The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons and Ornaments, of Great Britain: Second Edition, RevisedEvans, John
History
The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons and Ornaments, of Great Britain: Second Edition, Revised
Evans, John
Great Britain -- Antiquities; Stone age -- Great Britain
In what appears to have been a tumulus at Seaford,[494] 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,[495] 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,[496] 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[497] was found in the Cat’s Cairn, Cromartyshire. A
second,[498] pointed at the butt, is said to have been found in a
“Druidical circle,” Aberdeenshire. A third,[499] 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 |150|
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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