HAMMER-STONES, ETC.
Under this head I propose to treat of those implements which have
apparently been used as hammers, but which, for that purpose, were
probably held in the hand alone, and not provided with a shaft, as
the groove or shaft-hole characteristic of the class last described,
is absent. At the same time there are some hammer-stones in which
there are cavities worked on either face, so deep and so identical
in character with those which, in meeting each other, produce the
bell-mouthed perforations commonly present in the hammers intended for
hafting, that at first sight it seems difficult to say whether they
are finished implements, or whether they would have become perforated
hammer-heads had the process of manufacture been completed. Certainly
in some cases the cavities appear to be needlessly deep and conical for
the mere purpose of receiving the finger and thumb, so as to prevent
the stone slipping out of the hand; and yet such apparently unfinished
instruments occur in different countries, in sufficient numbers to
raise a presumption that the form is intentional and complete. There
are some instances where, as was thought to be the case with a quartz
pebble from Firth,[894] in Orkney, the unfinished implements may have
been cast aside owing to the stone having cracked, or to the holes
bored on each face not being quite opposite to each other, so as to
form a proper shaft-hole.
In other instances, as in Figs. 160 and 161, the battering of the
end proves that the stones have been in actual use as hammers. It is
of course possible that these cavities may have been worked for the
purpose of mounting the stones in some other manner than by fixing the
haft in a socket. A split stick may, for instance, have been used, with
a part of the wood on each side of the fissure worked away, so as to
leave projections to fit the |239| cavities, and have then been bound
together so as to securely grasp the pebble. A stone mallet, consisting
of a large pebble mounted between two curved pieces of wood, somewhat
resembling the hames of a horse collar, and firmly bound together at
each end, is still used by the quarrymen of Trichinopoly,[895] in
India. Another method of hafting stones, by tying them on to the side
of a stick with little or no previous preparation, is practised by the
Aymara Indians of Bolivia and Peru.[896] Mr. D. Forbes, F.R.S., in his
interesting account of this people, has engraved a pebble thus mounted,
which was in use as a clod crusher. One of them is preserved in the
Christy Collection. Among the Apaches,[897] in Mexico, hammers are made
of rounded pebbles hafted in twisted withes.
[Illustration: Fig. 160.—Helmsley. 1∕2]
* * * * *
A remarkable hammer-head, found at Helmsley, in the North Riding of
Yorkshire, is in the collection formed by Canon Greenwell. It is shown
in Fig. 160, and has been made from a rather coarse-grained quartzite
pebble, both ends of which have, however, been worn away by use to
an extent probably of an inch in each case, or of two inches in the
whole pebble. The worn ends are rounded, but somewhat hollow in the
middle, as if they had at that part been used for striking against some
cylindrical or sharp surface. The funnel-shaped cavities appear almost
too deep and too sharp at their edges to have been intended merely to
assist in holding the hammer in the hand, and it seems possible that
their original purpose may have been in connection with some method
of hafting. The hammer has, however, eventually been used in the hand
alone, for the wear of the ends extends over the face, quite to the
margin of one of the cavities, and at such an angle, that it would have
been almost impossible for any handle to have been present. But if the
stone be held in the hand, with the middle finger in the cavity, the
wear is precisely on that part of the stone which would come in contact
with a flat surface, in hammering upon it. What substance it was used
to pound or crush it is impossible to determine, but not improbably
it may have been animal food; and bones as well as meat may have been
pounded with it.
A quasi-cubical hammer-stone, with recesses on two opposite faces,
found at Moel Fenlli,[898] Ruthin, Denbighshire, has been figured. It
is now in my collection. |240|
The specimen engraved as Fig. 161 has been made from a quartzite
pebble, and has the conical depression deeper on one face than the
other. It was found at Winterbourn Bassett, Wilts, and is now in the
British Museum.
[Illustration: Fig. 161.—Winterbourn Bassett. 1∕2]
In the Norwich Museum is a similar pebble, from Sporle, near Swaffham.
It is 3 3∕4 inches long, recessed on each face, with a conical
depression, the apex rounded. These cavities are about 1 1∕4 inches
diameter on the face of the stone, and about 3∕4 inch in depth. The
Rev. W. C. Lukis, F.S.A., had a hammer-stone of this kind, 3 inches
long, found at Melmerby, Cumberland. One (6 inches) was found at
Langtree,[899] Devon, another (3 1∕8 inches) at Trefeglwys,[900]
Montgomeryshire. I have one (3 inches) from Ryton-on-Dunsmore,
Coventry, and a thinner example, 2 3∕4 inches, much worn at the ends,
from Litlington, Cambs.
A circular rough-grained stone, 3 inches in diameter, with deep
cup-like indentations on each face, found on Goldenoch Moor,
Wigtownshire,[901] is in the National Museum at Edinburgh; where is
also another hammer formed of a greenstone pebble (3 1∕2 inches),
with broad and deep cup-shaped depressions on each face, and much
worn at one end, which came from Dunning, Perthshire. There are other
examples of the same kind in the same museum. Many have, indeed, |241|
been found in Scotland. A good example from Machermore Loch,[902]
Wigtownshire, and several others,[903] have been figured.
