved. A long flint knife from Majorca,[1623] nearly straight at the edge, but curved at the back, may also be mentioned. |358|

Some curved knives of polished slate, about 5 inches long, notched at the base as if for suspension by means of a string, have been found in Norway. Small blades of chipped flint with a neck for the same purpose are not uncommon in Japan, and occur more rarely in Russia.[1624] In the Greenwell Collection is preserved a curved knife of slate sharpened on the concave side, found in Antrim.

Curved knives of flint, as well as some of the crescent shape, have been found in Volhynia.[1625]

I have seen flint knives in outline very like Fig. 240 in the museums at Cracow, Moscow, and Kiev. Some are highly polished by friction and may have served as sickles.

It is difficult to assign any definite use to the British form of knife, but as the curvature is evidently intentional, and as probably it was more difficult to chip out such curved blades than it would have been to make them straight, there must have been some advantage resulting from the form. As both edges of the blade are sharp, it is hard to say whether the convex or concave edge was the principal object. But inasmuch as the convex edge might more readily be obtained, and that twice over, in a leaf-shaped blade, it appears that the concave edge was the desideratum. The blunting of the edges at the butt-end suggests the probability of the instruments having been held immediately in the hand without the intervention of any form of haft; and the view of the concave edge being the principal one is supported by the circumstance that in the short knife from Ganton Wold, already mentioned, a considerable portion of the crust of the round-ended nodule of flint from which it was made is left along the convex side at the butt-end, while on the opposite side the edge extends the whole length, so that it cannot be comfortably held in the hand except with that edge outwards from the palm. It seems, indeed, adapted for holding in the hand and cutting towards rather than from the operator; and looking at the form universally adopted for reaping instruments, which seem to require a concave edge, so as to gather within them all the stalks that have to be cut, I am inclined to think that these curved flint knives may not impossibly have supplied the place of sickles or reaping hooks, whether for cutting grass to serve as provender or bedding, or for removing the ears of corn from the straw. We know that amongst the inhabitants of the Swiss Lake-dwellings some who were unacquainted with the use of metals had already several domesticated animals, and cultivated more than one kind of cereal, and it is not unfair to infer that the same was the case in Britain. It has already been suggested that some serrated flint flakes may have served for the armature of another form of sickle, like that in use in Egypt at an early period.

The analogy in form between these flint blades and those of the bronze reaping-hooks occasionally found in Britain is striking, when we leave the sockets by which the latter were secured to their handles out of view. These also have usually the outer edge sharp as well as the inner, but for what purpose I cannot say.

This seems a fitting place to say a few words with regard to some |359| Egyptian flint knives, for the knowledge of which we are mainly indebted to Prof. Flinders Petrie, and the workmanship of which is absolutely unrivalled. They are of two kinds, both presenting an outline curved on one or both sides. For the one kind a flake from 8 to 9 inches long of triangular section with a thick back and sharp edge has been taken: the back has been most carefully retouched and left slightly convex: the ridge of the flake has been wrought so as to show a crinkled line like that on the handles of some Danish daggers, the edge has been more or less re-worked, producing a bold convex sweep, and what was originally the inner face of the flake has first been delicately fluted by cross-flaking and then still more finely retouched along both the back and the edge.

For the other kind the whole surface of the original flake has, as Mr. Spurrell[1626] has pointed out, been carefully ground, one face being made rather more convex that the other. The flatter face has been left almost untouched, but one side has been trimmed by flaking at the edge into almost a straight or slightly concave line: the other side is boldly curved, the general outline having been produced during the grinding process. The more convex face has been fluted or “ripple-marked” by cross-flaking from either side in the most skilful manner, the whole of the original polished surface being sometimes removed. The projections at the butt-end between the successive flakes have next been levelled down by secondary chipping, and finally the curved edge has been minutely serrated, there being about 36 teeth to the inch. These blades are from 7 to 9 1∕4 inches in length, and occasionally made of beautiful chalcedonic flint. They are attributed by Professor Flinders Petrie[1627] to a period between the fourth and the twelfth Dynasty, but may possibly be of even earlier date. As already mentioned, some beautiful leaf-shaped lance-heads with finely-serrated edges have been made in the same manner.

One of the fluted knives in the Ghizeh Museum[1628] is hafted for a distance of about 4 inches in a thin plate of gold, engraved on the one face with well-drawn figures of animals, and on the other with floral ornaments arranged between two serpents. The plates of gold are not soldered together, but sewn one to the other with gold wire.

|360|

XVI. JAVELIN AND ARROW HEADS

I now come to a series of flint weapons, small but varying in size, which though presenting a general resemblance in character to each other, are still susceptible of being classified under several types. The similarity is probably due to their having been all intended for the same purpose—that of piercing the skin, whether of enemies in war, or of animals in the chase; the differences may result from some of the weapons having served for warlike and others for hunting purposes. The variation in size probably arises from some of them having tipped spears to be held in the hand for close encounters, while others may have been attached to lighter shafts, and formed javelins to be thrown at objects at some distance; and the majority of the smaller kind were, beyond doubt, the heads of arrows discharged from bows.

The possibly successive ideas of pointing a stake as a weapon of offence, of hardening the point by means of fire, and of substituting a still harder point made of horn, bone, or stone, must have occurred to mankind at the earliest period of its history, and weapons of one or all of these kinds are to be found among savage tribes in all parts of the world. The discovery of the bow, as a means of propelling javelins on a small scale to a distance, seems to belong to a rather higher grade of culture, and its use is not universal among modern savages. The use of the bow and arrow was totally unknown to the aborigines of Australia,[1629] and even the Maories[1630] of New Zealand—who were by no means in the lowest stage of civilization—had, when first discovered, no bows and arrows, nor even slings; in fact, no missile weapon except the lance, which was thrown by hand.

In Europe, however, the use of the bow seems to date back to a |361| very remote period, as in some of the cave-deposits of the Reindeer Period of the South of France, what appear to be undoubtedly arrow-heads are found. In other caves, possibly, though not certainly, inhabited at a somewhat later period, such arrow-heads are absent, though what may be regarded as harpoon-heads of bone occur; and in the River Gravel deposits, nothing that can positively be said to be an arrow-head has as yet been found, though it is barely possible that some of the pointed flakes may have served to tip arrows.

The Greek myth[1631] that bows and arrows were invented by Scythes, the son of Jove, or by Perses, the son of Perseus, though pointing to an extreme antiquity for the invention, not improbably embodies a tradition of the skill in archery of the ancient Scythians and Persians.[1632]

The simplest form of stone-pointed spear or lance at present in use among savages, consists of a long sharp flake of obsidian, or some silicious stone, attached to a shaft, like that shown in Fig. 195; and arrows, tipped with smaller flakes, having but little secondary working at the sides, beyond what was necessary to complete the point, and to form a small tang for insertion into the shaft, may also be seen in Ethnological collections. Between these almost simple flakes and skilfully and symmetrically-chipped lance and arrow heads, all the intermediate stages may be traced among weapons still, or until quite recently, in use among savages; as well as among those which once served to point the weapons of the early occupants of this country.

It is indeed probable that besides these stone-tipped weapons, other seemingly less effective, but actually more deadly missiles, were in use among them in the form of poisoned arrows; but as these at the present day are usually tipped with hard wood or bone, as better adapted than stone for retaining the poison, the same was probably the case in ancient times; and while those of wood have perished, those of bone, if found, have not as yet been recognized. Such arrow-heads of bone were also in use without being poisoned, as, for instance, among the Finns, or Fenni, as Tacitus calls them, whose principal weapons were, for want of iron, bone-pointed arrows.[1633] The use of poisoned arrows had, among the Greeks and Romans, long ceased in classical times,[1634] and is always represented |362| by authors, from the time of Homer downwards, as a characteristic of barbarous nations; and yet, in our own language, a word in common use survives as a memorial of this barbarous custom having been practised by the Greeks probably long before the days of Homer. For from τόξον a bow (or occasionally an arrow[1635]), was derived τοξικὸν—toxicum—the poison for arrows; a term which gradually included all poisons, even those of the milder form, such as alcohol, the too free use of which results in that form of poisoning still known among us as intoxication.

One of the first to mention the discovery of flint arrow-heads in Britain was Dr. Plot, who, in his “Natural History of Staffordshire”[1636] (1686), speaking of the use of iron by “the Britains” in Cæsar’s time, observes: “we have reason to believe that, for the most part at lest, they sharpen’d their warlike instruments rather with stones than metall, especiall in the more northerly and inland countries, where they sometimes meet with flints in shape of arrow-heads, whereof I had one sent me by the learned and ingenious Charles Cotton, Esq., found not far from his pleasant mansion at Beresford, exactly in the form of a bearded arrow, jagg’d at each side, with a larger stemm in the middle, whereby I suppose it was fixt to the wood.” “These they find in Scotland in much greater plenty, especially in the prefectury of Aberdeen, which, as the learned S^r Robert Sibbald[1637] informs us, they there call Elf-arrows—Lamiarum Sagittas—imagining they drop from the clouds, not being to be found upon a diligent search, but now and then by chance in the high beaten roads.” “Nor did the Britans only head their arrows with flint, but also their mataræ or British darts, which were thrown by those that fought in essedis, whereof I guess this is one I had given me, found near Leek, by my worthy friend Mr. Thomas Gent, curiously jagg’d at the edges with such-like teeth as a sickle, and otherwise wrought upon the flat, by which we may conclude, not only that these arrow and spear-heads are all artificial, whatever is pretended, but also that they had anciently some way of working of flints by the toole, which may be seen by the marks, as well as they had of the Egyptian porphyry; which, as the aforesaid worthy Gent. Sir Robert Sibbald, thinks, they learned of the Romans, who, as Aldrovandus[1638] assures us, anciently used such weapons made of stones. However, still, |363| it not being hence deducible, but they may be British, they are not ill-placed here, whatever original they have had from either nation.”

Plot gives engravings both of a stemmed and barbed arrow-head, and of a leaf-shaped lance-head or knife.

Sir Robert Sibbald, in his[1639] “Scotia Illustrata,” 1684, expresses his belief that the flint arrow-heads are artificial. He possessed two, one like the head of a lance and the other like the end of an anchor, or tanged and barbed. He also relates the account given him by the Laird of Straloch, in Aberdeenshire, which he had passed on to the historian of Staffordshire.

It will be observed that Plot alludes to different opinions regarding these instruments, it being a matter in dispute whether they were artificial, natural, or partly natural; in the same manner as at the time when the flint implements were first discovered in the River Gravels doubts were expressed by some as to their artificial origin, while others regarded them as fossils of natural formation; and others again carried their unconscious Manichæism so far as to ascribe all fossils, and we may presume these included, to diabolical agency. The old Danish collector, Olaf Worm, speaks of a flint of a dark colour[1640] exhibiting the form of a spear-head with such accuracy that it may be doubted whether it is a work of art or of nature, and of others like daggers, which, as being found in ancient grave-hills, are regarded by some as the arms of an early people; while others doubt whether they are the work of art or nature; and others consider them to be thunderbolts. One reason in former times for doubting the artificial origin of the most highly finished instruments was ignorance of how such objects could have been chipped out. After describing one of the beautiful Danish daggers, with the delicately “ripple-marked” blade and the square ornamented handle, Worm remarks—“si silex ullo modo arte foret tractabilis, potius Arte quam Naturâ elaboratum esse hoc corpus jurares.”[1641]

Aldrovandus[1642] engraves a flint arrow-head as a Glossopetra—a stone which, according to Pliny,[1643] “resembleth a man’s tongue, and groweth not upon the ground, but in the eclipse of the moone falleth from heaven,” and which “is thought by the magicians to be verie necessarie for those that court faire women.”

But perhaps one of the most curious of these early notices of flint |364| arrow-heads is that given in the “Catalogue and Description of the Natural and Artificial Rarities belonging to the Royal Society and preserved at Gresham College,”[1644] made by Nehemiah Grew, M.D., F.R.S. In Part III., Chap. V., Of Regular Stones, Dr. Grew speaks of “The flat Bolthead—Anchorites. Of affinity with that well described by Wormius[1645] with the title of Silex venabuli ferreum cuspidem exacte referens. By Moscardo[1646] with that of Pietre Ceraunie; who also figures it with three or four varieties. This like those of a perfect Flint and semiperspicuous. ’Tis likewise, in the same manner, pointed, like a Speer, having at the other end, like those of Moscardo, a short handle. But, moreover, hath this peculiar, that ’tis pointed or spiked also backward on both sides of the Handle, with some resemblance to an Anchor or the head of a Bearded Dart, from whence I have named it. ’Tis likewise tooth’d on the edges, and the sides as it were wrought with a kind of undulated sculpture, as those before mentioned. Another different from the former, in that it is longer, hath a deeper indenture, but no handle. Both of them strike fire like other flints.” There is a representation given of this Anchorites, which shows it to have been a common barbed arrow-head with a central stem.

Moscardo’s[1647] figures which are here cited represent for the most part tanged arrow-heads. He says that Bonardo relates that they fall from the clouds, and that those who carry them cannot be drowned or struck by lightning. They produce, moreover, pleasant dreams.

Mention has already been made of the superstition attaching to flint arrow-heads in Scotland, where they were popularly regarded as the missiles of Elves. In speaking of them Dr. Stuart[1648] quotes Robert Gordon of Straloch, the well-known Scottish geographer, who wrote about 1661. After giving some details concerning elf-darts, this writer says that these wonderful stones are sometimes found in the fields and in public and beaten roads, but never by searching for them; to-day, perhaps one will be found where yesterday nothing could be seen, and in the afternoon in places where before noon there was none, and this most frequently under |365| clear skies and on summer days. He then gives instances related to him by a man and a woman of credit, each of whom while riding found an arrow-head in their clothes in this unexpected way. Mr. F. C. Lukis, F.S.A.,[1649] draws a distinction between the elf-shot or elf-arrow and the elf-dart, the latter being of larger dimensions and leaf-shaped. He gives an engraving of one which has been mounted in a silver frame and worn as a charm. The cut is here reproduced, as Fig. 271. The initials at the back are probably those of the owner, who mounted the amulet in silver, and of his wife. It was worn by an old Scottish lady for half a century. Others thus mounted were exhibited in the Museum of the Archæological Institute at Edinburgh in 1856.[1650]

Another arrow-head, also thus mounted, is engraved by Douglas,[1651] but in this instance it was found in Ireland, where “the peasants call them elf-arrows, and frequently set them in silver, and wear them on their necks as amulets against the AITHADH or elf-shot.” Others are engraved in the Philosophical Transactions[1652] and in Gough’s “Camden’s Britannia.”[1653] Sir W. Wilde[1654] informs us that in the North of Ireland, when cattle are sick and the cattle doctor or fairy doctor is sent for, he often says that the beast has been elf-shot, or stricken by fairy or elfin darts, and by some legerdemain contrives to find in its skin one or more poisoned weapons, which, with some coins, are then placed in the water which is given the animal to drink, and a cure is said to be effected. The Rev. Dr. Buick,[1655] in an article on Irish flint arrow-heads, has given some particulars as to their use in curing cattle that are bewitched, and the Folklore Society[1656] has published some details as to the beliefs still existing with regard to fairy darts. The same view of disease being caused by weapons shot by fairies at cattle, and |366| much the same method of cure, prevailed, and indeed in places even now prevails, in Scotland.[1657]

The late Dr. J. Hill Burton informed me that it is still an article of faith that elf-bolts after finding should not be exposed to the sun, or they are liable to be recovered by the fairies, who then work mischief with them.

Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt has recorded a similar elf-arrow superstition[1658] as obtaining in Derbyshire, where flint arrow and spear heads are by some regarded as fairy darts, and supposed to have been used by the fairies in injuring and wounding cattle. It was with reference to discoveries near Buxton, in that county, that Stukeley wrote—“Little flint arrow-heads of the ancient Britons, called elfs’-arrows, are frequently ploughed up here.”[1659]

The late Sir Daniel Wilson[1660] gives many interesting particulars regarding the elf-bolt, elf-shot, or elfin-arrow, which bears the synonymous Gaelic name of Sciat-hee, and cites from Pitcairn’s “Criminal Trials,” the description of a cavern where the archfiend carries on the manufacture of elf-arrows with the help of his attendant imps, who rough-hewed them for him to finish. He also mentions the passage in a letter from Dr. Hickes[1661] to Pepys, recording that my Lord Tarbut, or some other lord, did produce one of those elf-arrows which one of his tenants or neighbours took out of the heart of one of his cattle that died of an usual death (sic). Dr. Hickes had another strange story, but very well attested, of an elf-arrow that was shot at a venerable Irish bishop by an evil spirit, in a terrible noise louder than thunder, which shaked the house where the bishop was.

Similar superstitions prevailed among the Scandinavian[1662] nations, by whom a peculiar virtue was supposed to be inherent in flint arrow-heads, which was not to be found in those of metal.

The fact, already mentioned, of arrow-heads of flint being appended to Etruscan[1663] necklaces of gold, apparently as a sort of charm, seems to show that a belief in the supernatural origin of these weapons, and their consequent miraculous powers, was of |367| very ancient date. It has still survived in Italy,[1664] where the peasants keep flint arrow-heads to preserve their houses from lightning, believing that the lightning comes down to strike with a similar stone—a superstition which Professor Gastaldi also found prevalent in Piedmont. In some instances they are carried on the person as preservatives against lightning, and in parts of the Abruzzo[1665] they are known as lingue di S. Paolo, and the countryman who finds one devoutly kneels down, picks it up with his own tongue, and jealously preserves it as a most potent amulet. In the Foresi Collection[1666] at the Paris Exhibition were some arrow-heads mounted in silver as amulets, like those in Scotland, but brought from the Isle of Elba. Another has been engraved by Dr. C. Rosa.[1667]

M. Cartailhac[1668] has published an interesting pamphlet on such superstitions, and Professor Bellucci has also dilated upon them. They are abundant in the neighbourhood of Perugia.[1669]

It is a curious circumstance, that necklaces formed of cornelian beads, much of the shape of stemmed arrow-heads, with the perforation through the central tang, are worn by the Arabs of Northern Africa at the present day, being regarded, as I was informed by the Rev. J. Greville Chester, as good for the blood. Similar charms are also worn in Turkey. I have a necklace of fifteen such arrow-head-like beads, with a central amulet, which was purchased by my son in a shop at Kostainicza,[1670] in Turkish Croatia. Among the Zuñis[1671] of New Mexico, stone arrow-heads are frequently attached to figures of animals so as to form charms or fetishes.

Enough, however, has been said with regard to the superstitions attaching to these arrow-heads of stone; the existence of such a belief in their supernatural origin, dating, as it seems to do, to a comparatively remote period, goes to prove that even in the days when the belief originated, the use of stone arrow-heads was not known, nor was there any tradition extant of a people whose weapons they had been. And yet it is probable that of all the |368| instruments made of stone, arrow-heads would be among the last to drop out of use, being both well adapted for the purpose they served, and at the same time formed of a material so abundant, that with weapons so liable to be lost as arrows, it would be preferred to metal, at a time when this was scarce and costly. In this country, at all events, the extreme scarcity of bronze arrow-heads is remarkable, while we know from interments that flint arrow-heads were in common use by those who employed bronze for other weapons or implements. There appears to be some doubt as to whether the arrow-heads, or rather the flakes of black flint or obsidian which have been found in considerable numbers associated with bronze arrow-heads on the field of Marathon, were made in Greece, or whether they were not rather in use among some of the barbarian allies of the Persian King. M. Lenormant[1672] is clearly of the opinion that they are not of Greek origin,[1673] but this is contested by others, and probably with reason. Whatever their origin, there is a strong argument against stone arrow-heads having been in use among the Greeks at so late a period as the battle of Marathon, B.C. 490, in the fact that Herodotus,[1674] writing but shortly afterwards, records, as an exceptional case, that in the army of Xerxes, circa B.C. 480, the arrows of some of the Æthiopian contingent were tipped with stone, while those of some Indian nations were even pointed with iron. So early as the days of Homer the arrow-heads of the Greeks were of bronze, and had the three longitudinal ribs upon them, like those in that metal found at Marathon, for he speaks of the χαλκήρἐ ὀϊστόν[1675] and applies to it the epithet τριγλώχιν.[1676]

Even among such rude tribes as the Massagetæ and Scythians, the arrow-heads, in the days of Herodotus, were of bronze; as he records an ingenious method adopted by one Ariantas,[1677] a king of the Scythians, to take a census of his people by levying an arrow-head from each, all of which were afterwards cast into an enormous bronze vessel.

Besides the Æthiopians there was another nation which made use of stone-pointed arrows in Africa, as is proved by the arrows from Egyptian tombs, of which specimens are preserved in several of our museums. The head, which is of flint, differs however from |369| all the ordinary forms, inasmuch as it is chisel-shaped rather than pointed, and in form much resembles a small gun-flint. The tip of one of these, secured to the shaft by bitumen, is shown in Fig. 272. The original is in the British Museum. In my own collection are some specimens of such arrows. Their total length is about 35 inches and the shafts for about two-thirds of their length are made of reed, the remainder towards the point being of wood. Near the notch for the string are distinct traces of there having been a feather on either side, in the same plane as the notch. It is probable that arrow-heads of similar character may have been in use in Britain, though they have hitherto almost escaped observation, owing to the extreme simplicity of their form. To these I shall subsequently recur.

Some of the Egyptian arrows[1678] have supplemental flakes at the sides, so as practically to make the edge of the arrow-head wider.

In October, 1894, the Ghizeh Museum acquired from a Sixth Dynasty tomb at Assiut, two squadrons of soldiers, each of forty figures carved in wood. The figures of one set, presumed to be Egyptians, have a brown complexion and are armed with bronze-tipped spears and with shields. The figures are about 13 inches high. The other group is shorter, and the soldiers are black-skinned and armed with bow and arrows only; each has a bow in his left hand, and in his right four arrows with chisel-shaped heads of flint.[1679]

The better-known forms of arrow-heads which occur in Britain may be classed as the leaf-shaped, the lozenge-shaped, the tanged or stemmed, and the triangular, each presenting several varieties. The arrow-heads of the third class are in this country usually barbed; those of the fourth but rarely.

* * * * *

Whether the forms were successively developed in this order is a question difficult of solution; but in an ingenious paper by Mr. W. C. Little, of Liberton, published early in this century, being “An Inquiry into the Expedients used by the Scotts before the Discovery of Metals,”[1680] the lozenge-shaped are regarded as the earliest; next, those |370| barbed with two witters,[1681] but no middle tang; and last, the tanged. The same author argues from analogy that the ancients could extend this flint manufacture to other purposes, “as the same ingenuity which formed the head of an arrow could also produce a knife, a saw, and a piercer.”

Colonel A. Lane-Fox, now General Pitt Rivers, in his second lecture on “Primitive Warfare,”[1682] arranges the forms of arrow-heads in the same manner as I have here adopted, and shows that the transition from one form to the other is easy and natural. There are, indeed, some arrow-heads of which it would be impossible to say whether they were leaf-shaped or lozenge-shaped, or whether they were lozenge-shaped or tanged.

Sir William Wilde regards the triangular as the primary form, and the leaf-shaped and lozenge-shaped as the last.

Mr. W. J. Knowles[1683] has suggested a somewhat different classification, but it seems unnecessary to alter the arrangement here adopted. He does not enter into the question of the development of the forms. An exhaustive paper on Irish flint arrow-heads, by the Rev. Dr. Buick,[1684] may be usefully consulted.

Whatever may have been the order of the development of the forms, it would, in my opinion, be unwarrantable to attempt any chronological arrangement founded upon mere form, as there is little doubt of the whole of these varieties having been in use in one and the same district at the same time, the shape being to some extent adapted to the flake of flint from which the arrow-heads were made, and to some extent to the purposes which the arrows were to serve. The arrow-heads in use among the North American Indians,[1685] when intended for hunting, were so contrived that they could be drawn out of the wound, but those destined for war were formed and attached to the shaft in such a manner, that when it was attempted to pull out the arrow, its head became detached, and remained in the wound. The poisoned arrows of the Bushmen of South Africa[1686] are in like manner made with triangular heads of iron, which become detached in the body if an attempt is made to withdraw the arrow from the wound that it has caused.

I have already remarked on the difficulty of distinguishing between javelin and arrow heads; but, from their size, I think that the late Dr. Thurnam was justified in regarding those engraved as Figs. 273, 274, 275, as heads of javelins; and they may therefore be taken first in order. Two of them have already been engraved.[1687] Their beautifully worked surfaces had, however, hardly had justice done them, and, by |371| the kindness of Dr. Thurnam, I was able to have them engraved afresh full size. They were found in 1864, in company with another almost identical in form with the middle figure, in an oval barrow on Winterbourn Stoke Down, about a mile and a half north-west of Stonehenge, close to the head of a contracted skeleton. They are most skilfully chipped on both faces, which are equally convex, and they are not more than a quarter of an inch in thickness. Three are leaf-shaped, and one lozenge-shaped, and this latter, though larger, is thinner and more delicate. They have acquired a milky, porcellanous surface while lying in the earth. They are all four now in the British Museum. As has been remarked by Dr. Thurnam, objects of this description have rarely been found in barrows.

The two javelin-heads, if such they be, found by Mr. J. R. Mortimer in the Calais Wold barrow, near Pocklington, Yorkshire,[1688] are lozenge-shaped and much more acutely pointed, and were accompanied by two lozenge-shaped arrow-heads. By the kindness of the late Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt they are all four here reproduced as Figs. 276 to 279. A similar javelin-head to Fig. 277, 2 3∕4 inches long, now in the British Museum, was found by the late Lord Londesborough in a barrow on Seamer |372| Moor, near Scarborough.[1689] A fine lozenge-shaped javelin-head (5 inches) was found with arrow-heads, scrapers, and knives, near Longcliffe,[1690] Derbyshire, and some delicate arrow-heads, broken, at Harborough Rocks,[1691] in the same county. Javelin-heads of much the same form as those from Winterbourn Stoke and Calais Wold occur not unfrequently in Ireland, but are rarely quite so delicately chipped. Lozenge-shaped arrow-heads are recorded from a cairn at Unstan,[1692] Orkney, and from the Culbin Sands.[1693] The class having both faces polished, though still only chipped at the edges, like Wilde’s[1694] Fig. 27, has not, except in Portugal, as yet occurred out of Ireland. A few of these may have served as knives or daggers, as they are intentionally rounded by grinding at the more tapered end, which at first sight appears to have been intended for the point and not for the handle. The long lozenge-shaped form is found in the Government of Vladimir, Russia.[1695]

Large lozenge-shaped lance-heads were occasionally in use among the North American Indians;[1696] but the more usual form is a long blade, notched at the base to receive the ligature which binds it to the shaft. |373|

* * * * *

Of leaf-shaped arrow-heads, which form the first class now to be described, there are several minor varieties, both in outline and section, some being longer in proportion to their breadth than others, rounder or more pointed at the base, thicker or thinner, or more carefully chipped on one face than the other. A few typical examples are given full size in the annexed woodcuts. The originals are all in my own collection, unless otherwise specified.

* * * * *

Fig. 280 is from the neighbourhood of Icklingham, Suffolk, of flint become nearly white by weathering, and carefully chipped on both faces, one of which is, however, more convex than the other. I have a larger but imperfect specimen of the same form from Oundle. A nearly similar arrow-head, of yellow flint, from Hoxne, Suffolk, has been figured.[1697] It was supposed to have occurred in the same deposit as that containing large palæolithic implements and elephant remains; but nothing certain is known on this point, and from the form there can be no hesitation in assigning it to the Neolithic Period. A rather smaller arrow-head, but of much the same character, was found at Bradford Abbas, Dorset.[1698] Professor Buckman had several leaf-shaped arrows from the same neighbourhood. Some of them were long and slender, more like Fig. 286.

In Fig. 281 is shown an arrow-head of rather broader proportions, from Gunthorpe, Lincolnshire, which has been engraved in the Reliquary,[1699] whence the block is borrowed. I have specimens of the same form, delicately chipped on both faces, and found near Icklingham and Lakenheath, Suffolk. Occasionally, one face of the arrow-heads of this form is left nearly flat.

Fig. 282 shows a smaller specimen in the extensive Greenwell Collection. In this instance, the flake from which the arrow-head was made has been but little retouched on the flat face. It is slightly curved |374| longitudinally, but probably not to a sufficient extent to affect the flight of the arrow. This form is of common occurrence on the Yorkshire Wolds, though very variable in its proportions, and also in point of symmetry, both as regards outline and similarity of the two faces.

In Fig. 283 is shown another and broader form, from Butterwick, on the Yorkshire Wolds. It is in the same collection, and is worked on both faces. The sides are slightly ogival, so as to produce a sharper point.

Occasionally, instead of being sharply pointed, arrow-heads are more oval in form. An instance of this kind is given in Fig. 284, the original of which was found by Mr. Francis Galton, F.R.S., on the occasion of a visit with me to the camp of Little Solsbury Hill, near Bath. It is of flint that has become white with exposure, equally convex on the two faces, and rather thick in proportion to its size. I have a somewhat similar but broader specimen from the camp of Maiden Bower, near Dunstable, and others even more rounded at the point, and larger and thinner, from Willerby Wold, Yorkshire, and from Icklingham. I have one Yorkshire specimen, which is almost circular in form, and bears traces of grinding on one of its faces. In the Greenwell Collection are specimens of almost all intermediate proportions between an oval like Fig. 284 and a perfect circle. |375|

More lanceolate forms are shown in Figs. 285 and 286, both from Yorkshire. Fig. 285, though worked on both faces, still exhibits portions of the original surface of the flake from which it was made; but Fig. 286, from Grindale, near Bridlington, is of transparent chalcedonic flint, beautifully and symmetrically worked over both faces. This elongated form is not of common occurrence. I have a beautiful example, of the same general character, but pointed at either end, found near Icklingham, Suffolk. A large example of this form, from Derbyshire, in the Bateman Collection, may have been a javelin-head.

