Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric PeoplesNadaillac, Jean-François-Albert du Pouget, marquis de
History
Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples
Nadaillac, Jean-François-Albert du Pouget, marquis de
Archaeology; Prehistoric peoples
Bishop Lyttelton, writing in 1736, speaks of such weapons as having
been made at a remote date by savages ignorant of the use of metals,7
and Sir W. Dugdale, an eminent antiquary of the seventeenth century,
attributed to the ancient Britons some flint hatchets found in
Warwickshire, and thinks they were made when these weapons alone were
used.8
[Illustration: 1.]
Stone weapons described by Mahudel in 1734.
A communication made by Frère to the Royal Society of London deserves
mention here with a few supplementary remarks.9
This distinguished man of science found at Hoxne, in Suffolk, about
twelve feet below the surface of the soil, worked flints, which had
evidently been the natural weapons of a people who had no knowledge of
metals. With these flints were found some strange bones with the
gigantic jaw of an animal then unknown. Frère adds that the number of
chips of flint was so great that the workmen, ignorant of their
scientific value, used them in road-making. Every thing pointed to the
conclusion that Hoxne was the place where this primitive people
manufactured the weapons and implements they used, so that as early as
the end of last century a member of the Royal Society formulated the
propositions,10 now fully accepted, that at a very remote epoch men
used nothing but stone weapons and implements, and that side by side
with these men lived huge animals unknown in historic times. These
facts, strange as they appear to us, attracted no attention at the
time. It would seem that special acumen is needed for every fresh
discovery, and that until the time for that discovery comes, evidence
remains unheeded and science is altogether blind to its significance.
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