[Illustration: Fig. 161A.—Goldenoch. 1∕2]
That from Goldenoch, shown in Fig. 161A,[904] has a deep recess on each
face. Others from Fife[905] have the recess on one face only. In the
case of one from the Island of Coll[906] the recesses are at the sides
instead of on the faces.
In some cases the depressions are shallower, and concave rather than
conical. I have a flat irregular disc of greenstone, about 2 1∕4
inches diameter and 5∕8 inch thick, thinning off to the edges, which
are rounded, and having in the centre of each face a slight cup-like
depression, about 5∕8 inch in diameter. It was found in a trench at
Ganton, Yorkshire. In the Greenwell Collection is a somewhat larger
disc of sandstone, worn on both faces and round the whole edge, and
with a slight central depression. It was found in a cairn at Harbottle
Peels, Northumberland. In form, these instruments are identical with
the _Tilhuggersteene_[907] of the Danish antiquaries, and it is
possible that some of them, especially those of the circular form, may
have been used for the purpose of chipping out other kinds of stone
implements.
The type is not of uncommon occurrence in Ireland.[908] It is rare in
France, but a broken example from the neighbourhood of Amiens is in the
Blackmore Museum.
I have a specimen which might be mistaken for Danish or Irish, but
which was brought me from Port Beaufort, Cape of Good Hope, by Captain
H. Thurburn, F.G.S. It must have been in use there at no very remote
period.
An oval stone, with what appears to be a cup-shaped depression on one
face, 3∕8 inch deep, is engraved by Schoolcraft[909] as a relic of
the Congarees. Another, from the Delaware River, of the Danish form,
is described by Nilsson[910] as a tool for making arrow-points. He
also engraves one from Greenland. Other so-called hammer-stones in the
same plate are more probably “strike-a-light” stones, and under any
circumstances belong to the Early Iron Period. Abbott[911] and Rau[912]
also describe Indian hammer-stones, some like Fig. 161.
Highly polished, and deep cup-shaped or conical depressions are
occasionally to be observed occurring on one or both faces of large
pebbles, usually of quartz, and sometimes in two or three places
on |242| the same face. Though very similar to the hollows on the
hammer-stones, they are due to a very different cause, being merely the
results of stone bearings or journals having been employed, instead
of those of brass, for the upright spindles of corn mills. It seems
strange that for such a purpose stone should have gone out of use,
it being retained, and indeed regarded as almost indispensable for
durability, in the case of watches, the pivot-holes of which are so
frequently “jewelled.”
[Illustration: Fig. 162.—St. Botolph’s Priory. 1∕2]
Fig. 162, which I have reproduced from the Sussex Archæological
Collections[913] on the same scale as the other figures, shows a
pivot-stone of quartzite (?) found in the ruins of St. Botolph’s
Priory, Pembrokeshire, a few yards from a pebble (4 1∕2 inches) of
similar material, in which a hole had been bored to the depth of
half an inch apparently by the friction of the pointed end of the
smaller pebble. Another pivot-stone of the same kind was found at
Bochym,[914] Cornwall. Such socket-stones were, until recently, in
use in Scotland[915] and Piedmont[916] for the iron spindles of the
upper mill-stones of small water-mills. Pivot-stones with larger
socket-stones were also used for field-gates. Similar socket-stones
occur in Switzerland,[917] and have puzzled Dr. Keller.
A stone, with a well-polished cavity, found on the site of an old mill
near Carluke, Lanarkshire,[918] was exhibited at Edinburgh in 1856.
Another was found in Argyllshire; and I have seen other specimens
from Ireland. The socket of the hinge of the great gate at Dunnottar
Castle is said to have consisted of a similar stone. Stones with
highly-polished hollows in them, in which apparently the ends of
drill-sticks revolved, are common on the site of ancient Naukratis.[919]
[Illustration: Fig. 163.—Bridlington. 1∕2]
As has already been observed at page 223, it is by no means uncommon
to find portions of polished celts which, after the edge has been by
some means broken away, have been converted into hammers. Very rarely,
there is a cup-like cavity worked on either face in the same manner as
in the celts shown in Figs. 87 and 88. A specimen of this character,
from the neighbourhood of Bridlington, is shown in Fig. 163. It is
of close-grained greenstone, and, to judge from the thickness of the
battered end, the celt, of which this originally formed the butt, must
have been at least half as long again as it is in its present form. The
cavities have been worked out with some kind of pick or pointed tool,
and from their position so near the butt-end, it seems probable that
they did |243| not exist in the original celt, but were subsequently
added when it had lost its cutting edge, and was destined to be turned
into a hammer-stone. In the Greenwell Collection is a similar specimen,
4 inches long, found at Wold Newton, in the East Riding of Yorkshire.
In the celts with cup-shaped depressions on their faces, but still
retaining their edge, the depressions are nearer the centre of the
blade.
This hollowing of a portion of the surface is sometimes so slight as
to amount to no more than a roughening of the face, such as would
enable the thumb and fingers to take a sufficiently secure hold of
the stone, to prevent its readily falling out of the hand when not
tightly grasped; a certain looseness of hold being desirable, to
prevent a disagreeable jarring when the blows were struck. If, as seems
probable, many of these hammers or pounders were used for the purpose
of splitting bones, so as to lay bare the marrow, we can understand the
necessity of roughening a portion of the greasy surface of the stone,
to assist the hold.