Other and shorter forms are shown in Figs. 287 and 288, the former of which has been made from a flat flake, the original surface of which remains intact on a large portion of each face. Fig. 288, on the contrary, is carefully chipped over the whole of both faces, which are equally convex. It has a slightly heart-shaped form.

* * * * *

It will have been observed that in all these specimens the base of the arrow-head is much more rounded that the point. This, however, is by no means universally the case with the leaf-shaped arrow-heads, the bases of which are in some instances almost, if not quite, as acute as the points. It is, in fact, sometimes difficult to say which of the ends was intended for the point.

* * * * *

Fig. 289 shows a large arrow-head from Lakenheath, Suffolk, from the collection of the late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S. It is equally convex on both faces, and almost equally sharp at both ends. In the Greenwell Collection are similar specimens from Burnt Fen, Cambs. |376| Others, of the same character, but of smaller size, are engraved in Figs. 290 and 291. Both the originals are from the Yorkshire Wolds.

That shown in Fig. 290 is in the Greenwell Collection. It is thin, slightly curved longitudinally, and very neatly worked into shape at the edges. It is a form of not unfrequent occurrence in the Yorkshire Wolds, sometimes of larger dimensions, and more roughly chipped, but more commonly of smaller size. I have a beautifully-made arrow-head of nearly the same size and shape, found at Lakenheath, Suffolk. It is not more than one-eighth of an inch in thickness. One of wider proportions from Burnt Fen is in the Greenwell Collection. Fig. 291 is thicker in proportion to its width, more convex on one face than the other, and less acutely pointed at the base.

In Figs. 292 and 293 are shown some more or less unsymmetrical varieties of form. Fig. 292 is, towards the point, equally convex on each face; but at the base the flat inner face of the original flake has been left untouched, so that the edge is like that of a “scraper,” or of a round-nosed chisel. Though the point is, in all respects, identical with that of undoubted arrow-heads, and though I have placed it here among them, it is possible that that end may, after all, have been intended for insertion in a handle, and that it was a small cutting tool, and not an arrow-head.

There can be no doubt of the purpose of Fig. 293, which is of white flint delicately chipped, and is equally convex on the two faces. On one side the outline is almost angular, instead of forming a regular sweep, so that it shows how easy is the passage from the leaf-shape to the lozenge form.

There are often instances like that afforded by the arrow-head engraved in Fig. 294, where it is hard to say under which form a specimen should be placed. The original of this figure forms part of the Greenwell Collection, and is neatly worked on both faces. I have a somewhat broader arrow-head of the same character, which I found in the camp of Maiden Bower, near Dunstable. General Pitt Rivers found one of the same form, and one like Fig. 311, within an earthwork at Callow Hill,[1700] Oxfordshire. Another was found with a perforated hammer, a flint flake ground at the edge, some scrapers, and other objects, in a cairn in Caithness.[1701] One like Fig. 294, but smaller, was found in the Horned Cairn[1702] of Get, at Garrywhin, Caithness. A large specimen from Glenluce[1703] has been figured. Another, very thin, found at Urquhart, Elgin, is in the Edinburgh Museum.

* * * * *

It is to arrow-heads of this leaf-shaped form, but approximating |377| closely to the lozenge-shaped, that Dr. Thurnam[1704] is inclined to assign a connection with the class of tumuli known as long barrows; and in support of this view he has cited several cases of their discovery in this form of barrow, in which no barbed arrow-heads have hitherto been found. Some leaf-shaped arrow-heads were found in a long barrow at Walker’s Hill, Wilts.[1705]

* * * * *

The annexed cut, kindly furnished by the Society of Antiquaries, shows an arrow-head from a long barrow near Fyfield, Wilts. It is delicately chipped, and weighs only forty-three grains. Another, 1 1∕2 inches in length, from a long barrow on Alton Down, is of surprising thinness, and weighs only thirty grains. Others, it would seem purposely injured at the point, were found in the long chambered barrow at Rodmarton, Gloucestershire.[1706] Others, again, were found by Mr. Bateman in long barrows in Derbyshire and Staffordshire. One of these, from Ringham Low, is 2 1∕4 inches long and 1 inch broad, yet weighs less than forty-eight grains. In Long Low, Wetton,[1707] were three such arrow-heads, and many flakes of flint. Dr. Thurnam, in speaking of the leaf-shaped as the long-barrow type of arrow-head, does not restrict it to that form of tumulus, but merely indicates it as that which is alone found there. The form indeed occurred elsewhere, thus, one was found in a bowl-shaped barrow at Ogbourne,[1708] Wilts.

The Calais Wold barrow,[1709] already mentioned as having produced four lozenge-shaped javelin and arrow heads, is circular, while that on Pistle Down, Dorsetshire,[1710] which contained four beautifully-chipped arrow-heads of this type, is oblong.

Leaf-shaped arrow-heads are mentioned as having been found with burnt bones in Grub Low, Staffordshire.[1711] The same forms, more or less carefully chipped, and occasionally almost flat on the face, are frequently found on the surface in various parts of Scotland,[1712] especially in the counties of Aberdeen, Banff, Elgin, and Moray. One not of flint, but apparently of quartzite, was found near Glenluce,[1713] Wigtownshire. Numbers have been found on the Culbin Sands,[1714] and at Urquhart.[1715] They are comparatively abundant in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Suffolk, but rarer in the southern counties of England. They |378| have been found at Grovehurst,[1716] near Milton, Kent, and I have picked up a specimen near Kit’s Coty House. I have seen specimens found at Redhill, near Reigate;[1717] near Bournemouth; at Prince Town, Dartmoor; and near Oundle; besides the localities already mentioned.

Typical lozenge-shaped arrow-heads are, in Britain, and, indeed, in other countries, rarer than the leaf-shaped. That shown in Fig. 296 has been made from a flat flake, and is nicely chipped on both faces, though not quite straight longitudinally. It was found at Northdale Farm, Grindale, Bridlington. A Scottish specimen, from Urquhart,[1718] Elginshire, slightly smaller, has been figured. The original of Fig. 297 forms part of the Greenwell Collection, and has been made from a very thin, transparent flake. It is rather less worked on the face opposite to that here shown. It was found at Newton Ketton, Durham. One like Fig. 297 was found on Bull Hill,[1719] Lancashire. A regularly-chipped arrow-head of lozenge shape is said to have been found at Cutterly Clump, Wilts;[1720] and I have seen a few specimens from Derbyshire. Those from the Calais Wold Barrow have already been mentioned.

A diamond-shaped arrow-head was found at Cregneesh,[1721] Isle of Man; and another, as well as one of leaf shape, within a stone circle near Port Erin.[1722] Lozenge-shaped arrow-heads are frequently found in Scotland.

A more elongated form is shown in Figs. 298 and 299, taken from specimens found on the Yorkshire Wolds. Both of them are neatly chipped on either face, and have but little left of the original surface of the flakes from which they were formed. One of the shorter sides of Fig. 299 is somewhat hollowed, possibly to give a slight shoulder, and thus prevent its being driven into the shaft.

This is more evidently the case with the arrow-head represented in |379| Fig. 300, which, like so many others, comes from the Wolds of Yorkshire. It is made from a slightly curved flake, and is more convex on one face than the other, especially at the stem or tang.

In the collection of Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield, is another Yorkshire arrow-head, which is leaf-shaped, but provided with a slight tang.

Leaf-shaped arrow-heads, with a decided stem like that of the leaf, found in Arabia and Japan, will be mentioned at a subsequent page.

Another of these stemmed but barbless arrow-heads, from the same district, is shown in Fig. 301. It was found at Amotherby, near Malton, and was given to me by the late Mr. Charles Monkman, of that place. It has been made from a flat flake, and has been worked into shape by a slight amount of chipping along the edges, which does not extend over the face. There are numerous arrow-heads of the same class, though not of the same form, which have been made from flakes of the proper thickness, by a little secondary working to give them a point, and by slightly trimming the butt-end of the flake. They usually approximate to the leaf-shape in form, but, as might be expected, vary considerably in size, proportions, and the amount of symmetry displayed. It seems needless to engrave specimens.

The weapon point shown in Fig. 302 is so large that possibly it may be regarded as that of a javelin, and not of an arrow. In was in the collection of Mr. H. Durden, of Blandford, and is now in the British Museum. It was found on Iwerne Minster Down, Dorsetshire. It is boldly and symmetrically chipped, thick in proportion to its breadth, and equally convex on both faces; though distinctly stemmed, it can hardly be said to be barbed. It much resembles an Italian specimen in the Arsenal of Turin.[1723]

A somewhat more distinctly-barbed arrow-head from the Yorkshire Wolds is represented in Fig. 303. Its thickness, 5∕16 inch, is great in proportion to its size; the two faces are equally convex, and the stem widens out slightly at the base. The same is the case with a smaller and thinner arrow-head in my collection, of somewhat similar form, found near the camp of Maiden Bower, Dunstable. A third, from the Yorkshire Wolds, presents the same peculiarity, which is still more apparent in an arrow-head from a barrow on Seamer Moor, near Scarborough,[1724] if indeed it has been correctly figured. |380|

A magnificent specimen of much the same type as Fig. 303, but nearly twice as long, has been kindly lent me for engraving by Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield, Yorkshire. It was found in the neighbourhood of Fimber, and is shown in Fig. 304. It is neatly chipped over both faces, which are equally convex, and the stem is carefully shaped and of considerable thickness. The edges, as is not unfrequently the case, are serrated.

The fine arrow-head engraved as Fig. 305 shows the barbs or “witters” still more strongly developed. One of them is, however, less pointed than the other. From its size, this and others may have formed the heads of javelins rather than of arrows, though arrow-heads as large are still in use among some savage tribes. It was found at Pick Rudge Farm,[1725] Overton, Wilts, in company with the oblong implement engraved as Fig. 255. It is now in the Blackmore Museum, the Trustees of which kindly allowed me to figure it.

I have a very fine specimen with even longer barbs, from Ashwell, Herts, which is shown in Fig. 305A.

Fig. 306 represents another unusually large specimen, found on Sherburn Wold, Yorkshire. It is nicely worked on both faces, and the end of the stem or tang has been carefully chipped to a sharp semicircular edge, well adapted for fixing into the split shaft. One similar to it was found on Bull Hill,[1726] Lancashire. Mr. A. C. Savin, of Cromer, |381| has a rather smaller arrow-head of this type, but with the sides more curved outwards, like Fig. 313, found near Aylsham. Barbed arrow-heads of various forms and sizes are of frequent occurrence in some parts of the Yorkshire Wolds and Moors, and in parts of Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Suffolk and Derbyshire.

It would be tedious to attempt to exhibit all the different varieties, but specimens of the more ordinary forms are given in Figs. 307 to 312, from originals principally in the Greenwell Collection. As a rule, there is but little difference in the convexity of the two faces, though very |382| frequently one face is decidedly flatter than the other; and occasionally the flat face of the original flake has been left almost untouched. Fig. 311 affords an example of this kind, being nearly flat on the face not shown, while the other face still retains part of the crust of the flint nodule from which the flake was struck. The central stem or tang varies much in its proportions to the size of the arrow-head, and occasionally forms but an inconsiderable projection, as in Fig. 309, making the form approximate to the triangular. Sometimes, as in Fig. 312, the ends of the barbs are carefully chipped straight, as is the case with many arrow-heads from the more southern parts of England, some of which will shortly be noticed. An arrow-head like Fig. 312 was found near Ashwell,[1727] Herts.

Before quitting the arrow-heads of the Yorkshire Wolds, I must insert figures of two other specimens illustrative of another form. Of these, that shown in Fig. 313 was found at Northdale Farm, Grindale, Bridlington. It is thick in proportion to its size, and skilfully chipped on both faces. The tang is thin and slight. The other arrow-head Fig. 314 is not so thick in proportion. In both, if the sweep of the outline were continued past the barbs, it would about meet the extremity of the tang, and give a leaf-shaped form; so that it seems probable that this class was made by first chipping out the simple leaf-shaped form, and then working in a notch on either side to produce the tangs and barbs. The same type occurs in Suffolk. An exaggerated example, rather like Fig. 320 but broader, found near Icklingham, is shown in Fig. 314A.

The next specimen that I have selected for engraving, Fig. 315, is from another part of the country, having been found by myself in 1866 on the surface of a field, at the foot of the Chalk escarpment between Eddlesborough and Tring, Herts. It can hardly be regarded as unfinished, though one of the surfaces is very rough and the outline far from symmetrical. It rather shows how rude were some of the appliances of our savage predecessors in Britain. Curiously enough, some barbed flint arrow-heads of nearly similar form, and but little more |383| symmetrical (to judge from the engravings), were found in 1763 at Tring Grove, Herts,[1728] with an extended skeleton. They lay between the legs, and at the feet were some of the perforated plates of greenish stone of the character of Fig. 354. An arrow-head of much the same form was found in a barrow near Tenby,[1729] with human bones and a part of a curious ring-shaped ornament, supposed to be of ivory. The long tapering arrow-head shown in Fig. 316 affords a contrast to this broad form. Its barbs are unfortunately not quite perfect, but the form being uncommon I have engraved it. It was found in Reach Fen, Cambridgeshire. A ruder example of the same form as Fig. 316, from Bourn Fen, has been figured in Miller and Skertchly’s “Fen-land.”[1730] A longer specimen, almost as acutely pointed, and with square-ended barbs, found on Lanchester Common,[1731] Durham, is in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle. I have several others of the same type from Suffolk, some with the sides curved slightly inwards.

The next Figure (317) is illustrative of the extraordinary amount of care and skill that was sometimes bestowed on the manufacture of objects so liable to be broken or lost in use as arrow-heads. This specimen was found at Isleham, Cambridgeshire, and has unfortunately lost its central stem, the outline of which I have restored from a nearly similar arrow-head found at Icklingham, Suffolk, which has lost both its barbs. It is very thin, so much so that its weight is only thirty-eight grains, but it is neatly chipped over the whole of both faces. Nothing, however, can exceed the beautiful regularity of the minute chipping by which the final outline was given to the edges, extremely small flakes having been removed at regular intervals so close to each other that there are twenty of them in an inch. The inner sides and ends of the barbs are worked perfectly straight, the ends forming right angles to the sides of the arrow-head, and the inner sides being nearly parallel with each other, so that the barbs are somewhat dovetailed in form.

The broader, but almost equally beautiful arrow-head shown in Fig. |384| 318 was found in front of the face of an unburnt body, in a barrow at Rudstone, near Bridlington, by Canon Greenwell. I have a beautiful specimen of the same type from Dorchester Dykes, Oxon, given to me by the late Mr. Davey, of Wantage. It is shown in Fig 318A. A less highly finished example from Chatteris Fen[1732] has been figured.

