found in a cairn at Daviot,[430] near Inverness, in company with a
celt of oval section, and pointed at the butt (9 1∕2 inches); and
also with a greenstone pestle (?) (10 1∕4 inches), rounded at each
end. This latter was probably formed from a long pebble. They are all
preserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh. A curved celt of this
character but pointed at the butt-end (14 inches), formed of indurated
clay-stone, was found in Shetland.[431] A straighter celt of felstone
(13 inches), blunt at the butt-end, was found at Kirklauchline,[432]
Wigtownshire.
The next peculiarity which I have to notice, is that of the tapering
sides of the celt being curved inwards, as if for the purpose of being
more securely fixed either to a handle or in a socket. In the last
implement described, the reduction in width towards the middle of
the blade would appear to have been intended to assist in fastening
it at the end of a handle, as an adze cutting at each end. In Fig.
80 the reduction in width is more abrupt, and the blade would appear
to have been mounted as an axe. It is formed of a compact light grey
metamorphic rock, and was formerly in the collection of the Rev. S.
Banks, of Cottenham, Cambridgeshire. I have a greenstone celt found
at Carnac, Brittany, with shoulders of the same character about the
middle of the blade. A form of celt expanding into a kind of knob at
the butt-end is peculiar to the Lower Loire.[433] It is known as the
“_hâche à bouton_,” or “_hâche à tête_.”
[Illustration: Fig. 80.—Near Cottenham. 1∕2]
[Illustration: Fig. 81.—Near Malton. 1∕2]
The original of Fig. 81 was found in a gravel-pit near Malton,
Yorkshire. It was at first supposed to have been found in undisturbed
|136| drift, and some correspondence upon the subject appeared in
the Times newspaper.[434] The gravel, however, in which it was found
seems to belong to the series of Glacial deposits, and if so, is of
considerably greater antiquity than any of the old River-gravels, in
which the unpolished flint implements have been discovered. This celt
is of greenstone, carefully polished at the edge, and towards the butt
slightly roughened by being picked with a sharp pointed tool. This
roughening is in character similar to that which has been observed on
many of the celts from the Swiss Lake-dwellings and from France,[435]
and was no doubt intended in their case to make the stone adhere
more firmly in the socket of stag’s horn in which it was inserted.
The object in this case would appear to be the same; and, like other
polished celts, it belongs to the Neolithic Period. The expansion of
the blade towards the edge is very remarkable.
A celt of the same type as that from Malton, but somewhat oblique at
the edge, and formed of quartz containing pyrites, found at Soden, is
in the Museum at Bonn.
A flat form of stone hatchet, expanding rapidly from a slightly
tapering butt about half the entire length of the blade, so as to form
a semicircular cutting-edge, has been found in South Carolina.[436]
There is a small perforation in the centre, as if for a pin, to assist
in securing it in its handle.
Another form, with the blade reduced for about half its length, so as
to form a sort of tang, is engraved by Squier and Davis.[437]
[Illustration: Fig. 82.—Mennithorpe, Yorkshire. 1∕2]
The celt engraved in Fig. 82 presents an abrupt shoulder on one side
only, which, however, is in this case probably due to the form of the
pebble from which it was made, a portion of which had split off along
a line of natural cleavage. It is formed of a reddish, close-grained
porphyritic rock, and is subquadrate in section at the butt. It was
found at Mennithorpe, Yorkshire, and is in the Greenwell Collection. In
the same collection is a thin celt of clay-slate, 4 3∕4 inches long,
of much the same form, but rounded at the shoulder. It was found at
Ryedale, in the North Riding of Yorkshire.
Some of the shouldered implements may have been intended for use
in the hand, without hafting. This appears to be the case with the
greenstone celt shown in Fig. 83. It was found on Middleton Moor,
Derbyshire, and was in the collection of the late Mr. J. F. Lucas.
The shallow grooves at the sides seem intended to receive the fingers
much in the same manner as the grooves in the handles of some of |137|
the tools of the Eskimos or the handles of the bronze sickles of the
Swiss Lake-dwellers.[438] An Irish celt, 8 inches long, and now in the
Blackmore Museum, has two notches on one side only, and more distinctly
formed, “seemingly to receive the fingers and give a firmer hold when
used in the hand without a haft.”
Another peculiar instrument adapted for being held in the hand is shown
in Fig. 83A. It was found at Keystone, Huntingdonshire,[439] and is now
in the British Museum. It is made of greenstone, and in form resembles
the sharp end of a celt with flat sides let into a spherical handle.
Some hand-hatchets from Australia are of much the same character, but
in their case the knob is distinct from the blade, and formed of hard
_xanthorrhæa_ gum. |138|
[Illustration: Fig. 83.—Middleton Moor.]
[Illustration: Fig. 83A.—Keystone. 1∕2]
The original of Fig. 84 is in the Greenwell Collection, and was found
near Truro. It is of serpentine, with an oblique edge, and seems to
have been formed from a pebble with little labour beyond that of
sharpening one end. Though much flatter on one face than the other, it
would appear, from the slanting edge, to have been used as an axe and
not as an adze, unless indeed it were a hand-tool.
A beautiful adze formed of chalcedonic flint is shown in Fig. 84A.
kindly lent by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The original was
found at Fernie Brae,[440] Slains, Aberdeenshire. It is 7 inches long,
and of nearly triangular section. A somewhat similar adze of greenstone
was found at Little Barras,[441] Drumlithie, Kincardineshire. I have a
flint adze (5 inches) of much the same character, but not so flat and
blunt at the butt-end, and ground at the edge only, which was found in
Reach Fen, Cambs. It is shown in Fig. 35A at page 92.
[Illustration: Fig. 84.—Near Truro.]
[Illustration: Fig. 84A.—Slains (7 inches long).]
Another peculiarity of form is where the edge, instead of being as
usual nearly in the centre of the blade, is almost in the same plane as
one of the faces, like that of a joiner’s chisel. An implement of this
character, from a “Pict’s castle,” Clickemin, near Lerwick, Shetland,
is shown in Fig. 85.
It was presented to me by the late Rev. Dr. Knowles, F.S.A. The
material appears to be a hard clay-slate. The form is well adapted for
being mounted as an adze, much in the same manner as the nearly similar
implements in use by the South Sea Islanders. A New Zealand[442] adze
of precisely the same character has been figured.
Sometimes the edge of a celt, instead of being sharp, has been
carefully removed by grinding, so as to present a flat or rounded
surface. |139| In Fig. 86 is represented a singular implement of this
kind in flint. It is polished all over; one side is straight, and the
other curved; both ends are curved, but one is rounded at the edge
and the other flat. It is difficult to understand for what purpose
such an instrument can have been intended. There is no reason for
supposing that the grinding at the ends was later in date than the
formation of the other parts. I have others like Fig. 30 with the edge
also flattened, one of these I found, as already mentioned, at Abbot’s
Langley; and I have seen another flint celt of much the same form,
found at Chesterford, Cambs., with a somewhat flat edge, but rounded
and worn away, as if by scraping some soft substance. Small transverse
_striæ_, such as might have been caused by particles of sand, are
visible on the worn edge. In the Greenwell Collection is a portion of a
celt of greenstone, the fractured face ground flat and a portion of the
edge also ground away.
[Illustration: Fig. 85.—Near Lerwick. 1∕2]
[Illustration: Fig. 86.—Weston, Norfolk. 1∕2]
A small flint celt, with a round polished edge instead of a cutting one
as usual, was found, with other objects, in a barrow on Elton Moor,
Derbyshire.[443] I have seen a small flint celt like Fig. 33, with
the edge perfectly rounded by grinding. It was found between Deal and
Dover, near Kingsdown, by Mr. Hazzeldine Warren, of Waltham Cross.
