# The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments of Great Britain/Chapter 6

CHAPTER VI.
POLISHED CELTS.
The last of the three classes into which, for the sake of convenience of arrangement, I have divided these instruments, viz., that comprising the celts ground or polished, not only at the edge, but over a great portion, or the whole, of their surface, is also that which is usually most numerously represented in collections of antiquities. Whether this excess in number over the other classes arises from the greater original abundance of these polished implements, or from their being better calculated to attract observation, and, therefore, more likely to be collected and preserved than those of a less finished character, is a difficult question. From my own experience it appears that, so far as relates to the implements of this character formed of flint, and still lying unnoticed on the surface of the soil, the proportions which usually obtain in collections are as nearly as may be reversed, and the chipped, or but partially polished, celts are in a large majority.
Among the polished celts there is a great range in size, and much variation in form, though the general character is in the main, uniform. The readiest method of classification is, I think, in accordance with the section presented by the middle of the blade, and I, therefore, propose to arrange them as follows:—
1. Those sharp or but slightly rounded at the sides, and presenting a pointed oval or vesica piscis in section.
2. Those with flat sides.
3. Those with an oval section.
4. Those presenting abnormal peculiarities.
In each subdivision there will, of course, be several varieties, according as the sides are more or less parallel, the blade thicker or thinner, the butt-end more or less pointed, and the edge flat, segmental, or oblique. There are also intermediate forms between these merely arbitrary classes.
​I commence with those of the first sub-division, in flint. The first specimen I have engraved, Fig. 43, is a representative of a common type, and was found at Santon Downham, between Brandon and Thetford, on the borders of Norfolk and Suffolk, where, also, implements
Fig. 43.—Santon Downham, Suffolk. 1/2
belonging to the Palæolithic Period have been discovered. The sides were originally sharp, but have been slightly rounded by grinding. The faces still show, in many places, the surface originally produced by chipping, but all projections have been ground away.
​I have also a larger specimen, 91/2 inches long, from the same spot, and found, I believe, at the same time.
This form is of common occurrence in the Eastern Counties. I have specimens from Hilgay Fen, Norfolk (81/2 inches), and Botesdale (7 inches), Hepworth (61/4 inches), Undley Hall, near Lakenheath (53/4 inches), in Suffolk. Some of these are ground over almost the entire face. A fine specimen (10 inches) is in the Woodwardian Museum, at Cambridge. In the Fitch Collection is a fine series of them. One of these, 93/4 inches long, 31/2 inches broad, and 21/2 inches thick, weighing 3 lbs. 61/2 ozs., was found at Narborough, near Swaffham. Another (91/2 inches), weighing 33/4 lbs., was found near Ipswich. A third (83/4 inches) was discovered at Bolton, near Great Yarmouth. Others from 53/4 inches to 71/4 inches long, are from Beachamwell, Elsing, Grundisburgh, Aylsham, and Breccles, in the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk. That from the last-named locality has one face flatter than the other.
There are others in the Norwich Museum, including one from Blofield, 81/2 inches long.
There are numerous specimens of this type in the British Museum. One from Barton Bendish, Norfolk, is 73/4 inches long; another from Oxburgh, in the same county, 63/4 inches. Others, 61/2 inches and 51/2 inches long, are from Market Weston and Kesgrave, Suffolk. The former is semicircular at both ends.
Mr. A. C. Savin has a well-finished example (61/2 inches) from Trimingham, five miles south of Cromer.
The Rev. S. Banks, of Cottenham, had a fine specimen, of white flint, 81/2 inches long, found at Stow Heath, Suffolk.
Several celts of this form found in the Fen district are in the Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. I have some from the same neighbourhood, of which two are unusually wide in proportion to their length, and in outline much resemble Fig. 48, though the edge is more semicircular. One of these is 7 inches long, 31/4 inches wide, and l3/4 inches thick; the other 51/2 inches long, 23/4 inches wide, and 13/8 inches thick.
I have seen a celt presenting a narrow variety of this form, which was found at Albury, near Bishop's Stortford. It is 63/4 inches long, and 15/8 inches wide, and polished all over.
The ordinary form, though apparently of most frequent occurrence in the East Anglian counties, is not by any means confined to that district. One, 81/2 inches long, the sides very slightly flattened; and three others, 6 inches and 5 inches long, with the sides more rounded, all found in the Thames, at London, are in the British Museum. I have one from the Thames, at Teddington (6 inches), and three, 51/4 to 6 inches long, found together in Temple Mills Lane, Stratford, Essex, in 1882. In the Greenwell Collection is one 71/2 inches long, found at Holme, on Spalding Moor, Yorkshire.
A flint celt of this form (61/2 inches), from Reigate, is in the British Museum, as well as another (61/4 inches), rather oblique at the edge, found in a barrow in Hampshire, engraved in the Archælogia. ​Another, 7 inches long, was found near Egham, Surrey. Two from Ash near Farnham, and Wisley in the same county have been figured. I have a short, thick specimen (41/2 inches) found at Eynsham, Oxfordshire. It sometimes happens that celts of this general character have one side much curved while the other is nearly straight, so that in outline they resemble Fig. 86. One such, 5 inches long and 2 inches broad in the middle, found at Bishopstow, is in the Blackmore Museum. Another (61/2 inches) with the sides less curved, from Stanton Fitzwarren, Wilts, has been engraved by the Archæological Institute. Two, 71/4 and 51/4 inches long, were found at Jarrow.
Fig. 44.—Coton, Cambridge 1/2 The same type as Fig. 43 occasionally occurs in other materials than flint. The late Mr. James Wyatt, F.G.S., had a celt of greenstone 93/4 inches long, 31/2 inches wide at the edge, which is slightly oblique, found many years ago in Miller's Bog, Pavenham, Beds. There is an engraving of it, on which it is described as of flint, but such is not the fact. The form is also sometimes found in France and Belgium. I have specimens from both oountries; and one from Périgord, 8 inches long, is in the Museum at Le Puy.
Allied to this form, but usually more rounded at the sides, and flatter on the faces, are the implements of which an example is given in Fig. 44. The original was found at Coton, Cambridgeshire, in 1863. The type is the same as that of Fig. 35; but in this case the celt is polished all over. The butt-end is ground to a semicircular outline, but is, like the sides, rounded. The same is the case with some of the thicker celts of the form last described. A celt of much the same character, but with the sides apparently rather flatter (71/3 inches), was found at Panshanger, Herts. One (5 inches), from the Isle of Wight, is in the British Museum. The edge is oblique, as is that of another of the same length found on the South Downs, and now in the Museum at Lewes. Another of grey flint, 7 inches long, tapering from 2 inches at edge to 1 inch at butt, 7/8 inch thick, semicircular at the butt and edge, the faces polished nearly all over, but the sides sharp and left unground, was found during the Main Drainage Works for London, and is also in the British Museum. Others have been described from Playford, Suffolk (6| inches) and Chalvey Grove, Eton Wick, Bucks (73/8 inches), and part of one from Croydon.
​I have seen specimens of the same kind, with the sides straight and sharp though slightly rounded, tapering towards the butt which is semicircular, and varying in length from 51/4 inches to 71/4 inches, found at Alderton, Suffolk; Thorn Marsh, Yorkshire; Norton, near Malton; Westacre Hall, Norfolk; and elsewhere. The late Mr. J. Brent, F.S.A., showed me a drawing of one about 7 inches long, found at Bigborough Wood, Tunford, Canterbury.
| Fig. 45.—Reach Fen, Cambridge.1/2 | Fig. 46.—Great Bedwin, Wilts.1/2 |
The celt shown in Fig. 45 belongs to the same class, though it is rather flatter at the sides. It is polished over the greater part of its surface, but is on one face quite unpolished at the edge. I have engraved it as an example of the manner in which, after the edge of a hatchet of this kind had become damaged by use, a fresh edge was obtained by chipping, which, in some instances, the owner of the implement was not at the pains to sharpen by grinding.
Fig. 46 gives another variety of the flint celts with sharp or slightly rounded sides. It is slightly ridged along each face, and the faces instead of being uniformly convex to the edge have at the lower part a nearly flat facet of triangular form, the base of which forms the edge. This specimen was found at Great Bedwin, Wilts, and is in the Greenwell Collection.
I have a nearly similar specimen (61/4 inches) from Northwood, Harefield, Middlesex, and another of the same length, found at Hepworth, ​Suffolk, but the facet at the edge is not quite so distinct. A third from Abingdon is only 41/2 inches long.
A long narrow chisel-like celt of this pointed oval section (8 inches) from Aberdeenshire has been figured. A flint celt from Chiriqui, found with a sort of flint punch and some burnishing pebbles in a grave, presumed to be that of one of the native workers in gold, is remarkably like Fig. 46 in form.
Fig. 47.—Burradon, Northumberland. 1/2 In the Fitch Collection is a large thick specimen (95/8 inches) found at Heckingham Common, Norfolk, and a shorter, broader one with a faceted edge, from Pentney. Another of flint (61/2 inches) with the sides much rounded, but with a similar facet at the edge, was found at Histon, Cambs, and belonged to the late Rev. S. Banks.
It seems probable that these instruments when first made did not exhibit the facet at the edge, but that it has resulted from repeated grinding as the edge became injured by wear.
A celt, apparently of this section, but more truncated at the butt, and with a narrow facet running along the centre of the face, was found in Llangwyllog, Anglesey. It is not of flint but of "white magnesian stone."
Fig. 47 exhibits a beautiful implement of a different character, and of a very rare form, inasmuch as it expands towards the edge. It is of ochreous-coloured flint polished all over, and is in the Greenwell Collection. It was found at Burradon, Northumberland, and in outline much resembles that from Gilmerton, Fig. 76, but this latter has the sides flat and a cutting edge at each end.
A celt of similar form, but only 61/2 inches long, found at Cliff Hill, is in the Museum at Leicester. Four flint hatchets, found at Bexley, Kent, seem from the description given of them to be nearly of this type.
​A few specimens of this form, both unground and ground merely at the edge, have already been mentioned, and specimens engraved, as Figs. 21 and 36. Hatchets expanding towards the edge are of more common occurrence in Denmark than in this country, though even there they are rather rare when the expansion is well-defined.
In the British Museum is a magnificent celt of this section, but in outline like Fig. 77. It is ground over nearly the whole of its surface, but the edge at each end has only been chipped out. It is made of some felspathic rock, and is no less than 145/8 inches in length. It was found near Conishead Priory, Lancashire.
The next specimens that I shall describe are also principally made of other materials than flint.
Fig. 48.—Coton, Cambridge. 1/2 Fig. 48, in my own collection, is of porphyritic greenstone, and was found at Coton, Cambridgeshire. It is polished all over, equally convex on both faces, and has the sides rather more rounded than most of those of nearly similar section in flint. The butt is rather sharper than the sides. I have an analogous implement, found at Nunnington, Yorkshire, but with the sides straighter and rather more converging towards the butt. Others have been found in the same district.
Other specimens made of greenstone have been found in the Fens, some of which are in the Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society.
Some "stone" celts from Kate's Bridge and Digby Fen have been figured in Miller and Skertchly's "Fenland." One (7 inches) of greenstone, and apparently of this type, was found at Hartford, Hunts, and is now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.
In the Newcastle Museum is a compact greenstone celt of this character (53/4 inches) with the edge slightly oblique, found at Penrith Beacon, Cumberland. Some celts of the same general character have been found in Anglesea.
Implements of this class are frequently more tapering at the butt than the one shown in the figure. I have several such from the Cambridge Fens, and have seen an example from Towcester. One of flint (4 inches), so much rounded at the edge as to be almost oval in outline, found near Mildenhall, is in the Christy Collection. One of greenstone (41/4 inches) was found at Wormhill, Buxton, Derbyshire.
Fig. 49, of dark-grey whin-stone, is of much the same character, but has an oblique cutting edge. The butt-end is ground to a blunted ​curve. The original is in the Greenwell Collection, and was dug up in draining at Ponteland, Northumberland. Another, in the same collection, similar, but much rougher (6 inches) was found at Halton Chesters, in the same county. I have one of the same kind (65/8 inches) found near Raby Castle, Durham.
A flint hatchet of nearly the same form, 41/2 inches long, was found at Kempston, near Bedford. The Earl of Ducie, F.R.S., has another of flint (5 inches) from Bembridge, Isle of Wight. A celt, from Andalusia, of this character, but with the edge straighter, has been figured.
| Fig. 49.—Ponteland, Northumberland.1/2 | Fig. 50.—Fridaythorpe, Yorkshire.1/2 |
The celt engraved in Fig. 50 is likewise in the Greenwell Collection, and was found at Fridaythorpe, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. It is formed of green hone-stone. Another, similar but thicker, and having the sides more convergent and the edge less oblique, was found at the same place and is in the same collection, in which also is the fragment of a larger implement of the same class from Amotherby, near Malton, Yorkshire. With these is another (43/4 inches) which was found in a barrow with a burnt interment on Seamer Moor, Yorkshire. It is apparently of clay-slate which has become red by burning with the body.
Messrs. Mortimer have one of this form in greenstone (53/8 inches) found near Malton, and also one in flint (41/8 inches) found near Fimber.
​I have a well-finished celt of hone-stone, rather thicker proportionally than that figured (55/8 inches), probably found in Cumberland, it having formed part of the Crosthwaite Collection at Keswick. In the Greenwell Collection is another of basalt, with straight sides, tapering from 23/4 inches at edge to 13/4 at butt, 91/2 in length, and 13/4 thick, from a peat moss at Cowshill-in-Weardale, Durham.
Fig. 51.—Oulston.1/2
A thin, flat form of celt, still presenting the same character of section, is represented in Fig. 51. The original is formed of a hard, nearly black clay-slate, and was found at Oulston, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Like many others which I have described, it is in the Greenwell Collection.
One of flint like Fig. 51 (5 inches) was found at Shelley, Suffolk.
A celt of greenstone (43/4 inches), of the same character but thicker and with straighter sides, from Newton, Aberdeenshire, is in the National Museum at Edinburgh, where is also another, in outline more like the figure, but broader at the butt-end, and with one side somewhat flattened. It is 43/8 long, and was found at Redhall, near Edinburgh.
Some Irish celts, formed of different metamorphic rocks, present the same forms as those of Figs. 48 to 51. As a rule, however, the sides of Irish specimens are more rounded.
Fig. 52 represents an exquisitely polished celt, of a mottled, pale ​green colour, found in Burwell Fen, Cambridge, and, through the kindness of Mr. Marlborough Pryor, now in my own collection. Fig. 52.—Burwell Fen. 1/2 The material appears to be a very hard diorite; and as both faces are highly polished all over, the labour bestowed in the manufacture of such an instrument must have been immense. It is somewhat curved lengthways, and on the inner face is a slight depression, as if, in chipping it out, one of the lines of fracture had run in too far; but even this depression is polished, and no trace of the original chipped surface remains. The point is quite sharp, and the sides are only in the slightest degree rounded.
A beautiful example of the kind is said to have been found in a barrow near Stonehenge. Another of a green-grey colour (61/2 inches) was found at Lopham Ford, near the source of the Waveney, and was submitted to me in 1884, by the late Mr. T. E. Amyot, of Diss.
The late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S., bequeathed to me a somewhat larger specimen of the same character, found at Daviot, Inverness. It is slightly broken at the pointed butt, but must have been about 8 inches long and 35/8 broad. The material may be a diorite, but perhaps more nearly approaches what the French term jadeite. In the Truro Museum is another highly polished celt of the same form, and similar material, found near Falmouth.
Mr. J. W. Brooke has a beautifully polished specimen, made of a green transparent stone, from Breamore, Salisbury. It has lost a small piece at the butt-end, but is still 8 inches long. It is only 25/8 inches broad at the cutting end.
Another celt, 73/4 inches long, "the edges thin, rising gradually to about the thickness of half an inch in the middle," was found in 1791 near Hopton, Derbyshire. The material is described as appearing "to be marble, of a light colour tinged with yellow, and a mixture of pale red and green veins."
In the collection of the late Mr. J. F. Lucas was a celt of this type ​51/2 inches long, slightly unsymmetrical in outline, owing to the cleavage of the stone. It is said to have been found near Brierlow, Buxton. The material is a green jade-like stone, but so fibrous in appearance as to resemble fibrolite.