The ends of the barbs thus chipped straight sometimes, as in Fig. 312, form a straight line. Occasionally, as in the arrow-heads found by Sir R. Colt Hoare[1733] in one of the Everley barrows, the base of the barbs forms an obtuse angle with the sides of the arrow-head, so that there is a sharp point at the inner side of the barbs. In others the end forms an acute angle with the sides of the arrow-head, so that the point of each barb is at the outer side. A beautiful specimen of this kind is shown in Fig. 319. It is one of six, varying in size and somewhat in shape, but all beautifully worked, found in barrows on Lambourn Down, Berks, and now in the British Museum. In some few instances the sides of the arrow-head are rather ogival in form (like the Scotch |385| specimen, Fig. 326), which adds to the acuteness of the point. In one of this character from a barrow on the Ridgeway Hill,[1734] Dorsetshire, and others from one of the Woodyates barrows,[1735] the barbs are also acutely pointed at the outer side. I have a rather smaller specimen than that figured, from Lakenheath, Suffolk, and others from Thetford and Reach Fen, with the sides even more ogival than in Fig. 326. Others of the same character, found in Derbyshire, are in the Bateman Collection. In some of the arrow-heads[1736] from the Wiltshire barrows the barbs are inordinately prolonged beyond the central tang, which is very small. Fig. 320, copied from Hoare,[1737] gives one of those from a barrow near Fovant, found with a contracted interment, in company with a bronze dagger and pin, and some jet ornaments. One of similar character was found in a barrow on Windmill Hill,[1738] Avebury, but its barbs are not so long. An arrow-head with equally long barbs, but with the central tang of the same length as the barbs, was found in a dolmen in the Morbihan, and is in the Musée de St. Germain.

Before proceeding to notice one or two Scottish specimens, I must devote a short space to an exceptional form of arrow-head shown in Fig. 321. Like so many others, it is from the Yorkshire Moors, and was probably either barbed on both sides or intended to have been so. But one of the barbs having been broken off, possibly in the course of manufacture, the design has been modified, and the stump, so to speak, of the barb, has been rounded off in a neat manner by surface-flaking on both faces. The one-barbed arrow-head thus resulting presents some analogies with several of the triangular form, such as Figs. 336 to 338, about to be described.

Arrow-heads either accidentally lost before they were finished, or thrown away as “wasters,” in consequence of having been spoilt in the making, are occasionally found. Examples, apparently of both classes, are shown in Figs. 322 and 323. The originals form part of the Greenwell Collection. Fig. 322, from Sherburn Wold, appears to have been completely finished, with the exception of the notch on one side of the central tang. The face not shown in the figure exhibits on the left side a considerable portion of the surface of the original flake, the edge of which has been neatly trimmed along the right side of the face here shown. The base has been chipped on both faces to a sharp hollow edge, in which one notch has been neatly worked to form the barb and one side of the stem. There is no apparent reason why |386| the other notch should not have been formed, so that the probability is that the arrow-head was lost just before completion. In the other case the arrow-head, after being skilfully chipped on both faces into a triangular form, has had one of the notches worked in its base; but in effecting this the tool has been brought so near the centre of the head as to leave insufficient material for the tang, and the barb has also been broken off. In this condition it appears to have been thrown away as a waster.

Whether these views be correct or not, one deduction seems allowable, viz., that the barbed flint arrow-heads were, as a rule, finished at their points, and approximately brought into shape at their base, before the notches were worked to form the central tang and develop the barbs.

A curious double-pointed arrow-head from Brompton,[1739] Yorkshire, is, by the kindness of the Society of Antiquaries, shown in Fig. 323A. It had probably at first only a single point, and having been broken was trimmed into its present shape. Some of the “exceptional” forms from Brionio, in the Veronese, approximate to this, but with all respect to the Italian archæologists, I agree with Mr. Thomas Wilson,[1740] and cannot accept these forms as genuine.

I must now give a few examples of the stemmed and barbed flint arrow-heads found in Scotland, which, however, do not essentially differ in character from those of the more southern part of Britain. First among them I would place a remarkably fine specimen found in the Isle of Skye,[1741] which has already been published more than once. It is very acutely pointed, and expands at the base so as to give strength to the barbs, which are slightly curved inwards. From its size it may have served to point a javelin rather than an arrow.

The edges of some of the Scottish arrows are sometimes neatly serrated. An example of this kind is given in Fig. 325, from a specimen in the National Museum at Edinburgh. It is formed of chalcedonic flint, and was found with others of ordinary types at Urquhart,[1742] Elgin.

The original of Fig. 326 is in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and was found in Aberdeenshire. Its sides (like those of some in the National Museum at Edinburgh) are slightly ogival, so as to give sharpness to the point. Another from Urquhart,[1743] Elgin, has been figured, as well as one from Ballachulish,[1744] with straighter sides. One from Montblairy, Banff,[1745] is of the same type, as is one from Kilmarnock.[1746] The sides of Fig. 327 are curved outwards. This arrow-head was found in Glenlivet, Banff, a district where arrow-heads are common, and is in the Greenwell Collection, now the property of Dr. Allen Sturge, at Nice. |387|

I have already mentioned the counties of Scotland in which “elf-bolts” are most abundantly found. I may now enumerate a few of the spots, and the characters of the specimens of this form. One much like Fig. 327, but with the barbs more pointed, is figured by Wilson,[1747] as well as another[1748] like Fig. 305, found in a tumulus at Killearn, Stirlingshire. One from the Isle of Skye,[1749] like Fig. 316, and another from Shapinsay, Orkney,[1750] like Fig. 312, have been figured by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Others, found with burnt bones in an urn deposited in a cairn in Banff, have been engraved by Pennant,[1751] and some from Lanarkshire are given in the Journal of the Archæological Association.[1752]

Stemmed and barbed arrow-heads are recorded to have been found in |388| Aberdeenshire at the following localities:—Slains,[1753] Forgue,[1754] Kintore;[1755] Kildrummy,[1756] Strathdon,[1757] and Cruden;[1758] one 3 inches long and 2 1∕2 inches wide, at Tarland,[1759] and a large number at Cloister-Seat Farm,[1760] Udny.

In Banff, at Mains of Auchmedden,[1761] Eden[1762] and Bowiebank, King Edward; Cullen of Buchan,[1763] Glen Avon,[1764] Alvah,[1765] and Longman,[1766] Macduff.

In Elgin, at St. Andrew’s, Lhanbryd;[1767] Urquhart, and elsewhere.

In Forfarshire, at Carmyllie[1768] and elsewhere. Some Ayrshire[1769] specimens have been figured.

They have also been found near Gretna Green[1770] and Linton,[1771] Peebles, and in numbers on the Culbin Sandhills,[1772] Morayshire, and Killearn,[1773] Stirlingshire. In Fifeshire, in a cist at Dairsie;[1774] near Fordoun,[1775] Kincardineshire; Glenluce,[1776] Wigtownshire; and stemmed but not barbed, at Philiphaugh,[1777] Selkirkshire. This last is shown in Fig. 327A.

Other specimens, of which the form is not mentioned, were exhibited in a temporary Museum of the Archæological Institute at Edinburgh from the following localities:—Caithness,[1778] Cruden, Cromar, Kinellar, Aberdeenshire; Robgill, Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire; Arbuthnot, Bervie and Garvoch, Kincardineshire; Braidwood and Carluke, Lanarkshire; and Burgh-head, Wigtownshire.

Other have been found at Elchies, Keith,[1779] and Oldtown of Roseisle,[1780] Morayshire; Abernethy,[1781] Inverness; and at Mortlach[1782] and Lesmurdie,[1783] Banff.

In this place, also, it will be well to mention some of the discoveries of stemmed and barbed flint arrow-heads in England which have not already been cited. The following have been engraved:—One much like Fig. 303, found in the Kielder Burn,[1784] North Tyne; one like Fig. 327, found with burnt bones in an urn on Baildon Common,[1785] Yorkshire; another from Lake, Wilts;[1786] others, like Figs. 312 and 319, from the Green Low Barrow,[1787] Derbyshire; one like Fig. 308, from |389| Hastings;[1788] one like Fig. 307, found near urns, scrapers, &c., at Wavertree, near Liverpool;[1789] some like Fig. 307, with ashes, at Carno,[1790] Montgomeryshire; and several others from barrows in Wilts,[1791] Dorsetshire, and Derbyshire. A considerable number of flint arrow-heads are engraved in a plate in the Transactions of the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire.[1792] They are, however, for the most part forgeries. Others from East Lancashire[1793] and Rochdale[1794] have been described. Besides the discoveries recorded by Hoare and Bateman, and those made in Yorkshire,[1795] such arrow-heads are mentioned as having been found in the Thames;[1796] in the cemetery at Standlake,[1797] Oxon; in West Surrey,[1798] from which a number of arrow-heads of various forms have been figured by Mr. F. Lasham; St. Leonard’s Forest,[1799] Horsham; Plymouth,[1800] on Dartmoor,[1801] Devonshire; at Horndean,[1802] Hants; and in large numbers in Derbyshire, especially on Middleton Moor.[1803] Both the leaf-shaped and the barbed forms have been found near Leicester.[1804] A number have been found at Carn Brê,[1805] Cornwall.

Arrow-heads, of which the form is not specified, have been found at Wangford,[1806] Suffolk; Cliffe,[1807] near Carlebury, on the Yorkshire side of the Tees; Priddy,[1808] Somerset; Sutton Courtney,[1809] Berks; Lingfield Mark Camp,[1810] Surrey; near Ramsgate;[1811] Bigberry Hill,[1812] near Canterbury; Manton,[1813] Lincolnshire; Anstie Camp[1814] and Chart Park, Dorking.

Besides specimens already cited, and many from the Yorkshire Wolds and Moors, there are in my collection stemmed and barbed arrow-heads from the following localities:—One much like Fig. 307, from Staunton, near Ixworth, Suffolk; many others from West Stow, Lakenheath, and Icklingham, in the same county; from Hunsdon, near Ware, Brassington, Derbyshire, and Turkdean, Gloucestershire, much like Fig. 308; one from Abingdon, like Fig. 327; and one from St. Agnes, Truro, of the same form as Fig. 317, but not so delicately worked; and others from Wicken and Reach Fens, Cambs. I have also |390| numerous examples of different forms from Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, and from the neighbourhood of Wallingford. The Earl of Ducie has a series found near Sarsden House, Chipping Norton.

In the British Museum is a stemmed and barbed arrow-head, rather more curved at the sides than Fig. 307, found at Hoxne, Suffolk. Another of the same class, from Necton, Norfolk, is in the Norwich Museum, together with a smaller specimen like Fig. 308, from Attleborough. In the Cambridge Antiquarian Society’s Museum is one like Fig. 306, but with one of the barbs square-ended. It is 2 5∕8 inches long, and 1 1∕2 inch wide, and very thin, and was found in Burwell Fen. Another, like it, but 2 1∕4 inches long, was found near Aldreth, Cambs., and was in the collection of the Rev. S. Banks. Canon Greenwell obtained one of somewhat similar character, but narrow, from Barton Mills, Suffolk; and the Rev. C. R. Manning found one like Fig. 311 on a tumulus near Grime’s Graves, Norfolk. One of the same class is in the Penzance Museum; and Mr. Spence Bate, F.R.S., has shown me a broken one like Fig. 308, found under six feet of peat at Prince Town, Dartmoor, where also a leaf-shaped arrow-head was found. Prof. Buckman had one much like Fig. 327, found at Barwick, Somersetshire. One like Fig. 309, from Milton, near Pewsey, Wilts, is in the collection of Mr. W. H. Penning, F.G.S. Mr. Durden had one rather smaller than Fig. 308 from the neighbourhood of Blandford. I have seen them both stemmed and barbed and leaf-shaped, found near Bournemouth. Sir John Lubbock has one with square-ended stem, and barbs separated from it by a very narrow notch, found at Shrub Hill, Feltwell, Norfolk; and numerous specimens exist in other collections.

Before entering into the circumstances under which flint arrow-heads have been discovered, it will be well to describe the remaining class—the triangular. Some of these differ only from those last described in the absence of the central stem. Although this form is very common in Ireland and in Scandinavia, it occurs but rarely in Britain. The arrow-head shown in Fig. 328 was found near Icklingham, Suffolk, and was formerly in the collection of Mr. H. Trigg, of Bury St. Edmunds. Messrs. Mortimer possess a very similar specimen from the Yorkshire Wolds near Fimber. One has also been figured by Mr. C. Monkman[1815] as from Yorkshire. An arrow-head from Forfarshire, and one or two others of this type, are in the National Museum at Edinburgh. One from Ellon,[1816] Aberdeenshire, has been engraved, as |391| well as one of much more elongated form, with a semicircular notch at the base, from Glenluce,[1817] Wigtownshire. A broader arrow-head of the same type was found by the Rev. James M. Joass at Golspie, Sutherland, and is now in the Dunrobin Museum. An example was also found by Canon Greenwell in the material of a barrow at Childrey,[1818] Berks. Prof. Flinders Petrie has found the type in Egypt.[1819]

A beautiful specimen of another double-barbed triangular form is shown in Fig. 329. It was found at Langdale End, on the Moors of the North Riding of Yorkshire, and is in the Greenwell Collection. It has been surface-chipped over part of one face, but on the other it still shows the central ridge of the flake from which it was made. The sides are neatly serrated.

Fig. 330 represents a broader and less distinctly barbed form. The original was found at Amotherby, near Malton, and is chipped over both faces. I have another longer specimen from Sherburn, the base of which is less indented. Allied to this longer form, but having the sides more curved, is that shown in Fig. 331. The original was found by Canon Greenwell in one of the barrows examined by him at Weaverthorpe, Yorkshire. Varieties of this form, with the sides more or less straight, are of not unfrequent occurrence in Yorkshire. The same type has been found near Mantua.[1820]

The more perfectly triangular form shown in Fig. 332 is of rather rare occurrence. This arrow-head was found near Lakenheath, Suffolk, and is now in the Greenwell Collection. It is neatly chipped over both faces, which are equally convex. I possess other specimens from Suffolk. Some arrow-heads of the same shape from Gelderland are in the Christy Collection.

In many instances rude triangular arrow-heads have been formed from flakes and splinters of flint, which were evidently selected as being nearly of the desired form, and were brought into shape by the least possible amount of subsequent chipping. The secondary working on Fig. 333 nowhere extends back so much as an eighth of an inch from the edges, and the bulb of percussion of the splinter of flint from which it was made is at the right-hand angle of the base, but not on the face here figured. |392|

In Fig. 334 the bulb is at the back of the left-hand angle, but this specimen is much thicker, and shows a considerable amount of skilful chipping on both faces. The angle at the bulb is rounded, while on the opposite side of the base it is somewhat curved downwards, so as to form a kind of barb. This obliquity of the face is more apparent in Fig. 335, though the barb is less pronounced. The flat face of the original flake is in this instance left nearly untouched, but the ridge side has been neatly wrought by removing a series of minute parallel flakes. This form occurs in Ireland,[1821] and has been regarded as rather a knife than an arrow-head. I have seen an arrow-head of much the same form found at Bournemouth.