It is hard to say for what purpose the edge was thus made blunt. In
some cases, however, the instruments may have been used as battle-axes,
the edges of which when of the perforated forms are usually flattened
or rounded, probably with the view of preventing accidental injury
to those who carried them. In some celts, however, the broad end is
so much rounded that they can hardly be said to have an edge, and
they have more the appearance of having-been burnishing or |140|
calendering tools. I have observed this rounding of the end in some
Irish and French specimens, not made of flint, as well as in one from
India.
Occasionally, but very seldom, a circular concave recess is worked on
each face of the celt, apparently for the purpose of preventing it from
slipping when held in the hand and used either as a chopping or cutting
instrument. That engraved as Fig. 87 was kindly lent me by Mr. J. R.
Mortimer, who found it on Acklam Wold, Yorkshire. It is of greenstone,
and has been polished over almost the entire surface. The butt-end
is nearly flat transversely, and ground in the other direction to a
sweep, so as to fit beneath the forefinger, when held by the thumb and
middle-finger placed in the recesses on the faces. Such recesses are
by no means uncommon on the stones intended for use as hammers, and
farther on (p. 242) I have engraved a hammer-stone of this class which
would seem to have been originally a celt such as this, but which has
entirely lost any approach to an edge by continual battering. In Mr.
Mortimer’s specimen the edge is fairly sharp, though it has lost some
splinters from it in ancient times.
[Illustration: Fig. 87.—Acklam Wold. 1∕2]
[Illustration: Fig. 88.—Fimber. 1∕2]
In the same collection is another specimen, found near Fimber, formed
of a green metamorphic rock. The butt-end is ground flat, and the sides
nearly so. There is a slight depression worked on each face. The edge
is slightly rounded, and shows longitudinal _striæ_. By the owner’s
kindness I am able to engrave it as Fig. 88.
In General Pitt Rivers’s Collection is a celt from Hindostan, with
a cup-shaped depression on one of its faces. A celt of basalt from
Portugal[444] has such a depression on each face.
In the fine and extensive Greenwell Collection, so often referred to,
is another remarkable celt, Fig. 89, which, though entirely different
in character from those last described, may also have been intended
for holding in the hand. It is of greenstone, the surface of which is
considerably decomposed, and was found at Duggleby, in the East Riding
of Yorkshire. On each side is an elongated concavity, well adapted
for receiving the end of the forefinger when the instrument is held
in the hand with the thumb on one face and the middle finger on the
other. At first sight it might appear that the depressions had been
made |141| with the view of perforating the blade, so as to make it
like Fig. 133. It is, however, too thin for such a purpose, and as the
depressions can hardly be connected with any method of hafting, it
appears probable that they are merely for the purpose of giving the
hand a secure grip, when using the instrument as a cutting tool. This
form is not uncommon in India.
Some of the stone hatchets from British Guiana[445] have a notch on
either side, apparently to assist in fastening them to their haft. A
form with projecting lugs half-way down the blade has been found in
Armenia.[446]
[Illustration: Fig. 89.—Duggleby. 1∕2]
[Illustration: Fig. 90.—Guernsey. 1∕2]
The last peculiarity I have to notice is when the blade of the
celt assumes an ornamental character, by being fluted or otherwise
ornamented. That represented in Fig. 90 is deeply fluted on either
face. I have engraved the figure from a cast in the Museum of the
Society of Antiquaries, the original of which was in the possession of
F. C. Lukis, Esq., M.D. It was found at St. Sampson, Guernsey. Assuming
the figure given by M. Brouillet to be correct, a somewhat similar
celt of red flint was found with skeletons in the Tombelle de Brioux,
Poitou.[447] Another with three hollow facets on the lower parts of
one face was found in Finistère.[448] I have a small celt of nearly
similar form, but not so hollow on the faces, from Costa Rica. Such
specimens are extremely rare, and I cannot at present point to any
other examples. Indeed, it may be questioned how far the implements
found in the Channel Islands come within the scope of the present work.
The |142| grooves in the faces of the celt found at Trinity, near
Edinburgh,[449] can hardly have been intended for ornament.
A kind of celt, not uncommon in Denmark, like Fig. 55, but with a small
hole drilled through it at the butt-end, as if for suspension, like
a sailor’s knife, has very rarely been found in England, but I have
a broken specimen from Cavenham, Suffolk, formed of greenstone. When
perfect the celt must have been in outline like Fig. 69, but thinner.
[Illustration: Fig. 90A.—Wereham. 1∕2]
A perfect example is shown in Fig. 90A. It is formed of whin-stone and
was found in 1896 at Wereham, near Stoke Ferry, Norfolk. It is in the
collection of Mr. E. M. Beloe, F.S.A., who has kindly permitted me to
figure it. It is curiously striated towards the butt-end, possibly
from friction in a socket. One from Thetford, perforated through the
centre of the face, is in the National Museum at Edinburgh. Another
of felstone (11 1∕4 inches), oval in section, found at Melness,
Sutherlandshire, was exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland in March, 1897. Bored celts, though rare in Britain, occur in
Brittany[450] and other parts of France, as well as in Italy.[451] A
few have also been found in Ireland.[452] A stone hatchet from Quito
in the Christy Collection, though of somewhat different form, is
perforated at the end in this manner.
A vastly greater number of instances of the discovery in Britain of
stone hatchets or celts might have been cited; but inasmuch as in most
cases where mention is made of celts, no particulars are given of their
form, and as they occur in all parts of the country, it seems needless
to encumber my pages with references. As an instance of |143| their
abundance, I may mention that the late Mr. Bateman[453] records the
discovery of upwards of thirty, at fourteen different localities within
a small district of Derbyshire. Numerous discoveries in Yorkshire are
cited by Mr. C. Monkman.[454]
Dr. Joseph Stevens has recorded several from the Thames near
Reading,[455] and a very large number of those in my own and various
public collections I have had to leave unnoticed for want of space.
* * * * *
The circumstances under which stone celts of various forms have been
discovered must now be considered, with a view of throwing some light
on their antiquity, and the length of time they have remained in
use. And it must at the outset be confessed that we have but little
to guide us on these points. We have already seen that they have
been found with objects of bronze; for in the barrow on Upton Lovel
Down,[456] examined by Sir R. Colt Hoare, flint celts, both rough and
polished, were discovered in company with a perforated stone axe, and
a bronze pin, though in this instance there were two interments. The
Ravenhill tumulus, near Scarborough,[457] is more conclusive; for
in it was an urn containing burnt bones, a broken flint celt, flint
arrow-heads, and a beautiful bronze pin one and a-half inches long.
The evidence of other recorded cases is but weak. Near Tynewydd, in
the parish of Llansilin, Denbighshire,[458] a greenstone celt and a
bronze socketed celt were found together in moving an accumulation of
stones, which did not, however, appear to have been a cairn. In another
instance,[459] three stone celts, one roughly chipped, the others
polished, are stated to have been found with a bronze socketed celt in
the parish of Southend, Kintyre, Argyllshire. At Campbelton, in the
same district,[460] were found two polished stone celts, and with them,
on the same spot, two stone moulds for casting looped spear-heads of
bronze.