[Illustration: Fig. 164.—Bridlington. 1∕2]
In Fig. 164 I have represented a large quartz pebble found in Easton
Field, Bridlington, which has the roughened depression on both faces
rather more strongly marked than usual, especially on the face here
shown. It is more battered at one end than the other, and has evidently
been long in use. It shows some traces of grinding at the lower end
in the figure, as if it had been desirable for it to have a sort of
transverse ridge at the end, to adapt it to the purpose for which it
was used.
Canon Greenwell found in a barrow at Weaverthorpe,[920] Yorkshire, a
hammer-stone of this kind, but nearly circular in form. It is a flat
quartz pebble, about 1 3∕4 inches in diameter, battered all round, and
broken at one part, and having the centre of one face artificially
roughened.
A round hammer (2 1∕2-inches), with depressions on each face, was found
at Gatley,[921] Cheshire. Hammer-stones of the same character occurred
abundantly on the site of ancient Naukratis.[922] The _wallong_,[923]
or stone used by the Australian natives for grinding nardoo seeds on
the _yow wi_, a large flat stone, is curiously like Fig. 164.
[Illustration: Fig. 165.—Bridlington. 1∕2]
To the same class, belongs the hammer-stone shown in Fig. 165, found
at Huntow, near Bridlington. It has been made from a quartz pebble,
of the original surface of which but little remains, and has a |244|
well-marked depression about 1∕8 inch deep in the centre of each face.
The periphery is much worn away by use.
A fine-grained sandstone pebble, in form like a small cheese, about 3
inches in diameter, having the two faces smooth and perfectly flat, was
found at Red Hill,[924] near Reigate, and was regarded as a muller or
pounding-stone used possibly in husking or bruising grain; or even for
chipping flint, its surface bearing the mark of long-continued use as
a pestle or hammer.[925] “Precisely similar objects have been found in
Northumberland, and other parts of England.”
Canon Greenwell informs me that about twenty such, differing in size
and thickness, were found on Corbridge Fell, together with several
stone balls. He thinks they may possibly have been used in some game.
A paper on the stone hammer and its various uses has been published by
Mr. J. D. McGuire.[926]
The circular stone from Upton Lovel Barrow,[927] engraved by Sir R.
Colt Hoare, appears to be a hammer or, more probably, a rubbing-stone,
but it is worn to a ridge all round the periphery. I have a precisely
similar instrument from Ireland. Other mullers from Wiltshire[928]
barrows have been figured by Dr. Thurnam. Several such discoidal
stones, somewhat faceted on their periphery, were found by the late
Hon. W. O. Stanley, in his examination of the ancient circular
habitations in Holyhead Island, and some have been engraved.[929]
An almost spherical stone, but flattened above and below, where
the surface is slightly polished, was found in Whittington Wood,
Gloucestershire, and exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries
in 1866.[930] It is of quartzite, about 3 inches in diameter.
Another, of the same size, of depressed, spherical form, was
found in Denbighshire,[931] and another flat disc of quartz in
Aberdeenshire.[932]
Pebbles that have been used in this way, as pounders or mullers, belong
to various ages and different degrees of civilization. Some well worn
have been found in Yorkshire[933] barrows and elsewhere.[934] One from
Philiphaugh,[935] Selkirkshire, has been figured. I have one such, worn
into an almost cubical form, which was found with Roman remains at
Poitiers, and I have seen several others said to be of Roman date. A
pounding-stone of much the same form as Fig. 165, found on the summit
of the Mont d’Or, Lyonnais,[936] has been engraved by M. Chantre, with
others of the same character. I have seen examples in Germany.
I have a flat granite pebble, about 3 1∕2 inches by 3 inches, the sides
straight, the ends round, and with well-marked circular depressions in
each face, from Cayuga County, New York. It has certainly been used as
a hammer-stone. Such mullers are by no means uncommon in North America.
Some of the American[937] stone discs, which are |245| occasionally
pierced, appear to have been more probably used in certain games.
Cup-shaped cavities occasionally occur on stones which have not
apparently been intended for use as hammers. In the soil of one of the
barrows at Rudstone, near Bridlington, Canon Greenwell found a fragment
of a greenstone pebble, nearly flat on one face, in which a concave
depression, about an inch over and 1∕4 inch deep, had been picked. In
the National Museum at Edinburgh is a subquadrate flat piece of grit,
1 inch thick and about 3 1∕2 inches long, on each face of which is
a cup-shaped depression about 1 1∕4 inches in diameter. It does not
appear to have been used as a hammer. Mr. James Wyatt, F.G.S., had a
piece of close-grained grit, in shape somewhat like a thick axe-head,
4 1∕2 inches long, 3 inches wide, and 3 inches thick, with four concave
depressions, one on each face and side, found at Kempston Road, near
Bedford. What purpose these hollows fulfilled, it is difficult to
guess. The stones in which they occur may, however, have been used as
anvils or mortars on which to hammer or pound; or the cavities may have
served to steady objects of bone, stone, or wood in the process of
manufacture. Anvil stones, with pits worn on their faces, probably by
flints having been broken upon them, have been found in Scotland.[938]
A sandstone[939] with a concave depression on each of its six faces
has been regarded by Mortillet as a grindstone for fashioning stone
buttons or the convex ends of other implements. I have seen analogous
cavities produced, on a larger scale, on blocks of granite which have
been used as anvils, on which to break road materials. The cup and
ring cuttings[940] common on ancient stone monuments, especially in
Scotland, do not come within my province. Flat stones, with cup-shaped
markings upon them, sometimes as many as seven on a stone, were found
in considerable abundance in some of the Yorkshire[941] barrows
examined by Canon Greenwell.
