There are frequently found in Ireland and Scotland flat pebbles of quartz and quartzite, sometimes ground on the edges or faces, or on both, and having on each face an indentation running in a somewhat oblique direction to the longer axis of the pebble. Specimens[1147] have been figured by Sir William Wilde, who describes them as sling-stones. The flat faces of some have all the appearance of having been abraded by a pointed instrument. I have never met with this form in England, but in the National Museum at Edinburgh is a grooved pebble exactly like those found in Ireland, from the broch, at Kintradwell,[1148] Sutherlandshire, and another from that at Lingrow, Orkney. One from Borness,[1149] |271| Kirkcudbrightshire, has been figured. Others have been found at Dunino,[1150] Fife, and Dunnichen,[1151] Forfarshire. This latter has an oval hollow on one face and a groove on the other. This pebble variety is rarely found in Scandinavia, but another and probably rather later form, in which the pebbles have been wrought into a long shuttle-like shape, is abundant. Some of these are provided with a groove along the sides, which would admit of a cord being fastened round them, by which to suspend them from the girdle. On one or both faces there is often a similar indentation to those on the Irish specimens, on which, however, it is, as a rule, deeper than on the Scandinavian. On the latter, the grooves have sometimes more the appearance of having been produced by repeated slight blows than by friction. Specimens are engraved by Worsaae[1152] and Nilsson.[1153] The latter regards them as belonging to the Stone Age. They occurred, however, with numerous objects of the early Iron Age at Thorsbjerg,[1154] and have even been found with remains of both bronze and iron bands around them, instead of any more perishable cord. These grooved stones are not to be confounded with the ordinary form of hammer-stone,[1155] but belong to a distinct category. They were, in all probability, used as a means for obtaining fire, by striking them with a pointed piece of iron. They constitute, in fact, the “flint” part of a modification of the ordinary “flint and steel.” Whetstones are, of course, commonly found with Roman domestic antiquities; with Saxon, which are usually of a more purely sepulchral character, they are rarely discovered. Canon Greenwell found, however, two whetstones, one as much as 24 inches long, in graves of this period, at Uncleby, Yorkshire. In one of the German cemeteries on the Rhine, corresponding to ours of Anglo-Saxon date, a small rubbing or sharpening stone, almost celt-like in form, was found.[1156] In Dutch Guiana[1157] a small form of grinding-stone of quartz, apparently of the same age as the stone hatchets of that country, is known as a thunderstone, and great medicinal powers are ascribed to it by the natives. I must, however, return to the sharper forms of stone implements. |272| CHAPTER XII. FLINT FLAKES, CORES, ETC.