The character of surface-flaking, observable in Figs. 335, 336 and 337, is almost peculiar to Yorkshire; and one of the most beautiful examples that I have seen of it is on the arrow-head engraved as Fig. 336, which was found on Northdale Farm, Grindale, Bridlington. The ripple-like flaking extends over nearly two-thirds of one face, the remainder of which is a flat portion of the original surface of the flake from which the arrow-head was made. On the other face a rather larger portion of the original surface is left, but the |393| surface-chipping, though, neat, is not of this regular character. The base is chipped on both faces, so as to leave a sharp edge with a delicate projecting barb at one angle only. The other angle is perfect, and has never been continued so as to form a barb. I have fragments of other arrow-heads of the same kind, from the same neighbourhood, and on some the fluting along the base is as regular as that on the side, and the two series of narrow shallow grooves “mitre” together with great accuracy. I have arrow-heads of the same general form and character from the neighbourhood of Icklingham, Suffolk; and in the Greenwell Collection is a small and elegant example from Lakenheath; but these are devoid of the parallel flaking, as are also some of the Yorkshire specimens. The late Mr. J. F. Lucas, however, had an arrow-head of this form, with the fluted chipping, from Middleton Moor, Derbyshire. Such regular fluting can, I think, only have been produced by pressure, probably with a pointed instrument of stag’s-horn, as before described. It comes nearer in character to the wonderful “ripple-mark flaking” on some of the Danish daggers or lance-heads, and of the Egyptian knives, than the workmanship of any other British specimens.

The same style of work is observable on another arrow-head, Fig. 337, found on the same farm, though it is not of equal delicacy. In this case, however, the flaking extends along both sides, and the two series meet in the middle of the face, where but a very small portion of the original surface of the flake is visible. The face not shown is chipped in the same manner, but less neatly. One of the angles at the base has unfortunately been broken off, but there is no appearance of there having been more than one barb.

In some Egyptian arrow-heads from Abydos the surface seems to have been made smooth by grinding before the final flaking, just as was the case with the large blades mentioned on p. 359.

Less finely executed arrow-heads, with a long projecting wing or barb at one of the angles of the base, are of common occurrence in Yorkshire and Suffolk. They usually retain a considerable portion of the surface of the flakes from which they have been manufactured. They are also found in Gloucestershire[1822] and Worcestershire.[1823]

An unusually well-finished specimen of this class is engraved as Fig. 338. It was found in the neighbourhood of Fimber, Yorkshire, and is in the collection of Messrs. Mortimer, who have kindly allowed me to figure it. It has been made from an external flake, as there is a portion of the crust of the flint visible on one of the faces, both of which are neatly chipped. It is barbed at both angles of the base, though the projection is far longer and more curved on the one side than on the other. In most instances, however, there can hardly be said to be any barb at all at one of the angles.

The form with the long single barb appears to be common on the |394| Derbyshire Moors. In one instance a rectangular notch has been worked in the curved side, with what object it is hard to say. This specimen, shown in Fig. 339, was found in a barrow at Hungry Bentley, Derbyshire, by the late Mr. J. F. Lucas. It had been buried together with a jet ornament and beads, subsequently described, in an urn containing burnt bones.

The single-winged form is of rare occurrence in Scotland, but what appears to be an arrow-head of this kind, from Caithness,[1824] has been engraved by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and the cut is here, by their kindness, reproduced. Another from Urquhart and several from the Culbin Sands, Elginshire, and Glenluce Sands, Wigtownshire, are in the Edinburgh Museum. By some[1825] they are regarded as knives, with the tang for insertion in a handle. The same form is found in greater abundance in the North of Ireland. A somewhat analogous shape from Italy has been figured by Dr. C. Rosa.[1826] The type also occurs in Egypt.

The varieties here engraved of single-barbed triangular arrow-headeds of flint are, I think, enough to establish them as a distinct class, though they have received but little attention among the antiquities of any other country than the United Kingdom, nor have they been observed in use among modern savages. Many of the early bone harpoons, as well as those of the Eskimos, are barbed along one side only; and some of the Persian iron arrow-heads, as well as those of the Mandingoes,[1827] and of some South American tribes, are also single-barbed. The same is the case with some arrow-heads of iron belonging to the Merovingian period.[1828]

Another form of triangular arrow-head is round instead of hollow at the base, and bears an affinity with the leaf-shaped rather than the barbed variety. One of these from the neighbourhood of |395| Lakenheath, in the Greenwell Collection, is shown in Fig. 341. It is surface-chipped on both faces.

The chisel-ended type in use among the ancient Egyptians has already been mentioned, and a specimen engraved in Fig. 272.

Another and much longer[1829] Egyptian form has now become known. It approaches a triangle in form, but the base is indented like the tail of many homocercal fishes. The specimens vary in length from 3 or 4 inches to as much as 7 or 8 inches, so that some appear to have been javelin-heads. The flaking is wonderfully delicate, and the edges, for the most part, minutely serrated. Mr. Spurrell has described and figured a triangular blade, 4 1∕2 inches long, which much resembles the Egyptian form so far as general character is concerned. It was found in Cumberland,[1830] and is now in the British Museum. I have specimens from Abydos of a small, narrow, pointed and tanged arrow-head beautifully serrated at the sides. Other forms are figured by De Morgan.

In Fig. 342 is shown what appears to be a large example of the chisel-ended type, which was found at Urquhart,[1831] Elgin, and is in the National Museum at Edinburgh. The edge is formed by the sharp side of a flake, and the sharp angles at the two sides of the arrow-head have been removed by chipping, probably to prevent their cutting the ligaments that attached it to the shaft. Another was found at the same place. A small specimen from Suffolk is in the Christy Collection, and I have a few from the same county. Canon Greenwell has obtained others from Yorkshire. It is questionable whether the specimens like Fig. 231 ought not also to have been classed as arrow-heads.

A similar form to Fig. 342 occurs in France. In one of the dolmens on the plateau of Thorus, near Poitiers, I found a small chisel-ended wrought flint, closely resembling the Egyptian arrow-heads; and I have observed in the collection of the late Rev. W. C. Lukis, F.S.A., others of the same form from chambered tumuli in Brittany. They have been discovered with ancient interments in other parts of France,[1832] |396| and I have specimens found on the surface of the soil near Pontlevoy, and given to me by the Abbé Bourgeois.

Baron Joseph de Baye has found them in considerable numbers in sepulchres of the Stone Age in the department of La Marne.[1833] One was found embedded in a human vertebra. They also occur in the Camp de Catenoy, Oise.

One from St. Clement’s, Jersey, is in the British Museum.

Some are recorded from Namur and other parts of Belgium.[1834]

Two arrow-heads of this class, found in Denmark, have been engraved by Madsen;[1835] one of them, to which I shall again refer, was still attached to a portion of its shaft.

Nilsson[1836] has also engraved some specimens of this form found in Scandinavia. A considerable number of them were found at Lindormabacken in Scania,[1837] some of which, by the kindness of Dr. Hans Hildebrand, are in my collection. I have also specimens from Denmark. There are others from the same countries in the Christy Collection, where is also an example of the same kind from Southern Italy. Several are engraved by Bellucci.[1838]

They occur also in Germany,[1839] Spain,[1840] and Portugal.[1841] Some crescent-shaped flints with sharp edges and a central tang, found on an island in the Lake of Varese,[1842] may possibly be arrow-heads. Forms of nearly the same kind have been found near Perugia.[1843]

In General Pitt Rivers’s collection are some Persian arrows with chisel-edged tips of iron. Crescent-like[1844] arrow-heads or bolt-heads, with a broad hollowed edge, were used in hunting in the Middle Ages, and some are preserved in museums. The Emperor Commodus[1845] is related to have shown his skill in archery by beheading the ostrich when at full speed with crescent-headed arrows.

There still remains to be noticed another form of triangular arrow-head, of which, however, I have never had the opportunity of seeing a British specimen. It has a notch on either side near the base, which is slightly hollowed, and in general form closely resembles a common type of North American arrow-heads. A specimen of this form, said to have been found at Hamden Hill,[1846] near Ilchester, has been engraved. Another, described as of much the same shape, was found in a barrow in Rookdale, Yorkshire.[1847] A broken specimen, with the base flat instead of hollowed, and found in Lanarkshire,[1848] has also been figured.

I am not, however, satisfied that this triangular form, with notches in the sides, is a really British type, though lance-heads notched in this manner have been found in France.

Both in Yorkshire and on the Wiltshire Downs arrow-heads have from time to time been found with their surface much abraded. There |397| seems little doubt that this wearing away has been effected during their sojourn in the gizzards of bustards.

* * * * *

Having now described the principal types of arrow-heads found in Britain, it will be well to notice some of the circumstances of their discovery in barrows and with interments, which throw light on the manners and the stage of civilization of those who used them.

I am not aware of any well-established discovery of flint arrow-heads in this country in association with iron weapons, and certainly such a mixture of materials would require careful sifting of evidence to establish it. And yet we can readily conceive conditions under which flint arrow-heads might be present in Saxon graves, either from their having been dug in barrows of an earlier period, in which case a flint arrow-head might already exist in the soil with which the grave was filled; or from the occupant of the tomb having carried an “elf-bolt” as a charm, or even as the flint for his briquet à feu. In the Frankish cemetery of Samson,[1849] near Namur, a broken flint arrow-head, almost of a lozenge form, accompanied a human skeleton with an iron sword and a lance; and another stemmed arrow-head (now in the Namur Museum) was found in the soil. At Sablonnières[1850] (Aisne) flint arrow-heads were associated with Merovingian remains, and numerous instances of such associations have been adduced by the Baron de Baye.[1851] Even in modern times flint arrow-heads have served for this fire-producing purpose. The late Earl of Enniskillen informed me that with flint-guns and muskets in Ireland[1852] the gun-flint was frequently neither more nor less than an “elf-bolt” often but slightly modified in form.

The occurrence in Northern Italy of a flint arrow-head, in company with ten of the degenerate imitations of the gold coin of Philip II. of Macedon, known by the Germans as Regenbogen-schüsseln, recorded by Promis,[1853] may also have been accidental. I have in my own collection a stone celt which is said to have been found with a hoard of Anglo-Saxon coins of the tenth century in Ireland,[1854] but which can hardly be regarded as contemporaneous with them. There are, however, as I have already observed, many well-attested instances in which flint arrow-heads have been discovered in this and other countries in true association with weapons of bronze. Sir R. Colt Hoare records several such in his |398| examination of the barrows of South Wilts. In one near Woodyates[1855] a skeleton in a contracted position was buried with a bronze dagger and pin or awl, a jet button and pulley-like ornament, four arrow-heads (one of them engraved as Fig. 320), and “some pieces of flint, chipped and prepared for similar weapons; in another bowl-shaped barrow at Wilsford an interment of burnt bones was accompanied by a small bronze dagger, some whetstones, and instruments formed of stag’s horn, an arrow-head of flint, and another in an unfinished condition.”

It is stated in the Archæologia[1856] that with the well-known interment in the hollowed oak-trunk found in the Gristhorpe tumulus, near Scarborough, were “a brass and a flint spear-head and flint arrow-heads,” &c. The flints[1857] were, however, in this instance, merely flakes and the “brass spear-head” a bronze dagger.

In Borther Low,[1858] near Middleton, Derbyshire, Mr. Bateman found by the side of a skeleton a flint arrow-head, a pair of canine teeth of fox or dog, and a diminutive bronze celt; and in a barrow on Roundway Hill,[1859] North Wilts, a barbed flint arrow-head, like Fig. 327, was found close to the skull of a skeleton in a contracted posture, with a tanged bronze dagger at its left hand. Another bronze fragment, and a small plate of chlorite slate engraved as Fig. 355, were found at the same time. Similar plates, as well as flint arrow-heads, accompanied the skeleton at Tring Grove,[1860] Herts, and an interment at Cruden, Aberdeen.[1861]

A stemmed and barbed arrow-head of calcined flint was found in one of the urns containing burnt bones in the cemetery at Standlake,[1862] Oxfordshire. In another urn was a spiral finger-ring of bronze, the only fragment of metal brought to light during the excavations.

Flint arrow-heads have been so frequently found in barrows containing both burnt and unburnt interments, and in company with other implements of stone and with pottery, that it seems needless to adduce all the recorded instances of such discoveries. I give a few references below.[1863] |399|

The stemmed and barbed variety is of the most common occurrence in tumuli; but, as has already been shown, one leaf-shaped form appears to be, to some extent, peculiar to a class of long barrows, though the stemmed and barbed,[1864] lozenge and leaf-shaped forms have been found in the soil of the same grave mound.

In several instances, stemmed and barbed arrow-heads have been discovered with skeletons, accompanied also by the finely-chipped leaf-shaped knife-daggers of flint. In Green Low,[1865] Alsop Moor, Derbyshire, the dagger-blade lay behind the shoulders, and three arrow-heads behind the back; in one, as already mentioned, on Seamer Moor, near Scarborough,[1866] “two beautifully formed knives and spear-heads of flint,” and four flint celts, accompanied “beautifully formed arrow-heads of flint;” and the dagger (Fig. 264) appears to have been found in the same barrow as the arrow-heads, on Lambourn Down.

Occasionally arrow-heads are found in the “drinking-cups” accompanying the skeleton, as in Mouse Low,[1867] Staffordshire.

It remains for me to say a few words as to the points of difference and resemblance between the arrow-heads of Britain and those of other countries;[1868] and also as to the method of shafting in use in ancient times.

In comparing the arrow-heads of Great Britain with those of what is now the sister kingdom of Ireland, we cannot but be struck, in the first place, with the far greater abundance found in Ireland, especially in its northern parts. How far this is due to their use having come down into later times, and how far to the character of the country, it is difficult to say. It is, however, evident that over so large an area of morass and bog, the number of arrows lost in the chase during a long series of years must have been immense; that when once lost they would be preserved uninjured, and remain undiscovered until the operations of draining and obtaining peat for fuel again brought them to light; and further, that the former of these operations has only been carried on to a large extent within the last few years, while the latter has also in all probability increased. On hard and stony soil, on the contrary, even assuming an originally equal abundance of arrow-heads, agricultural operations, after being carried on for a few |400| centuries, would infallibly destroy a large number of them, and what were left would not be so instantly apparent to the eye as those in a peaty soil, and would consequently be found in fewer numbers. In districts where flint is scarce many ancient arrow-heads must have been used as strike-a-lights and gun-flints. In Ireland,[1869] as already stated, they were highly esteemed for the latter purpose. Even on land recently enclosed, and where arrow-heads and worked flints may exist in abundance, unless some unusual inducement is offered, they remain unnoticed by the farm-labourers; and it is only owing to the diligence of local collectors that such numbers have been found on the Yorkshire Wolds, the Derbyshire Moors, and in parts of Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Suffolk. There seems, however, either from the character of the game pursued, or from some different customs of the early occupants of the country, to have been a far greater production of arrow-heads in these districts than in some other parts of Britain, such, for instance, as the Sussex Downs,[1870] where on land but recently enclosed, almost innumerable flakes, scrapers, and other instruments of flint may be found, but where I have hitherto never succeeded in finding a single arrow-point. It is possible that in some districts, bone may have been preferred to stone.

Apart from the greater general abundance in Ireland, there is a far greater relative abundance of some particular forms, especially of the barbed triangular arrow-heads without a central stem, and of the elongated form with the stem and barbs. Lozenge-shaped arrow-heads are also more frequent, and some of the varieties of this form do not appear to occur in Britain. As a rule, Irish arrow-heads are also of larger size than the British. Their forms have been described by Sir W. Wilde,[1871] Mr. Wakeman[1872] and others.