Fig. 52a.—Berwickshire.1/2
Another, of "a fine granite stone, highly polished, 9 inches long, 41/4 broad at one end, tapering to the other, its thickness in the middle 3/4 of an inch, and quite sharp at the edges all round," was found at Mains, near Dumfries, in 1779. It was discovered in blowing up some large stones, possibly those of a dolmen, and is now in the possession of Sir R. S. Riddell, Bart., of Strontian.
Several other specimens have been found in Scotland. A beautiful celt from Berwickshire is, through the kindness of the Society of ​Antiquaries of Scotland, shown in Fig. 52a. It is made of green quartz and has the edge intentionally blunted. A smaller celt (71/2 inches) was found at Cunzierton near Jedburgh; another (8 inches) at Rattray, Perthshire; another (81/4 inches), only 3/4 inch thick at most, near Glenluce, Wigtownshire; and others (8 inches) at Aberfeldy, Perthshire, and Dunfermline.
Several of these highly polished jadeite celts have been found in dolmens in Brittany, and there are some fine specimens in the museum at Vannes. Some of them have small holes bored through them. The various types of Brittany celts have been classified by the Société Polymathique du Morbihan. In the Musée de St. Germain is a specimen (unbored) 9 inches long, found near Paris, as also a hoard of fifteen, originally seventeen, mostly of jadeite and fibrolite, some perforated, found at Bernon, near Arzon, Morbihan, in 1893. I have one 71/2 inches long from St. Jean, Châteaudun, and others 53/8 to 7 inches in length, of beautiful varieties of jade-like stone, found at Eu (Seine Inférieure), Miannay, near Abbeville (Somme), and Breteuil (Oise). The two latter are rounded and not sharp at the sides. One about 61/2 inches long, from the environs of Soissons, is in the museum at Lyons.
One of jade, of analogous form to these, and found near Brussels, is engraved by Le Hon. Another was found at Maffles.
Five specimens of the same character, of different sizes, the longest about 91/2 inches in length, and the shortest about 4 inches, are said to have been found with Roman remains at Kästrich, near Gonsenheim, and are preserved in the museum at Mainz. The smallest is of greenstone, and the others of chloritic albite. They are said to have been buried in a sort of leather case, arranged alternately with the pointed and broad ends downwards, and in accordance with their size.
Eight specimens from museums at Weimar, Rudolstadt, and Leipzig were exhibited at Berlin in 1880. One from Wesseling, on the Rhine (8 inches), is thought to have been associated with Roman remains.
Both with the English and Continental specimens, there appears to be considerable doubt as to the exact localities whence the materials were derived from which these celts are formed.
Instruments for which such beautiful and intractable materials were selected, can hardly have been in common use; but we have not sufficient ground for arriving at any trustworthy conclusion as to the purpose for which they were intended. I have, however, a short celt, 31/2 inches long, from Bur well Fen, and made of this jade-like material, which has evidently been much in use, and was once considerably longer. It appears, indeed, to be the butt-end of an instrument like Fig. 52.
A detailed account of the jade and jadeite celts in the British Museum is given in the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie.
​It was formerly supposed that the jade of which many hatchets found in Switzerland and other European countries are made, came of necessity from the East, and theories as to the early migrations of mankind have been based upon this supposition. As a fact, jade has now been found in Europe, and notably in Styria and Silesia. Below are given some references to comments on the sources of jade. An account of the method of working jade in Western Yun-nan is given in Anderson's Report on the Expedition to that country; and a complete and well-illustrated catalogue of objects in jade and nephrite, by Dr. A. B. Meyer, forms part of the publications of the Royal Ethnographical Museum, at Dresden, for 1883.
I now come to the second of the subdivisions under which I have arranged this class of implements, viz., those having the sides flattened. The flat sides, of course, taper away to a point at the cutting edge of the celts, and usually diminish much in width toward the butt-end, which is commonly ground to a semi- circular blunted edge. The implements of this kind are generally very symmetrical in form.
One of the same form, found near Stowmarket, is engraved in the Archæologia. If the account there given be correct, it was 123/4 inches long. A specimen from Cardiff, now in the British Museum (41/2 inches), has lost a considerable portion of its original length by use, and is ground so that the edge bounds a facet on the face. The sides at the butt-end are somewhat rounded, but near the edge they are flat and 1/4 inch wide.
A fine specimen of this character, formed of ochreous flint (9 inches), found in Swaffham Fen, Cambridgeshire, is in the Christy Collection, as well as one from Mildenhall (51/2 inches), the butt-end of which is sharper than is usual.
In the Fitch Collection is a flint celt of this type, 71/2 inches long and 21/2 broad at the edge, which however, has been broken off. It is said to have been found in a tumulus at Swannington, Norfolk, in 1855. In the Northampton Museum is a specimen (6 inches) of ochreous flint, found at Gilsborough, Northamptonshire. The late Mr. James Wyatt, F.G.S., had a beautiful implement of this type, but narrower in proportion to its length, being 7 inches long and only 13/4 wide at the edge, found in the Thames at Coway Stakes, near Egham. I have one (6 inches) from the Thames at Hampton Court. A fine specimen, 91/2 inches long, and 3 wide at the edge, with the sides quite flat, but ​less than 1/4 inch wide, of ochreous flint, polished all over, was found at Crudwell, Wilts.
Fig. 53.—Botesdale, Suffolk.1/2
Others, in flint, have been found at Sutton, Suffolk (8 inches); Wishford, Great Bedwin, Wilts (7 inches); Portsmouth; Cherbury Camp, Pusey, Faringdon (51/2 inches long, edge faceted), and Rampton, Cambridge. I have seen one (51/2 inches) that was found near Loughborough. Mr. Gr. F. Lawrence has a fine specimen (75/8 inches) from the Lea Marshes.
​In the National Museum at Edinburgh is one of white flint (10 inches) from Fochabers, Elginshire, and another from the same place (71/4 inches). They are in shape much like Fig. 61. There is another of grey flint, from Skye (71/2 inches). One 51/2 inches long, in the same museum, from Roxburghshire, has the middle part of the faces ground flat, so that the section is a sort of compressed octagon; the edge is nearly straight.
Fig. 54.—Lackford, Suffolk.1/2
Much the same form occurs in other materials than flint. I have a specimen, formed of flinty clay-slate, with one side less flat than the other, 101/4 inches long, 3 wide, and 15/8 thick, said to have been found with four others in a cairn on Druim-a-shi, Culloden, Inverness. I have another of whin-stone (91/4 inches) from Kirkcaldy, Fife.
The fine celt from Gilmerton, Fig. 76, is of the same class, but has a cutting edge at each end. Some Cumberland and Westmorland specimens partake much of this character.
​Implements of nearly similar form to that last described, but having the edge oblique, are also met with. That engraved in Fig. 54 was found at Lackford, Suffolk, and was formerly in the collection of Mr. Warren, of Ixworth, but is now in mine. It is of grey flint. I have another, of white flint, of the same length but a trifle narrower, and with the grinding for the edge forming more of a facet with the body of the celt. It was found in the Isle of Portland. The obliquity of the edge was no doubt intentional, and may have originated in the manner in which these hatchets were mounted with hafts. Professor Nilsson has suggested that the obliquity is due to the front part of the blade being worn away in use more quickly than the back.
To this class, though very different in appearance, belongs a beautifully made celt of grey flint, in the British Museum. It is probably of English origin, though the place of finding is unknown. The sides are straight and flat, but only about 1/16 of an inch wide, the faces equally convex and polished all over. It is 9 inches long, and tapers from 11/2 inches wide at the edge, which is broken, to 5/8 at the butt. Its greatest thickness is 1/2 an inch. It is engraved in the Archæological Journal.
Fig. 55.—Dalmeny, Linlithgow. 1/2 Flint celts of the type of both Fig. 53 and 54 are not uncommon in France and Belgium. They are also found, though rarely, in Ireland.
The cutting end of one formed of nearly transparent quartz, and found in Egypt, is in the Museum at Geneva.
Celts with the sides flattened are of not unfrequent occurrence in other materials than flint. That figured as No. 55 is of ochreous-coloured quartzite, and was found at Dalmeny, Linlithgow. It is preserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh. The form is remarkable, as being so broad in proportion to the length. The sides are flat, but the angles they make with the faces are slightly rounded. The butt-end is rounded in both directions, and appears to have been worked with a pointed tool or pick.
Another celt, of greenstone, of much the same form but with the ​sides more tapering, 6 inches long and 31/4 wide, which was found in Lochleven in 1860, is in the same museum. This latter more nearly resembles Fig. 51 in outline. A small highly-polished celt of flinty slate (25/8 inches), found near Dundee, has been figured. Another, more triangular in outline, 61/2 inches long, was found at Barugh, Yorkshire, and is in the Greenwell Collection. I have a celt of rather narrower proportions that was found between Hitchin and Pirton, Herts. It is made of a kind of lapis lydius.
Many of the Danish greenstone celts, which are perforated at the butt, present much the same outline and section.
Fig. 56.—Sprouston, near Kelso. 1/2 Stone hatchets of this character occur, though rarely, in France. I have seen one in the collection of the late M. Aymard, at Le Puy. Dr. Finlay, of Athens, had a thin, flat hatchet of this form made of heliotrope, 31/2 inches long, with flat sides, found in Greece. The form occurs also in Sicily.
Several celts of this type have been brought from different parts of Asia. One, of basalt, 2 inches long, wedge-shaped, found at Muquier, in Southern Babylonia, is in the British Museum; and several of jade, 3 to 4 inches long, procured by Major Sladen from the province of Yunnan in Southern China, are in the Christy Collection. By Major Sladen's kindness, I have also a specimen. Mr. Joseph Edkins has published some notes on "Stone Hatchets in China." Others from Perak have also been described.
The same form, also in jade, has been found in Assam.Some from Java, in the museum at Leyden, formed of flint, present the same section, but the sides expand towards the edge. A nearly similar form occurs in Japan.
Fig. 56 is of the same character as Fig. 55, but narrower at the ​butt-end. The original is in the Greenwell Collection, and is formed of Lydian stone. It was found at Sprouston, near Kelso, Roxburghshire. Though flat at the sides along most of the blade, the section becomes oval near the butt-end.
I have a smaller example of this type in clay-slate, 31/2 inches long and 13/4 wide at the edge, found at Carnaby, near Bridlington. The butt-end is in this case rectangular in section. It closely resembles the flat-sided hatchets so commonly found in France. I have an Irish celt of the same form found near Armagh, and made of clay-slate. Flat-sided celts are, however, rare in Ireland.
Fig. 57.—Nunnington, Yorkshire.1/2
A celt of grey flint, 41/2 inches long, of much the same outline, but having the sides rounded and not flat, and the butt brought to a straight sharp edge, was found in Burwell Fen, and is now in the Christy Collection.
A celt of the same section, but of peculiar form, with the sides curved slightly inwards, and tapering considerably to the butt, is shown in Fig. 57. The sides are flat, but have the angles slightly rounded; a narrow flattened face is carried round the butt-end. It would appear to have been made from a calcareous nodule found in some argillaceous bed, like the septaria in the London clay. Both of ​its faces present a series of diverging cracks, of slight depth, apparently- resulting from the dissolution of calcareous veins in the stone. It was found at Nunnington, Yorkshire, and now forms part of the Greenwell Collection.
The original of Fig. 58 was discovered at Burradon, Northumberland, where also the fine flint celt, Fig. 47, was found. This likewise is in the Greenwell Collection. It is of porphyritic stone, and has the angles of the flat sides slightly rounded. Another, in the same collection, 4 inches long, from Doddington, in the same county, is of similar character. Celts of much the same shape and size have been found in the Shetland Isles; one of these, 51/2 inches long, from West Burrafirth, is in the British Museum. A similar form is found in Japan.
| Fig. 58.—Burradon, Northumberland.1/2 | Fig. 59.—Livermere, Suffolk.1/2 |
Fig. 59 shows a celt of much the same kind, found at Livermere, near Bury St. Edmunds. It is formed of a close-grained greenstone, and is in my own collection. The angles at the sides are slightly rounded. I have others of nearly the same size and of similar material, found near Cirencester, and at Soham and Bottisham, Cambs. Greenstone celts of about this size, and with the sides more or less flat, so as to range between Figs. 48 and 58, are of not uncommon occurrence in the Fen country. Mr. Fisher, of Ely, has one, found near Manea, and several from Bottisham. I have one, of felstone, 31/2 inches long, found at Coton, Cambs., one side of which presents a flat surface 3/8 inch wide, while the other is but slightly flattened. One (43/10 inches) was found near Torquay, Devon.
A still more triangular form, more convex on the faces, and having ​the flat sides much narrower, is shown in Fig. 60, from a specimen in the Greenwell Collection, found at Ilderton, Northumberland. It is formed of a hard, slaty rock or honestone. The angles of the sides are rounded.
Fig. 60.—Ilderton, Northumberland. 1/2 In the National Museum at Edinburgh are two implements of greenstone (23/4 and 3 inches) of nearly similar form to Fig. 60, but having the sides sharp. They were found in the Isle of Skye.
A smaller celt of the same character, 21/2 inches long, found in a cairn at Brindy Hill, Aberdeenshire, is in the British Museum.
One 25/8 inches long, from Sardis, in Lydia, and in the same collection, is of much the same form, but rounder at the sides and less pointed at the butt.
Implements of the form represented in Fig. 61 occur most frequently in the northern part of Britain, especially in Cumberland and Westmorland, in consequence, it may be supposed, of the felspathic rocks, of which they are usually formed, being there found in the greatest abundance. That here figured is in the British Museum. It is of mottled close-grained stone, beautifully finished, and was found in a turf pit on Windy Harbour Farm, near Pendle, Lancashire. It is more slender than the generality of the implements of this class, which in outline usually more closely resemble Fig. 77, which, however, has a cutting edge at each end. They sometimes slightly expand towards the butt-end.
I have a more roughly-finished implement of this class, with the two faces faceted longitudinally, found near Wigton, Cumberland, and formerly in the Crosthwaite Museum, at Keswick. It is of felspathic ash, much decomposed on the surface, and 9 inches long. I have also- a small example of the type (71/2 inches) made of whin-stone, and found by Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., near Sudbury, Suffolk, in 1873. Some larger specimens of similar character are in the Christy Collection. One of them is 133/4 inches in length.
In the Greenwell Collection is an implement of this type, but with the sides straighter, and the angles rounded, found at Holme, on Spalding Moor, Yorkshire. It is of hone-stone, 7 inches long, 21/2 inches broad at the edge, but tapering to 11/4 inches at the butt. There is also another of felstone, 123/4 long, found at Great Salkeld, Cumberland.
There is a celt of this type in the Blackmore Museum (131/8 inches), the butt-end round and sharpened, though the edge has been removed by grinding. It is said to have been found, 5 or 6 feet deep in gravel, ​at Shaw Hall, near Flixton, Lancashire. Another, in the same collection (8 inches), was found near Keswick.
Fig. 61.—Near Pendle, Lancashire. 1/2 What from the engraving would appear to be a large implement of this kind, has been described by Mr. Cuming as a club. "It is wrought of fawn-coloured hone-slate, much like that obtained in the neighbourhood of Snowdon. It weighs 61/4 pounds, and measures 175/8 inches in length, nearly 33/4 inches across its greatest breadth, and nearly 21/8 inches in its greatest thickness. The faces are convex, the edges blunt and thinning off at both of the rounded extremities." It was found near Newton, Lancashire. Another so-called club is mentioned as having been found near Keswick.
Clumsy and unwieldy as implements of such a length appear to be if mounted as axes, there can be no doubt of their having been intended for use as cutting tools; and though, from their size, they might be considered to be clubs, yet their form is but ill-adapted for such a weapon, even if we assume that, as is said to be the case with the New Zealand mere, they were sometimes employed for thrusting as well as for striking, and, therefore, had the broad end sharpened. The Stirlingshire specimen. Fig. 77, which is 131/4 inches long, is, however, sharp at both ends. There have been, moreover, discovered in Denmark what are indubitably celts, longer than the Newton so-called club. They are sometimes more than 18 inches long, and I have myself such an implement from Jutland, of ochreous flint, 16 inches long and 3 inches broad at the edge, which is carefully sharpened. I have another roughly-chipped Danish celt of flint, 141/2 inches long, which weighs 6 lbs. 14 oz., or more than that from Newton.
