The lost Atlantis, and other ethnographic studiesWilson, Daniel, Sir
History
The lost Atlantis, and other ethnographic studies
Wilson, Daniel, Sir
America -- Antiquities; Atlantis (Legendary place); Ethnology -- America; Indians of North America -- Antiquities
Other flint pits point to the labours of the industrious miner, and the
probable transport of the raw material to distant localities where the
prized flint could only be procured from traders, who bartered it for
other needful supplies. An interesting group of flint pits of this
latter class has been subjected to careful exploration by the Rev. Canon
Greenwell, with the ingenious inference already noted, of the traces of
a left-handed workman among the flint-miners of the Neolithic age. This
was based on the relative position and markings of two picks fashioned
from the antlers of the red deer, corresponding to others of the ancient
miners’ tools found scattered through the long-deserted shafts and
galleries of the flint pits.
The shallow depressions on the surface, which guide the explorer to
those shafts of the ancient workmen, are analogous to others that reveal
the funnel-shaped excavations hereafter described, on Flint Ridge, the
sites of ancient flint pits of the American arrow-makers. In France,
Germany, and Switzerland, as well as in Great Britain, many localities
are no less familiar, on which the refuse flakes, and chippings of flint
and other available material, show where they have been systematically
fashioned into implements. The Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland has acquired numerous interesting additions to its collections
of objects of this class by encouraging systematic research. From the
sands at Colvin and Findhorn, Morayshire; Little Ferry, Sutherlandshire;
and from Burghhead, Drainie, and Culbin sands, Elginshire, nearly seven
thousand specimens have been recovered, consisting chiefly of flint
flakes and chippings; but also including several hundred arrow heads,
knives, and scrapers, many of them unfinished or broken.
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