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
Those who wish to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the
different circumstances of these discoveries, and with the various
forms of rough implements brought to light, will have to consult the
original memoirs[1022] which have been written concerning them. Both in
cists or graves, and in the remains of ancient circular habitations,
have numerous hammer-stones and pestles been found, associated with
various other articles manufactured from stone and bone. Some of
these are extremely rude, and appear hardly deserving of the names
of spear-heads, knives, chisels, battle-axes, &c., which have been
bestowed upon them. There can, however, be no doubt of their being
of human manufacture, whatever purpose they may have served. A few
well-formed and polished stone celts were found in company with the
objects of this class in the “Underground House of Skaill,” Orkney,
which, however, was not, strictly speaking, subterranean. In the
building, and in the midden around it, were very great numbers of oval
sandstone pounding-stones and of large sandstone flakes, probably
knives of a rude kind, a pebble with a groove round it like a ship’s
block, and a few celts. In Shetland these rude stone implements have
been found with human skeletons interred in cists, sometimes with
polished weapons.[1023] A very curious implement, somewhat T-shaped,
with pointed extremities, and grooves round the transverse part, was
found in the broch of Quoyness,[1024] Sanday, Orkney, and has been
figured.
Many of the pestle-like stones are merely chipped into a somewhat
cylindrical form, but others have been picked or ground all over, so as
to give them a circular or oval section. The ends in many instances are
more or less splintered, as if by hammering some hard substance rather
than by pounding, and the exact purpose to which they were applied it
is extremely difficult to divine.
Four of them are shown, on a small scale, in Figs. 174 to 177.
[Illustration: Fig. 174.—Shetland. 20 1∕2 in.]
[Illustration: Fig. 175.—Shetland. 19 in.]
[Illustration: Fig. 176.—Shetland.]
[Illustration: Fig. 177.—Shetland.]
[Illustration: Fig. 178.—Shetland. 21 in.]
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