The stones with cup-shaped[942] depressions in them, found in the caves
of the Reindeer Period in the south of France, have the hollows, in
nearly all instances, upon one of their faces only, and have therefore
more probably served as mortars than as hammers. The pebbles, from the
same caves, which have been used as knapping or chipping stones, are
usually left in their natural condition on the faces, though worn away
at the edges, sometimes over the whole periphery. A very few of the
hollowed stones show signs of use at the edges.
Stones with cup-shaped[943] depressions, like those from the French
caves, are in use in Siberia for crushing nuts and the seeds of the
Cembro Pine; and among the natives of Australia[944] for pounding a
bulbous root called _bellilah_, and the roasted bark of trees and
shrubs for food. Some Carib examples of the same kind are in the
Ethnological Museum at Copenhagen, as well as some from Africa, used in
the preparation of poison. |246|
Some of the so-called corn-crushers[945] and mealing-stones from the
Swiss Lake-dwellings have shallow depressions on the faces, but for the
most part they belong to the class to be subsequently described. I have
one of granite, from Nussdorf, with a depression on one face, in which
the thumb can be placed, while the forefinger lies in a groove, like
that of a pulley, which extends about half-way round the stone. The
opposite part of the edge is much worn by hammering. It approximates in
form to the pulley-like stones to which the name of sling-stones has
been given, but the use of which is at present a mystery.
A hammer-stone, curiously like that which I have engraved as Fig. 165,
is among those found in the settlements of the Lac du Bourget,[946] by
M. Rabut. This or a similar one is in the British Museum. Another from
Picardy[947] has been figured.
[Illustration: Fig. 166.—Scamridge. 1∕2]
A hammer-stone, if so it may be called, of bronze, is among the
antiquities from Greenland in the Ethnological Museum at Copenhagen.
Occasionally the depression is reduced to a minimum, and consists of
merely a slight notch or roughening on one or both faces of the pebble
which has served as a hammer or pounding-stone.
The irregular, flat greenstone pebble, worn away at both ends, shown
in Fig. 166, has on one face only a notch, apparently intended to
receive the thumb. It was found at Scamridge, Yorkshire, and is in
the Greenwell Collection. It will be observed that it is worn into a
curved ridge at one end. In the same collection is an oval quartzite
pebble (4 1∕2 inches), battered at both ends, and with a slight
diagonal ridge at that most worn away. This was found in a barrow at
Weaverthorpe,[948] with an unburnt body. I have a flat greenstone
pebble from |247| Scamridge, Yorkshire, worn away at one end to a
curved ridge somewhat oblique to the faces of the pebble, one of
which is slightly polished as if by constant rubbing. There is in the
Greenwell Collection a granite pebble (3 1∕2 inches), from the same
place, battered at one end, and the other much worn away by use, which
also has one face flat and slightly polished. In the camp at Little
Solsbury Hill,[949] near Bath, I found two quartzite implements of
rudely quadrangular prismatic form, each having one end worn away to
a ridge. Another quartzite pebble, rubbed to an obtuse edge at one
end, was found by General Pitt Rivers, F.R.S.,[950] within an ancient
earthwork at Dorchester, Oxfordshire.
A hammer-stone of close-grained grit, having a ridge all round
the periphery, was found in Anglesea.[951] Others with ridged
ends have occurred in crannogs at Lochlee,[952] Ayrshire, and in
Wigtownshire.[953] Some of them seem to belong to the Iron Age.
Among the specimens just described, there are three peculiarities
which, though not occurring together on all, are worthy of notice—the
notch on the face, the ridge at the end, and the polished face.
There can be no doubt of the notch on the face being, like the
cup-shaped depressions, merely intended as an aid in holding the stone.
On the hammer-stones discovered by the late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S.,
in a post-Roman kjökken-mödding, in the island of Herm,[954] there were
usually one or two rough notches or indentations on each face, exactly
adapted to receive the ends of the thumb and some of the fingers; and,
curiously enough, I have a pebble notched in precisely the same manner
from Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania, and no doubt intended for a
hand-hammer or pounder.
In the same kjökken-mödding at Herm were several[955] celt-like
implements of porphyry and greenstone which, instead of an edge, had
the end blunt, but with a ridge obliquely across it, as on these
pebbles. Somewhat similar pounding-stones have been found by the late
Hon. W. O. Stanley, at Pen-y-Bonc,[956] Holyhead, in some instances
provided with a depression fitting the thumb or finger, and several
having the ridge at the end.
The same sort of ridge occurs on pounding-stones from Denmark,
Portugal,[957] Spain,[958] Ireland, and elsewhere, and occasionally
extends all round the stone when it happens to be disc-shaped, like
those already mentioned from Upton Lovel and elsewhere. Hammer-stones
worn to a ridge are also found in Egypt.[959] It would appear that
the face of the hammer was ground away, either by a rocking motion
on a flat stone, or by the blows given with it being administered
alternately from the right and from the left, so as to keep any matter
that was being pounded with it from being driven out of position. |248|
I have, lastly, to notice the more or less polished condition of one
of the faces of these stones, which may be due to their being used for
grinding the material already pounded by their edges to a finer powder
on the slab, which served instead of a mortar. One of the flat pebbles
found in the Cave of La Madelaine, Dordogne, appears to have served as
a muller for grinding the hæmatite used as paint.
