Stonehenge and Other British Stone Monuments Astronomically ConsideredLockyer, Norman, Sir
History
Stonehenge and Other British Stone Monuments Astronomically Considered
Lockyer, Norman, Sir
Druids and Druidism; Great Britain -- Antiquities; Stonehenge (England); Sun worship; Temples
_Class II._--Hammerstones, with more or less well-chipped, sharp curved
edges. Most may be correctly termed hammer-axes. They are chipped to an
edge at one end, but at the other are broad and thick, and in many
examples terminated there by a more or less flat surface. In some the
natural coating of the flint is left untouched at the thick end.
_Class III._--Hammerstones, more or less rounded. Some specimens appear
to have once had distinct working edges, but they are now much blunted
and battered by use.
In addition to the above flint implements were found about thirty
hammerstones, consisting of large pebbles or small boulders of the hard
quartzite variety of sarsen. Some have been roughly broken into
convenient forms for holding in the hand, whilst a few have been rudely
trimmed into more regular shapes. They vary in weight from about a pound
up to six and a half pounds. To these we have to add mauls, a more
remarkable kind of hammerstone than those just enumerated. They are
ponderous boulders of the quartzite variety of sarsen with their
broadest sides more or less flat. Their weights range from about 40 lb.
to 64 lb.
How came these flints and stones where they were found? Prof. Gowland
gives an answer which everybody will accept. The implements must be
regarded as the discarded tools of the builders of Stonehenge, dumped
down into the holes as they became unfit for use, and, in fact, used to
pack the monoliths as they were erected. We read:--“Dealing with the
cavity occupied by No. 55 before its fall, the mauls were found wedged
in below the front of its base to act together with the large blocks of
sarsen as supports” (p. 54). Nearly all bear evidence of extremely rough
usage, their edges being jagged and broken, just as we should expect to
find after such rough employment. We evidently have to deal with
builders doing their work in the Stone and not in the Bronze age. But
was the age Palæolithic or Neolithic?
Prof. Gowland writes:--
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