* * * * *
Though there may be doubts as to the true association of stone celts
with instruments of bronze in some of these cases, the presumptive
evidence is strong of their having remained in use, as might indeed
have been reasonably expected, after the introduction of bronze for
cutting-tools. By the time bronze knife-daggers had become common,
perforated battle-axes had also come to form part of a warrior’s
ordinary equipment. These are often found with the daggers in graves,
and there can be no doubt of the ordinary form of stone hatchet having
preceded that with a shaft-hole. There are, however, a number of facts
in connection with the occurrence of the ordinary |144| stone celt
that must not be passed over, inasmuch as at first sight they tend
to raise a presumption of celts having remained in use even during
the period of the Roman occupation of this country. I will shortly
recapitulate the principal facts to which I allude.
In excavating a Roman building at Ickleton,[461] Cambs., the late
Lord Braybrooke found a greenstone celt; and another is said to have
been found with Roman remains at Alchester, Oxfordshire.[462] A flint
celt is also described as having been found with Roman antiquities at
Eastbourne.[463]
Among the relics discovered by Samuel Lysons, F.R.S., in the Roman
villa at Great Witcombe,[464] Gloucestershire, is described “a British
hatchet of flint.” Another flint celt was found close by a Roman
villa at Titsey.[465] Flint celts and scrapers were found in the
Romano-British village in Woodcuts Common,[466] Dorset, by General Pitt
Rivers.
A stone celt, like Fig. 70, has been engraved by Artis[467] as a
polishing stone used in the manufactory of Roman earthen vessels, but
no evidence is given as to the cause of its being thus regarded.
At Leicester, a fragment of a flint celt was found at a depth of twelve
feet from the surface on an old “ground line,” and accompanied by bone
objects which Sir Wollaston Franks assigned to a late Roman or even
possibly to an early Saxon period.[468]
In the Saxon burial-place at Ash, in Kent, were found a polished flint
celt, “a circular flint stone,” and a Roman fibula.[469]
In 1868, a fibrolite hatchet was found within a building at Mont
Beuvray, the ancient Bibracte,[470] with three Gaulish coins of the
time of Augustus.
Others of flint were found in a Merovingian cemetery at Labruyère, in
the Côte d’Or.[471]
The occurrence at Gonsenheim, near Mainz, of a series of thin polished
celts with remains presumably Roman, has already been mentioned. In
two, if not more, instances in Denmark,[472] fragments of iron have
been found in tumuli, and apparently in association with polished
hatchets and other instruments of flint and stone. It seems doubtful,
however, whether in these cases the iron was not subsequently
introduced.
* * * * *
The association of these stone implements with Roman, and even
Post-Roman, remains in so many different places, would at first
sight appear to argue their contemporaneity; but in the case of the
celts being found on the sites of Roman villas, two things are to
be remarked—First, that sites once occupied may, and constantly do,
continue in occupation for an indefinite length of time, so that the
imperishable relics of one age, such as those in |145| stone, may
become mixed in the soil with those of a long subsequent date; and
second, that had these stone implements been in common use in Roman
times, their presence among Roman remains would have been the rule and
not the exception, and we should have found them mentioned by Latin
authors. Moreover, if their use had survived in this manner into Roman
times, we should expect to find them still more abundantly associated
with tools of the Bronze Age. We have, however, seen how rarely this
class of stone instruments is found with bronze.
As to the stone celt discovered at Ash, Mr. Douglas remarks it may
not “be improbable that this stone instrument was deposited with the
dead, as an amulet; and which the owner had found and preserved with
a superstitious reverence.” In a tumulus in Flanders,[473] six celts
were found placed upright in a circle round the interment, but from
the difference in the condition of their surface they appeared to
be of different ages, so that it has been suggested that they also
were gathered from the surface of the soil and placed in the tomb
as amulets. We shall subsequently see that flint arrow-heads were
frequently thus preserved in Merovingian cemeteries.
In many cases in Germany,[474] stone axes, for the most part
perforated, are said to have been found in association with objects
of iron; but the proofs of the contemporaneity of the two classes of
objects are not satisfactory. The religious veneration attaching to the
Thor’s hammers may, however, have had to do with their interment in
graves, at a time when they had ceased to be in ordinary use. Moreover,
the axes may have been preserved to ward off lightning.
Another argument in favour of these instruments having remained in use
in Britain until a comparatively late period, has been derived from
the circumstance of the words _stan-æx_ and _stan-bill_, occurring in
Ælfric’s Saxon glossary. These words are translated by Lye[475] as
a stone axe, a stone bill—terms which have naturally been regarded
as referring to axes and bills made of stone, which, therefore, it
might be reasonably inferred were in use at the time when the glossary
was written, or about A.D. 1000. On examination, however, it appears
that no such inference is warranted. The glossary is Latin with the
Saxon equivalents annexed to each word, and the two words referred to
are |146| _Bipennis_, rendered _twibille_ and _stan-æx_; and Marra,
rendered _stan-bill_. Now _Bipennis_ is an axe cutting at either end,
and the word is accurately rendered by “twibille;”[476]—the axe having
“bill” or steel at its two edges. But a double-cutting axe in stone is
a form of very rare occurrence, and this alone raises a presumption of
the _stan_ in _stan-æx_ referring to stone in some other manner than
as the material of which the axe was made. The second word, _Marra_,
seems to clear up the question, for this was a mattock or pick-axe, or
some such tool, and this is rendered _stan-bill_,—the steel for use on
or among stones. The stone axe may be one for cutting stones, like the
mill-bill of the present day, which is used for dressing mill-stones,
and this being usually sharp at each end, might not inaptly be regarded
as the equivalent of the ancient _bipennis_. An axe is still a
bricklayer’s tool, and is also occasionally used by stone-cutters. It
seems, then, that the “_stan_” in these two Saxon words refers, not to
the material of which the axes or bills were made, but to the stones on
or among which they were used. In Halliwell’s “Dictionary of Archaic
and Provincial Words,”[477] the interpretation of Stone-axe is given as
“A stone-worker’s axe,” but it is not stated where the term occurs.
In the “_Matériaux_”[478] M. Soreil has called attention to a very
early German poem, possibly of the fifth century, in which the heroes
are described as contending with stone axes. The subject has been
discussed by Dr. Much,[479] who suggests that the name survived long
after the actual use of the weapons, and points out that the modern
word Hellebarde (halberd) has the same meaning, _hella_ in Old German
signifying “stone,” and _barte_ being still used to signify an “axe” or
“chopper.” He also hints at a connection between the _scrama-seax_ or
large knife, with _saxum_. The whole paper is worth reading.
In the Song of Hildebrand and Hadubrand, probably of the eighth
century, stone hammers, _staim-borts_, are also mentioned.
“Do stoptun tosamane staimbort chludun
Hewun harmlicco huitte scilti.”[480]
The passage in “William of Poitiers,”[481]—“Jactant cuspides ac |147|
diversorum generum tela, sævissimas quasque secures ac lignis imposita
saxa,”—which has been cited as proving that some of the Anglo-Saxons
fought with weapons of stone at the battle of Hastings, seems only
to refer to stone missiles probably discharged from some engines of
war, and serving the same purpose as the stone cannon-balls of more
recent times. Professor Nilsson[482] has pointed out that _jactare_
often signifies to brandish, and argues that the large stone axes were
too heavy either for brandishing or throwing as weapons. It seems to
me, however, that _jactare_ in this passage is used in the sense of
throwing, the same as in Virgil,[483]—
“Deucalion vacuum lapides jactavit in orbem,
Unde homines nati, durum genus.”