Sometimes these hammer-stones are mere pebbles without any previous
preparation, and indeed it is but natural that such should have been
the case. Canon Greenwell has found pebbles of quartz and greenstone,
worn and battered at the ends, accompanying interments on the Yorkshire
Wolds, and such are also occasionally present on the surface, though
they are, of course, liable to escape observation. A quartzite pebble
that has served as a hammer-stone, and is much worn and fractured
by use, was found at Ty Mawr, and is figured in the _Archæological
Journal_,[960] as are also several from hut-circles in Holyhead and
Anglesea.[961] A large sarsen-stone pebble, weighing 4 3∕4 lbs., and
which had obviously been used as a hammer, was found in the Long
Barrow, at West Kennet,[962] Wiltshire. A large conical sort of muller
of sarsen-stone,[963] weighing 12 1∕2 lbs., was discovered with
twenty-two skeletons, various animal remains, and pottery, in a large
cist, in a barrow near Avebury. Mr. G. Clinch has a hammer from West
Wickham, made from a nearly cylindrical quartz pebble, much worn at
both ends, one of which is more rounded than the other.
[Illustration: Figs. 167 and 168.—Yorkshire Wolds. 1∕2]
On the Downs of Sussex, in the pits of Cissbury, in Yorkshire, Suffolk,
Dorsetshire, and other counties, hammer-stones of flint, apparently
used for chipping other flints, have been found, but from their
rudeness it seems hardly worth while to engrave any specimens. At
Grime’s Graves the hammer-stones consisted principally of quartzite
pebbles, though some were of flint. In many instances the hammers
made of flint seem to be cores from which flakes have been struck,
but which, proving to be of refractory stone, have been found more
serviceable as hammers. Some of the cores found at Spiennes, near
Mons, have been thus used, as well as fragments of celts. Some of the
hammer-stones from the French caves consist also of such cores. Stone
mullers are in common use in most countries at the present day, for
grinding paint and similar purposes. They occur at the Cape of Good
Hope,[964] but were there, no doubt, originally intended for other uses.
The general character of the chipped flint hammer-stones will be
gathered from Figs. 167 and 168, both from the Yorkshire Wolds. |249|
Neither of them shows any trace of the original surface or crust of the
flint from which it has been fashioned. The larger one has been chipped
with numerous facets somewhat into the shape of a broad bivalve shell,
and is much battered round the margin. Fig. 168 is much smaller than
usual, and is more disc-like in character.
[Illustration: Fig. 168A.—Culbin Sands. 1∕2]
A large number of discoidal stones, formed from flattish quartzite
pebbles, have been found on the Culbin Sands,[965] Elginshire. By the
kindness of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, one of them is
shown in Fig. 168A. They may be hammer-stones, but show no traces of
use.
[Illustration: Fig. 169—Bridlington. 1∕2]
More commonly, perhaps, the form is approximately spherical. Fig.
169 is, however, a more symmetrical specimen than usual. It was
found by Mr. E. Tindall at Grindale, near Bridlington, and its
surface is battered all over by continual pounding. I have others of
similar character from Icklingham, Suffolk; Jordan Hill, Weymouth;
and elsewhere. Two from Old Geir, Anglesea, are engraved in the
_Archæological Journal_.[966]
Others were found in a tumulus at Seaford,[967] and at Mount
Caburn,[968] Sussex.
Numerous rude hammer-stones have been found at Carnac,[969] Brittany.
One of chert, 3 inches in diameter, was found in the Isle of
Portland,[970] and several have been found in Dorsetshire[971] which
were supposed to have been used in fashioning flint implements; and
balls of chert, 2 1∕2 inches and 2 1∕4 inches in diameter, found
at West Coker, Somersetshire,[972] and another from Comb-Pyne,
Devonshire,[973] have been thought to have been “intended for the
sling, or else to be tied up in a leather thong attached to a staff,
and employed as a sort of mace.” |250|
A globular nodule of flint, one pound in weight, and chipped all
over, found with numerous flint flakes in the long-chambered barrow
at West Kennet,[974] appeared to Dr. Thurnam to have been used in
their production. Several others found together in the parish of
Benlochy,[975] near Blairgowrie, were regarded as sling-stones. A
lump of red flint found in a barrow near Pickering,[976] in company
with a flint spear-head and two arrow-heads at the right hand of a
skeleton, was considered by Mr. Bateman to have been used as a hammer
for chipping other flints. A more highly-decorated class of stone balls
will be described at a subsequent page. Stone balls, such as were in
common use for cannon in the Middle Ages, and those thrown by catapults
and other military engines, do not come within my province.