​ Fig. 62.—Ness. 1/2 The celt found in Solway Moss, with its handle still preserved, as will subsequently be mentioned, is of the form of Fig. 61. It is of felspathic rock, 91/2 inches long and 21/4 inches broad, the edge slightly oblique.
One of felstone (151/2 inches), was found at Drumour, in Glenshee, Forfarshire, with another 13 inches long. This latter widens out suddenly at the butt. The larger of these two presents on its surface a transverse mark, not unlike that on the Solway Moss specimen, such as may have resulted from that portion of the surface having been protected for a time by a wooden handle, which eventually decayed and perished.
Another from Lempitlaw, in the Kelso Museum, is 13 inches long.
The flattening of the sides and faces of celts is sometimes, though rarely, carried to such an extent that they become almost rectangular in section.
That shown in Fig. 62 was found near the Rye bank, at Ness, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and is formed of a dark, much altered slaty rock, containing a good deal of iron. The butt-end, though brought to an edge, is not so sharp as the broader or cutting end. The surface is somewhat decomposed. It is in the Greenwell Collection, in which also is the somewhat analogous implement shown in Fig. 63.
This also is from the same part of Yorkshire, having been found, in 1868, at Gilling, in the Vale of Mowbray, 4 ft. deep in peaty clay. It ​is formed of clay iron-stone, and has the angles somewhat rounded. The edge is oblique and slightly chipped away. Another celt of close-grained schist (53/4 inches), found in the same parish, and preserved in the same collection, more resembles in outline that from Ness, though not sharp at the butt, and having an oblique edge. In the Greenwell Collection is a thinner celt of the same type, found at Heslerton Carr.
Fig. 63.—Gilling.1/2
I have a specimen (51/4 inches) of hone-stone, rather flatter on one face than the other, from Kirkcaldy, Fife.
An Italian celt, of much the same character as Fig. 62, but of green-stone, has been figured by Gastaldi.
The next celt which I have to describe is even more chisel-like in ​appearance, both {the faces and aides being almost flat and nearly parallel. This peculiarity of form is no doubt mainly due to the schistose character of the rock from which the implement is made; which, in the case of the original of Fig. 64, is a close-grained slate or hone-stone. It was found at Swinton, near Malton, Yorkshire, and was given to me by the late Mr. C. Monkman. The angles are slightly rounded, and the butt-end is tapered off as if to an edge, which, however, is now broken away.
| Fig. 64.—Swinton, neax Malton.1/2 | Fig. 65.—Scamridge Dykes, Yorkshire.1/2 |
Long, narrow celts of this rectangular section are of very rare occurrence both in Britain and Ireland, and, so far as I am aware, have never been found of flint. In Denmark, on the contrary, they are common in flint, but generally of a larger size than the specimen here engraved . The faces also are usually rather more convex.
They are to be found among the North American forms, sometimes with a hole towards the butt-end, as if for suspension.
Somewhat the same form occurs in Siam and in the Malay Peninsula.
The next specimen, shown in Fig. 65, is of the same material as the last, and was found in the same neighbourhood, at the Dykes, Scamridge, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Owing to the irregular fissure of the stone, it is considerably thicker at one side than the other. The broader side is flat with the angles chamfered, and the narrower side is rounded. The faces taper at the butt-end, which is ground to a ​regular curve and blunted. This also was given to me by the late Mr. C. Monkman, of Malton.
Fig. 66.—Whitwell, Yorkshire 1/2 A curious variety of celt is shown in Fig. 66, the original of which was found at Whitwell, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and forms part of the Greenwell Collection. It is made of a hard, shelly limestone, apparently of Oolitic age, the surface of which has been partially eroded. It is nearly flat on one face, and seems to have been intended for mounting as an adze. Other celts of similar material have been found in the same district, and Canon Greenwell has kindly presented me with one of much the same character as this, though far broader in pro- portion to its thickness. This specimen, which was found at Osgodby, closely resembles in section that from Truro, Fig. 84.
A specimen of the type of Fig. 66 (71/4 inches) is in the British Museum. It was found at Creekmoor, near Poole, Dorset.
Some of the large celts from the Shetland Isles present the same peculiarity of being flat on one face, but, as the sides are much rounded, I shall include them among those of Oval Section.
These, of oval section, form the third subdivision of polished celts, which I now proceed to describe.
It will be observed that implements of this character, formed of flint, are extremely rare. The reason for this appears to be, that from the method in which, in this country, flint celts were chipped out, the sides were in all cases originally sharp, and they had a pointed oval, or vesica piscis, section. In polishing, this form was to a great extent preserved, though the edges were, as has been seen, sometimes ground flat and sometimes rounded. It rarely happens, however, that the rounding is carried to so great an extent as to produce such a contour that it is impossible to say within a little where the faces end and the sides begin; though this is often the case with celts of greenstone and other materials, which were shaped out in a somewhat different manner, and in the formation of which grinding played a more important part. It is almost needless to say that I use the word oval in its popular sense, and not as significant of a mathematically true ellipse. At the part where the edge of the celts commences, the section is of course a vesica piscis.
The first specimen engraved. Fig. 67, is in my own collection, and was found in the Thames at London. It is of dark greenstone, and, owing to a defect in the piece of stone of which it was made, there is a hollow place in one of the faces. General Pitt Rivers has a similar but more symmetrical celt, of the same material, also found in the Thames. Another, smaller, from the same source, is in the British ​Museum; and another (8 inches) from the collection of the late Rev. T. Hugo, F.S.A., is now mine. Its edge is rather oblique. I have another from the Thames (71/2 inches) with a symmetrical edge.
Large implements of this form are of not uncommon occurrence in
Fig. 67.—Thames, London. 1/2
Scotland and in the Shetland Isles. There are several in the National Museum at Edinburgh, and also in the British Museum, and in that of Newcastle. The butt-end is occasionally pointed, and the faces in broad specimens, flatter than in Fig. 67. Several of these celts ​in the British Museum were found in the middle of the last century, in Shetland. The largest is 11 inches long, 3 inches wide at the edge, and 13/4 inches thick. It was found in Selter, parish of Walls. Others are from 8 inches to 9 inches long. In the case of one, 12 inches long, from Shetland, and in the Edinburgh Museum, the edge is oblique.
Fig. 68.—Near Bridlington. 1/2 Mr. J. W. Cursiter, of Kirkwall, has a beautiful, long, narrow celt of oval section, from Lunnasting, Shetland. It is formed of spherulitic felstone, and is 91/4 inches long, but only 21/8 inches wide at the broadest part. Another, 12 inches long, from Trondra, is of felstone, and slightly curved longitudinally, so that it was probably an adze.
Others (14, 11, 101/2, and 9 inches) have been figured.
In the Greenwell Collection is a celt of this kind formed of porphyritic greenstone, 13 inches long, from Sandsting, Shetland.
A celt of greenstone (8 inches), in outline much resembling Fig. 72, was found, in 1758, at Tresta, in the parish of Aithsting, Shetland, and is now in the British Museum. It is flat on one face, the other being convex, so that the section is an oval with a segment removed. Such an instrument must, in all probability, have been mounted as an adze, though the flat face may have originally been due to the cleavage of the material, which is a porphyritic greenstone.
Another celt (61/4 inches), flat on one face, so that the section presents little more than half an oval, was found in the island of Yell, and is now in the Newcastle Museum.
I have a large heavy celt less tapering at the butt than Fig. 67, 81/2 inches long, 31/2 inches wide, and 21/4 inches thick, said to have been found at Spalding, Lincolnshire. One of flint (7 inches) nearly oval in section, and found at Northampton, is in the museum at that town.
Celts of the same form and character as Fig. 67 are found both in Ireland and in France.
Fig. 68 shows another variety of this type, which becomes almost conical at the butt. The original was found near Bridlington, and is ​now in my own collection. The material is greenstone. Implements of this form, but rarely expanding at the edge, are of common occurrence in that part of Yorkshire. Some of them have been made of a variety of greenstone liable to decomposition from atmospheric or other causes, and the celts when found present a surface so excessively eroded that their form can with difficulty be recognized. In the Greenwell Collection are celts of the type of Fig. 68, from Willerby, in the East Riding (61/2 inches and 51/2 inches), and Crambe, in the North Riding of Yorkshire (61/4 inches), as well as another (53/4 inches) from Sherburn, Durham. I have one nearly 8 inches long, from Speeton, near Bridlington, and several (51/2 to 6 inches) from the Cambridge Fens. The surface of one of them is for the most part decomposed, but along a vein of harder material the original polish is preserved.
Fig. 69.—Lakenheath, Suffolk. 1/2 Mr. F. Spalding has found one (8 inches), with a sideways curve, on the shore at Walton-on-the-Naze.
A greenstone celt of this form (81/2 inches) was found at Minley Manor, Blackwater, Hants.
In the Fitch Collection is one of serpentine (61/4 inches), from Bull's Lane, near Loddon, Norfolk, and the late Mr. J. W. Flower had one of greenstone (41/4 inches), found at Melyn Works, Neath. The greenstone celt found in Grime's Graves, Norfolk, was of this form, but rather longer in its proportions, being 71/2 inches long and 21/4 inches broad at the edge, which is oblique. The late Mr. H. Durden, of Blandford, had a greenstone celt of this type (5 inches), found at Langton, near Blandford, the butt-end of which is roughened by picking, probably for insertion in a socket; and the late Rev. E. Duke, of Lake, near Salisbury, had a celt of this character, found in a tumulus in that parish. I have both French and Danish specimens of the same form at the butt, though narrower at the edge.
Another variety, in which the butt-end is less pointed and more oval, is given in Fig. 69. The original is of dark green hornblende schist, and was found at Lakenheath, Suffolk. I have a large implement of similar form and material (51/2 inches), with the edge slightly oblique, from Swaffham, Cambridgeshire; another of serpentine (31/4 inches), from Coldham's Common, Cambridge; others of greenstone (4 and 33/4 inches), from Kempston, Bedford, and Burwell Fen, Cambs.; as well as one of greenstone (43/8 inches), from Standlake, Oxon. A celt of this type, of porphyritic stone (51/2 inches), found ​at Branton, Northumberland, is in the Greenwell Collection. It is slightly oblique at the edge. Another of the same character, of greenstone (63/4 inches), found at Sproughton, Suffolk, is in the Fitch Collection. Another, 5 inches long, found at Kingston-on-Thames, is in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries.
Another of green serpentine, faceted to form the edge, and rounded at butt, 4 inches long, was found in a cairn in Fifeshire, and is preserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh.
In the Blackmore Museum is a celt of granite tapering to the rounded point at the butt, 61/2 inches long, which has been roughened at the upper end, and is polished towards the edge. It was found in the River Lambourn, Berks.
I have seen another of this form, but of flint (41/2 inches), with the sides much rounded, so as to be almost oval, found near Eastbourne, where also this form has occurred in greenstone. The late Mr. H. Durden, of Blandford, had a celt of greenstone of this form 43/8 inches long, found at Tarrant Launceston, Dorset. Many of the celts found in India are of this type.
Fig. 70.—Seamer, Yorkshire. 1/2 A shorter form, which also seems to be most prevalent in Yorkshire, is represented in Fig. 70. The specimen figured is from Seamer, formed of greenstone, and belongs to the Greenwell Collection. In the same collection is another (4 inches), rather larger and thicker, from Scampston. Another of quartzite (5 inches), polished all over, but showing traces of having been worked with a pick, was found at Birdsall, near Malton, and is in the collection of Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield. I have one of greenstone (41/2 inches), also from Seamer.
A celt of greenstone, of the same section, but broader and more truncated at the butt, 3 inches long, and found near Bellingham, North Tyne, is in the Newcastle Museum. Another (4 inches), in outline more like Fig. 60, was found in a sepulchral cave Rhos Digre, Denbighshire.
Some of the stone celts from Italy, Greece, Asia Minor and India, are of much the same form, but usually rather longer in their proportions. I have some Greek specimens more like Fig. 71—kindly given to me by Captain H. Thurburn, F.G.S. Celts of this character are said to have been in use among the North American Indians as fleshing ​ Fig. 71.—Guernsey. 1/2instruments, employed by the women in the preparation of skins. They were not hafted, but held in the hand like chisels. I have a celt almost identical in form and material with Fig. 70, but from Central India.
The form shown in Fig. 71 is inserted among those of Britain, though geographically it may be regarded as French rather than British, having been found in Guernsey. I have engraved it from a cast presented to the Society of Antiquaries by the late Mr. F. C. Lukis, F.S.A. The form occurs in various materials—rarely flint—and is common through the whole of France. A specimen from Surrey is in the British Museum. I have seen one which was said to have been found in the neighbourhood of London, but it was not improbably an imported specimen.
Should authenticated instances of the finding of celts of this class in our southern counties be adduced, they will be of interest as affording primâ facie evidence of intercourse with the Continent at an early period.
Fig. 72.—Wareham. 1/2 Small hatchets, both oval and circular in section, have been found at Accra, West Africa, and others, larger, on the Gold Coast. The same form is not uncommon in Greece and Asia Minor.
Major Sladen brought several small jade celts of this form, but flatter at the sides, from Yun-nan, in Southern China. Through his liberality several are in the Christy Collection, and one in my own. Some hæmatite celts found in North America are of much the same size and form.
The specimen engraved as Fig. 72 was found in the neighbourhood of Wareham, Dorsetshire, and is in my own collection. It is formed of syenite, and, unlike the instruments previously described, is narrower at the edge than in the middle of the blade; the section shows that the faces are nearly flat. I have another celt, in which these peculiarities are exaggerated, the ​faces being flatter, the blade thinner, and also wider in the middle in proportion to the edge, it being 51/2 inches long, 21/4 inches wide in the middle, and 11/2 inches at the edge, and rather less than an inch in thickness. The material is a Serpula limestone, and the celt was no doubt formed from a travelled block, as it was found in a Boulder-clay district at Troston, near Bury St. Edmunds. I have a much heavier implement from the same locality, and formed of the same kind of stone. It is 10 inches long, and rather wider in proportion than Fig. 72. It does not narrow towards the edge, but in section and general form may be classed with the specimen there figured.
A large celt, 10 inches long, of the same section, but thinner proportionally, and with straighter and more parallel sides, in outline more like Fig. 79, was found at Pilmoor, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and forms part of the Greenwell Collection. It is of clayslate. Another in the same collection, and from North Holme, in the same Riding (10 inches), is broader and flatter, with the sides somewhat more square, and the edge more curved. One face is somewhat hollowed towards one side, possibly to grind out the trace of a too deep chip. A third is from Barmston, in the East Riding (101/2 inches), and a beautiful celt of hornblendic serpentine (l05/8 inches), oval in section and pointed at the butt, was found at Cunningsburgh, Shetland, and another of diorite (101/8 inches), rather broader in its proportions than Fig. 72, on Ambrisbeg Hill, Island of Bute. An analogous form from Japan is in the museum at Leyden.
Fig. 73.—Forfarshire. 1/2A long narrow chisel-like celt, with an oval section, is given in Fig. 73. The original is of dark greenstone, and was found in Forfarshire. It is in the National Museum at Edinburgh. I have a larger celt of the same form (51/2 inches), formed of a close-grained grit, and found at Sherburn, Yorkshire. Messrs. Mortimer have another of schist (41/2 inches), from Thixendale, Yorkshire. This form occurs, though rarely, in Ireland.
A much larger celt, of metamorphic rock, 81/2 inches long, 3 inches broad at the edge, and 13/4 inches at the butt, 13/8 inches thick, was found on Throckley Fell, Northumberland, and is in the Museum at Newcastle.