If it be uncertain to how late a period these Neolithic implements
remained in use in this country, it is still more uncertain to how
early a period their introduction may be referred. If we take the
possible limits in either direction, the date at which they fell into
disuse becomes approximately fixed as compared with that at which they
may first have come into use in Britain. For we may safely say that
the use of bronze must have been known in this country 500 or 600
years B.C., and, therefore, that at that time cutting tools of stone
began to be superseded; while by A.D. 1100, it will be agreed on all
hands that they were no longer in use. We can, therefore, absolutely
fix the date of their desuetude within at the outside two thousand
years; but who can tell within any such limits the time when a people
acquainted with the use of polished stone implements first settled in
this island, or when the process of grinding them may have been first
developed among native tribes? The long duration of the period which
intervened between the deposit of the River-gravels (containing, so
far as at present known, implements chipped only and not polished),
and the first appearance of polished hatchets, is not in this country
so well illustrated as in France; but even there, all that can be said
as to the introduction of polished stone hatchets, is that it took
place subsequently to the accumulation in the caves of the south of
France, of the deposits belonging to an age when reindeer constituted
one of the principal articles of food of the cave-dwellers. As to the
date at which those cave-deposits were formed, history and tradition
are silent, and at present even Geology affords but little aid in
determining the question. |148|
But though we cannot fix the range in time of these implements, it
will be well to notice some of the circumstances under which they have
been found, if only as illustrative of the habits and customs of the
ancient people who used them. Of course the most instructive cases are
those in which they have occurred with interments, and some of these I
have already incidentally mentioned; as, for instance, the discovery
in a barrow on Upton Lovel Down of a roughly chipped celt, with others
polished at the edge, and other objects; and that of two very roughly
chipped flint celts found by Dr. Mantell, in a barrow at Alfriston,
Sussex.
* * * * *
A celt of greenstone, ground at the edge only, was found in a barrow
with a burnt body on Seamer Moor, Yorkshire, by the Rev. F. Porter; and
in another[484] barrow on the same moor, Canon Greenwell found a celt
of clay-slate, like Fig. 50, burnt red, in association with a deposit
of burnt bones. In a third tumulus on the same moor, opened by the late
Lord Londesborough, there were numerous interments, but one of these
consisted of a small portion of human bones,[485] four flint celts,
five beautifully formed arrow-heads of flint, two rude spear-heads of
flint, two well-formed knives and spear-heads of flint, two very large
tusks of the wild boar, and a piece of deer-horn, perforated at the end
and drilled through, which was thought to be the handle for one of the
celts.
In these three instances the polished celts accompany interments by
cremation, and probably belong to a late period of the Stone Age in
Britain. They have, however, been frequently found with the remains
of unburnt bodies. In one of the banks of an ancient settlement near
Knook Castle, Upton Lovel, Sir R. Colt Hoare[486] discovered a skeleton
with its head towards the north and at its feet a fine black celt.
In a barrow about seven miles east of Pickering,[487] besides other
interments is said to have been one of a skeleton with the head towards
the south, and a “beautiful stone adze or celt, 3 1∕2 inches long,
wrought in green basalt, and a very elaborately chipped spear of flint,
near four inches long, near its right hand.”
In another barrow in the same district[488] the skeleton was
accompanied by “a very small celt or chisel of grey flint, smoothly
rubbed, and a plain spear-head of the same material.”
In another barrow on Elton Moor, Derbyshire,[489] there lay behind the
skeleton a neatly ornamented “drinking cup,” containing three pebbles
of quartz, a flat piece of polished iron ore, a small celt of flint,
with a rounded instead of a cutting edge, a beautifully chipped cutting
tool, twenty-one circular-ended instruments, and seventeen rude pieces
of flint.
In Liffs Low, near Biggin,[490] Mr. Bateman found a skeleton in the
|149| contracted position, and with it two flint celts beautifully
chipped and polished at the cutting edges; two flint arrow-heads
delicately chipped, two flint knives polished on the edge, and one of
them serrated on the back to serve as a saw; numerous other objects of
flint, some red ochre, a small earthenware cup, and a hammer-head of
stag’s horn.
In Cross Low, near Parwich,[491] a fragment of a celt and a small piece
of chipped flint were with a human skeleton in a cist; and a kind of
flint axe or tomahawk is reported to have been similarly found in a
barrow near Pickering.[492]
In the Gospel Hillock barrow, near Buxton, Captain Lukis, F.S.A., found
near the shoulder of a contracted skeleton, a polished flint celt, of
which an engraving is given in the _Reliquary_.[493]
In what appears to have been a tumulus at Seaford,[494] Sussex, celts
both whole and broken, and other forms of worked flint, were found, but
the account given of the exploration is rather confused.
It will be observed that in these cases stone celts accompany the
earliest form of interment with which we are acquainted, that in which
the body is deposited in the contracted position. The reason why
bodies were interred in that posture appears to be that it was in all
probability the usual attitude of sleep, at a period when the small
cloak of the day must generally have served as the only covering at
night.
In Scotland stone celts seem to be of frequent occurrence in cairns. I
have one, already mentioned,[495] which is said to have been found with
four others in a cairn on Druim-a-shi, near Culloden.
Three others, of which two have been already described,[496] were
discovered in a cairn in Daviot parish, Inverness, together with a
cylindrical implement, possibly a pestle, and are now in the National
Museum at Edinburgh. Not improbably my specimen came from the same
cairn.
Another[497] was found in the Cat’s Cairn, Cromartyshire. A
second,[498] pointed at the butt, is said to have been found in a
“Druidical circle,” Aberdeenshire. A third,[499] of black flint, from
the parish of Cruden, Aberdeenshire, would seem to have accompanied an
interment, as with it was found a necklace of large oblong beads of
jet, and rudely shaped pieces of amber.
None, however, of these instances afford any absolute testimony as to
their exact or even approximate age, unless, indeed, the jet and amber,
if they really accompanied the flint celt, point in that case to a date
at all events not far removed from that of the bronze objects with
which such necklaces have frequently been found.
In the other cases of interments in barrows, however ancient they may
be, it seems probable that they are not those of the earliest occupants
of this country, by whom polished stone celts, or those of the same
character rough hewn only, were in use. The labour bestowed in the
formation of the graves and the erection of the barrows must |150|
have been immense, and could hardly have been undertaken until a stage
of civilization had been reached higher than that of some of the ruder
savage races of the present day.
It may be mentioned that stone celts are not unfrequently found in the
soil of which barrows are composed, but in no way connected with the
interments in the barrow.
There are a few instances of the finding of these instruments, not in
association with interments, where the circumstances under which they
have been discovered testify to a great, though still indeterminate
antiquity. One, for instance, of greenstone, in the Museum of the
Society of Antiquaries, is stated to have been “found deep in the clay
whilst digging the Chelsea Waterworks at Kingston.”[500] Others in a
sand-bed near York[501] were 6 or 7 feet below the surface, and nearly
a quarter of a mile from the river which is thought to have deposited
the sand.
In Wilson’s “Prehistoric Annals of Scotland”[502] is recorded the
finding of a greenstone celt in a primitive canoe, formed of a hollowed
trunk of oak, at a depth of 25 feet from the surface, at Glasgow; and
in the Norwich Museum is one of brown flint, ground all over, 4 1∕4
inches long, similar to Fig. 54, but with facets towards the edge, as
if from repeated grinding, which is stated to have been found fixed
in a tree in the submarine forest at Hunstanton, by the Rev. George
Mumford, of East Winch, in the year 1829.
* * * * *
On the whole evidence it would appear, from the number of implements
of this class which has been discovered, from the various characters
of the interments with which they are associated, and from the
circumstances under which they have been found, that these stone celts
must have been in use in this country during a long period of years;
though we still revert to our first confession, that it is impossible
to determine at how early a date this period commenced, or to how late
a date it may have extended. If, however, the occupation of this part
of the globe by man was continuous from the period of the deposit of
the old River-gravels unto the present day, it seems probable that some
of these implements may claim an almost fabulous antiquity, while in
certain remote districts of Britain into which civilization made but a
tardy approach, it is possible that their use may have lingered on to a
time when in other parts of the country, owing to the superiority and
abundance of metallic tools, these stone hatchets had long fallen into
disuse.
