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
Among other English examples I may mention a thin flake (4 1∕4 inches),
somewhat curved laterally, and trimmed along both edges and rounded
at the point, found in Burwell Fen, Cambridge. Another from the same
locality (3 3∕4 inches) is even more curved on the concave edge. A
recurved flake or knife of flint, 3 1∕2 inches long, finely chipped
at the sharp convex edge, was found with jet ornaments and an ovoid
instrument of serpentine, accompanying a skeleton, in a barrow near
Avebury, Wilts.[1498] I have several from the surface, Suffolk, and
from the Cambridge Fens. In a larger instrument from Icklingham, both
edges are worn smooth and rounded by use, as if in scraping some soft
but gritty substance, possibly hides in the process of preparation as
leather.
In some of these instruments the point is sharp instead of being
rounded. One of them, found by Canon Greenwell in a barrow on Potter
Brompton Wold,[1499] is shown in Fig. 243.
I have a more triangular form of implement, of the same kind, 3 3∕4
inches long, showing the crust of the flint at the base, found near
Icklingham, Suffolk. Another from the same locality is of the same form
as the figure.
Instruments of the same character as these were discovered by the late
Mr. Bateman in many of the Derbyshire Barrows. What appears to be one
of the same kind was found with a flake and burnt bones in an urn at
Broughton, Lincolnshire.[1500] It may, however, have been convex on
both faces. A fragment of another was found at Dorchester Dykes,[1501]
Oxfordshire, by General Pitt Rivers.
[Illustration: Fig. 243.—Potter Brompton Wold. 1∕2]
The sharp-edged instruments of the forms last described seem to have
been intended for use as cutting, or occasionally as scraping tools,
and may not improperly be termed knives, as has been proposed by Canon
Greenwell.[1502] Even the last described, though sharply pointed,
cannot with certainty be accepted as a spear-head. To regarding the
other form, Fig. 242, as such, Canon Greenwell objects that “the people
who fashioned the arrow-heads so beautifully, if they fabricated
a spear-head in flint, would not have made one side straight, the
other curved, and carefully rounded it off at the sharper end.” One
of these pointed instruments (3 inches), trimmed on one face and
slightly curved, was found with an urn and a whetstone in a cairn at
Stenton,[1503] East Lothian. |333|
Sometimes the secondary working extends over part of both faces of the
flake, the central ridge of which is still discernible. Canon Greenwell
found a fine instrument of this kind (3 1∕4 inches), made from a ridged
flake, with neat secondary chipping along both sides, and on both
faces, with a burnt body, in a barrow on Sherburn Wold.[1504] The flint
itself is partially calcined. It is difficult to determine the claims
of such an instrument to be regarded as a knife or as a lance-head.
[Illustration: Fig. 244.—Snainton Moor. 1∕2]
[Illustration: Fig. 245.—Ford. 1∕2]
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