Fig. 74 gives a shorter form of implement truncated at the butt. The original, which is in my own collection, is formed of green- stone, and was found at Easton, near Bridlington. It is carefully polished towards the edge, but at the butt it is roughened, apparently with the intention of rendering it more capable of adhesion to its socket. The celt from Malton, Fig. 81, is roughened in a similar manner, and the same is the case with many of the hatchets from the Swiss lake-dwellings, which have been frequently found still fixed in their sockets of stag's horn. ​I have another specimen from South Back Lane, Bridlington, which, however, is not roughened at the butt, and the sides of which have had a narrow flat facet ground along them. It is 6 inches long, and 31/2 inches wide at the edge. Mr. W. Tucker has shown me a broken specimen like Fig. 74, found near Loughborough.
| Fig. 74.—Bridlington.1/2 | Fig. 75.—Caithness.1/2 |
Another form presents a rather pointed, and unusually elongated oval in section, and is pointed at the butt. Fig. 75 represents a highly- finished celt of this kind made of light green, almost jade-like stone, preserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh, and said to have been found in Caithness. It is so thoroughly Carib in character, and so closely resembles specimens I possess from the West Indian Islands, that for some time I hesitated to engrave it. There are, however, sufficiently numerous instances of other implements of the same form having been found in this country for the type to be accepted as British. The celt found at Glasgow, in a canoe at a depth of twenty-five feet below the surface, was of this kind. In the Greenwell Collection is one of porphyritic greenstone (7 inches), and of nearly this form, found at Grantchester, Cambridge. Two celts of this character, the one from Jamaica and the other from the North of Italy, are engraved in the Archæologia. Both are in the British Museum.
A celt like Fig. 75 (41/2 inches), of a material like jadeite, is said to ​have been found about 60 years ago at King's Sutton, Northamptonshire. It has much the appearance of being Carib.
Four greenstone celts of this type, one of them rather crooked laterally, were found in 1869 at Bochym, Cury, Cornwall.
Another of aphanite (111/2 inches) from Cornwall is in the Edinburgh Museum, where is also one of the same material and form (101/2 inches) from Berwickshire, two others of grey porphyritic stone (9 inches) from Aberdeenshire, and another of porphyrite (10 inches) found near Lerwick, Shetland.
I have specimens of the same type from various parts of France. In the Greenwell Collection is a Spanish celt of the same form found near Cadiz.
The bulk of the celts found in Ireland, and formed of other materials than flint, approximate in form to Figs. 69 to 75, though usually rather thinner in their proportion. They range, however, widely in shape, and vary much in their degree of finish.
I now come to the fourth of the subdivisions under which, mainly for the sake of having some basis for classification, I have arranged the polished celts. In it, I have placed those which present any abnormal peculiarities; and the first of these which I shall notice are such as do not materially affect the outline of the celts; as, for instance, the existence of a second cutting edge at the butt-end, at a part where, though the blade is usually tapered away and ground, yet it very rarely happens that it has been left sharp. Indeed, in almost all cases, if in shaping and polishing the celt the butt-end has at one time been sharpened, the edge has been afterwards carefully removed by grinding it away.
The beautifully-formed implement of ochreously-stained flint represented in Fig. 76, was found at Gilmerton, in East Lothian, and is preserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh. The sides are flat with the angles rounded off, and the blade expands slightly at the ends, both of which are sharpened. It is carefully polished all over, so as to show no traces of its having been chipped out, except a slight depression on one face, and this is polished like the rest of the blade. It is upwards of a century since this instrument was turned up by the plough, as described in the Minutes of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland for April 2, 1782, where it is mentioned as the "head of a hatchet of polished yellow marble, sharpened at both ends."
Another from Shetland (111/2 inches) is made of serpentine and has both ends "formed to a rounded cutting edge." ​A celt from Kirklauchline, Wigtownshire, mentioned at page 135, is much like Fig. 76 in outline.
Fig. 76.—Gilmerton, East Lothian
A somewhat similar instrument, but narrower at the butt, formed of jade (?) and 11 inches long, found at Nougaroulet, is engraved in the Revue de Gascogne.
Fig. 77.—Stirlingshire. 1/2
​and contracting from the middle towards the broader end, which, as usual, seems to have been the principal cutting end. It is formed of compact greenstone, and was found in Stirlingshire. In general outline, it closely resembles a common Cumberland form, of which, however, the butt is not sharp. Several such were found in Ehenside Tarn, Cumberland, varying in length from 6 to 141/2 inches. One of them was in its original haft. The whole are now in the British Museum. Another celt (103/4 inches), made of a fine volcanic ash, was found in 1873 near Loughrigg Tarn, Westmorland. Two celts of much the same form from Drumour, Glenshee, Forfarshire, in 1870, are mentioned on page 119.
Celts with an edge at each end are rare on the Continent, though they are of more frequent occurrence in Ireland. One of this character, found in Dauphiné, France, has been engraved by M. Chantre.
Fig. 78.—Harome. 1/2
Another from Portugal has been described by myself elsewhere.
A celt of shorter proportions, but also provided with a cutting edge at each end, is shown in Fig. 78. It is in the Greenwell Collection, and was found at Harome, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, where several stone implements of rare form have been discovered. The material is a hard clay-slate. The tool seems quite as well adapted for being used in the hand without any mounting, as for attachment to a haft.
Fig. 79.—Daviot, near Inverness.
​Another of these implements, with a cutting edge at either end, is shown in Fig. 79.
Fig. 80.—Near Cottenham. 1/2
As will be observed, it is curved longitudinally, so that if attached to a handle, it must have been after the manner of an adze and not of an axe. The sides curve slightly inwards, which would render any attachment to a handle more secure.
The material of which it is formed is a dark green porphyry. It was found in a cairn at Daviot, near Inverness, in company with a celt of oval section, and pointed at the butt (91/2 inches); and also with a greenstone pestle (?) (101/4 inches), rounded at each end. This latter was probably formed from a long pebble. They are all preserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh. A curved celt of this character but pointed at the butt-end (14 inches), formed of indurated clay-stone, was found in Shetland. A straighter celt of felstone (13 inches), blunt at the butt-end, was found at Kirklauchline, Wigtownshire.
The next peculiarity which I have to notice, is that of the tapering sides of the celt being curved inwards, as if for the purpose of being more securely fixed either to a handle or in a socket. In the last implement described, the reduction in width
Fig. 81 .—Near Malton. 1/2
towards the middle of the blade would appear to have been intended to assist in fastening it at the end of a handle, as an adze cutting at each end. In Fig. 80 the reduction in width is more abrupt, and the blade would appear to have been mounted as an axe. It is formed of a compact light grey metamorphic rock, and was formerly in the collection of the Rev. S. Banks, of Cottenham, Cambridgeshire. I have a greenstone celt found at Carnac, Brittany, with shoulders of the same character about the middle of the blade. A form of celt expanding into a kind of knob at the butt-end is peculiar to the Lower Loire. It is known as the "hâche à bouton," or "hâche à tête."
The original of Fig. 81 was found in a gravel-pit near Malton, Yorkshire. It was at first supposed to have been found in undisturbed ​drift, and some correspondence upon the subject appeared in the Times newspaper. The gravel, however, in which it was found seems to belong to the series of Glacial deposits, and if so, is of considerably greater antiquity than any of the old River-gravels, in which the unpolished flint implements have been discovered. This celt is of greenstone, carefully polished at the edge, and towards the butt slightly roughened by being picked with a sharp pointed tool. This roughening is in character similar to that which has been observed on many of the celts from the Swiss Lake-dwellings and from France, and was no doubt intended in their case to make the stone adhere more firmly in the socket of stag's horn in which it was inserted. The object in this case would appear to be the same; and, like other polished celts, it belongs to the Neolithic Period. The expansion of the blade towards the edge is very remarkable.
Fig. 82.—Mennithorpe. Yorkshire. 1/2
A celt of the same type as that from Malton, but somewhat oblique at the edge, and formed of quartz containing pyrites, found at Soden, is in the Museum at Bonn.
A flat form of stone hatchet, expanding rapidly from a slightly tapering butt about half the entire length of the blade, so as to form a semicircular cutting-edge, has been found in South Carolina. There is a small perforation in the centre, as if for a pin, to assist in securing it in its handle.
Another form, with the blade reduced for about half its length, so as to form a sort of tang, is engraved by Squier and Davis.
The celt engraved in Fig. 82 presents an abrupt shoulder on one side only, which, however, is in this case probably due to the form of the pebble from which it was made, a portion of which had split off along a line of natural cleavage. It is formed of a reddish, close-grained porphyritic rock, and is subquadrate in section at the butt. It was found at Mennithorpe, Yorkshire, and is in the Greenwell Collection. In the same collection is a thin celt of clay-slate, 43/4 inches long, of much the same form, but rounded at the shoulder. It was found at Ryedale, in the North Riding of Yorkshire.
Some of the shouldered implements may have been intended for use in the hand, without hafting. This appears to be the case with the greenstone celt shown in Fig. 83. It was found on Middleton Moor, Derbyshire, and was in the collection of the late Mr. J. F. Lucas. The shallow grooves at the sides seem intended to receive the fingers much in the same manner as the grooves in the handles of some of ​ Fig. 83.—Middleton Moor.
the tools of the Eskimos or the handles of the bronze sickles of the Swiss Lake-dwellers. An Irish celt, 8 inches long, and now in the Blackmore Museum, has two notches on one side only, and more distinctly formed, "seemingly to receive the fingers and give a firmer hold when used in the hand without a haft."
Another peculiar instrument adapted for being held in the hand is shown in Fig. 83a. It was found at Keystone, Huntingdonshire, and is now in the British Museum. It is made of greenstone, and in form resembles the sharp end of a celt with flat sides let into a spherical handle. Some hand-hatchets from Australia are of much the same character, but in their case the knob is distinct from the blade, and formed of hard xanthorrhæa gum.
Fig. 83a.—Keystone. 1/2
​The original of Fig. 84 is in the Greenwell Collection, and was found near Truro. It is of serpentine, with an oblique edge, and seems to have been formed from a pebble with little labour beyond that of sharpening one end. Though much flatter on one face than the other, it would appear, from the slanting edge, to have been used as an axe and not as an adze, unless indeed it were a hand-tool.
A beautiful adze formed of chalcedonic flint is shown in Fig. 84a, kindly lent by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The original was found at Fernie Brae, Slains, Aberdeenshire. It is 7 inches long, and of nearly triangular section. A somewhat similar adze of greenstone was found at Little Barras, Drumlithie, Kincardineshire. I have a flint adze (5 inches) of much the same character, but not so flat and blunt at the butt-end, and ground at the edge only, which was found in Reach Fen, Cambs. It is shown in Fig. 35a at page 92.
| Fig. 84.—Near Truro. | Fig. 84a.—Slains (7 inches long). |
Another peculiarity of form is where the edge, instead of being as usual nearly in the centre of the blade, is almost in the same plane as one of the faces, like that of a joiner's chisel. An implement of this character, from a "Pict's castle," Clickemin, near Lerwick, Shetland, is shown in Fig. 85.
It was presented to me by the late Rev. Dr. Knowles, F. S. A. The material appears to be a hard clay-slate. The form is well adapted for being mounted as an adze, much in the same manner as the nearly similar implements in use by the South Sea Islanders. A New Zealand adze of precisely the same character has been figured.
Sometimes the edge of a celt, instead of being sharp, has been carefully removed by grinding, so as to present a flat or rounded surface. ​In Fig. 86 is represented a singular implement of this kind in flint. It is polished all over; one side is straight, and the other curved; both ends are curved, but one is rounded at the edge and the other flat. It is difficult to understand for what purpose such an instrument can have been intended. There is no reason for supposing that the grinding at the ends was later in date than the formation of the other parts. I have others like Fig. 30 with the edge also flattened, one of these I found, as already mentioned, at Abbot's Langley; and I have seen another flint celt of much the same form, found at Chesterford, Cambs., with a somewhat flat edge, but rounded and worn away, as if by scraping some soft substance. Small transverse striæ, such as might have been caused by particles of sand, are visible on the worn edge. In the Greenwell Collection is a portion of a celt of greenstone, the fractured face ground flat and a portion of the edge also ground away.
| Fig. 85.—Near Lerwick. 1/2 | Fig . 86.—Weston, Norfolk. 1/2 |
A small flint celt, with a round polished edge instead of a cutting one as usual, was found, with other objects, in a barrow on Elton Moor, Derbyshire. I have seen a small flint celt like Fig. 33, with the edge perfectly rounded by grinding. It was found between Deal and Dover, near Kingsdown, by Mr. Hazzeldine Warren, of Waltham Cross.
It is hard to say for what purpose the edge was thus made blunt. In some cases, however, the instruments may have been used as battle-axes, the edges of which when of the perforated forms are usually flattened or rounded, probably with the view of preventing accidental injury to those who carried them. In some celts, however, the broad end is so much rounded that they can hardly be said to have an edge, and they have more the appearance of having been burnishing or ​calendering tools. I have observed this rounding of the end in some Irish and French specimens, not made of flint, as well as in one from India.
Occasionally, but very seldom, a circular concave recess is worked on each face of the celt, apparently for the purpose of preventing it from slipping when held in the hand and used either as a chopping or cutting instrument. That engraved as Fig. 87 was kindly lent me by Mr. J. R. Mortimer, who found it on Acklam Wold, Yorkshire. It is of greenstone, and has been polished over almost the entire surface. The butt-end is nearly flat transversely, and ground in the other direction to a sweep, so as to fit beneath the forefinger, when held by the thumb and middle-finger placed in the recesses on the faces. Such recesses are by no means uncommon on the stones intended for use as hammers, and farther on (p. 242) I have engraved a hammer-stone of this class which would seem to have been originally a celt such as this, but which has entirely lost any approach to an edge by continual battering. In Mr. Mortimer's specimen the edge is fairly sharp, though it has lost some splinters from it in ancient times.
| Fig. 87.—Acklam Wold. 1/2 | Fig. 88.—Fimber. 1/2 |
In the same collection is another specimen, found near Fimber, formed of a green metamorphic rock. The butt-end is ground flat. and the sides nearly so. There is a slight depression worked on each face. The edge is slightly rounded, and shows longitudinal striæ. By the owner's kindness I am able to engrave it as Fig. 88.
In General Pitt Rivers's Collection is a celt from Hindostan, with a cup-shaped depression on one of its faces. A celt of basalt from Portugal has such a depression on each face.
In the fine and extensive Greenwell Collection, so often referred to, is another remarkable celt, Fig. 89, which, though entirely different in character from those last described, may also have been intended for holding in the hand. It is of greenstone, the surface of which is considerably decomposed, and was found at Duggleby, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. On each side is an elongated concavity, well adapted for receiving the end of the forefinger when the instrument is held in the hand with the thumb on one face and the middle finger on the other. At first sight it might appear that the depressions had been made ​with the view of perforating the blade, so as to make it like Fig. 133. It is, however, too thin for such a purpose, and as the depressions can hardly be connected with any method of hafting, it appears probable that they are merely for the purpose of giving the hand a secure grip, when using the instrument as a cutting tool. This form is not uncommon in India.
Some of the stone hatchets from British Guiana have a notch on either side, apparently to assist in fastening them to their haft. A form with projecting lugs half-way down the blade has been found in Armenia.
The last peculiarity I have to notice is when the blade of the celt assumes an ornamental character, by being fluted or otherwise ornamented. That represented in Fig. 90 is deeply fluted on either face. I have engraved the figure from a cast in the Museum of the Society of
| Fig. 89.—Duggleby 1/2 | Fig. 90.—Guernsey. 1/2 |
Antiquaries, the original of which was in the possession of F. C. Lukis, Esq., M.D. It was found at St. Sampson, Guernsey. Assuming the figure given by M. Brouillet to be correct, a somewhat similar celt of red flint was found with skeletons in the Tombelle de Brioux, Poitou. Another with three hollow facets on the lower parts of one face was found in Finistère. I have a small celt of nearly similar form, but not so hollow on the faces, from Costa Rica. Such specimens are extremely rare, and I cannot at present point to any other examples. Indeed, it may be questioned how far the implements found in the Channel Islands come within the scope of the present work. The ​grooves in the faces of the celt found at Trinity, near Edinburgh, can hardly have been intended for ornament.
A kind of celt, not uncommon in Denmark, like Fig. 55, but with a small hole drilled through it at the butt-end, as if for suspension, like a sailor's knife, has very rarely been found in England, but I have a broken specimen from Cavenham, Suffolk, formed of greenstone. When perfect the celt must have been in outline like Fig. 69, but thinner.