Instances of this comparatively late use of stone celts appear to be
afforded by some of the discoveries made in the Orkney and Shetland
Isles; and it is doubtful whether in Ireland the use of |151| stone
implements did not survive in some parts of the country to a far more
recent date than would at first sight appear probable. I have, however,
remarked on this subject elsewhere.[503] Sir Arthur Mitchell’s book,
“The Past in the Present,” may also be consulted.
The methods in which these instruments were used and mounted must to
some extent have varied in accordance with the purposes to which they
were applied. In describing the forms, I have pointed out that in some
cases they were used as axes or hatchets, and in other cases as adzes,
and that there are some celts which not improbably were used in the
hand without any handle at all, or else were mounted in short handles,
and used after the manner of chisels or knives.
The instances of their being found in this country still attached
to their handles are rare. In the case of the celt found near
Tranmere,[504] Cheshire, and now in the Mayer Museum at Liverpool, “the
greater part of the wood had perished, but enough remained to show that
the handle had passed in a slightly diagonal direction towards the
upper end of the stone.” In the Christy Collection is a large felstone
celt 12 1∕4 inches long and 3 1∕4 inches broad, of the same section
as Fig. 43, slightly flattened at the sides, on the face of which the
mark of the handle is still visible, crossing it obliquely near the
middle. This specimen was found at Pentney, Norfolk. Similar marks may
not improbably be observed on other specimens, like that from Drumour
already mentioned at page 119.
[Illustration: Fig. 91.—Solway Moss.]
In the Solway Moss, near Longtown, a hafted hatchet was found by a
labourer digging peat, at the depth of rather more than six feet, but
the handle appears to have been broken, even at the time when the
sketch was made from which the woodcut |152| given in the _Proceedings
of the Society of Antiquaries_[505] was engraved, which is, by
permission, here reproduced. The instrument is now in the British
Museum, but the haft, in drying, has, unfortunately, quite lost its
form, and is still further broken. The process of preserving wood when
in the tender condition in which it is found after long burial in peat
was probably not known at the time. It has been adopted with great
success by Mr. Engelhardt in preserving the wooden antiquities from the
Danish peat bogs, and consists in keeping the objects moist until they
have been well steeped, or even boiled, in a strong solution of alum,
after which they are allowed to dry gradually, and are found to retain
their form in a remarkable manner.
It is probably owing to the broken and distorted condition of the wood
that the sketch was inaccurate as to the position of the blade with
regard to the handle, for the mark of the wood where it was in contact
with the stone is still visible, and proves that the central line of
the blade was inclined outwards at an angle of about 100° to the haft,
instead of being nearly vertical, as shown. The edge of the hatchet is
oblique to nearly the same extent as the inclination of the blade to
the haft. It would seem from this, that the obliquity of the edge was
in some cases connected with the method of hafting, and not always, as
suggested by Nilsson,[506] the result of the blade being most worn away
in the part farthest from the hand holding the shaft.
The preservation of the wooden handle has been more successfully
effected in the case of the celt shown in Fig. 92, engraved from a
photograph kindly supplied me by Mr. R. D. Darbishire, F.G.S. It is
figured on a larger scale in the _Archæologia_,[507] where all the
circumstances of the discovery are set forth in detail. The axe was
found, in the year 1871, in peat which had once formed the bed of a
small lake, known as Ehenside Tarn, near Egremont, in Cumberland,
which has now been drained. With it were found another haft of the
same character, and several stone celts, one of them 14 1∕2 inches
in length, with the sides but slightly curved, and almost equally
broad at each end. Some wooden paddles and clubs formed of beech
and oak, pottery and other objects, were also found. The farmer who
cultivates the former bed of the lake had previously discovered some
stone antiquities which were brought under the notice of Sir Wollaston
Franks, |153| who induced Mr. Darbishire to make the search which was
so amply rewarded. The haft is formed of a hard root of beech-wood,
and has been most carefully carved, the surface exhibiting alternate
cuts and ridges forming small concave facets about 1∕8-inch apart, and
arranged spirally. The other haft for a celt is of oak-wood, and is not
so well preserved. It will be noticed that the end of the beech-wood
handle has originally been recurved, possibly with a view of steadying
the butt-end of the celt.
[Illustration: Fig. 92.—Cumberland. 1∕4]
Curiously enough, in the outline of a celt in its handle, carved on
the under side of the roof-stone of a dolmen, known as La Table des
Marchands, near Locmariaker, Brittany,[508] the end of the handle seems
also to be curved back beyond the socket for the blade, which however
it does not touch. At the other end of the handle there is a loop like
a sword guard, for the insertion of the hand. There is some little
difficulty in determining the exact form of this incised carving, as
the lines are shallow, and the light does not fall upon them. I speak
from a sketch I made on the spot in 1863. Other such representations
occur in Brittany.[509]
In a paper[510] on a neolithic flint weapon in a wooden haft, Mr.
C. Dawson has given an account of a discovery made by Mr. Stephen
Blackmore, a shepherd of East Dean, near Eastbourne, of a flint hatchet
at Mitchdean. It was lying in its wooden haft which was perfectly
carbonized, but Mr. Blackmore made a |154| drawing of it, apparently
from memory. He describes the blade, which seems to have been unground,
as lying in a horizontal groove cut in one side of the shaft, which
was 2 feet 6 inches long. At one end of the shaft were two projections
supposed to serve for holding the ligatures by which the blade was
attached, and nearer the hand were a number of grooves running round
the haft. Neither the description nor the drawings of this and other
objects found with it are such as to inspire complete confidence.
About 1822, in sinking a well at Ferry Harty, Isle of Sheppey,[511]
there were found, according to newspaper reports, the remains of a hut,
two skeletons, and “flints and hard stones, apparently intended for
axes and cutting implements, with handles of wood quite complete and in
good preservation.” Nothing farther seems to be known of this discovery.
At Ervie,[512] near Glenluce, Wigtownshire, a celt of indurated
clay-stone in form like Fig. 77 (8 inches) was found, which shows a
band of dark colour about 1 1∕2 inch wide and about 2 inches from the
butt-end, crossing it at an angle of about 20°. This band probably
shows the position of the haft in which the blade was fixed. Another
celt from Glenshee, Forfarshire, likewise in the Edinburgh Museum,
shows a fainter mark of the kind. On a third from Dolphinton,[513]
Lanarkshire, the mark is very distinct and at a right angle to the axis
of the blade. Montelius[514] mentions a Swedish specimen, and A. de
Mortillet[515] a French one of flint similarly marked.
[Illustration: Fig. 93.—Monaghan.]
In the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy[516] is a drawing of a celt
in its handle (which is apparently of pine) found in the county of
Monaghan. This handle was 13 1∕2 inches long, and more clumsy at the
socketed end than that from Solway Moss. The woodcut given by Sir W.
Wilde is here, by permission, reproduced as Fig. 93.
Another nearly similar specimen was discovered near |155|
Cookstown,[517] in the county of Tyrone. What may be the haft of a
stone hatchet was found in another Irish crannog.[518] Another is in
the collection of General Pitt Rivers, F.R.S. Some of the hatchets
from the Swiss Lake-dwellings were hafted in a similar manner. In one
such haft, formed of ash, from Robenhausen,[519] the blade is inclined
towards the hand; in another, also of ash, the blade is at right angles
to the shaft.[520] Some of these club-like hafts resemble in character
those in use for iron blades in Southern and Central Africa.[521] The
copper or bronze axes of the Mexicans[522] were hafted in the same
manner.
