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
with a parallel shaft-hole 5∕8 inch in diameter, was found near
Blair-Drummond, and is now in the National Museum at Edinburgh. It has
a thin rounded edge at one end, and is obtuse at the other, as if it
had been broken and subsequently rounded over. The form occasionally
occurs in the South of England. In the British Museum is a beautiful
specimen (4 1∕4 inches) from Twickenham, and another of more ordinary
stone from the Thames, which was formerly in the Roots Collection.
Another polished hammer (of grey granite) with curved sides,
and narrower at one end than the other, was found in a cairn in
Caithness,[782] in company with a flint flake ground at the edge, some
arrow-heads, and scrapers. By permission of the Society of Antiquaries
of Scotland, it is shown in Fig. 148. A somewhat similar form of hammer
has been obtained in Denmark.[783]
[Illustration: Fig. 148.—Caithness. 1∕2]
[Illustration: Fig. 149.—Leeds. 1∕2]
The hammer-head shown in Fig. 149 resembles the Shetland implements
in character, though, besides being far less highly finished, it is
shorter and broader, and shows more wear at the end. The hole, also,
is not parallel, but tapers from both faces. It is stated to have been
found 12 feet deep in gravel, while sinking for foundations for the
works of the North-Eastern Railway in Neville Street, Leeds. It is
formed of greenstone, and has all the appearance of having been made
out of a portion of a celt.
I have a somewhat smaller hammer-head, of much the same form, from
Reach Fen, Cambridge, which also seems to have been made from a
fragment of a broken celt. I have seen one of the same kind, found near
Brixham, in Devonshire.
I have another specimen, from Orwell, Wimpole, Cambs., in which a
portion of an implement of larger size has also been utilized for |223|
a fresh purpose. In this case the sharper end of a large axe-head
of stone, probably much like Fig. 131, having been broken off, the
wedge-shaped fragment, which is about 3 inches long and 2 inches broad,
has been bored through in a direction at right angles to the edge,
and probably to the original shaft-hole, and a somewhat adze-like
hammer-head has been the result, what was formerly the edge of the axe
being rounded and battered.
Fragments of celts which, when the edge was lost, subsequently served
as hammers, but without any perforation, have not unfrequently been
found, both here and on the Continent. The Eskimo hammer, already
mentioned, has much the same appearance and character as if it had been
made from a portion of a jade celt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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