A perfect example is shown in Fig. 90a. It is formed of whin-stone and was found in 1896 at Wereham, near Stoke Ferry, Norfolk. It is in the collection of Mr. E. M. Beloe, F.S.A., who has kindly permitted me to figure it. It is curiously striated towards the butt-end, possibly from friction in a socket. One from Thetford, perforated through the centre of the face, is in the National Museum at Edinburgh. Another of felstone (111/4 inches), oval in section, found at Melness, Sutherlandshire,
Fig. 90a.—Wereham. 1/2
was exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in March, 1897. Bored celts, though rare in Britain, occur in Brittany and other parts of France, as well as in Italy. A few have also been found in Ireland. A stone hatchet from Quito in the Christy Collection, though of somewhat different form, is perforated at the end in this manner.
A vastly greater number of instances of the discovery in Britain of stone hatchets or celts might have been cited; but inasmuch as in most cases where mention is made of celts, no particulars are given of their form, and as they occur in all parts of the country, it seems needless to encumber my pages with references. As an instance of ​their abundance, I may mention that the late Mr. Bateman records the discovery of upwards of thirty, at fourteen different localities within a small district of Derbyshire. Numerous discoveries in Yorkshire are cited by Mr. C. Monkman.
Dr. Joseph Stevens has recorded several from the Thames near Reading, and a very large number of those in my own and various public collections I have had to leave unnoticed for want of space.
The circumstances under which stone celts of various forms have been discovered must now be considered, with a view of throwing some light on their antiquity, and the length of time they have remained in use. And it must at the outset be confessed that we have but little to guide us on these points. We have already seen that they have been found with objects of bronze; for in the barrow on Upton Lovel Down, examined by Sir R. Colt Hoare, flint celts, both rough and polished, were discovered in company with a perforated stone axe, and a bronze pin, though in this instance there were two interments. The Ravenhill tumulus, near Scarborough, is more conclusive; for in it was an urn containing burnt bones, a broken flint celt, flint arrow-heads, and a beautiful bronze pin one and a-half inches long. The evidence of other recorded cases is but weak. Near Tynewydd, in the parish of Llansilin, Denbighshire, a green- stone celt and a bronze socketed celt were found together in moving an accumulation of stones, which did not, however, appear to have been a cairn. In another instance, three stone celts, one roughly chipped, the others polished, are stated to have been found with a bronze socketed celt in the parish of Southend, Kintyre, Argyllshire. At Campbelton, in the same district, were found two polished stone celts, and with them, on the same spot, two stone moulds for casting looped spear-heads of bronze.
Though there may be doubts as to the true association of stone celts with instruments of bronze in some of these cases, the presumptive evidence is strong of their having remained in use, as might indeed have been reasonably expected, after the introduction of bronze for cutting-tools. By the time bronze knife-daggers had become common, perforated battle-axes had also come to form part of a warrior's ordinary equipment. These are often found with the daggers in graves, and there can be no doubt of the ordinary form of stone hatchet having preceded that with a shaft-hole. There are, however, a number of facts in connection with the occurrence of the ordinary ​Stone celt that must not be passed over, inasmuch as at first sight they tend to raise a presumption of celts having remained in use even during the period of the Roman occupation of this country. I will shortly recapitulate the principal facts to which I allude.
In excavating a Roman building at Ickleton, Cambs., the late Lord Braybrooke found a greenstone celt; and another is said to have been found with Roman remains at Alchester, Oxfordshire. A flint celt is also described as having been found with Roman antiquities at Eastbourne.
Among the relics discovered by Samuel Lysons, F.R.S., in the Roman villa at Great Witcombe, Gloucestershire, is described "a British hatchet of flint." Another flint celt was found close by a Roman villa at Titsey. Flint celts and scrapers were found in the Romano-British village in Woodcuts Common, Dorset, by General Pitt Rivers.
A stone celt, like Fig. 70, has been engraved by Artis as a polishing stone used in the manufactory of Roman earthen vessels, but no evidence is given as to the cause of its being thus regarded.
At Leicester, a fragment of a flint celt was found at a depth of twelve feet from the surface on an old "ground line," and accompanied by bone objects which Sir Wollaston Franks assigned to a late Roman or even possibly to an early Saxon period.
In the Saxon burial-place at Ash, in Kent, were found a polished flint celt, "a circular flint stone," and a Roman fibula.
In 1868, a fibrolite hatchet was found within a building at Mont Beuvray, the ancient Bibracte, with three Gaulish coins of the time of Augustus.
Others of flint were found in a Merovingian cemetery at Labruyère, in the Côte d'Or.
The occurrence at Gonsenheim, near Mainz, of a series of thin polished celts with remains presumably Roman, has already been mentioned. In two, if not more, instances in Denmark, fragments of iron have been found in tumuli, and apparently in association with polished hatchets and other instruments of flint and stone. It seems doubtful, however, whether in these cases the iron was not subsequently introduced.
The association of these stone implements with Roman, and even Post-Roman, remains in so many different places, would at first sight appear to argue their contemporaneity; but in the case of the celts being found on the sites of Roman villas, two things are to be remarked—First, that sites once occupied may, and constantly do, continue in occupation for an indefinite length of time, so that the imperishable relics of one age, such as those in ​stone, may become mixed in the soil with those of a long subsequent date; and second, that had these stone implements been in common use in Roman times, their presence among Roman re- mains would have been the rule and not the exception, and we should have found them mentioned by Latin authors. Moreover, if their use had survived in this manner into Roman times, we should expect to find them still more abundantly associated with tools of the Bronze Age. We have, however, seen how rarely this class of stone instruments is found with bronze.
As to the stone celt discovered at Ash, Mr. Douglas remarks it may not "be improbable that this stone instrument was deposited with the dead, as an amulet; and which the owner had found and preserved with a superstitious reverence." In a tumulus in Flanders, six celts were found placed upright in a circle round the interment, but from the difference in the condition of their surface they appeared to be of different ages, so that it has been suggested that they also were gathered from the surface of the soil and placed in the tomb as amulets. We shall subsequently see that flint arrow-heads were frequently thus preserved in Merovingian cemeteries.
In many cases in Germany, stone axes, for the most part perforated, are said to have been found in association with objects of iron; but the proofs of the contemporaneity of the two classes of objects are not satisfactory. The religious veneration attaching to the Thor's hammers may, however, have had to do with their interment in graves, at a time when they had ceased to be in ordinary use. Moreover, the axes may have been preserved to ward off lightning.
Another argument in favour of these instruments having remained in use in Britain until a comparatively late period, has- been derived from the circumstance of the words stan-æx and stan-bill, occurring in Æfric's Saxon glossary. These words are translated by Lye as a stone axe, a stone bill—terms which have naturally been regarded as referring to axes and bills made of stone, which, therefore, it might be reasonably inferred were in use at the time when the glossary was written, or about A.D. 1000. On examination, however, it appears that no such inference is warranted. The glossary is Latin with the Saxon equivalents annexed to each word, and the two words referred to are ​Bipennis, rendered twibille and stan-æx; and Marra, rendered stan-bill. Now Bipennis is an axe cutting at either end, and the word is accurately rendered by "twibille;"—the axe having "bill" or steel at its two edges. But a double-cutting axe in stone is a form of very rare occurrence, and this alone raises a presumption of the stan in stan-æx referring to stone in some other manner than as the material of which the axe was made. The second word, Marra, seems to clear up the question, for this was a mattock or pick-axe, or some such tool, and this is rendered stan-bill,—the steel for use on or among stones. The stone axe may be one for cutting stones, like the mill-bill of the present day, which is used for dressing mill-stones, and this being usually sharp at each end, might not inaptly be regarded as the equivalent of the ancient bipennis. An axe is still a bricklayer's tool, and is also occasionally used by stone-cutters. It seems, then, that the "stan" in these two Saxon words refers, not to the material of which the axes or bills were made, but to the stones on or among which they were used. In Halliwell's "Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words," the interpretation of Stone-axe is given as "A stone-worker's axe," but it is not stated where the term occurs.
In the "Matériaux" M. Soreil has called attention to a very early German poem, possibly of the fifth century, in which the heroes are described as contending with stone axes. The subject has been discussed by Dr. Much, who suggests that the name survived long after the actual use of the weapons, and points out that the modern word Hellebarde (halberd) has the same meaning, hella in Old German signifying "stone," and barte being still used to signify an "axe" or "chopper." He also hints at a connection between the scrama-seax or large knife, with saxum. The whole paper is worth reading.
In the Song of Hildebrand and Hadubrand, probably of the eighth century, stone hammers, staim-borts, are also mentioned.
"Do stoptun tosamane staimbort chludun
 Hewun harmlicco huitte scilti."
The passage in "William of Poitiers,"— "Jactant cuspides ac ​diversorum generum tela, sævissimas quasque secures ac lignis imposita saxa,"—which has been cited as proving that some of the Anglo-Saxons fought with weapons of stone at the battle of Hastings, seems only to refer to stone missiles probably discharged from some engines of war, and serving the same purpose as the stone cannon-balls of more recent times. Professor Nilsson has pointed out that jactare often signifies to brandish, and argues that the large stone axes were too heavy either for brandishing or throwing as weapons. It seems to me, however, that jactare in this passage is used in the sense of throwing, the same as in Virgil,—
"Deucalion vacuum lapides jactavit in orbem,
 Unde homines nati, durum genus."
If it be uncertain to how late a period these Neolithic implements remained in use in this country, it is still more uncertain to how early a period their introduction may be referred. If we take the possible limits in either direction, the date at which they fell into disuse becomes approximately fixed as compared with that at which they may first have come into use in Britain. For we may safely say that the use of bronze must have been known in this country 500 or 600 years B.C., and, therefore, that at that time cutting tools of stone began to be superseded; while by A.D. 1100, it will be agreed on all hands that they were no longer in use. We can, therefore, absolutely fix the date of their desuetude within at the outside two thousand years; but who can tell within any such limits the time when a people acquainted with the use of polished stone implements first settled in this island, or when the process of grinding them may have been first developed among native tribes? The long duration of the period which intervened between the deposit of the River-gravels (containing, so far as at present known, implements chipped only and not polished), and the first appearance of polished hatchets, is not in this country so well illustrated as in France; but even there, all that can be said as to the introduction of polished stone hatchets, is that it took place subsequently to the accumulation in the caves of the south of France, of the deposits belonging to an age when reindeer constituted one of the principal articles of food of the cave-dwellers. As to the date at which those cave-deposits were formed, history and tradition are silent, and at present even Geology affords but little aid in determining the question.
​But though we cannot fix the range in time of these implements, it will be well to notice some of the circumstances under which they have been found, if only as illustrative of the habits and customs of the ancient people who used them. Of course the most instructive cases are those in which they have occurred with interments, and some of these I have already incidentally mentioned; as, for instance, the discovery in a barrow on Upton Lovel Down of a roughly chipped celt, with others polished at the edge, and other objects; and that of two very roughly chipped flint celts found by Dr. Mantell, in a barrow at Alfriston, Sussex.
In these three instances the polished celts accompany interments by cremation, and probably belong to a late period of the Stone Age in Britain. They have, however, been frequently found with the remains of unburnt bodies. In one of the banks of an ancient settlement near Knook Castle, Upton Lovel, Sir E. Colt Hoare discovered a skeleton with its head towards the north and at its feet a fine black celt. In a barrow about seven miles east of Pickering, besides other interments is said to have been one of a skeleton with the head towards the south, and a "beautiful stone adze or celt, 31/2 inches long, wrought in green basalt, and a very elaborately chipped spear of flint, near four inches long, near its right hand."
In another barrow in the same district the skeleton was accompanied by "a very small celt or chisel of grey flint, smoothly rubbed, and a plain spear-head of the same material."
In another barrow on Elton Moor, Derbyshire, there lay behind the skeleton a neatly ornamented "drinking cup," containing three pebbles of quartz, a flat piece of polished iron ore, a small celt of flint, with a rounded instead of a cutting edge, a beautifully chipped cutting tool, twenty-one circular-ended instruments, and seventeen rude pieces of flint.
In Liffs Low, near Biggin, Mr. Bateman found a skeleton in the ​contracted position, and with it two flint celts beautifully chipped and polished at the cutting edges; two flint arrow-heads delicately chipped, two flint knives polished on the edge, and one of them, serrated on the back to serve as a saw; numerous other objects of flint, some red ochre, a small earthenware cup, and a hammer-head of stag's horn.
In Cross Low, near Parwich, a fragment of a celt and a small piece of chipped flint were with a human skeleton in a cist; and a kind of flint axe or tomahawk is reported to have been similarly found in a barrow near Pickering.
In the Gospel Hillock barrow, near Buxton, Captain Lukis, F.S.A., found near the shoulder of a contracted skeleton, a polished flint celt, of which an engraving is given in the Reliquary.
In what appears to have been a tumulus at Seaford, Sussex, celts both whole and broken, and other forms of worked flint, were found, but the account given of the exploration is rather confused.
It will be observed that in these cases stone celts accompany the earliest form of interment with which we are acquainted, that in which the body is deposited in the contracted position. The reason why bodies were interred in that posture appears to be that it was in all probability the usual attitude of sleep, at a period when the small cloak of the day must generally have served as the only covering at night.
In Scotland stone celts seem to be of frequent occurrence in cairns. I have one, already mentioned, which is said to have been found with four others in a cairn on Druim-a-shi, near Culloden.
Three others, of which two have been already described, were discovered in a cairn in Daviot parish, Inverness, together with a cylindrical implement, possibly a pestle, and are now in the National Museum at Edinburgh. Not improbably my specimen came from the same cairn.
Another was found in the Cat's Cairn, Cromartyshire. A second, pointed at the butt, is said to have been found in a "Druidical circle," Aberdeenshire. A third, of black flint, from the parish of Cruden, Aberdeenshire, would seem to have accompanied an interment, as with it was found a necklace of large oblong beads of jet, and rudely shaped pieces of amber.
None, however, of these instances afford any absolute testimony as to their exact or even approximate age, unless, indeed, the jet and amber, if they really accompanied the flint celt, point in that case to a date at all events not far removed from that of the bronze objects with which such necklaces have frequently been found.
In the other cases of interments in barrows, however ancient they may be, it seems probable that they are not those of the earliest occupants of this country, by whom polished stone celts, or those of the same character rough hewn only, were in use. The labour bestowed in the formation of the graves and the erection of the barrows must ​have been immense, and could hardly have been undertaken until a stage of civilization had been reached higher than that of some of the ruder savage races of the present day.
It may be mentioned that stone celts are not unfrequently found in the soil of which barrows are composed, but in no way connected with the interments in the barrow.
There are a few instances of the finding of these instruments, not in association with interments, where the circumstances under which they have been discovered testify to a great, though still indeterminate antiquity. One, for instance, of greenstone, in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries, is stated to have been "found deep in the clay whilst digging the Chelsea Waterworks at Kingston." Others in a sand-bed near York were 6 or 7 feet below the surface, and nearly a quarter of a mile from the river which is thought to have deposited the sand.
On the whole evidence it would appear, from the number of implements of this class which has been discovered, from the various characters of the interments with which they are associated, and from the circumstances under which they have been found, that these stone celts must have been in use in this country during a long period of years; though we still revert to our first confession, that it is impossible to determine at how early a date this period commenced, or to how late a date it may have extended. If, however, the occupation of this part of the globe by man was continuous from the period of the deposit of the old River-gravels unto the present day, it seems probable that some of these implements may claim an almost fabulous antiquity, while in certain remote districts of Britain into which civilization made but a tardy approach, it is possible that their use may have lingered on to a time when in other parts of the country, owing to the superiority and abundance of metallic tools, these stone hatchets had long fallen into disuse.
Instances of this comparatively late use of stone celts appear to be afforded by some of the discoveries made in the Orkney and Shetland Isles; and it is doubtful whether in Ireland the use of ​stone implements did not survive in some parts of the country to a far more recent date than would at first sight appear probable. I have, however, remarked on this subject elsewhere. Sir Arthur Mitchell's book, "The Past in the Present," may also be consulted.
The methods in which these instruments were used and mounted must to some extent have varied in accordance with the purposes to which they were applied. In describing the forms, I have pointed out that in some cases they were used as axes or hatchets, and in other cases as adzes, and that there are some celts which not improbably were used in the hand without any handle at all, or else were mounted in short handles, and used after the manner of chisels or knives.