* * * * *
Judging from the battered surface of the spherical stones now under
consideration, there can be no doubt of their having been in use
as hammers or pounders; but they were probably not in all cases
used merely for fashioning other implements of stone, but also for
triturating grain, roots, and other substances for food, in the same
manner as round pebbles are still used by the native Australians.[977]
One such root, abundant in this country, is a principal article of food
consumed by the Ahts[978] of North America, among whom “the roots of
the common fern or bracken are much used as a regular meal. They are
simply washed and boiled, or beaten with a stone till they become soft,
and are then roasted.” In New Zealand also fern roots are pounded for
food, with pestles of basalt. The corn-crushers and mealing-stones
found in the Swiss Lake-dwellings have evidently been intended for
the purposes which their names denote; and at the present day among
many savage tribes, the only form of mill that is known is that of
a flat or slightly concave bed-stone, with a stone rolling-pin or
muller. Among the Kaffirs[979] and in West Africa the mill is of this
character, the bed-stone being large and heavy, slightly hollowed on
its upper surface; the muller, a large oval pebble which is used with
a peculiar rocking and grinding motion. The corn (maize or millet)
is often boiled before grinding. In Abyssinia[980] the bed-stone of
gneiss or granite is about 2 feet in length and 14 inches in width.
The face of this is roughened by beating it with a sharp-pointed
piece of harder stone, such as quartz or hornblende, and the grain is
reduced to flour by repeated grinding or rubbing |251| with a stone
rolling-pin. Such mealing-stones are also in use in South America.[981]
They have been occasionally found in Britain, and the annexed figure
shows a pair found in a hut-circle at Ty Mawr,[982] in the island of
Holyhead. Others have been found in Anglesea.[983] Similar specimens
have been obtained in Cambridgeshire and Cornwall, and Mr. Tindall had
a pair found near Bridlington. A mealing-stone with the muller was
found in Ehenside Tarn,[984] Cumberland. I have myself found a muller
at Osbaston, Leicestershire. A pair of stones from the Fens[985] is in
the museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. Some large blocks of
flint, having a flat face bruised all over by hammering, have also been
found in the Fens, and may have served as mealing-stones.
[Illustration: Fig. 170.—Holyhead.]
The same form of mill is found also in Ireland,[986] and not improbably
remained in occasional use until a comparatively late period. Fynes
Moryson[987] mentions having seen in Cork “young maides, stark naked,
grinding corne with certaine stones, to make cakes thereof;” and the
form of the expression seems to point to something different from a
hand-mill or quern, which at that time was in common use in England.
The name of saddle-quern has been given to this form of grinding
apparatus. In the Blackmore Museum is one from the pit-dwellings at
Highfield,[988] near Salisbury, which are not improbably of post-Roman
date; and in the British Museum is one found near Macclesfield. |252|
They are also known in Scotland. One of granite, found near Wick,[989]
is in the National Museum at Edinburgh; as is also another, 20 inches
by 12 inches, with a rubber 12 inches by 8 inches, found in a cave near
Cullen, Banffshire.[990]
They likewise occur in Shetland.[991] Mr. J. W. Cursiter has a long
narrow muller with a curved back, in which are five grooves to receive
the fingers, so as to give it the appearance of being a fragment of an
ammonite.
Saddle-querns of the same character occur also in France.[992] I have a
small example from Chateaudun. One from Chassemy[993] (Aisne) has been
figured.
Some were likewise found in the Genista Cave at Gibraltar.[994] They
are common in West Prussia and in the Island of Rügen, as well as in
Scandinavia generally.
A German saddle-quern, from the ancient cemetery at Monsheim, has been
engraved by Lindenschmit.[995] Others are mentioned by Klemm.[996] MM.
Siret have also found them in their explorations in Spain.
It will have been observed, in the instances I have cited, that the
movable muller or grinding-stone is not spherical, but elongated; but
what is possibly the more ancient form approached more closely to a
pestle and mortar in character, and consisted of a bed-stone with
a slight concavity in it, and a more or less spherical stone for a
pounder.
* * * * *
A grinding-stone of granite, with a cavity, apparently for bruising
grain by a globular stone, was found in Cornwall,[997] and undressed
slabs with concavities of the size and shape of an ordinary soup-plate,
are of frequent occurrence in the Hebrides.[998] Others have been found
in company with stone balls, in the ancient habitations in Anglesea.
Fig. 171 shows a trough of stone, found at Ty Mawr,[999] Holyhead, by
the late Hon. W. O. Stanley, who kindly lent me the wood-cuts of Figs.
170 and 171. The cylindrical grinding-stone or muller was found within
it, and has a central cavity on each face, to give the hand a better
hold in grinding. A similar appliance was found at Pen-y-Bonc[1000] in
the same island.
A triturating trough from Cleveland[1001] has been figured. |253|
They have been found in Cornwall[1002] and in Ireland.[1003]
Others have been discovered in Brittany.
Hand-mills of granite formed in much the same manner have been in use
until lately in Brandenburg. The lower stones are described as from 2
feet to 4 feet long, and nearly as wide, with channels, after long use,
as much as 6 inches deep; the mullers are either spherical or oval, and
of such a size that they can be held in the hand.[1004]
A large sandstone, with a small bowl-shaped concavity worked in it, was
found near burnt bones, in a barrow at Elkstone,[1005] Staffordshire;
and two others in barrows near Sheen.[1006] Another, with a cup-shaped
concavity, 2 1∕2 inches in diameter, occurred in a barrow near
Pickering;[1007] and in other barrows were found sandstone balls
roughly chipped all over, from 4 inches to 1 inch in diameter, in one
instance associated with a bronze dagger. A ball of sandstone, 2 1∕2
inches in diameter, was found with flint instruments accompanying a
contracted skeleton in a barrow near Middleton.[1008] A round stone
like a cannon-ball was also found in a barrow near Cromer,[1009] and
three balls of stone, from 2 1∕4 inches to 1 3∕4 inches in diameter,
were picked up in a camp at Weetwood,[1010] Northumberland.