* * * * *

In France, flint arrow-heads are at least as rare as in England, if not indeed rarer. In some of the dolmens of Brittany explored by the Rev. W. C. Lukis, F.S.A.,[1873] he has found them both leaf-shaped and stemmed and barbed. Among the latter there are some of extremely neat workmanship, and closely resembling in form Fig. 312. I have seen the same form from the Côtes du Nord. Some beautiful examples, more elongated than Fig. 319 and with very small tangs, were found in a tumulus at Cruguel,[1874] Morbihan. The more common |401| French form is like Fig. 311, but with both stem and barb rather longer and the sides straighter. Specimens have been engraved from the neighbourhood of Londinières;[1875] from a dolmen at Villaigre, Poitou;[1876] a lake-habitation at La Péruse[1877] (Charente); the Valley of the Saône,[1878] the department of the Aisne,[1879] the Camp de Chassey,[1880] and other places.

Various forms from the Landes,[1881] Gironde,[1882] Marne,[1883] Gard,[1884] and other Departments[1885] have been figured. Dr. Leith Adams traced a manufactory of flint arrow-heads in Guernsey.[1886]

I have several tanged, and stemmed and barbed arrow-heads from Poitou, as well as some of triangular form, both with a rounded segmental base and with barbs. I have also leaf-shaped, lozenge-shaped, and tanged and barbed examples from the neighbourhood of Clermont Ferrand. Twenty-two of the latter form were found together, in company with a bronze dagger, in a cist in Brittany.[1887]

Another common variety is stemmed and but very slightly barbed. Some of these approximate in form to a lozenge, with two of its sides curved inwards. Specimens from the dolmen of Bernac[1888] (Charente), the Grotte de St. Jean d’Alcas,[1889] and Argenteuil (Seine et Oise),[1890] and the dolmens of Taurine, Pilande, and des Costes (Aveyron), may be cited. In several of the latter both leaf-shaped and lozenge-shaped specimens were also found. Many are neatly serrated at the edges, sometimes so as to form a sort of regular pattern, with only two or three projections on each of the sides. A pointed leaf-shaped arrow-head in a human vertebra was found in the Grotte du Castellet[1891] (Gard).

The same varieties, as well as some triangular arrow-heads, occurred in the Camp de Chassey.[1892] Some of them are barbed without having the central tang.

A large arrow-head from the dolmen of Bernac, with pointed barbs, has a strongly dovetailed central stem. I have seen other much more elongated javelin-heads, four and five inches long, and an inch or an inch and a quarter broad, with similar tangs, but without barbs, the tang being formed by notches on either side at the base, as is the case with so many North American specimens, which these resemble in form. They were found at Corente, in Auvergne, and were in the collection |402| of M. Aymard at Le Puy, where was also a leaf-shaped arrow-head with side notches, from Clermont. Another of the same kind, 4 inches long, with a more dovetail-like tang and better-developed barbs, has been found near Laon.[1893] Others of smaller size were found in the Grotte des Morts, Durfort (Gard).[1894]

A somewhat similar form has occurred among the lake-dwellings of the Ueberlinger See.[1895]

A type much like Fig. 314 also occurs in the lake-habitations of Switzerland,[1896] where, as might have been expected, a large number of stone arrow-heads have been found. Some few of them are stemmed and barbed, much like Fig. 311, but with the tang and barbs rather longer and sharper. More of them are tanged only, or but slightly barbed, and in many, the tang has so slight a shoulder that the outline is almost, and in some quite, lozenge-shaped. The most common form, however, appears to be the triangular, with the sides slightly curved outwards and the base flat, or even slightly rounded outwards. Many are a little hollowed at the base, so much so, in some cases, as to be distinctly barbed. At Nussdorf one arrow-head was formed of serpentine, and another of translucent quartz. One or two specimens are of bone.

Leaf-shaped and stemmed arrows without barbs, from Hasledon and Yvoir, are in the Museum at Namur, in Belgium. Belgian arrow-heads have been described by Van Overloop.[1897]

In the lake-dwellings of Northern Italy,[1898] as, for instance, at Mercurago, near Arona, and Cumarola, near Modena, the tanged arrows prevail, though leaf-and lozenge-shaped also occur. The same is the case in the south, where numerous discoveries of arrow-heads have been recorded by Nicolucci.[1899] At Cumarola[1900] some skeletons were found interred with flint arrow-heads and weapons of stone, in company with others of copper and bronze.

In the valley of the Vibrata,[1901] in the Abruzzo, Dr. C. Rosa has found numerous arrow-heads, principally stemmed and barbed, but some also triangular and leaf-shaped. One specimen appears to be barbed on one side only, and a lance-head has a notch on each side near the base like those from Auvergne.

In the Lake of Varese,[1902] where the site of a manufactory of arrow-heads was discovered by Captain Angelucci, the principal forms were those with a pointed tang and barbs. The roughly-chipped-out blocks were of a leaf-shaped form. A fine specimen like Fig. 302, |403| but rather longer, was found near Civitanova[1903] (Piceno), and the form occurs in Central Italy. A long leaf-shaped arrow from Italy is engraved by Lindenschmit,[1904] as well as a tanged form without barbs. The latter form occurs in the Isle of Elba.[1905] I have a series, from near Bergamo, nearly all of which are tanged, though few of them are distinctly barbed. The various forms of lance and arrow heads in the province of Perugia[1906] have been described by Prof. Bellucci. The stone arrow-heads frequently cited as having been found on the plains of Marathon[1907] appear to be only flakes,[1908] as are many of those from Tiryns.[1909] At Mycenæ,[1910] however, in the fourth sepulchre, Schliemann found thirty-five beautifully-wrought arrow-heads of obsidian. They are mainly of triangular form, hollowed at the base, though the long leaf shape is also present. In general facies they closely resemble the Danish forms.

In a dolmen in Andalusia[1911] a broken arrow-head of flint, with pointed stem and barbs, was found; and inasmuch as the fragment is engraved by Don Manuel de Gongora y Martinez as the head of a three-pointed dart, it appears that the form is not common in Spain.

A number of arrow-heads, mostly tanged, have, however, been found in the south-east of Spain by MM. Siret.[1912] In Portugal[1913] the arrow-heads are usually triangular, but often with long-projecting wings or barbs.

Returning northwards, I may cite a small series of flint arrow-heads in my collection, found near Luxembourg, where they appear to be not uncommon. They present the following forms: leaf-shaped, tanged, tanged and barbed, triangular with a straight base, and the same with barbs.

Numerous arrow-heads of flint have also been found in Gelderland, and a collection of them is to be seen in the Leyden Museum. Some are also in the Christy Collection. The most common forms are triangular, with barbs, or with a somewhat rounded base, and stemmed and barbed. Leaf-shaped and tanged arrow-heads appear to be rarer. Some scarce triangular forms are equilateral, and others long and somewhat expanding at the base. I have a series from Heistert, Roermond, Limburg.

In Central and Southern Germany flint arrow-heads appear to be rather scarce. In Pomerania the prevailing type is triangular hollowed at the base. The same form occurs in Thuringia. In the Königsberg Museum there are arrow-heads leaf-shaped pointed at both ends, lozenge-shaped, slightly tanged, tanged and barbed, and triangular with and without the hollowing at the base. |404| Lindenschmit[1914] engraves specimens, like Figs. 311 and 327, from the Rhine and Oldenburg, and a tanged arrow-head of serpentine from Inzighofen, near Sigmaringen, on the Danube.[1915] Lisch also engraves a few specimens from North Germany,[1916] which resemble the Scandinavian in character. Near Egenburg,[1917] in Lower Austria, a considerable number have been found. Some Austrian[1918] arrow-heads are barbed, but without the central tang.

Considering the wonderful abundance of flint implements in Denmark and Southern Sweden, it is not a little singular that arrow-heads should be there comparatively so rare. The leaf-shaped form is extremely scarce, but a triangular form, resembling the leaf-shaped in all respects but in having a rounded notch at the base in lieu of a rounded end, is more common. Stemmed and barbed arrow-heads are also very scarce, and those merely tanged are usually flakes simply trimmed at the edges, with the exception of those of equilateral triangular section, which are peculiar to Scandinavia. The lozenge-shape appears to be unknown; and by far the greater number of arrow-heads are of the triangular form, sometimes but slightly, if at all, hollowed at the base, though usually furnished with long projecting wings or barbs. The same type occurs in Norway.[1919] Occasionally the notch between the barbs is square, and the ends of the barbs worked at an angle of about 45°, like Fig. 319, without the central stem. In some rare instances the barbs curve outwards at the points, giving an ogee form to the sides. In others the barbs curve inwards. In many, the sides are delicately serrated, and in most the workmanship is admirable. What appear to be lance-heads are sometimes notched on either side near the base, like the common North American form, and like those already mentioned as occurring occasionally in France.[1920]

In Norway,[1921] and more rarely in Sweden,[1922] stemmed and acutely barbed arrow-and lance-heads, made of hard slate ground on the surface, are occasionally found. Knives of the same material also occur. They much resemble some of those from Greenland, and are probably of comparatively late date. Some spear-head-like implements of slate, ornamented with incised lines, have been found in a circular fort on Dunbuie Hill,[1923] near Dumbarton.

Triangular arrow-heads of flint, more or less excavated at the base like those from Scandinavia, are also sometimes found in Russia. Specimens from Ekaterinoslav in the South, and Olonetz in the North, were exhibited at Paris in 1867. Others from Archangel approach more nearly to the North American form. They are occasionally tanged.[1924] |405|

In Northern Africa flint arrow-heads have been discovered, and the leaf-shaped, triangular, and tanged and barbed forms have been found in the dolmens of Algeria.[1925] Some have also been collected in Tunis,[1926] and simple tanged arrow-heads have been found in the Sahara.[1927]

But little is at present known of the stone antiquities of a great part of Asia; but an arrow-head from India[1928] was in the possession of Prof. Buckman, who obligingly furnished me with a sketch of it. It is acutely pointed, about 2 5∕8 inches long, and tanged and barbed, though the barbs are now broken off. Some small leaf-shaped arrow-heads have been found at Ranchi,[1929] in the Chota-Nagpore district. Mr. Bauerman, F.G.S., found, at Ghenneh, in Wady Sireh, Sinai, a flint arrow-head, neatly chipped on both faces, of a very peculiar form, being leaf-shaped, with a tang attached. It is in all nearly 2 inches long, of which the leaf-shaped part occupies about 1 1∕2 inches, and the slender tang or stalk the other 1∕2 inch. It lay in a tomb[1930] with a lance-head of flint, a bracelet of copper, and a necklace of spiral shells. A very similar arrow-head, 2 1∕2 inches long, from Wady Maghara, was presented by Major Macdonald[1931] to the British Museum. The form seems also to occur in North America.[1932]

The Abbé Richard found some very finely worked arrow-heads on and around Mount Sinai.[1933] Two[1934] from that locality were presented to the Society of Antiquaries in 1872. Flint arrow-heads have been found on Mount Lebanon,[1935] mostly tanged, but without pronounced barbs. A few are leaf-shaped and triangular.

Some obsidian arrow-heads from the Caucasus[1936] are triangular, with a semicircular notch at the base. Some of flint and of leaf-shaped form have been found at Hissar,[1937] near Damghan, Persia.

Arrow-heads from Japan[1938] are curiously like those from Europe, being triangular with or without barbs, and stemmed and slightly barbed. For the most part, they are narrower in their proportions than the European. Some are formed of obsidian. Besides these, the lozenge-shaped, the leaf-shaped, and a peculiar form with broad-ended barbs and no central tang, occur. There is a fine series in the Museum at Leyden and in the British Museum.

In Greenland flat arrow-heads and harpoon-points of chalcedony and slate are found, most of which approximate to ordinary North American forms. I have one triangular arrow-head with the sides |406| curved outwards and delicately serrated. In Newfoundland[1939] a narrow, triangular form prevails, sometimes ground sharp at the base.

One of the ordinary types in North America,[1940] viz., that with a notch at the base on either side, has already been mentioned more than once. This form shades off into that with a central dovetailed tang, sometimes with well-developed barbs. Others again have merely a central tang, with little or no attempt at barbs. The triangular form, usually but little excavated at the base, is also common. A rare form terminates in a semicircular edge. The leaf-shaped form is rare. For the most part the chipping is but rough, as the material, which is usually chert, horn-stone, or even quartz, does not readily lend itself to fine work. They were made of various sizes, the smaller for boys, and those for men varying in accordance with the purpose to which they were to be applied.[1941] They have been so fully described by others that I need not dilate upon them. Some broken arrow-heads have been converted into scrapers.

As we proceed southwards in America, the forms appear more closely to resemble the European. Some of the obsidian and chalcedony arrow-heads from Mexico are stemmed and barbed, and almost identical in shape with English examples. Don Antonio de Salis[1942] relates that in the Palace of Montezuma there was one place where they prepared the shafts for arrows and another where they worked the flint (obsidian) for the points. In Tierra del Fuego[1943] the natives still fashion stemmed arrow-heads tanged and barbed, or of a triangular form, with a tang extending from the centre of the base. In Patagonia,[1944] triangular, stemmed, and stemmed and barbed arrow-heads occur in deposits analogous to the Danish kjökken-möddings. One brought from Rio Grande, and presented to me by Lieut. Musters, R.N., has a broad stem somewhat hollowed at the base. Mr. Hudson,[1945] in giving an account of arrow-heads from the valley of the Rio Negro, formed of agate, crystal, and flint of various colours, remarks that beauty must have been as much an aim to the worker as utility.

Some of the flint and chalcedony arrow-heads from Chili are beautifully made, and closely resemble those from Oregon, farther north. A tanged and barbed point, embedded in a human vertebra, was found in a burial mound near Copiapo.[1946]

A tanged arrow-head from Araucania, with a well-marked shoulder at the base of the triangular head, so that it might almost be called barbed, is engraved by the Rev. Dr. Hume.[1947] It is like an Italian form. |407|

Stemmed arrow-or harpoon-heads of quartz are found in Chili and Peru of much the same form as Fig. 303. The barbs, if such they may be called, are usually at rather more than a right angle to the stem, and occasionally project considerably from the side of the blade, giving it a somewhat cruciform appearance. I have several which were dug out by the late Mr. David Forbes, F.R.S., from graves close to the shore, about two miles south of Arica.[1948] In some instances they are still attached to their shafts, which are unlike those of ordinary arrows, being shorter and clumsier. I have them of two sizes, the larger 10 1∕2 inches long, about 5∕8 inch in diameter at the end, where the head has been inserted in a socket, increasing to 7∕8 in diameter towards the other end. At a distance of 2 inches from this, however, there is an abrupt shoulder, so that the diameter is increased by at least 1∕4 of an inch, and the shaft then rapidly tapers in the contrary direction. The shafts have thus a stopper-like termination, which Mr. Forbes suggests may have been inserted in the end of a longer shaft of bamboo, so that the whole weapon was a sort of spear or javelin, and not, strictly speaking, an arrow. The smaller kind of shaft is of the same character, but only 6 inches long, and proportionately smaller. This may possibly have served as part of an arrow. The wood of all has been coloured with a red pigment.

