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
Of ancient encampments or settlements where flint flakes occur in
|281| numbers, I may mention Maiden Bower, near Dunstable; Pulpit
Wood, near Prince’s Risborough; Cissbury,[1232] Beltout Castle,
and other encampments in Sussex; Little Solsbury Hill, near Bath;
Castle Ring,[1233] Cannock Chase; Avebury,[1234] Wilts; and Callow
Hill,[1235] Oxfordshire. They have been found in wonderful abundance
on the surface in the counties already mentioned, and their occurrence
has been noticed near Bradford Abbas;[1236] near Folkestone;[1237]
at Possingworth Manor,[1238] Uckfield; near Hastings;[1239] at
Stonham[1240] and Icklingham, Suffolk; near Grime’s Graves,
Norfolk;[1241] at St. Mary Bourne,[1242] Hants; and in a turbary
at Heneglwys,[1243] Anglesea, an island in which no flint occurs
naturally. Two from Carno, Montgomeryshire, are engraved in the
_Archæologia Cambrensis_.[1244] They have also been found under a
submerged forest on the coast of West Somerset.[1245] I have seen a few
flakes made from Lower Tertiary conglomerate.
In districts where flint was an imported luxury, other stones, usually
containing a large proportion of silica, and when broken presenting a
conchoidal fracture, served, so far as the material allowed, the same
purposes as flint. Of this a few instances have already been given.
In some cases even laminated sandstones, shales, and slates seem to
have been utilized. Numerous relics of this kind, some so rude that
their purposes may appear doubtful, were found by the late Mr. S.
Laing,[1246] in Caithness. Large oval flakes, made from sandstone
pebbles, occurred in very great numbers in and around the ancient
dwelling at Skaill, Orkney. In form, however, these approximate more
nearly to the Pict’s knives, of which hereafter, than to ordinary
flakes. The method of their manufacture has been described by Mr.
Laing.[1247]
A curious stone knife or dagger, found beside a stone cist in
Perthshire,[1248] is described as a natural formation of mica-schist,
the peculiar shape of which has suggested its adaptation as a rude but
efficient implement.
Some rude spear-heads of flint and greenstone are said to have been
found near Pytchley,[1249] Northamptonshire; and some of Kentish rag at
Maidstone.[1250] I have also seen them made of Oolitic flint.
Flakes of quartzite have been found, together with some of flint and
quartz and with polished celts, in some of the caverns inhabited during
the Neolithic Period in the Pyrenees of the Ariège,[1251] and also in
the Lake Settlement of Greug.[1252]
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