Dagger blades of flint have also been found in barrows, though not commonly. Four such blades, which might perhaps have been javelin heads, were found in one barrow at Winterbourne Stoke. They represent a very high standard of workmanship, and elegance of form and finish. Three are of a delicate leaf-shape, while the fourth is lozenge-shaped. Flint arrow-heads when found are always finely barbed. The bronze objects, however, are in excess of those of stone, thus showing that the new bronze was displacing the older flint implement. Moreover, all the bronze weapons are of an early type. This is of some considerable importance, since it would seem to indicate that the Barrows were erected very shortly after Stonehenge, which it will be remembered has been referred to an early period of the Bronze Age. Certainly only a very short interval separates the completion of Stonehenge and the building of the Barrows; or to put it in other words, before Stonehenge was built there only existed two, or perhaps three, Long Barrows upon the Plain; but when it was finished, Barrows to the number of three hundred grew up around it, and all these Barrows, from their contents, belong to a period almost identical with that of the Stone Circle itself. [Illustration: Flint dagger. Stonehenge Dn.] [Illustration: Hammer of oolitic stone.] [Illustration: Flat bronze celt. Normanton Down.] No other Barrows in Wiltshire have been so productive of bronze daggers as those about Stonehenge. In some cases it has been possible to recover portions of the ornamental sheaths in which they lay. Their handles were of wood, strengthened occasionally with an oval pommel of bone. In some cases, gold pins have been hammered into the wood to form a zig-zag pattern. Personal ornaments also occur among the Barrow finds; more usually they are of amber, sometimes of gold, and occasionally of bronze. Ornaments of amber have been found in thirty-three barrows; the quality of the material is usually red and transparent, though sometimes a paler variety has been employed. These ornaments are mostly necklaces, either of beads, or of graduated plates perforated and strung together. One found at Lake consisted of nearly two hundred beads and plates, and when worn must have extended halfway down to the waist. [Illustration] [Illustration: Gold plated cone.] [Illustration: Gold Plate. Normanton Down.] Ornaments of gold were found in seven barrows. Many of these were built up upon a wooden mould, the gold being hammered on, and fastened by indentation. THE MEN OF THE BARROWS