A method of hafting, which implies fixity of residence, is said to
have been in use among the Caribs[523] of Guadaloupe. The blade of the
axe had a groove round it at the butt-end, and a deep hole having been
cut in the branch of a growing tree, this end of the blade was placed
in it, and as the branch grew became firmly embedded in it, the wood
which grasped it having formed a collar that filled the groove. The
Hurons[524] are said to have adopted the same plan.
[Illustration: Fig. 94.—Axe from the Rio Frio. 1∕6]
I have engraved in Fig. 94, an extremely rude example of hafting by
fitting the blade into a socket, from an original kindly lent me by the
late Mr. Thomas Belt, F.G.S., who procured it among the Indians of the
Rio Frio, a tributary of the San Juan del Norte in Nicaragua. The blade
is of trachyte entirely unground and most rudely chipped. The club-like
haft is formed of some endogenous wood, and has evidently been chopped
into shape by means of stone tools.
[Illustration: Fig. 95.—War-axe—Gaveoë Indians, Brazil.]
In these instances Clavigero’s[525] remark with regard to the copper
|156| or bronze axes of the Mexicans holds good; they are like
“those of modern times, except that we put the handle in an eye of
the axe while they put the axe in an eye of the handle.” A similarly
hafted hatchet with the blade ground is in use among the Botocudo
Indians. In the Island of New Hanover[526] the axe blade is inserted
about the middle of the club-like haft. Some hatchets from the
Admiralty Islands[527] are curiously like those from the Swiss |157|
Lake-dwellings. Excessively long hafts in which the blades are let
into a socket are occasionally in use among the Chamacocos[528] of
south-east Bolivia.
Many stone and metallic axes in use among other modern savages are
hafted in much the same manner by insertion in a socket. In some
instances it would appear as if the hole for receiving the stone did
not extend through the haft, but was merely a shallow depression—even a
notch. Such seems to be the case with a war-axe of the Gaveoë Indians
of Brazil in the British Museum, figured in the _Proceedings of the
Society of Antiquaries_,[529] and here, by permission, reproduced, as
Fig. 95. Some of their axes have longer hafts. In the Over Yssel Museum
is a Brazilian stone axe with a blade of this kind, which is said to
have been used in an insurrection at Deventer[530] in 1787.
[Illustration: Fig. 96.—Axe of Montezuma II.]
The “securis lapidea in sacrificiis Indorum usitata,” engraved by
Aldrovandus,[531] seems to have the blade inserted in a socket without
being tied, but in most axes of the same kind the blade is secured in
its place by a plaited binding artistically interlaced. The stone axe
said to be that of Montezuma II., preserved in the Ambras Museum at
Vienna, is a good example of the kind.[532] I have engraved it as Fig.
96, from a sketch I made in 1866.
In some cases the whole handle is covered with the binding. Two such in
the Dresden Historical Museum are engraved by Klemm.[533] Others have
been figured by Prof. Giglioli.[534]
Some of the war-axes (called taawisch or tsuskiah) in use among the
natives of Nootka Sound[535] are mounted in this manner, but the socket
end of the shaft is carved into the form of a grotesque human head, in
the mouth of which the stone blade is |158| secured with cement, as in
Fig. 97. In another instance the handle is carved into the form of a
bird[536] and inlaid with mother-of-pearl, or, more properly speaking,
shell of _haliotis_. The blade of basalt projects from the breast of
the bird, the tail of which forms the handle. In some the blade goes
right through the handle, so as to project equally on both sides of it,
and is sharpened at both ends.
[Illustration: Fig. 97.—Axe—Nootka Sound.]
The socket in all these handles is usually at some little distance from
their end, but even with this precaution, the wedge-like form of the
celt must have rendered them very liable to split. It was probably with
a view of avoiding this, that the intermediate socket of stag’s horn,
so common in the Lake-dwellings of Switzerland, was adopted. The stone
was firmly bedded in the horn, the end of which was usually worked
into a square form, but slightly tapering, and with a shoulder all
round to prevent its being driven into the wood. In the annexed woodcut
(Fig. 98) is shown one of these sockets with the hatchet inserted. It
was found at Concise, in the Lake of Neuchâtel. An analogous system
for preventing the stone blade from splitting the haft was adopted
in Burma, Cambodia, |159| and Eastern India, but the shoulders were
there cut in the stone-blades themselves. One of the Swiss instruments
in its complete form is shown in Fig. 99, which I have copied from
Keller.[537] It was found at Robenhausen, and the club-like handle is
of ash. Several other specimens are engraved by the same author and
Professor Desor,[538] and by other more recent writers.
[Illustration: Fig. 98.—Axe in stag’s-horn socket—Concise. 1∕2]
[Illustration: Fig. 99.—Axe—Robenhausen. 1∕1]
In some instances the stone was inserted lengthways[539] into the end
of a tine of a stag’s horn at the part where it had been severed from
the antler, so as to form a sort of chisel.[540] In other cases the
socket was worked through the tine, and the stone blade fixed in it
after the manner of an axe, though the handle was too short for the
tool to be used for chopping. Some wooden handles[541] are also but a
few inches long, so that the celts mounted in them must have been used
for cutting by drawing them along the object to be cut.
Such stag’s-horn sockets have occurred, though rarely, in France. M.
Perrault found some in his researches in the Camp de Chassey, |160|
(Saône et Loire).[542] Some seem to have been found at Vauvray,[543]
in making the railway from Paris to Rouen. Others were discovered in
company with arrow-heads, celts, and trimmed flakes of flint, in the
Dolmen,[544] or _Allée couverte_, of Argenteuil (Seine et Oise). These
are now in the Musée de St. Germain. Others were found in a cavern on
Mont Sargel (Aveyron).[545] They occasionally occur in Germany. One
from Dienheim is in the Central Museum at Mayence.
Discoveries of these stag’s-horn sockets for stone tools in England
seem to be extremely rare. Mr. Albert Way describes one, of which a
woodcut is given in the _Archæological Journal_.[546] It is formed
of the horn of the red deer (which is erroneously described as being
extinct), and is said to have been found with human remains and
pottery of an early character at Cockshott Hill, in Wychwood Forest,
Oxfordshire. It seems better adapted for mounting a small celt as a
chisel, like that of bronze found in a barrow at Everley,[547] than
for forming part of a hatchet. Mr. Way[548] cites several cases of
the discovery of these stag’s-horn sockets in France and elsewhere on
the continent of Europe. I may add, by way of caution, that numerous
forgeries of them have been produced at Amiens. In some of the genuine
specimens from the peat of the valley of the Somme,[549] the stone was
fixed in a socket bored in one end of the piece of stag’s horn, and the
shaft was inserted in another hole bored through the horn. M. Boucher
de Perthes describes the handle of one as made of a branch of oak,
burnt at each end.
An example of this method of mounting is given in Fig. 99A. The
original was found at Penhouet, Saint Nazaire sur Loire,[550] in 1877.
The length of the haft is 19 1∕2 inches. A fine socket with the blade
still in it, but without the shaft, has been figured by the Baron
Joseph de Baye.[551] It was found in La Marne, in which department
funereal grottoes have been discovered, at the entrances of which
similar hafted axes were sculptured.