One arrow-head from the same spot is of remarkably elegant form, and of wonderfully good workmanship. In general outline it is not unlike Fig. 324, but the blade expands more rapidly to form the barbs, which stand out well from the stem, and are separated from it by a slight hollow. It is 1 5∕8 inches long. Its greatest width at the barbs is but 1∕2 an inch; and the extreme acuteness and delicacy of the point may be judged of from the fact, that a distance of an inch from the apex the width is less than 1∕4 of an inch. The heads appear to have been secured in their sockets by binding with thread formed of vegetable fibre. In some instances the wooden shaft is furnished with barbs made of bronze, tied on a little distance behind the stone point.

Leaf-shaped arrow-heads, as well as tanged and barbed, and barbed without a central tang, are found in Peru.[1949] Some leaf-shaped arrows with a stalk, from New Granada, are in the Albert Memorial Museum at Exeter.

* * * * *

It will, however, be thought that enough, and more than enough, has been said as to the forms of arrow-heads occurring in various parts of the world. Allowing for local differences, the general correspondence in form is so great that we cannot wonder at Dr. Woodward’s[1950] suggestion that the first model of flint arrow-heads was probably brought from Babel, and preserved after the dispersion of mankind. To most, however, it will appear that this general similarity affords another proof that in all places, and in all times, similar circumstances and similar wants, with |408| similar materials only at command for gratifying them, result in similar contrivances.

I must, in conclusion, say a few words as to the method of mounting these stone points upon the arrows; and here we are not left absolutely to conjecture, though the discoveries of flint arrow-heads still attached to their shafts, in any part of the United Kingdom, are extremely rare. But in Ballykillen Bog, King’s County, a stemmed and barbed flint arrow-head was found, still remaining in a part of its “briar-wood” shaft, and with a portion of the gut-tying by which it had been secured, still attached. It is in the museum of Mr. Murray, of Edenderry, and has been figured by Sir W. Wilde.[1951] Another Irish example was found in Kanestown Bog,[1952] co. Antrim, and has been published by Mr. W. J. Knowles. In this case the head was barbed though not stemmed, but the shaft was cleft to receive it, and was bound round with gut or sinew for a length of about 4 inches. The shaft is thought to have been of ash.

A third example was found in a moss at Fyvie,[1953] Aberdeenshire, and has been described by Dr. Joseph Anderson. By the kindness of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland it is shown in Fig. 342A. The point is leaf-shaped, approaching to a lozenge. It is inserted in a cleft in the tapering shaft, which extends almost to the point. The nature of the tough wood, of which the shaft is made, has not been determined, and the manner in which the head was secured in the shaft seems uncertain; but there may have been a binding which has perished. Dr. Anderson was able to reproduce the shaft in soft wood, making use of flint tools only.

Specimens have also been found in Switzerland and Germany. |409| One of the former has been figured by Dr. Keller,[1954] whose engraving I here reproduce, as Fig. 343, in the full size of the original arrow, instead of on the scale of one-half. It was found, not in any of the Lake habitations, but in the moss of Geissboden.

The arrow-heads found among the ancient Swiss lake-dwellings, often bear on their surface some portion of the bituminous cement which helped to attach them to the shafts. Dr. Clément[1955] possessed one, apparently tanged but not barbed, the base of which is completely incrusted with bitumen, with traces of the wood of the shaft upon it, and of the cord by which the whole was bound together. Another, leaf-shaped, similarly incrusted, is in the Museum at Lausanne. The attachment of a conical bone arrow-head to its shaft is of the same character. Some single-barbed[1956] arrows were made by tying a bone pin, pointed at each end, diagonally to the extremity of the shaft.

Another specimen has been engraved by Madsen,[1957] who, however, does not appear to have recognised it as an arrow-head. He describes it as “a flint instrument, fastened by means of fine bast-fibre to a wooden shaft, of which only 1 1∕2 inch remains.” I have here reproduced his engraving, as Fig. 344, and there can I think be little doubt that it represents the point of an arrow of the same character as those in use among the ancient Egyptians.[1958] It was found in a peat moss in the parish of Vissenberg, Odense, in the Isle of Fünen.

Among modern savages, we find the stone points sometimes attached to the shafts by vegetable fibre, not unfrequently aided by some resinous gum, and also by means of animal sinew. The annexed woodcut, Fig. 345, kindly supplied by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland,[1959] shows an arrow-head, stated to be from one of the South Sea Islands, but more probably from California, |410| attached by means of tendon to a reed shaft. The Indians of California certainly affix their arrow-heads in a similar manner; but commonly there are notches on either side of the head at the base, to receive the sinew or split intestine, which is in the form of tape about 1∕8 inch wide. The binding extends about an inch along the shaft, and is of the neatest description. North American[1960] arrow-heads, fastened in this manner, have been engraved by Sir John Lubbock and the Rev. J. G. Wood. The end of the shaft has a shallow notch in it to receive the flint, which is cemented into the notch before being bound on.

Among the Kaffirs,[1961] the iron heads of the assagais are usually bound to the shafts with strips of wet hide, which contract and tighten in drying.

The shafts of arrows are frequently of reed, in which case there is often a longer or shorter piece of solid wood joined on to the reed to which the head is attached. This is the case with the ancient Egyptian arrows, and with those of the Bushmen,[1962] in which, however, bone and ivory replace the wood; and the shaft generally consists of three pieces—reed, ostrich bone, and ivory, to which latter the head of iron is attached. In other cases the shafts consist of straight-growing shoots of trees. Among the Eskimos,[1963] where wood is so scarce, a peculiar tool—formed of bone, with an oval or lozenge-shaped hole through it—is used for the purpose of straightening arrow-shafts. The tang of their arrow-heads is inserted in a socket, and bound fast with sinew.

For harpoons there is often a hole in the triangular armature. One of these points was found in the body of a seal killed in Iceland[1964] in 1643, and Olaf Worm judiciously thought that the seal had been wounded by a Greenlander.

In most countries the shafts are feathered at the bow-string end, and such was the case in the earliest historical times. Hesiod[1965] describes the arrows of Hercules as feathered from the wings of a black eagle, and Homer[1966] speaks of the πτερόεντες ὀϊστοί—if indeed, as Mr. Yates suggests, this latter refers to the plumes.[1967] Herodotus,[1968] however, mentions, as a remarkable fact, that the arrows of the Lycians in the army of Xerxes, like those of the Bushmen and some other savages of the present day, had no |411| feathers, so that this addition to the shaft was not indispensable. It is said that some North American arrow-heads are “bevelled[1969] off on the reverse sides, apparently to give them a revolving motion,” so as to answer the same purpose as plumes. But this result seems very doubtful.

From what kind of wood the bows in Britain were made at the time when flint-pointed arrows were in use is uncertain; the yew, however, which is probably the best European wood for the purpose, is indigenous to this country. It is not probable that the cross-bow was known in these early times, though it was in use during the Roman period, as may be seen on a monument in the museum at Le Puy.

I need, however, hardly enter into further details with regard to arrows, and I therefore proceed to the consideration of other forms of stone implements, including those by which it seems probable that some of the arrow-heads were fashioned.

|412|

XVII. FABRICATORS, FLAKING TOOLS, ETC

In treating of the manufacture of stone implements in prehistoric times I have already (p. 41) described certain tools of flint with a blunted, worn, and rounded appearance at one or both ends, as if resulting from attrition against a hard substance, and I have suggested that their purpose may have been for chipping out arrow-heads and other small instruments of flint. As, however, it was not desirable to introduce unnecessary details when dealing only with the processes adopted in the manufacture of stone implements, the more particular description of some of the tools was deferred, until after an account had been given of the objects in the making of which they had probably assisted.

* * * * *

In Fig. 346 is shown, full size, a characteristic specimen of the tool to which I have provisionally assigned the name of “flaking tool,” or fabricator. It is symmetrically chipped out of grey flint, and is curved at one extremity, probably with the view of adapting it for being better held in the hand. The side edges, which were originally left sharp, have been slightly rounded by grinding, apparently from the same motive. The angles at the curved end have been smoothed off, but the other end is completely rounded, and presents the half-polished, worn appearance characteristic of these tools. The curvature lengthways to some extent resembles that of the Eskimo arrow-flakers engraved as Figs. 8 and 9, and is of common occurrence among these tools. They vary much in the amount of workmanship they display; some being mere flakes with the edges rounded |413| by chipping, and others as carefully wrought into form as any flint hatchet or chisel. These skilfully-chipped specimens are frequently much more convex on one face than the other. They vary in length from about 2 to 4 inches.

An unusually long example is, by permission of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, shown in Fig. 346A. It was found on the Hill of Corennie,[1970] Aberdeenshire, and closely resembles another implement of the same kind found near Fordoun,[1971] Kincardineshire.

The rougher kinds are usually clumsy in their proportions, as if strength were an object, and they not unfrequently show a certain amount of abrasion at each end. An instrument of this coarser description is shown in Fig. 347. It is worn away and rounded, not only at the point, but for a considerable distance along the sides, the abraded surface having a somewhat bruised appearance. It is remarkable that many of the Danish flint knife-daggers, especially those which have been so long in use that their blades have been much diminished in size by having been frequently re-chipped, present at the |414| end and sides of the handles precisely the same kind of worn surface. At one time I thought it possible that constant contact with hard hands, not free from sand and dirt, might have produced this rounding of the angles; but closer examination proves that this cannot have been the only cause of the wear, as it is sometimes the case that at a certain distance from the end of the hilt, the abraded character disappears entirely, and, with the exception of a slight polish, the angles are as fresh as on the day when the daggers were first manufactured. This feature is most observable in the poignards with the beautifully-decorated handles. I possess one of this kind—like Worsaae, No. 52—with the sides near the blade exquisitely ornamented with a delicate wavy edging, and with a line of similar ornament running along the centre of one face of the handle, the butt-end having also been edged in a similar manner; but for an inch and a half from the end the whole of this ornamentation is completely worn away, and the sides are battered and rounded. To such an extent has this part of the handle been used, that one of the projecting points of the original fishtail-like end has entirely disappeared, and the other is completely rounded. The blade is probably now not more than one-third of its original size, so that we may infer that it must have been long in use for its legitimate purposes. But during all this time the hilt must have been made to serve some other and less appropriate purpose than that of a handle, and as a result its original beauty of ornamentation has been entirely destroyed. I think that this purpose must have been the chipping, or rather the re-working, of the edges of other flint instruments.

Whether this was effected by pressure or by slight blows it is hard to say; but it appears probable that the ancient possessor of two such daggers used the hilt of the one for re-chipping the blade of the other, and it may be for re-chipping other implements. An indirect inference deducible from this disfigurement of the beautifully wrought handles, is that they were not originally made by the owners who thus misused them—though they also must have been fairly accomplished workers in flint—but that the daggers were procured by barter of some kind from the cutlers of the period, whose special trade it was to work in flint. For we can hardly conceive that those who had bestowed so much time and skill in the ornamentation of these hilts, should afterwards wantonly disfigure their own artistic productions. In Britain, where the larger forms of finely-wrought instruments are scarcer, it seems most likely that these flakers were principally used in the making of arrow-heads, though probably hard bone or stag’s horn was also employed, as already suggested.

Against regarding the ends of these tools as having been worn away in the manufacture of other instruments of flint, it may be urged that the butt-ends of some chisels present a similar appearance, and therefore that the wear may be the result of hammering with some kind of hard mallet. It must, however, be remembered that no hammering at the ends would produce the wearing away apparent on the sides of the tools, and that the chisels which present the worn ends are in form and size much the same as the “flaking tools,” and may, like the Danish daggers, have served a double purpose. It is also worthy of notice that these “flaking tools” are most abundant in districts where flint arrow-heads occur in the greatest numbers, as, for instance, on |415| the Yorkshire Wolds. In parts of Suffolk where arrow-heads are common they too are abundantly present. I have also found them in the camp at Maiden Bower, near Dunstable, in company with arrow-heads.

In the case of the straight implements, like Fig. 347, it is by no means impossible that they were used with a mallet as punches or sets, to strike off flakes in the manufacture of arrow-heads and similar articles. As already mentioned, some of the American tribes use a bone punch for this purpose.

In Figs. 348 and 349 I have engraved two Yorkshire instruments, the one from Sawdon, and the other from Acklam Wold; both from the rich Greenwell Collection. At first sight they seem chisel-like in character, but the edge in both is semicircular, and not ground, but merely chipped. Fig. 348 is worked on both faces, though more convex on one than on the other. Fig. 349 is merely a flake with its edges chipped towards its outer face, so that it resembles a long narrow scraper. The butt-end in that from Sawdon is much worn and rounded, its sides are also worn away for about 3∕4 inch at that end; the butt of that from Acklam Wold is also rounded, but principally towards the flat face. The edges of both are sharp and uninjured. It therefore appears probable that these tools were also made with a view to being used at the blunt, and not at the sharp end; and it is possible that the semicircular sharp ends may have been for insertion in some form of wooden handle, in which the instruments were tightly bound, and their projecting ends then used, it may be, for flaking other flints. A flaking-tool from Unstan Cairn,[1972] Orkney, is of the same character as Fig. 349, but longer. What seems to have been a “fabricator” was found at Torre Abbey Sands,[1973] Torbay. On referring to page 38, will be seen some Eskimo arrow-flakers of reindeer horn |416| attached to wooden handles; and the instrument from Acklam Wold seems well adapted for similar attachment, with its flat side towards the wood.

Some bone instruments which have been found in barrows may possibly have served as arrow-flakers. One from Green Low,[1974] Derbyshire, has been figured. An implement of deer’s horn, with a small piece of hard bone inserted in the small end, was found in the Broch[1975] of Lingrow, Scapa, Orkney, but seems to belong to the Iron Period. No flint arrow-heads are recorded from the Broch.

I must confess that the suggestions I have offered with regard to the use of these tools are by no means conclusive. I can only hope that future discoveries may throw more light upon the subject.

Canon Greenwell, who has figured a specimen—like Fig. 346—in the Archæological Journal,[1976] was inclined to think that the other form of instrument, like Figs. 348 and 349, was “used in dressing hides, the sharp end for removing the loose parts of the skin, the smooth end for rubbing down the seams when the leather was made up into a garment.” I do not think that this can really have been their purpose, as for smoothing down the seams a natural pebble would probably be preferable, and for cutting or removing the loose parts a flint flake would answer better. Still, I have seen a somewhat pointed concretionary nodule of stone, the end and point of which were polished from use by a glovemaker, in recent times, in smoothing down the seams of coarse leather gloves. The late Mr. C. Monkman,[1977] like myself, regarded these instruments as punches or fabricators, used for chipping arrows and delicate flint weapons into shape. This is also Canon Greenwell’s present opinion. He has figured an example in “British Barrows.”[1978] In Yorkshire they are known as “finger-flints.”