[Illustration: Fig. 171.—Ty Mawr.]
Mealing-stones, both flat and hollowed, were found in
Schliemann’s[1011] excavations at Troy.
In grinding and pounding a considerable amount of grit must have been
worn off the stones and been mixed with the meal. The usual worn
condition of the teeth in the skulls from ancient barrows may be
connected with this attrition. Mr. Charters-White,[1012] by examination
of |254| some teeth from a long barrow at Heytesbury, Wilts, was able
to show the presence of grains of sand of different kinds in the dental
tartar.
* * * * *
There are two other forms of grinding apparatus still in use—the pestle
and mortar, and the rotatory mill—both of which date back to an early
period, and concerning which it will be well to say a few words in this
place. The ordinary form of pestle—a frustum of a very elongated cone
with the ends rounded, is so well known that it appears needless to
engrave a specimen on the same scale as the other objects. In Fig. 172
is shown one of a more than usually club-shaped form, 11 inches long,
found in Holyhead Island.[1013]
[Illustration: Fig. 172.—Holyhead.]
[Illustration: Fig. 173.—Pulborough.]
* * * * *
This cut originally appeared in illustration of an interesting paper
by Mr. Albert Way, F.S.A., on some relics found in and near ancient
circular dwellings in Holyhead Island, in which paper some of the
other discoveries about to be mentioned are also cited. A pestle like
a small club, 9 1∕4 inches long, was found in a gravel-pit near Audley
End,[1014] with a Roman cinerary urn. Another, of grey granite, more
cylindrical in form, and flatter at one end, 11 1∕2 inches long and
2 inches in diameter, was found at Pulborough,[1015] Sussex, and is
engraved in Fig. 173. A limestone pestle of the same character, 12
inches long and 2 1∕2 inches in diameter, found at Cliff Hill, is in
the museum at Leicester. A fine pestle of granite or gneiss (12 5∕8
inches) from Epping Forest[1016] has been figured, as has been a
shorter one from a barrow at Collingbourn Ducis,[1017] Wilts. Another
of greenstone, probably a naturally-formed pebble, 10 1∕4 inches long
and 2 1∕2 inches in diameter, rounded at both ends, was found with
three porphyry celts in a cairn at Daviot,[1018] near Inverness. It is
now in the National Museum at |255| Edinburgh. Another of greenstone,
16 inches long, was found near Carlisle[1019]; and the late Mr. J. W.
Flower, F.G.S., had one of the same material 10 inches long, tapering
from 2 inches in diameter to 1 1∕4 inches, found in Hilgay Fen,
Norfolk. A similar pestle-like stone, 6 inches long, found in Styria,
is engraved by Professor Unger.[1020] Another of the same length was
among the objects found in the Casa da Moura,[1021] Portugal. Many
pestles, more or less well finished in form, have been discovered by
the late Dr. Hunt, Dr. Mitchell, Mr. Petrie, Mr. Long, and others in
the Orkney and Shetland Isles, and in different parts of Scotland.
Those who wish to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the
different circumstances of these discoveries, and with the various
forms of rough implements brought to light, will have to consult the
original memoirs[1022] which have been written concerning them. Both in
cists or graves, and in the remains of ancient circular habitations,
have numerous hammer-stones and pestles been found, associated with
various other articles manufactured from stone and bone. Some of
these are extremely rude, and appear hardly deserving of the names
of spear-heads, knives, chisels, battle-axes, &c., which have been
bestowed upon them. There can, however, be no doubt of their being
of human manufacture, whatever purpose they may have served. A few
well-formed and polished stone celts were found in company with the
objects of this class in the “Underground House of Skaill,” Orkney,
which, however, was not, strictly speaking, subterranean. In the
building, and in the midden around it, were very great numbers of oval
sandstone pounding-stones and of large sandstone flakes, probably
knives of a rude kind, a pebble with a groove round it like a ship’s
block, and a few celts. In Shetland these rude stone implements have
been found with human skeletons interred in cists, sometimes with
polished weapons.[1023] A very curious implement, somewhat T-shaped,
with pointed extremities, and grooves round the transverse part, was
found in the broch of Quoyness,[1024] Sanday, Orkney, and has been
figured.
Many of the pestle-like stones are merely chipped into a somewhat
cylindrical form, but others have been picked or ground all over, so as
to give them a circular or oval section. The ends in many instances are
more or less splintered, as if by hammering some hard substance rather
than by pounding, and the exact purpose to which they were applied it
is extremely difficult to divine.
Four of them are shown, on a small scale, in Figs. 174 to 177.
[Illustration: Fig. 174.—Shetland. 20 1∕2 in.]
[Illustration: Fig. 175.—Shetland. 19 in.]
[Illustration: Fig. 176.—Shetland.]
[Illustration: Fig. 177.—Shetland.]
[Illustration: Fig. 178.—Shetland. 21 in.]