The instances of their being found in this country still attached to their handles are rare. In the case of the celt found near Tranmere, Cheshire, and now in the Mayer Museum at Liverpool, "the greater part of the wood had perished, but enough remained to show that the handle had passed in a slightly diagonal direction towards the upper end of the stone." In the Christy Collection is a large felstone celt 121/4 inches long and 31/4 inches broad, of the same section as Fig. 43, slightly flattened at the sides, on the face of which the mark of the handle is still visible, crossing it obliquely near the middle. This specimen was found at Pentney, Norfolk. Similar marks may not improbably be observed on other specimens, like that from Drumour already mentioned at page 119.
In the Solway Moss, near Longtown, a hafted hatchet was found by a labourer digging peat, at the depth of rather more
Fig. 91 .—Solway Moss.
than six feet, but the handle appears to have been broken, even at the time when the sketch was made from which the woodcut ​given in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries was en- graved, which is, by permission, here reproduced. The instrument is now in the British Museum, but the haft, in drying, has, unfortunately, quite lost its form, and is still further broken. The process of preserving wood when in the tender condition in which it is found after long burial in peat was probably not known at the time. It has been adopted with great success by Mr. Engelhardt in preserving the wooden antiquities from the Danish peat bogs, and consists in keeping the objects moist until they have been well steeped, or even boiled, in a strong solution of alum, after which they are allowed to dry gradually, and are found to retain their form in a remarkable manner.
It is probably owing to the broken and distorted condition of the wood that the sketch was inaccurate as to the position of the blade with regard to the handle, for the mark of the wood where it was in contact with the stone is still visible, and proves that the central line of the blade was inclined outwards at an angle of about 100° to the haft, instead of being nearly vertical, as shown. The edge of the hatchet is oblique to nearly the same extent as the inclination of the blade to the haft. It would seem from this, that the obliquity of the edge was in some cases connected with the method of hafting, and not always, as suggested by Nilsson, the result of the blade being most worn away in the part farthest from the hand holding the shaft.
The preservation of the wooden handle has been more successfully effected in the case of the celt shown in Fig. 92, engraved from a photograph kindly supplied me by Mr. R. D. Darbishire, F.G.S. It is figured on a larger scale in the Archæologia, where all the circumstances of the discovery are set forth in detail. The axe was found, in the year 1871, in peat which had once formed the bed of a small lake, known as Ehenside Tarn, near Egremont, in Cumberland, which has now been drained. With it were found another haft of the same character, and several stone celts, one of them 141/2 inches in length, with the sides but slightly curved, and almost equally broad at each end. Some wooden paddles and clubs formed of beech and oak, pottery and other objects, were also found. The farmer who cultivates the former bed of the lake had previously discovered some stone antiquities which were brought under the notice of Sir Wollaston Franks, ​who induced Mr. Darbishire to make the search which was so amply rewarded. The haft is formed of a hard root of beech-wood, and has been most carefully carved, the surface exhibiting alternate cuts and ridges forming small concave facets about 1/8-inch apart, and arranged spirally. The other haft for a celt is of oak-wood, and is not so well preserved. It will be noticed that the end of the beech-wood handle has originally been recurved,
Fig. 92.—Cumberland. 1/4
possibly with a view of steadying the butt-end of the celt.
Curiously enough, in the outline of a celt in its handle, carved on the under side of the roof-stone of a dolmen, known as La Table des Marchands, near Locmariaker, Brittany, the end of the handle seems also to be curved back beyond the socket for the blade, which however it does not touch. At the other end of the handle there is a loop like a sword guard, for the insertion of the hand. There is some little difficulty in determining the exact form of this incised carving, as the lines are shallow, and the light does not fall upon them. I speak from a sketch I made on the spot in 1863. Other such representations occur in Brittany.
In a paper on a neolithic flint weapon in a wooden haft, Mr. C. Dawson has given an account of a discovery made by Mr. Stephen Blackmore, a shepherd of East Dean, near Eastbourne, of a flint hatchet at Mitchdean. It was lying in its wooden haft which was perfectly carbonized, but Mr. Blackmore made a ​drawing of it, apparently from memory. He describes the blade, which seems to have been unground, as lying in a horizontal groove cut in one side of the shaft, which was 2 feet 6 inches long. At one end of the shaft were two projections supposed to serve for holding the ligatures by which the blade was attached, and nearer the hand were a number of grooves running round the haft. Neither the description nor the drawings of this and other objects found with it are such as to inspire complete confidence.
About 1822, in sinking a well at Ferry Harty, Isle of Sheppey, there were found, according to newspaper reports, the remains of a hut, two skeletons, and "flints and hard stones, apparently intended for axes and cutting implements, with handles of wood quite complete and in good preservation." Nothing farther seems to be known of this discovery.
At Ervie, near Glenluce, Wigtownshire, a celt of indurated clay-stone in form like Fig. 77 (8 inches) was found, which shows a band of dark colour about 11/2 inch wide and about 2 inches from the butt-end, crossing it at an angle of about 20°. This band probably shows the position of the haft in which the blade was fixed. Another celt from Glenshee, Forfarshire, likewise in the Edinburgh Museum, shows a fainter mark of the kind. On a third from Dolphinton, Lanarkshire, the mark is very distinct and at a right angle to the axis of the blade. Montelius mentions a Swedish specimen, and A. de Mortillet a French one of flint similarly marked.
In the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy is a drawing of a celt in its handle (which is apparently of pine) found in the county
Fig. 93.—Monaghan.
of Monaghan. This handle was 131/2 inches long, and more clumsy at the socketed end than that from Solway Moss. The woodcut given by Sir W. Wilde is here, by permission, reproduced as Fig. 93.
Another nearly similar specimen was discovered near ​Cookstown in the county of Tyrone. What may be the haft of a stone hatchet was found in another Irish crannog. Another is in the collection of General Pitt Rivers, F.R.S. Some of the hatchets from the Swiss Lake-dwellings were hafted in a similar manner. In one such haft, formed of ash, from Robenhausen, the blade is inclined towards the hand; in another, also of ash, the blade is at right angles to the shaft. Some of these club-like hafts resemble in character those in use for iron blades in Southern and Central Africa. The copper or bronze axes of the Mexicans were hafted in the same manner.
A method of hafting, which implies fixity of residence, is said to have been in use among the Caribs of Guadaloupe. The blade of the axe had a groove round it at the butt-end, and a deep hole having been cut in the branch of a growing tree, this end of the blade was placed in it, and as the branch grew became firmly embedded in it, the wood which grasped it having formed a collar that filled the groove. The Hurons are said to have adopted the same plan.
I have engraved in Fig. 94, an extremely rude example of hafting by fitting the blade into a socket, from an original kindly lent
Fig. 94.—Axe from the Rio Frio. 1/6
me by the late Mr. Thomas Belt, F.G.S., who procured it among the Indians of the Rio Frio, a tributary of the San Juan del Norte in Nicaragua. The blade is of trachyte entirely unground and most rudely chipped. The club-like haft is formed of some endogenous wood, and has evidently been chopped into shape by means of stone tools.
In these instances Clavigero's remark with regard to the copper ​or bronze axes of the Mexicans holds good; they are like "those of modern times, except that we put the handle in an eye of the axe while they put the axe in an eye of the handle." A similarly hafted hatchet with the blade ground is in use among the Botocudo
Fig. 95.—War-axe—Gaveoë Indians, Brazil.
Indians. In the Island of New Hanover the axe blade is inserted about the middle of the club-like haft. Some hatchets from the Admiralty Islands are curiously like those from the Swiss ​Lake-dwellings. Excessively long hafts in which the blades are let into a socket are occasionally in use among the Chamacocos of south-east Bolivia.
Many stone and metallic axes in use among other modern savages are hafted in much the same manner by insertion in a socket. In some instances it would appear as if the hole for receiving the stone did not extend through the haft, but was merely a shallow depression—even a notch. Such seems to be the case with a war-axe of the Gaveoë Indians of Brazil in the British Museum, figured in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, and here, by permission, reproduced, as Fig. 95. Some of their axes have longer hafts. In the Over Yssel Museum is a Brazilian stone axe with a blade of this kind, which is said to have been used in an insurrection at Deventer in 1787.
The "securis lapidea in sacrificiis Indorum usitata," engraved by Aldrovandus, seems to have the blade inserted in a socket without being tied, but in most axes of the same kind the blade is secured in its place by a plaited binding artistically interlaced.
Fig. 96.—Axe of Montezuma II.
The stone axe said to be that of Montezuma II., preserved in the Ambras Museum at Vienna, is a good example of the kind. I have engraved it as Fig. 96, from a sketch I made in 1866.
In some cases the whole handle is covered with the binding. Two such in the Dresden Historical Museum are engraved by Klemm. Others have been figured by Prof. Giglioli.
Some of the war-axes (called taawisch or tsuskiah) in use among the natives of Nootka Sound are mounted in this manner, but the socket end of the shaft is carved into the form of a grotesque human head, in the mouth of which the stone blade is ​secured with cement, as in Fig. 97. In another instance the handle is carved into the form of a bird and inlaid with mother-of-pearl, or, more properly speaking, shell of haliotis. The blade of basalt projects from the breast of the bird, the tail of which forms the handle. In some the blade goes right through the handle, so as to project equally on both sides of it, and is sharpened at both ends.
The socket in all these handles is usually at some little distance from their end, but even with this precaution, the wedge-like form of the celt must have rendered them very liable to split. It was
Fig. 97.—Axe—Nootka Sound.
probably with a view of avoiding this, that the intermediate socket of stag's horn, so common in the Lake-dwellings of Switzerland, was adopted. The stone was firmly bedded in the horn, the end of which was usually worked into a square form, but slightly tapering, and with a shoulder all round to prevent its being driven into the wood. In the annexed woodcut (Fig. 98) is shown one of these sockets with the hatchet inserted. It was found at Concise, in the Lake of Neuchâtel. An analogous system for preventing the stone blade from splitting the haft was adopted in Burma, Cambodia, ​and Eastern India, but the shoulders were there cut in the stone-blades themselves. Fig. 98.—Axe in stag's-horn socket—Concise. 1/2
One of the Swiss instruments in its complete form is shown in Fig. 99, which I have copied from Keller. It was found at Robenhausen, and the club-like handle is of ash. Several other specimens are engraved by the same author and Professor Desor, and by other more recent writers.
In some instances the stone was inserted lengthways into the end of a tine of a stag's horn at the part where it had been severed from the antler, so as to form a sort of chisel. In other cases the socket was worked through the tine, and the stone blade fixed in it after the manner of an axe, though the handle was too short for the tool to be used for chopping. Some wooden handles are also but a few inches long, so that the celts mounted in them must have been used for cutting by drawing them along the object to be cut.
Fig. 99.—Axe—Robenhausen. 1/4
Such stag's-horn sockets have occurred, though rarely, in France. M. Perrault found some in his researches in the Camp de Chassey, ​(Saône et Loire). Some seem to have been found at Vauvray, in making the railway from Paris to Rouen. Others were discovered in company with arrow-heads, celts, and trimmed flakes of flint, in the Dolmen, or Allée couverte, of Argenteuil (Seine et Oise). These are now in the Musée de St. Germain. Others were found in a cavern on Mont Sargel (Aveyron). They occasionally occur in Germany. One from Dienheim is in the Central Museum at Mayence.
Discoveries of these stag's-horn sockets for stone tools in England seem to be extremely rare. Mr. Albert Way describes one, of which a woodcut is given in the Archæological Journal. It is formed of the horn of the red deer (which is erroneously described as being extinct), and is said to have been found with human remains and pottery of an early character at Cockshott Hill, in Wychwood Forest, Oxfordshire. It seems better adapted for mounting a small celt as a chisel, like that of bronze found in a barrow at Everley, than for forming part of a hatchet. Mr. Way cites several cases of the discovery of these stag's-horn sockets in France and elsewhere on the continent of Europe. I may add, by way of caution, that numerous forgeries of them have been produced at Amiens. In some of the genuine specimens from the peat of the valley of the Somme, the stone was fixed in a socket bored in one end of the piece of stag's horn, and the shaft was inserted in another hole bored through the horn. M. Boucher de Perthes describes the handle of one as made of a branch of oak, burnt at each end.
An example of this method of mounting is given in Fig. 99a. The original was found at Penhouet, Saint Nazaire sur Loire, in 1877. The length of the haft is 191/2 inches. A fine socket with the blade still in it, but without the shaft, has been figured by the Baron Joseph de Baye. It was found in La Marne, in which department funereal grottoes have been discovered, at the entrances of which similar hafted axes were sculptured.
The socket discovered by the late Lord Londesborough in a barrow, near Scarborough, appears to have been a hammer, ​although he describes it as a piece of deer horn, perforated at the end, and drilled through, and imagined it to have been the handle for one of the celts found with it, "much in the manner of that in the museum of M. de Courvale, at his Castle of Pinon, in France," of which he sent a drawing to the Archæological Association.
Fig. 99a.—Penhouet. 1/6
A stag's-horn socket, with a transverse hole for the haft, and a circular socket bored in the end, from which the main body of the horn was cut off, was found in the Thames, near Kew, and is in the possession of Mr. Thomas Layton, F.S.A. In the circular socket was a portion of a tine of stag's horn, so that it seems rather to have been intended for mounting such tines for use as picks, than for hafting celts.
Fig. 99b.—New Guinea.
A celt, mounted in a socket of stag's horn, bored through to receive the wooden shaft, found in the Lake-dwellings at Concise, and in the collection of Dr. Clément, has been engraved by Desor; and another, found near Aerschot, in Belgium, by Le Hon. A hatchet, mounted in a socket of this kind, is figured by Dupont ​and Van Overloop. Some of the stag's-horn sockets are ornamented by having patterns engraved upon them.
In New Guinea and Celebes a plan has been adopted of inserting the stone blade into the end of a tapering piece of wood, which is securely bound round to prevent its splitting. The small end of this fits in a hole in the club-like haft. An example is shown in Fig. 99b, obligingly lent by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. By turning round the pivot an axe is converted into an adze. In some New Guinea and New Caledonia adzes and axes the blade is let into a socket at a nearly right angle to the haft, and either forming part of it or attached to it. Such an adze
Fig. 99c.—New Guinea Adze.
is shown in Fig. 99c, kindly lent by the same Society. A similar method of hafting is in use in the Entrecasteaux Islands.
Some ingenious suggestions as to the probable method of mounting stone implements in ancient times have been made by the Vicomte Lepic. With a polished Danish flint hatchet 8 inches long, hafted in part of the root of an oak, an oak-tree 8 inches in diameter was cut down without injury to the blade.
Another method of hafting, adopted by the Swiss Lake-dwellers for their stone hatchets, is described by Dr. Keller, from whose work I have copied the annexed woodcut, Fig. 100.
​The haft was usually formed of a stem of hazel, "with a root running from it at right angles. A cleft was then made in this
Fig. 100.—Axe—Robenhausen.
shorter part, forming a kind of beak in which the celt was fixed with cord and asphalte." A woodcut of a handle of the same character, found near Schraplau, in company with its stone blade, is given by Klemm, and is here reproduced as Fig. 101. A Fig. 101.—Schraplau. handle of much the same kind, consisting of a shaft with a branch at right angles to it, in which was fixed a flint axe, was found with a skeleton and a wooden shield in a tumulus near Lang Eichstätt, in Saxony, and has been engraved by Lindenschmit. Another is said to have been found at Winterswyk.
The discovery in the district between the Weser and the Elbe of several stone hatchets mounted in hafts of wood, stag's-horn, and bone, has been recorded by Mr. A. Poppe,<refBericht Nat. Hist. Verein, Bremen, 1879.></ref> but the authenticity of the hafting seems to me open to question. The compound haft of a stone axe, said to have been found at Berlin, is also not above all suspicion. The handles of bronze palstaves, found in the salt mines near Salzburg, Austria, are forked in the same manner as Figs. 100 and 101. One of them, formerly in the Klemm Collection, is now in the British Museum.
