The evidence of the Stone Implements goes far to give the date of the
building. Horn picks similar to those employed at Stonehenge have been
found in considerable numbers at Grimes Graves, where they were used
for excavating chalk in order to win flint for implement making. Other
picks have been found at Cissbury, near Worthing, where similar chalk
workings existed. This resemblance between the finds at Stonehenge,
Cissbury, and Grimes Graves, does not, however, end with the picks; it
is repeated in the similarity of the Implements of Stone, those at
Stonehenge being in some cases the counterpart of those found in the
other localities.
The Cissbury Implements have been assigned "to the Stone Age, or at
any rate to the Age of Flint manufacture" by General Pitt Rivers, who
discovered and reported upon them. Canon Greenwell describes the
Implements from Grimes Graves as belonging to "a period when both
metal and stone were in use."
It is obvious, therefore, that the similarity between the tools used
in the construction of Stonehenge, and those used in other parts of
England for similar purposes, and definitely assigned to their period
in the history of Man, demonstrates very clearly that the date of the
building of Stonehenge may fairly be placed at a time when the use of
stone was continuous with a partial use of bronze; and that if
Stonehenge is not a Neolithic structure, it must certainly belong to
the Early Bronze period. It might be urged that the roughness of the
Tools, coupled with the marked absence of bronze, indicates an even
earlier period than that already stated, but it must be remembered
that the form of the implement is not always a criterion of its age.
Moreover, bronze tools were not necessary for the dressing of the
Stones, though had they been plentiful, it is more than probable that
some might have been either lost or dropped during the work, and would
have come to light during the excavations.
Yet another sidelight upon the date of Stonehenge is to be found in
the presence of chippings of foreign stone found inside some of the
neighbouring Bronze Age barrows, which prove conclusively that the
barrows must have been built at a date later than the erection of
Stonehenge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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