The worn appearance of the pointed end of some flakes is not improbably due, as has already been observed, to their having been employed in “picking” into shape implements—such as hatchets or axes—formed of greenstone and other rocks of a somewhat softer nature than flint. The ends of the flaking tools, punches, or fabricators are, however, usually far too blunt for them to have been applied to such a purpose.

Another of the causes of the blunted and worn-away appearance of the ends, and even sides, of originally sharp flint flakes and instruments, I have already described when treating of scrapers—namely, the striking off by their means particles from a block of pyrites, with a view of procuring fire.

|417|

XVIII. SLING-STONES AND BALLS

Passing on from flint arrow-heads and the tools which were probably used in the process of their manufacture, we come to another form of missile weapon—the sling-stone—which also appears to have been in use in Britain. It is needless here to enter into details as to the early use of the sling among the more civilized nations of antiquity, especially as comprehensive articles on the subject have already been published in this country by Mr. Walter Hawkins[1979] and Mr. Syer Cuming.[1980]

A stone thrown by hand doubtless constituted the first missile weapon, and some form of sling must probably have been among the earliest inventions of mankind. What appears to be the simplest kind, and one which, like Nilsson[1981] and Strutt,[1982] I frequently used as a boy, consists of a stick split for a short distance down one end, so as to form a cleft, in which a stone is placed; the elasticity of the two halves of the stick, which are kept asunder by the stone, retaining it there until the proper moment for its discharge. Nilsson cites Lepsius as engraving in his great work on Egypt a representation of a man armed with such a sling, which he appears to use very actively in fight. At his feet there is a heap of small stones in readiness for use. Nilsson[1983] also suggests that it was with such a sling that David was armed when he encountered Goliath, who addresses him: “Am I a dog that thou comest to me with staves?”[1984] that is, with the shepherd’s staff and the sling handle. The most ancient form, however, recorded by classical writers is that of the ribbon sling, with a central receptacle for the stone, and with strings on either side. The neatly plaited or knitted cup or strap of a sling, with a portion of its cord, both formed of flax, was among the objects discovered in the |418| Lake-settlement of Cortaillod,[1985] which was remarkably rich in bronze objects. This probably is the most ancient sling now in existence.

The staff-sling reappears in Roman times in a somewhat modified form, with a receptacle for the stone attached to the end of a staff. To this weapon the name of fustibalus was given.

* * * * *

The earliest sling-stones were, no doubt, like those used by David against Goliath, the “smooth stones out of the brook;” but in after-times, among the Greeks and the Romans, sling-bullets of an almond or acorn-like form were cast in lead, and flattened ovoid missiles were formed in terra cotta; both kinds, from their uniformity in size, ensuring greater precision of aim than could be secured with stones, however carefully selected, and the former also offering the advantages of less resistance from the air, as well as greater concentration of force when striking the object. Some polished sling-bullets of loadstone or hæmatite are mentioned by Schliemann[1986] as having been found on the presumed site of Troy. The advantages of uniformity of size and form are recognized among some savage tribes, who make use of the sling at the present day; the sling-stones, for instance, of the New Caledonians being carefully shaped out of steatite, and, what is worthy of remark, approximating closely in form to the Roman glandes, being fusiform or pointed ovoids. The same form on a larger scale, about 3 inches in diameter and 4 inches long, has been adopted by the natives of Savage Island for missiles thrown by the hand. These are wrought from calc-spar almost as truly as if turned in a lathe.

Nilsson[1987] has engraved a sling-stone of this same form, found in Sweden, where, however, they are by no means common, as he cites but five specimens in the museums at Lund and Stockholm.

Artificially-fashioned sling-stones are not, however, confined to this fusiform shape; those that were in use among the Charruas of Southern America having been of a lenticular form, though slightly flattened at the centre of each face. One in my collection is about 3 inches in diameter and 1 3∕8 inches thick in the middle. It has been ground over the whole of both faces, and has the edge at its periphery slightly rounded.

The objects so frequently found in the Swiss Lake-dwellings, and to which the name of sling-stones has been commonly given, were, as Keller[1988] has pointed out, probably intended for some very different purpose. Many of the forms described by Sir William Wilde,[1989] under the name of sling-stones, may also, I think, be more properly placed in some other category. The carefully polished lenticular disc of flint (Wilde, Fig. 9) seems better adapted for a cutting tool; and the flat oval stones, usually with “a slight indentation, such as might be effected by rubbing with a metal tool,” were, as I have already observed, more probably used for obtaining fire, like those of the same class belonging to the early Iron Age of Denmark,[1990] which they much resemble in character. |419|

The objects to which in this country the name of sling-stone has been generally applied are more or less roughly-chipped, and approximately lenticular blocks of flint, varying considerably in proportionate thickness, and usually from about 1 1∕2 to 3 inches in diameter. An average specimen from the Yorkshire Wolds is shown in Fig. 350. The contour is frequently more truly circular or oval, and the faces somewhat more carefully chipped. They are found in considerable numbers on the Yorkshire Wolds, in Suffolk, Sussex, and other counties where chalk flints are common. Occasionally also they occur in Scotland.[1991] Similar forms are also abundant in the Danish kjökken-möddings and “coast-finds.” In this latter case it appears quite as probable that they may have served for net-sinkers as for sling-stones; although, as Sir John Lubbock[1992] has remarked, “that some have really served as sling-stones seems to be indicated by their presence in the peat-mosses, which it is difficult to account for in any other way.”

Prof. Nilsson[1993] objects that they are so irregular and sharp-cornered, “that they would soon wear out the sling, even if it were made of leather.” He presumes “that these sharp-cornered stone balls were the first hand-missile weapons of the earliest and rudest savages, and used by them to throw at wild animals or enemies.” This objection to regard them as sling-stones seems hardly well founded; especially if we consider them to have been in use with a stick-sling, in which case their angularity would have been of some service in retaining them in the cleft, while their lenticular form adapts them well for this kind of sling. A more valid objection raised by Prof. Nilsson is that no one “would give himself all this trouble to fashion sling-stones which were to be thrown away the next moment, when he could find many natural pebbles quite as suitable.” But to this it may be replied, that at the present day we do find the New Caledonians, the Tahitians, and other tribes, carefully fashioning their sling-stones; and also that this flat lenticular form is better adapted for the stick-sling than a natural pebble of the usual oval form. As a fact, however, I think it will be found that these flint discs, to which the name of sling-stones is applied, are most abundant in those districts where natural rolled pebbles happen to be scarce. If the case be really so, we can readily understand why the cores, from which flakes had been struck for conversion into arrow-heads and other instruments, should have been themselves utilized as sling-stones. If these missiles were necessary, it would be a question of which would involve the least trouble, whether to chip into the required form a certain number of flints which came readily to hand, at the same time making use of the resulting chips; or to select and bring together, possibly from a distant sea-coast, a bed of a stream, or some uncovered patch of gravel, a number of pebbles of the right size and form for slinging. In the camp at Hod Hill, near Blandford, |420| which, however, probably belongs to the Early Iron Period, the latter course seems to have been adopted, as several heaps of rounded flint-pebbles, either derived from the sea-coast or from some bed of Lower Tertiary Age, have been found there, and in all probability constituted the munition of the slingers of the camp.

The late Mr. C. Monkman[1994] remarked that in Yorkshire he always found the small globular sling-stones most plentiful at a short distance (50 to 200 yards away) from old entrenchments, and he was inclined to class under the head of sling-stones, nodules chipped over their whole surface, varying from an almost globular form to all degrees of flatness, and in size from 1∕2 inch to 3 inches in diameter. This is perhaps too wide a definition, as most of the larger globular forms appear to have been destined for hammer-stones; and pebbles but half an inch in diameter would be almost too light for missiles. It is, however, impossible to say with certainty that any given specimen was undoubtedly a sling-stone, as the flatter forms, which were more probably missiles, merge in the form of a roughly-chipped oval celt like Fig. 17 at one end of the series, and in that of a discoidal scraper with a broken edge at the other. Many may be merely cores, from both faces of which flakes have been struck, so that the term “sling-stones,” if employed for these roughly-chipped discs, must always be used in a somewhat doubtful sense, and for convenience rather than precision.

In Polynesia,[1995] besides rounded pebbles, sharp, angular, and rugged stones were used for slinging. These were called Ofai ara, faced or edged stones.

* * * * *

Another class of objects in stone which may possibly have served for the purposes of the chase or of war, consists of balls with their surface divided into a number of more or less projecting circles, with channels between them. They seem, so far as is known, to be confined to Scotland and Ireland.

* * * * *

That shown in Fig. 351 was found in Dumfriesshire,[1996] and has been engraved by Sir Daniel Wilson. It presents six circular faces. Others, almost identical in form, have been found at Biggar,[1997] Lanarkshire; Dudwick,[1998] Chapel of Garioch[1999] and Migvie,[2000] Tarland, Aberdeenshire; Kilmarnock,[2001] Ayrshire; and Montblairy,[2002] Banffshire. Another, about 3 inches in diameter, with three faces only, was found on the Tullo of Garvoch,[2003] Kincardineshire; and one, with four faces, in a cairn at East Braikie, Forfarshire. This |421| latter is in the Montrose Museum.[2004] One of greenstone, 2 1∕2 inches in diameter, found at Ballater,[2005] Aberdeenshire, has six plain circular discs, with the interspaces partially cut into small knobs or studs, the ornaments being possibly in course of formation. Stone balls,[2006] about 2 1∕2 and 3 inches in diameter, covered over the surface with small rounded projections, like enormous petrified mulberries, have been found in the Isle of Skye, in Orkney, and at Garvoch Hill, Kincardineshire. I presume the latter to be a different specimen from that with three faces, previously described. Others are in the Perth Museum.[2007] A series of such balls, some highly ornamented, has been described by Dr. John Alexander Smith.[2008] One formed of hornblende schist, with six strongly projecting circular faces, was found near Ballymena,[2009] co. Antrim, in 1850, and is now in the British Museum.

Probably the most remarkable of all these balls is that shown in Fig. 352, from a cut kindly lent me by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. It was found at Towie,[2010] Aberdeenshire, and is about 2 1∕2 inches in diameter, with four rounded projections, three of which are ornamented with different incised patterns, while the fourth is smooth and undecorated. From the character of the patterns, this object would seem to belong to the Bronze Period rather than to that of Stone, if not, indeed, to still later times. In connection with the pattern upon it, attention may, however, be called to the remarkable carved cylinders of chalk found by Canon Greenwell in a barrow on Folkton Wold,[2011] Yorkshire, and now in the British Museum, which are certainly not of later date than the Bronze Age. The ornament on a clay vessel found in Devonshire[2012] may be compared with that of the sides of the cylinders. |422|

* * * * *

These balls appear to me to differ most essentially from the ordinary “sink-stones” found in Denmark and Ireland,[2013] with which they have been compared. It is, however, by no means easy to suggest the purpose for which they were intended. The only suggestions that I have met with are, that they were used in some game or amusement; for defence when slung in a long thong or line[2014]; as mace heads[2015] attached to a handle; or else for purposes of divination.[2016] I must confess that I hardly see in what manner the last purpose can have been served, especially as in most instances all the faces of the ball are alike. Nor do I see in what manner they can have been used in games, though of course it is possible that they were so employed. It seems more probable that they were intended for use in the chase or war, when attached to a thong, which the recesses between the circles seem well adapted to receive. Among savage nations of the present day we find the use of the bolas, or stones attached to the ends of thongs, over a great part of the southern continent of America;[2017] while the principle is known to the Eskimos, whose strings of sinew, weighted with bunches of ivory knobs, are arranged to wind themselves round the bird at which they are thrown, in just the same way as the much stouter cords weighted at the ends with two or three heavy stone balls which form the bolas,[2018] twist round, and hamper the movements of larger game.

The bolas proper, as in use on the Pampas, consist of three balls of stone, nearly the size of the fist, and covered with leather, which are attached to the ends of three thongs, all branching from a common centre. Leaden balls have now almost superseded those of stone. The hunter gives to the bolas a rotary motion, and can then throw them to a great distance, in such a manner that the thongs entwine round the legs, neck, and body of his prey and thus render it helpless, so that it can then be easily despatched. A bola of small size, but of lead or copper, with a single thong about 3 feet long, is also used, and forms both the sling and its stone. It likewise serves as a weapon for striking in close encounter. Among the Patagonians[2019] the same two |423| varieties are used, but those for hunting have usually only two stones, and not three. They sometimes throw the single bola at the adversary, rope and all, but generally they prefer to strike at his head with it.

Assuming a difficulty in securing a ball of stone in a leather case, and that therefore it would be necessary to fasten it by means of a thong, some channelling of the surface would become a necessity; and the natural tendency of savages to decorate their weapons might lead to regular circular discs being left between the channels on the ball, and even to these discs being engraved in patterns, that next the cord being, as in Fig. 352, left undecorated. In the Christy Collection is a bola formed of a polished red spherical stone, mounted in such a manner as to show a considerable portion of its surface, which has evidently been regarded as too handsome to be entirely concealed by the leather. Mr. C. H. Read suggests that these ornamented balls were entirely covered with raw hide, which was allowed to dry, the ends or edges being tightly tied. When dry the circles over the knots were cut out so as to display the ornament and leave a solid binding round the stone to which a thong might be attached.

These bola stones are sometimes wrought so as to present a number of rounded protuberances. Of this kind there are specimens in the Christy Collection[2020] and in that of the late Mr. J. Bernhard Smith. Even if the use of the bolas or the single bola were unknown, there is a form of military flail or “morning star,” a sort of modification of the staff-sling, though the stone never quits the cord by which it is attached to the staff, for which such balls as these might serve. A mediæval weapon[2021] of this kind, in the Meyrick Collection, consists of a staff, to which is attached by a chain a ball of wood with numerous projecting iron spikes. The citizens of London will be familiar with the same weapon in the hands of the giant Gog or Magog at Guildhall. The Calmucks, Mongols, and Chinese,[2022] still use a flail of this sort, with an iron perforated ball about two pounds in weight attached to the end of the thong. Substituting one of these stone balls for the spiked morning-star, and a leather thong carefully adjusted in the channels of the stone for the chain, a most effective form of weapon for close encounters would result. Among the North American tribes a somewhat |424| similar weapon was lately in use, and is thus described by Lewis and Clarke, as quoted by Squier and Davies:[2023]—“The Shoshonee Indians use an instrument which was formerly employed among the Chippeways, and called by them pogamoggon.[2024] It consists of a handle 22 inches long, made of wood covered with leather, about the size of a whip-handle. At one end is a thong 2 inches in length, which is tied to a stone weighing two pounds, enclosed in a cover of leather; at the other end is a loop of the same material, which is passed around the wrist to secure the implement, with which they strike a powerful blow.” Another form of club in use among the Algonquins consisted of a round boulder sewn in a piece of fresh skin and attached to the end of a long handle, to which, by the drying of the skin, it becomes firmly attached. Examples of both of these kinds are in the British Museum. An engraving of a drumstick-like club of this character is given by Schoolcraft.[2025] Unfortunately, however, the existence of such a weapon in early times is not susceptible of proof. Whatever the purpose of these British balls of stone, they seem to belong to a recent period as compared with that to which many other stone antiquities may be assigned.

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