The same system of hafting has been in use among the savages in recent times, as will be seen from the annexed figure of a stone adze from New Caledonia, Fig. 102, lent to me by the late Mr. Henry Christy. Another is engraved in the Proceedings of the Society of ​Antiquaries of Scotland. Several other varieties of New Caledonian and Fiji handles have been engraved by M. Chantre. In some countries, probably in consequence of the difficulty of procuring forked boughs of trees of the proper kind, the wood which forms
Fig. 102.—Adze—New Caledonia.
the socket for the blade is bound on at the desired angle to the end of the wooden handle. An adze of stone from the Caroline Islands, thus mounted, is engraved in the Comptes Rendus; and a ​handle of this kind from North America, but with a small iron blade, is figured by Klemm.
We are left in a great degree to conjecture as to the other methods of mounting stone hatchets and adzes on handles in prehistoric times; but doubtless some besides those already mentioned were practised. A very common method among existing savages
Fig. 103.—Adze—Clalam Indians.
is to bind the blade of stone on to the face of a branch at the end of the handle, which in some cases projects upwards, and in others downwards, and is inclined at an angle more or less perpendicular to the handle.
Figs. 103 and 104 are kindly lent me by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The short-handled adze. Fig. 103, is one ​used by the Schlalum or Clalam Indians, of the Pacific Coast, to the south of the Straits of De Fuca and on Puget's Sound, to hollow out their canoes. The group. Fig. 104, exhibits various methods of attachment of stone adzes to their handles employed by the South-Sea Islanders.
The Australians occasionally mounted their tomahawks in much the same manner as that shown in the central figure. An example
Fig. 104.—South-Sea Island Axes.
has been engraved by the Rev. J. G. Wood. The right-hand figure probably represents an adze from the Savage Islands. Some Brazilian and Aleutian Island adzes are mounted in much the same fashion.
The jade adzes of the New Zealanders are hafted in a somewhat similar manner; but the hafts are often beautifully carved and inlaid. A fine example is in the Blackmore Museum, and a handle in the Christy Collection. I have also a haft with the original ​jade blade, but the binding has been taken off. One of them is engraved by the Rev. J. G. Wood. The axe to the left, in Fig. 104, as well as that in the centre, is from Tahiti. The axes from Mangaia, so common in collections, exhibit great skill in the mounting and in the carving of the handles. Some have been engraved by the Rev. J. G. Wood. A ceremonial stone adze with a very remarkable carved haft from New Ireland bas been figured by Professor Giglioli.
In some instances the ligaments for attaching the stone blade against the end of the handle pass through a hole towards its end. A North American adze in the Ethnological Museum, at Copenhagen, is thus mounted, the cord being apparently of gut.
A similar method of mounting their adzes, by binding them against the haft, was in use among the Egyptians. Although it is extremely probable that some of the ancient stone adzes of other countries may have been mounted in this manner, there have not, so far as I am aware, been any of the handles of this class discovered. I have, however, two Swiss celts of Lydian stone, and of rectangular section, found at Nussdorf and Sipplingen, in the Ueberlinger See, and on the flatter of the two faces of each, there is a slight hollow worn away apparently by friction, which was, I think, due to their having been attached against a handle in this manner. The blade in which the depression is most evident bas lost its edge, seemingly from its having been broken in use. I have not up to the present time found any similarly worn surfaces upon British celts.
Another method of hafting adopted by various savage tribes is that of winding a flexible branch of wood round the stone, and securing the two ends of the branch by binding them together in such a manner as tightly to embrace the blade. A stone axe from Northern Australia thus hafted, is figured in the Archælogia whence I have borrowed the cut. Fig. 105. Another used by natives on the Murray river bas been figured by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. This method of hafting bas been mentioned by White, who describes the binding as being effected by strips ​of bark, and in his figure shows the two ends of the stick more firmly bound together.
Another example has been engraved by the Rev. J. G. Wood. This mode is very similar to that in common use among blacksmiths
Fig. 105.—Axe—Northern Australia.
for their chisels and swages, which are held by means of a withy twisted round them, and secured in its place by a ring.
It seems extremely probable that so simple a method may have been in use in early times in this country, though we have no direct evidence as to the fact. A "fancy sketch" of a celt in a withy handle will be found in the Archæologia. It resembles in a singular manner the actual implements employed by the Ojibway Indians, of which there is a specimen in the Christy Collection, engraved by the Rev. J. G. Wood. Some of the other North American tribes mounted their hatchets in much the same manner. A hatchet thus hafted is engraved by Schoolcraft.
In some instances a groove of greater or less depth has been worked round the axes mounted in this manner, though undoubtedly British examples are scarce. An axe-hammer of diorite (13 inches), found near Newburgh, Aberdeenshire, has a groove round it instead of the usual haft-hole. The blade engraved in the Archæological Journal and found near Coldstream, Northumberland, is probably of Carib origin, like others which have also been supposed to have been British. Another from the Liverpool ​Docks is mentioned by Mr. H. Ecroyd Smith. In the British Museum are two such axes, and some other stone implements, found near Alexandria, but which probably are Carib, as would also seem to be those in the Museum of Douai, on which are sculptured representations of the human face.
Stone axe-heads with a groove round their middle, for receiving a handle, have been found in Denmark, but are of rare occurrence. The form has been found in the salt-mines of Koulpe, Caucasus, and in Russian Armenia. The large stone mauls found so commonly in the neighbourhood of ancient copper-mines, in this and many other countries in both hemispheres, were hafted much in the same manner as the Australian axe.
In other cases axe-heads are mounted by being fixed in a cleft stick for a handle, the stick being then lashed round so as to secure the stone and retain it in its place. This method was employed by some of the North American Indians, and the aborigines in the colony of Victoria. In the Blackmore Museum is a stone axe thus mounted, from British Guiana. There is a small hole through the butt which is carved into a series of small spikes. Others from Guiana have notches at the sides to receive a cord which bound the haft in a groove running along the butt-end. The same form has been found in Surinam. An Egyptian stone hammer is mounted in much the same way. The notches practically produce lugs at the butt-end of the blade. I have an iron hatchet, edged with steel, brought home by the late Mr. David Forbes, F.R.S., from among the Aymara Indians of Bolivia, which is mounted in a stick cleft at the end. The blade is T-shaped at the butt, and is tied in such a manner, by means of a strip of leather, that the arms of the T rest on two of the coils, so as to prevent its falling out, while other two coils pass over the butt and prevent its being driven back, and the whole binds the two sides of the cleft stick together so as tightly to grasp the blade and prevent lateral or endways motion. The ancient Egyptian bronze hatchets were merely placed in a groove and bound to the handle by the lugs, and sometimes by the cord being passed through holes in the blade. The same shape is ​found in flint hatchets ascribed by Professor Flinders Petrie to the twelfth dynasty. What may be a stone hatchet mounted occurs in a painting at Medum.
Another Australian method of mounting implies the possession of some resinous material susceptible of being softened by heat, and again becoming hard and tough when cold. This mode is exhibited in Fig. 106, which represents a rude instrument from Western Australia, now in my collection, engraved in the Archæologia. It is hammer-like at one end, axe-like at the other, and is formed of either one or two roughly chipped pieces of basalt-like stone entirely unground, and secured in a mass of resinous
Fig. 106.—Hatchet—Western Australia.
gum, in which the handle is inserted. In most implements of this kind there appear to be two separate stones used to form the double blade, and these are sometimes of different kinds of rock. It would seem that the shaft, either cleft or uncleft, passed between them, and that the stones, when bound with string to hold them in their places, were further secured with a mass of the gum of the Xanthorrhæa or grass-tree.
Such a method of hafting cannot, I think, have been in general use in this country, for want of the necessary cementing material, though, from discoveries made in Scandinavia, it would appear that a resinous pitch was in common use for fixing bronze implements to their handles; so that the practice may also have applied to those of stone. In the Swiss Lake-dwellings, bitumen was used as a cement for attaching stone to wood. In the case of the axes of the Indians on the River Napo, Ecuador, the binding of ​the blades, which are formed with lugs like those of Guiana, is covered with a thick coating formed of bees-wax and mastic.
Besides those that were hafted as axes or adzes, it seems probable that not a few of the implements known as celts may have been for use in the hand as cutting tools, either mounted in short handles or unmounted. There can be but little doubt that the tools, Fig. 83 and 83a, were thus used in the hand, as also the implement with a depression on each face (Fig. 87), and that with the notches at the side (Fig. 89); and they can hardly have been unique of their kind.
Dr. Lukis, indeed, at one time expressed an opinion that the stone celt was not intended to be secured "in a handle, but was held in the hand and applied to particular uses which are not now evident, but to which neither the hammer nor the hatchet were applicable." But in the face of the fact that numerous handles have since been found, such an opinion is no longer tenable except in a very limited sense.
Among modern savages we have instances of similar tools being used in the hand without the intervention of any haft, giving a form much like that of Fig. 83a, though among the Australians the butt-end is sometimes enveloped in a mass of resinous matter, so as to form a knob which fits the hand. According to Prinz Neuwied, the Botocudos used their stone blades both unmounted in the hand and hafted as hatchets. The South Australians and Tasmanians likewise use celts in a similar manner.
There are cases in which the hatchet and haft have been formed from one piece of stone. Such a one, of chloritic stone, found in a mound in Tennessee, is in outline like Fig. 92, and has a small loop for suspension at the end of the handle. Mr. Cursiter, of Kirkwall, has an instrument of the same kind from Orkney, formed of hard slate. In extreme length it measures 93/4 inches. It cannot, however, be assigned to a very early date. For a comparison of celts from different countries Westropp's "Prehistoric Phases" may be consulted.
With regard to the uses to which these instruments were applied, they must have been still more varied than the methods of mounting, which, as we have seen, adapted them for the purposes of hatchets and adzes; while, mounted in other ways, or ​unmounted, they may have served as wedges, chisels, and knives. The purposes which similar instruments serve among modern savages must be much the same as those for which the stone celts found in this country were employed by our barbarian predecessors. An admirable summary of the uses to which stone hatchets—the "Toki" of the Maori—are, or were applied in New Zealand, has been given by Dr. W. Lauder Lindsay. They were used chiefly for cutting down timber, and for scooping canoes out of the trunks of forest trees; for dressing posts for huts; for grubbing up roots, and killing animals for food; for preparing firewood; for scraping the flesh from the bones when eating, and for various other purposes in the domestic arts. But they were also employed in times of war, as weapons of offence and defence, as a supplementary kind of tomahawk.
For all these purposes stone celts must also have been employed in Britain, and some may even have been used in agriculture. We can add to the list at least one other service to which they were applied, that of mining in the chalk in pursuit of flint, as the raw material from which similar instruments might be fashioned.
* ↑ "Man the Primeval Savage," p. 310.
* ↑ See "Horæ Ferales," pl. ii. 8.
* ↑ Vol. xvii., pl. xiv. "Horæ Ferales," pl. ii. 10.
* ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xxviii., p. 242.
* ↑ Surr. Arch. Coll., vol. xi. pp. 247, 248.
* ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. ix. p. 194. "Salisbury vol.," p. 112.
* ↑ Arch. Æliana, vol. v. p. 102.
* ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xx. p. 192.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S. vol. ix. p. 71.
* ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xxx. p. 284.
* ↑ Anderson's "Croydon: Preh. and Present," pl. ii.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xvi. 437.
* ↑ L. Simonin, "La Vie Souterraine," &c., 1867. Mortillet, Mat., vol. iii. p. 101.
* ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xxvii., pl. x. 1, p. 164.
* ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xlviii. p. 436.
* ↑ Pp. 577, 578.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v., p. 34.
* ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xxxi, p. 301.
* ↑ Arch. Journ. vol. xxvii. p. 238.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. ix. p. 71.
* ↑ Arch., vol. xliii. p. 406.
* ↑ Arch., vol. xii. pl. ii. 1.
* ↑ Arch., vol. vii. p. 414; Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. vi. 37.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xxvi. p. 176; xxviii. p. 322.
* ↑ P. S. A. S., vol. xvii. p. 382; xxviii. p. 329.
* ↑ Op. cit., vol. x. p. 600; xvii. p. 383.
* ↑ Op. cit., vol. ix. p. 346; xvii. p. 384.
* ↑ Op. cit., vol. xxiii. p. 272.
* ↑ Ibid.
* ↑ Bonstetten, "Supp. au Rec. d'Ant. Suisses," pl. ii. 1.
* ↑ Proc. Ethnol. Soc., 1870, p. cxxxvii.
* ↑ Mortillet, "Promenades," p. 145; "Mus. Préh.," No. 459.
* ↑ See the account of the discovery, Rev. Arch., 3rd S., vol. xxiv. (1894), p. 260.
* ↑ "L'homme Fossile," 2nd Ed., p. 147.
* ↑ Van Overloop, Pl. ix. and x.
* ↑ Lindenschmit, "Alt. u. H. V.," vol. i., Heft. vol. ii., Taf. i. 19, &c.
* ↑ Voss. "Phot. Album," vol. vi., sec. vi.
* ↑ Jahrb. d. V. v. Alt. im Rh., L. p. 290.
* ↑ xix. p. 119. See also, for the origin of Jade, Fischer's "Jadeit und Nephrit," Westropp in Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. x. p. 359, and Rudler in Brit. Assoc. Rep., 1890, p. 971.
* ↑ Mitth. d. Ant. Ges. in Wien, N. S., vol. iii. 1883, p. 213-216.
* ↑ Op. cit., N. S., vol. V. 1885, p. 1.
* ↑ Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. x., p. 359; xx. p. 332; xxi., pp. 319, 493; Aarbög. f. Oldkynd., 1889, p. 149.
* ↑ Calcutta, 1871.
* ↑ Vol. xvi., pl. lii. p. 361.
* ↑ Canon Greenwell, F.R.S.
* ↑ Mr. Frank Buckland, F.Z.S.
* ↑ Mr James Brown.
* ↑ Rev. S. Banks.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol xvi. p. 408.
* ↑ "Stone Age," p. 63.
* ↑ Vol. iv. p. 2.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. iii. p. 486.
* ↑ proc, Soc, Ant. Scot., vol. xiii. p. 306.
* ↑ Z. f. Eth., 1878, Supp. pl. iii.
* ↑ "Horæ Ferales," pl. ii. 14.
* ↑ Nature, vol. xxx. p. 515. See also Archiv. f. Anth., vol. xvi. p. 241, and Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. ix. p. 211.
* ↑ Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. xvii. p. 66.
* ↑ Proc. As. Soc. Beng., Sept., 1870. Proc. Ethnol. Soc., 1870, p. lxii.
* ↑ Kanda's "Stone Implements of Japan," Nature, vol. xxxi. p. 538; Cong. Preh. Bruxelles, 1872, p. 337.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xxvi., p. 404.
* ↑ Tr. Lev. Assoc., vol. xix. p. 56.
* ↑ See "Acct. of Soc. Ant. of Scot.," p. 55.
* ↑ "Horæ Ferales," pl. ii. 11.
* ↑ "Horæ Ferales," pl. ii. 13. Arch. Journ., vol. xv. p. 178.
* ↑ "Horæ Ferales," pl. ii. 7.
* ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. vii. p. 389.
* ↑ Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xv., p. 232.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., vol. iii. p. 225.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. ix. p. 174.
* ↑ Journ. Ethn. Soc., vol. ii. p. 165.
* ↑ Mem. Accad. M. di Torino, Ser. 2, vol. xxvi., Tav. iv. 4.
* ↑ Schoolcraft, "Ind. Tribes," vol. i., pl. xi. 3; xiv. 2.
* ↑ Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. x. p. 105.
* ↑ "Horæ Ferales," pl. ii. 5.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xvii. pp. 14, 15, 18, 19.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. vi. p. 235.
* ↑ Journ. Ethnol. Soc., vol. ii. pl. xxx. 3.
* ↑ Dawkins' "Cave-hunting," p. 157. Arch. Camb., 4th S., vol. iii., 1872, p. 30.
* ↑ See Schliemann's "Mycenæ," p. 76; "Troy," p. 71; Rev. Arch., vol. xxxiv. p. 163, &c., &c.
* ↑ Schoolcraft, "Ind. Tribes," vol. i. p. 91. Other North American celts are engraved in the "Anc. Mon. of the Miss. Valley," pp. 217, 218; Squier, "Abor. Mon. of New York," p. 77.
* ↑ Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. i. p. xcvi., pl. ii. Brit. Assoc, Rep., 1870, p. 154.
* ↑ Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. xii. p. 449, pl. xiii.