The socket discovered by the late Lord Londesborough in a barrow,
near Scarborough,[552] appears to have been a hammer, |161| although
he describes it as a piece of deer horn, perforated at the end, and
drilled through, and imagined it to have been the handle for one of
the celts found with it, “much in the manner of that in the museum of
M. de Courvale, at his Castle of Pinon, in France,” of which he sent a
drawing to the Archæological Association. A stag’s-horn socket, with a
transverse hole for the haft, and a circular socket bored in the end,
from which the main body of the horn was cut off, was found in the
Thames, near Kew, and is in the possession of Mr. Thomas Layton, F.S.A.
In the circular socket was a portion of a tine of stag’s horn, so that
it seems rather to have been intended for mounting such tines for use
as picks, than for hafting celts.
[Illustration: Fig. 99A.—Penhouet. 1∕6]
[Illustration: Fig. 99B.—New Guinea.]
A celt, mounted in a socket of stag’s horn, bored through to receive
the wooden shaft, found in the Lake-dwellings at Concise, and in
the collection of Dr. Clément, has been engraved by Desor;[553] and
another, found near Aerschot,[554] in Belgium, by Le Hon. A hatchet,
mounted in a socket of this kind, is figured by Dupont[555] |162| and
Van Overloop.[556] Some of the stag’s-horn sockets are ornamented by
having patterns engraved upon them.[557]
[Illustration: Fig. 99C.—New Guinea Adze.]
In New Guinea and Celebes a plan has been adopted of inserting the
stone blade into the end of a tapering piece of wood, which is
securely bound round to prevent its splitting. The small end of this
fits in a hole in the club-like haft. An example is shown in Fig.
99B,[558] obligingly lent by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
By turning round the pivot an axe is converted into an adze. In some
New Guinea and New Caledonia adzes and axes the blade is let into a
socket at a nearly right angle to the haft, and either forming part
of it or attached to it. Such an adze is shown in Fig. 99C, kindly
lent by the same Society. A similar method of hafting is in use in the
Entrecasteaux Islands.[559]
Some ingenious suggestions as to the probable method of mounting stone
implements in ancient times have been made by the Vicomte Lepic.[560]
With a polished Danish flint hatchet 8 inches long, hafted in part
of the root of an oak, an oak-tree 8 inches in diameter was cut down
without injury to the blade.
Another method of hafting, adopted by the Swiss Lake-dwellers for their
stone hatchets, is described by Dr. Keller,[561] from whose work I have
copied the annexed woodcut, Fig. 100. |163|
The haft was usually formed of a stem of hazel, “with a root running
from it at right angles. A cleft was then made in this shorter part,
forming a kind of beak in which the celt was fixed with cord and
asphalte.” A woodcut of a handle of the same character, found near
Schraplau, in company with its stone blade, is given by Klemm,[562]
and is here reproduced as Fig. 101. A handle of much the same kind,
consisting of a shaft with a branch at right angles to it, in which was
fixed a flint axe, was found with a skeleton and a wooden shield in a
tumulus near Lang Eichstätt, in Saxony,[563] and has been engraved by
Lindenschmit. Another is said to have been found at Winterswyk.
[Illustration: Fig. 100.—Axe—Robenhausen.]
[Illustration: Fig. 101.—Schraplau.]
The discovery in the district between the Weser and the Elbe of several
stone hatchets mounted in hafts of wood, stag’s-horn, and bone, has
been recorded by Mr. A. Poppe,[564] but the authenticity of the hafting
seems to me open to question. The compound haft of a stone axe, said to
have been found at Berlin,[565] is also not above all suspicion. The
handles of bronze palstaves, found in the salt mines near Salzburg,
Austria, are forked in the same manner as Figs. 100 and 101. One of
them, formerly in the Klemm Collection, is now in the British Museum.
[Illustration: Fig. 102.—Adze—New Caledonia.]
The same system of hafting has been in use among the savages in
recent times, as will be seen from the annexed figure of a stone adze
from New Caledonia,[566] Fig. 102, lent to me by the late Mr. Henry
Christy. Another is engraved in the _Proceedings of the Society of
|164| Antiquaries of Scotland_.[567] Several other varieties of New
Caledonian and Fiji handles have been engraved by M. Chantre.[568] In
some countries, probably in consequence of the difficulty of procuring
forked boughs of trees of the proper kind, the wood which forms the
socket for the blade is bound on at the desired angle to the end of
the wooden handle. An adze of stone from the Caroline Islands, thus
mounted, is engraved in the _Comptes Rendus_;[569] and a |165| handle
of this kind from North America, but with a small iron blade, is
figured by Klemm.[570]
[Illustration: Fig. 103.—Adze—Clalam Indians.]
We are left in a great degree to conjecture as to the other methods of
mounting stone hatchets and adzes on handles in prehistoric times; but
doubtless some besides those already mentioned were practised. A very
common method among existing savages is to bind the blade of stone on
to the face of a branch at the end of the handle, which in some cases
projects upwards, and in others downwards, and is inclined at an angle
more or less perpendicular to the handle.
Figs. 103 and 104 are kindly lent me by the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland.[571] The short-handled adze, Fig. 103, is one |166| used
by the Schlalum or Clalam Indians, of the Pacific Coast, to the south
of the Straits of De Fuca and on Puget’s Sound, to hollow out their
canoes. The group, Fig. 104, exhibits various methods of attachment of
stone adzes to their handles employed by the South-Sea Islanders.
[Illustration: Fig. 104.—South-Sea Island Axes.]
The Australians occasionally mounted their tomahawks in much the
same manner as that shown in the central figure. An example has been
engraved by the Rev. J. G. Wood.[572] The right-hand figure probably
represents an adze from the Savage Islands. Some Brazilian and Aleutian
Island adzes are mounted in much the same fashion.
The jade adzes of the New Zealanders are hafted in a somewhat similar
manner; but the hafts are often beautifully carved and inlaid. A
fine example is in the Blackmore Museum, and a handle in the Christy
Collection. I have also a haft with the original |167| jade blade,
but the binding has been taken off. One of them is engraved by the
Rev. J. G. Wood.[573] The axe to the left, in Fig. 104, as well as
that in the centre, is from Tahiti. The axes from Mangaia, so common
in collections, exhibit great skill in the mounting and in the carving
of the handles. Some have been engraved by the Rev. J. G. Wood.[574]
A ceremonial stone adze with a very remarkable carved haft from New
Ireland[575] has been figured by Professor Giglioli.
In some instances the ligaments for attaching the stone blade against
the end of the handle pass through a hole towards its end. A North
American adze in the Ethnological Museum, at Copenhagen, is thus
mounted, the cord being apparently of gut.
A similar method of mounting their adzes, by binding them against the
haft, was in use among the Egyptians.[576] Although it is extremely
probable that some of the ancient stone adzes of other countries may
have been mounted in this manner, there have not, so far as I am aware,
been any of the handles of this class discovered. I have, however,
two Swiss celts of Lydian stone, and of rectangular section, found at
Nussdorf and Sipplingen, in the Ueberlinger See, and on the flatter of
the two faces of each, there is a slight hollow worn away apparently
by friction, which was, I think, due to their having been attached
against a handle in this manner. The blade in which the depression is
most evident has lost its edge, seemingly from its having been broken
in use. I have not up to the present time found any similarly worn
surfaces upon British celts.
Another method of hafting adopted by various savage tribes is that of
winding a flexible branch of wood round the stone, and securing the
two ends of the branch by binding them together in such a manner as
tightly to embrace the blade. A stone axe from Northern Australia thus
hafted, is figured in the _Archæologia_,[577] whence I have borrowed
the cut, Fig. 105. Another used by natives on the Murray river[578] has
been figured by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. This method of
hafting has been mentioned by White,[579] who describes the binding as
being effected by strips |168| of bark, and in his figure shows the
two ends of the stick more firmly bound together.