* ↑ "Anc. Mon. of Miss. Val.," p. 215, fig. 106.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xv. p. 245.
* ↑ P.S.A.S., vol. xxvii. p. 370.
* ↑ Wilson's "Preh. Man," vol. i. p. 154. See postea, p. 150
* ↑ Vol. xvii. p. 222.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v. pp. 300, 442.
* ↑ Arch. Assos. Journ., vol. xxix. p. 343. Cumming's "Churches and Ants. of Cury and Gunwalloe," 1875, p. 66.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. iv. p. 62; xi. p. 514.
* ↑ P. S. A. S., vol. xi. p. 514.
* ↑ P. S. A. S., vol. xii. p. 207.
* ↑ P. S. A. S., vol. xvii. p. 16.
* ↑ "Acct. of Soc. Ant. of Scot.," 1782, p. 91.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xvii. p. 15.
* ↑ Vol. vi., 1865.
* ↑ Arch., vol. xliv. p. 281.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. vi. p. 438.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. ix. p. 174.
* ↑ "Etudes Paléoethnol.," pl. viii. 5.
* ↑ Trans. Ethnol. Soc., N. S., vol. vii. p. 46.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. vi. p. 179.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xvii. p. 14.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xii. p. 119; xxiii, p. 201.
* ↑ Mat. vol. xiii. p. 135; xv. p. 462. "Mus. préh.," No. 463.
* ↑ Jan. 7, 1868. See also Reliquary, vol. viii. p. 184.
* ↑ "Mus. préh.," No. 430.
* ↑ Schoolcraft, "Ind. Tribes," vol. ii., pl. xliv.
* ↑ "Anc. Mon. of Miss. Valley," p. 218.
* ↑ Lubbock "Preh. Times," 4th ed. p. 613, figs. 215, 216.
* ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. viii. p. 422.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. x. p. 509. Dalgarno, "Notes on Slains, &c.," 1876, p. 6.
* ↑ P. S. A. S., vol. xviii. p. 77.
* ↑ Lubbock, op. cit., p. 102, fig. 111-113.
* ↑ "Vestiges of the Ants. of Derb.," p. 53.
* ↑ Mat. vol. xvi. p. 464.
* ↑ Im Thurn, "Among the Indians of Guiana," 1883, pl. x. 4.
* ↑ Chantre, "Le Caucase," 1885, pl. ii. 9.
* ↑ "Indicateur Arch. de Civrai," 1865, p. 271.
* ↑ Mat. 3rd S., vol. i., 1884, p. 243.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. i., p. 281.
* ↑ Bonstetten, "Supp. au Rec. d'Ant. Suisses," pl. ii., 1.
* ↑ Arch. Camb., 3rd S., vol. vi., p. 303. Watelet, "Age de Pierre dans le Dépt. de l'Aisne," pl. v. 9. "Ep. Antéd. et Celt. de Poitou," pl. x. 7. Rev. Arch., vol xii., pl. xv., i.; op. cit., vol. xv., pl. viii. and x. Lindenschmit, "Hohenz. Samml.," Taf. xliii., No. 12. I have an example that I bought in Florence.
* ↑ Wilde, "Cat. Mus. R. I. Ac.," p. 44.
* ↑ "Vest. Ant. Derb.," p. 6.
* ↑ Journ, Ethn. Soc., vol. ii. p. 157.
* ↑ Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xxxix. p. 344.
* ↑ "South Wilts," p. 75. Arch., vol. xv. p. 122.
* ↑ Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. vi. p. 3.
* ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. x. p. 161.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. iv. p. 396.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. vi. 48.
* ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. vi. p. 17; xvii. 170.
* ↑ Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xii. p. 177.
* ↑ Sussex Arch. Coll., vol. ii. p. 258.
* ↑ Arch., vol. xix. p. 183.
* ↑ Surrey Arch. Coll., 1868, pl. iii. 6.
* ↑ "Exc. on Cranborne Chase," vol. i. pl. lvii.
* ↑ "Durobrivæ," pl. xxix. 4.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. i. p. 249.
* ↑ Douglas, "Nænia," p. 92.
* ↑ Rev. Arch., vol. xx. p. 322.
* ↑ Rev. Arch., vol. iv. p. 484.
* ↑ Ann. for Nordisk Oldkynd., 1838-9, p. 176.
* ↑ Cong. Intern. d'Anth. et d'Arch. Préh., 1867, p. 119.
* ↑ Kirchner has collected a number of cases.—"Thor's Donner-Keil," p. 27.
* ↑ "Dictionarium Saxonico-et Gothico-Latinum," s. v.
* ↑ "Twybyl, a wryhtys instrument," is in the "Promptorium Parvulorum" translated bisacuta or biceps, and "Twybyl or mattoke," Marra, or ligo.
* ↑ 1855, vol. ii. p. 811.
* ↑ Vol. xi., 1876, p. 385.
* ↑ Mitth. d. Anth. Gesellsch. in Wien, vol. vii., 1878, p. 7.
* ↑ O'Curry, "Mann, and Cust. of the Anc. Irish," vol. i. p. cccelviii.
* ↑ Wright's "The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon," p. 72.
* ↑ "Stone Age," p. 73.
* ↑ "Georg.," lib. i. 62.
* ↑ See p. 105 supra.
* ↑ A woodcut of these is given in the Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. iv. p. 105. The objects are now in the British Museum.
* ↑ "South Wilts," p. 85.
* ↑ "Ten Years' Diggings," p. 221.
* ↑ Ibid., p. 222.
* ↑ "Vestiges of the Ant. of Derbyshire," p. 53.
* ↑ Ibid., p. 42.
* ↑ "Vestiges of the Ant. of Derbyshire," p. 49.
* ↑ "Ten Years' Diggings," p. 216.
* ↑ Vol. viii. p. 86.
* ↑ Suss. Arch. Coll. vol. xxxii. p. 175.
* ↑ P. 112 supra.
* ↑ P. 135. See Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. vi. p. 179.
* ↑ "Cat. Arch. Inst. Mus. at Edinburgh," p. 8.
* ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. viii. p. 422.
* ↑ "Cat. A. I. Mus. at Edin.," p. 10.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. i. p. 82.
* ↑ Journ. Ethnol. Soc, vol. ii. p. 159.
* ↑ Vol. i. p. 53. See p. 129, supra. Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. i. p. 44.
* ↑ Arch., vol. xli. p. 405.
* ↑ "Horæ Fer.," p. 134. Trans. Hist. Soc. Lanc. and Chesh., vol. xiv. pl. ii. 3.
* ↑ Vol. iv. 112.
* ↑ "Stone Age," Eng. ed., p. 65.
* ↑ Vol. xliv., pl. viii. fig. 3.
* ↑ Rev. Arch., vol. xviii. p. 268. Mus. Préh. No. 442.
* ↑ Cartailhac, "La France préh.," p. 237.
* ↑ Suss. Arch. Coll., vol. xxxix, p. 97.
* ↑ Lit. Gaz., 1822, p. 605, quoted in N. and Q., 2nd S., vol. vi. p. 32
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. ix. p. 460.
* ↑ Op. cit., vol. xxx. p. 6.
* ↑ "La Suède préhist.," 1874, p. 21.
* ↑ "Musée préhist.," 1881, No. 428.
* ↑ Wilde, "Cat. Mus. R. I. A.," p. 46.
* ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. iv. p. 3.
* ↑ Wood Martin's "Lake-dw. of Irel.," 1886, p. 59, pl. vi. 7.
* ↑ Keller's "Lake-Dwellings," Eng. ed., pl. x. 14.
* ↑ Ibid., pl. xi. 1.
* ↑ Wood, "Nat. Hist. of Man," vol. i. pp. 321, 404.
* ↑ Squier, "Abor. Mon. of New York," p. 180.
* ↑ Mitth. d. Ant. Ges. in Wien, vol. ix., 1880, p. 135, pl. i.
* ↑ "Aventures du Sieur C. le Beau," Amsterdam, 1738, p. 235. Quoted in Arch. per l'Ant. e la Et., vol. xiv. p. 372.
* ↑ Quoted in "Anc. Mon. of Miss. Valley," p. 198.
* ↑ Zeitsch. f. Eth., vol. xxiv., 1892, p. (229), pl. v. 2.
* ↑ Ratzel, "Völkerk," vol. ii. p. 246.
* ↑ Intern. Arch. f. Eth., vol. ii. p. 272. Arch. per l'Ant. e la Etn., vol. xx. p. 65.
* ↑ 2nd S., vol. i. p. 102. See also Ratzel, "Völkerk.," vol. ii. p. 582.
* ↑ Int. Arch. f. Ethn., vol. iii. p. 195.
* ↑ "Musæum Metallicum," p. 158.
* ↑ It has also been figured by Klemm, "Cult.-Wiss.," vol. i. fig. 136.
* ↑ "Cult.-Gesch.," vol. ii. Taf. vi. a.b.
* ↑ See Int. Arch. f. Eth., Bd. ix., Supp. pl. iii.
* ↑ Klemm's "Allgemeine Cultur-Wiss.," vol. i. p. 71, whence I have copied the figure. See also "Cult.-Gesch.," vol. ii., p. 352.
* ↑ Skelton's "Meyrick's Armour," pl., cl. 1.
* ↑ "Lake-Dwellings," pl. x. 7; 5ter "Bericht," pl. x. 17. Another from St. Aubin is engraved by Chantre, "Etudes Paléoethn.," pl. xi. Keller has published several others. See also "Ant. Lac. du Mus. de Lausanne," 1896, pl. iii.
* ↑ "Palafittes," fig. 17. See also Troyon, "Habit. Lacust."; but some of his engravings, like those of Meillet in the "Epoques Antédil. et Celtique de Poitou," appear to have been made from modern fabrications.
* ↑ Keller, "Lake-Dwellings," pl. xxii. 7. "Mus. de Lausanne," 1896, pl. iii.
* ↑ "Wilde's" Cat. Mus. R.I.A.," p. 251; Lindenschmit, "Sigmaringen," pl. xxix. 7; Keller, "Lake-Dwellings," pl. ii.
* ↑ Ibid., pl. xxii. 12.
* ↑ "Note sur un Foyer, &c.," Châlon, 1870, pl. iv.
* ↑ Cochet, "Seine Inf.," 2nd ed., p. 16.
* ↑ Rev. Arch., vol. xv. p. 364, pl. viii.; Mortillet, "Promenades," p. 123.
* ↑ Matériauz, vol. v. p. 96.
* ↑ Vol. xxi. p. 54. See also vol. xiv. p. 82.
* ↑ Hoare's "South Wilts," pl. xxi.
* ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xxi. p. 54.
* ↑ B. de Perthes' "Antiquités Celtiques, &c.," vol. i. p. 282, pl. i., ii.
* ↑ Rev. Arch., vol. xxxv. p. 307, whence the cut is copied on a reduced scale.
* ↑ Arch. Préh., 1880, p. 99, pl. i. and v. Mat., vol. xvi. p. 298.
* ↑ Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. iv. p. 105. Supra, p. 148.
* ↑ "Palafittes," fig. 18.
* ↑ "L'Homme Fossile," 2nd ed., p. 149.
* ↑ "L'Homme pend. les Ages de la Pierre," p. 214.
* ↑ "Les Ages de la Pierre en Belgique," pl. ix.
* ↑ L'Anthropologie, vol. i. p. 385.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xviii. p. 365.
* ↑ Ratzel, "Völkerk," vol. ii. 245, 247, &c.
* ↑ "Les armes et les outils préh. réconst.," Paris, 1872.
* ↑ "Lake-Dwellings," Eng. ed., p. 110. See also pl. x. 16, xi. 2, and xxviii. 24; and Lindenschmit, "Hohenz. Samml.," pl. xxix. 4.
* ↑ "Cultur-Wiss.," fig. 127, p. 70.
* ↑ "Alt. u. H. V.," vol. ii. Heft viii. Taf. i. 7; Archiv. für Anthropol., vol. iii. p. 105. Jahrb. d. Ver. f. Alt. im Rhein., lxi. (1877) p. 156.
* ↑ Zeitsch. f. Ethn., vol. xi. p. (162).
* ↑ "Reliq. Aquit.," fig. 12.
* ↑ Vol. iv. p. 297.
* ↑ "Etudes Paléoeth.," pl. xii. See also Worsaae, "Primev. Ants. of Denmark," p. 12; "Danemark's Vorz.," p. 10; and "Danmark's Tidligste Bebyggelse," 1861, p. 17.
* ↑ 1868, vol. lxvii. p. 1285.
* ↑ "Cultur-Wiss.," p. 70.
* ↑ Proc. S. A. S., vol. ii. pp. 423, 424; Wilson's "Preh. Man," vol. i. p. 156.
* ↑ "Nat. Hist. of Man," vol. ii. p. 32.
* ↑ Op. cit., vol. ii. p. 201.
* ↑ Op. cit., vol. ii. pp. 369, 373.
* ↑ Int. Arch. f. Ethn., vol. iii. p. 181, pl. xv. 1, 2.
* ↑ Rev. Arch., vol. xviii. p. 266.
* ↑ Vol. xxxiv. p. 172.
* ↑ P. S. A. S., vol. x. p. 263. See also "Notes on some Australian and other Stone Implements," by Prof. Liversidge, F.R.S. (Journ. R. S. of New South Wales, vol. xxviii., 1894), and Mr. E. J. Hardman's accoimt of some West Australian implements (Wood Martin's "Rude St. Mons. of Ireland," 1888, p. 115).
* ↑ "Journ. of Voy. to N. S. Wales," p. 293; Klemm, "Cult.-Gesch.," vol. i. p. 308.
* ↑ "Nat. Hist, of Man," vol. ii. p. 32. Conf. Worsaae, "Dänemark's Vorz.," p. 10.
* ↑ Vol. xxxi. p. 452.
* ↑ see Jones's "Hist. of Ojibway Indians."
* ↑ "Nat. Hist. of Man," vol. ii. p. 652. Conf. Catlin, "N. A. Ind.," vol. i. pl. xcix. f.
* ↑ Col. A. Lane-Fox, "Prim. Warf.," part ii. p. 17.
* ↑ "Ind. Tribes," vol. i. pl. xv. 1, p. 285.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xxvii. p. 49.
* ↑ Vol. xxiv. p. 80.
* ↑ "Arch. of Mersey District," 1867, p. 15.
* ↑ Arch., vol. xxxii. p. 400; Proc. Soc. Ant., 1st s. vol. i. p. 131.
* ↑ Worsaae's "Nordiske Oldsager," fig. 14.
* ↑ Chantre, "Le Caucase," 1855, vol. i. p. 50, pl. ii.
* ↑ Schoolcraft, "Ind. Tribes," vol. ii. pl. 73; Klemm, " Cult.-Gesch.," vol. ii. p. 62.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. v. p. 287.
* ↑ Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. xi. p. 448.
* ↑ Int. Arch. f. Eth., vol. v., Supp. pl. i.
* ↑ "Illahun" (1891), p. 55.
* ↑ "Kahun," pl. xvi. "Illahun," pl. vii.
* ↑ "Medum" (1892), Frontisp. 14, p. 31.
* ↑ Vol. xxxiv. p. 172. See also Wood, "Nat. Hist. of Man," vol. ii. p. 32.
* ↑ Bonwick's "Daily Life of the Tasmanians," p. 44; Trans. Ethnol. Soc., N. S., vol. iii. p. 267. Several specimens are figured in Ratzel, "Völkerk," vol. ii. p. 46
* ↑ See Arch. per l'Anth. e la Etn., vol. xxv., 1895, p. 283.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 1st s. vol. ii. p. 305.
* ↑ Quoted by Klemm, "C. G.," vol. i. p. 268.
* ↑ Journ. Eth. Soc., vol. ii. p. 109, fig. 7.
* ↑ Nat. vol. x. p. 173.
* ↑ "Smithsonian Contributions," 1876, p. 46.
* ↑ (London, 1872) pl. ii. p. 66.
* ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. v. p. 327. See also R. Brough Smyth, "Aborig. of Victoria," vol. i, p. 357.
* ↑ It is, however, to be observed that among the North American Indians fire was the great agent employed in felling trees and in excavating canoes, the stone hatchet being called in aid principally to remove the charred wood.—Schoolcraft, "Ind. Tribes," vol. i. p. 75.