[Illustration: Fig. 105.—Axe—Northern Australia.]
Another example has been engraved by the Rev. J. G. Wood.[580] This
mode is very similar to that in common use among blacksmiths for their
chisels and swages, which are held by means of a withy twisted round
them, and secured in its place by a ring.
It seems extremely probable that so simple a method may have been in
use in early times in this country, though we have no direct evidence
as to the fact. A “fancy sketch” of a celt in a withy handle will be
found in the _Archæologia_.[581] It resembles in a singular manner the
actual implements employed by the Ojibway Indians,[582] of which there
is a specimen in the Christy Collection, engraved by the Rev. J. G.
Wood.[583] Some of the other North American tribes[584] mounted their
hatchets in much the same manner. A hatchet thus hafted is engraved by
Schoolcraft.[585]
In some instances a groove of greater or less depth has been worked
round the axes mounted in this manner, though undoubtedly British
examples are scarce. An axe-hammer of diorite (13 inches), found near
Newburgh,[586] Aberdeenshire, has a groove round it instead of the
usual haft-hole. The blade engraved in the _Archæological Journal_[587]
and found near Coldstream, Northumberland, is probably of Carib origin,
like others which have also been supposed to have been British.
Another from the Liverpool |169| Docks is mentioned by Mr. H. Ecroyd
Smith.[588] In the British Museum are two such axes, and some other
stone implements, found near Alexandria, but which probably are Carib,
as would also seem to be those in the Museum of Douai,[589] on which
are sculptured representations of the human face.
Stone axe-heads with a groove round their middle, for receiving a
handle, have been found in Denmark,[590] but are of rare occurrence.
The form has been found in the salt-mines of Koulpe,[591] Caucasus,
and in Russian Armenia. The large stone mauls found so commonly in
the neighbourhood of ancient copper-mines, in this and many other
countries in both hemispheres, were hafted much in the same manner as
the Australian axe.
In other cases axe-heads are mounted by being fixed in a cleft stick
for a handle, the stick being then lashed round so as to secure the
stone and retain it in its place. This method was employed by some of
the North American Indians,[592] and the aborigines in the colony of
Victoria.[593] In the Blackmore Museum is a stone axe thus mounted,
from British Guiana. There is a small hole through the butt which is
carved into a series of small spikes. Others from Guiana[594] have
notches at the sides to receive a cord which bound the haft in a
groove running along the butt-end. The same form has been found in
Surinam.[595] An Egyptian[596] stone hammer is mounted in much the same
way. The notches practically produce lugs at the butt-end of the blade.
I have an iron hatchet, edged with steel, brought home by the late Mr.
David Forbes, F.R.S., from among the Aymara Indians of Bolivia, which
is mounted in a stick cleft at the end. The blade is T-shaped at the
butt, and is tied in such a manner, by means of a strip of leather,
that the arms of the T rest on two of the coils, so as to prevent its
falling out, while other two coils pass over the butt and prevent its
being driven back, and the whole binds the two sides of the cleft
stick together so as tightly to grasp the blade and prevent lateral or
endways motion. The ancient Egyptian bronze hatchets were merely placed
in a groove and bound to the handle by the lugs, and sometimes by the
cord being passed through holes in the blade. The same shape is |170|
found in flint hatchets ascribed by Professor Flinders Petrie[597] to
the twelfth dynasty. What may be a stone hatchet mounted occurs in a
painting at Medum.[598]
[Illustration: Fig. 106.—Hatchet—Western Australia.]
Another Australian method of mounting implies the possession of some
resinous material susceptible of being softened by heat, and again
becoming hard and tough when cold. This mode is exhibited in Fig. 106,
which represents a rude instrument from Western Australia, now in my
collection, engraved in the _Archæologia_.[599] It is hammer-like at
one end, axe-like at the other, and is formed of either one or two
roughly chipped pieces of basalt-like stone entirely unground, and
secured in a mass of resinous gum, in which the handle is inserted. In
most implements of this kind there appear to be two separate stones
used to form the double blade, and these are sometimes of different
kinds of rock. It would seem that the shaft, either cleft or uncleft,
passed between them, and that the stones, when bound with string to
hold them in their places, were further secured with a mass of the gum
of the _Xanthorrhæa_ or grass-tree.[600]
Such a method of hafting cannot, I think, have been in general use in
this country, for want of the necessary cementing material, though,
from discoveries made in Scandinavia, it would appear that a resinous
pitch was in common use for fixing bronze implements to their handles;
so that the practice may also have applied to those of stone. In the
Swiss Lake-dwellings, bitumen was used as a cement for attaching stone
to wood. In the case of the axes of the Indians on the River Napo,[601]
Ecuador, the binding of |171| the blades, which are formed with
lugs like those of Guiana, is covered with a thick coating formed of
bees-wax and mastic.
Besides those that were hafted as axes or adzes, it seems probable that
not a few of the implements known as celts may have been for use in the
hand as cutting tools, either mounted in short handles or unmounted.
There can be but little doubt that the tools, Fig. 83 and 83A, were
thus used in the hand, as also the implement with a depression on each
face (Fig. 87), and that with the notches at the side (Fig. 89); and
they can hardly have been unique of their kind.
Dr. Lukis,[602] indeed, at one time expressed an opinion that the stone
celt was not intended to be secured “in a handle, but was held in the
hand and applied to particular uses which are not now evident, but to
which neither the hammer nor the hatchet were applicable.” But in the
face of the fact that numerous handles have since been found, such an
opinion is no longer tenable except in a very limited sense.
Among modern savages we have instances of similar tools being used
in the hand without the intervention of any haft, giving a form much
like that of Fig. 83A, though among the Australians the butt-end is
sometimes enveloped in a mass of resinous matter, so as to form a knob
which fits the hand. According to Prinz Neuwied,[603] the Botocudos
used their stone blades both unmounted in the hand and hafted as
hatchets. The South Australians[604] and Tasmanians[605] likewise use
celts in a similar manner.
There are cases in which the hatchet and haft have been formed from
one piece of stone. Such a one, of chloritic stone, found in a mound
in Tennessee,[606] is in outline like Fig. 92, and has a small loop
for suspension at the end of the handle. Mr. Cursiter, of Kirkwall,
has an instrument of the same kind from Orkney, formed of hard slate.
In extreme length it measures 9 3∕4 inches. It cannot, however, be
assigned to a very early date. For a comparison of celts from different
countries Westropp’s “Prehistoric Phases”[607] may be consulted.
With regard to the uses to which these instruments were applied,
they must have been still more varied than the methods of mounting,
which, as we have seen, adapted them for the purposes of hatchets and
adzes; while, mounted in other ways, or |172| unmounted, they may
have served as wedges, chisels, and knives. The purposes which similar
instruments serve among modern savages must be much the same as those
for which the stone celts found in this country were employed by our
barbarian predecessors. An admirable summary of the uses to which stone
hatchets—the “Toki” of the Maori—are, or were applied in New Zealand,
has been given by Dr. W. Lauder Lindsay.[608] They were used chiefly
for cutting down timber, and for scooping canoes[609] out of the trunks
of forest trees; for dressing posts for huts; for grubbing up roots,
and killing animals for food; for preparing firewood; for scraping the
flesh from the bones when eating, and for various other purposes in the
domestic arts. But they were also employed in times of war, as weapons
of offence and defence, as a supplementary kind of tomahawk.
For all these purposes stone celts must also have been employed in
Britain, and some may even have been used in agriculture. We can add to
the list at least one other service to which they were applied, that of
mining in the chalk in pursuit of flint, as the raw material from which
similar instruments might be fashioned.
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