Some are more club-like[1025] in character, as in Fig. 178, and
are even occasionally wrought to a handle at one end, as was the
case |256| with one found in the heart of a burnt stone tumulus at
Bressay[1026] (Fig. 179), so as to give them much of the appearance
of the short batlet or batting-staff used in the primitive mode of
washing linen, such as is still so commonly practised in many parts
of the Continent. Nearly similar rough instruments have been found
at Baldoon,[1027] Wigtownshire. Is it possible that these stone bats
can have served a similar purpose? In the Northern counties[1028] a
large smooth-faced stone, set in a sloping position by the side of a
stream, on which washerwomen |257| beat their linen, is still called
a battling-stone,[1029] and the club is called a batter, batlet,
battledore, or battling-staff. Such clubs may also have been used in
the preparation of hemp and flax.
[Illustration: Fig. 179.—Shetland.]
A stone club, from St. Isabel,[1030] Bahia, Brazil, is described as
13 3∕8 inches long, 2 1∕2 inches wide, and 1 1∕4 inch thick. It may,
however, be a celt, like the supposed clubs from Lancashire[1031] and
Cumberland.
There can be no doubt of several of the pestles, though probably not
all, belonging to the same period as stone implements of other forms.
The mortars in which they were used, were probably merely depressions
in blocks of stone, or even of wood. Some rude mortars have, as already
mentioned, been found in Holyhead Island, and Anglesea, but it is
uncertain to what age they belong. A portion of a mortar of granite,
with a channelled lip, found with fragments of urns and calcined bones
in a grave at Kerris Vaen, Cornwall, is engraved in the _Archæologia
Cambrensis_.[1032]
Very similar stone pestles to those from Orkney were in use among the
North American Indians[1033] for pounding maize, and some are engraved
by Squier and Davis.[1034]
They also employed[1035] a small form of mortar for pounding quartz,
felspar, or shell, with which to temper the clay for pottery. Stone
mortars and pestles were in use among the Toltecs and Aztecs in making
tortillas, and are found in South Carolina,[1036] and elsewhere in
the United States. Among the ancient Pennacooks[1037] of the Merrimac
valley, the heavy stone pestle was suspended from the elastic bough
of a tree, which relieved the operator in her work; and among the
Tahitians[1038] the pestle of stone, used for pounding the bread fruit
on a wooden block, is provided with a crutch-like handle.
Some large circular discs of stone, apparently used for grinding, and
others with deep cup-shaped depressions in them, found on Dartmoor,
and probably connected with some ancient metallurgical operations on
the spot, have been engraved and described in the _Transactions of the
Devonshire Association_.[1039] |258|
The hand-mill formed with an upper rotatory stone is a mere
modification of the pestle and mortar, and dates back to a very early
period, though it has continued in use in some parts of the British
Isles even unto our own day. The name quern, by which such mills are
usually known, occurs in closely similar forms, in all the Teutonic
dialects. In Anglo-Saxon it appears under the form Cweorn or Cwyrn, and
in modern Danish as Qværn. An excellent example of this instrument,
which had been, up to 1850, in use in the cabin of a Kilkenny peasant,
was presented by the Rev. J. Graves to the Archæological Institute, and
is described and engraved in their Journal.[1040] The upper stone is of
granite, the lower of millstone grit. The lower stone is recessed to
receive the upper, and has a central depression, in which a small block
of oak is fixed, from which projects a small pin—also of oak—to carry
the upper stone. This is about 2 feet in diameter, and is perforated at
its centre with a hopper-like hole, across the bottom of which a small
bar of oak is secured, having a recess in it to receive the pin, but
only of such a depth as to keep the upper stone at a slight distance
from the lower. Through the upper stone, and near its verge, a vertical
hole is drilled to receive a peg, which forms the handle for turning
it. When in use it is worked, as in ancient times among the Jews, by
two women seated opposite each other, who alternately seize and propel
the handle, so as to drive the stone at considerable speed. The corn,
highly dried, is fed by handfuls into the hopper in the runner or upper
stone, and the meal passes out by a notch in the rim of the nether
stone. Pennant,[1041] in his “Tour in Scotland,” describes querns as
still in use in the Hebrides in 1772. They were said to cost about
fourteen shillings, and to grind a bushel of corn in four hours, with
two pair of hands. He gives a representation of a quern at work, with
a long stick, hanging from the branch of a tree, inserted in the hole
in the runner, so as to form the handle. A somewhat similar method
of driving the hand-mill indoors, taken from a German MS. of the
fourteenth century, has been reproduced from a work by Drs. Von Hefner
and Wolf in the _Archæological Journal_.[1042]
A sketch of a hand-mill in use at the present day, at Abbeville, is
given in C. Roach Smith’s “Collectanea Antiqua.”[1043]
Even in the neighbourhood of water-mills, when the charge for grinding
was at all high, we find these hand-mills in use in mediæval times.
Such use, by the townsmen of St. Albans, was, in the beginning of
the fourteenth century, a fruitful source of litigation between
them and the abbots, who claimed the monopoly of grinding for their
tenants.[1044] Thirteen of these, however, maintained their right
of using hand-mills, as having been enjoyed of old, and some claims
were raised to the privilege of grinding oat-meal only, by means of a
hand-mill.
It seems probable that these mediæval hand-mills were of large size,
and with a comparatively flat upper stone, like the modern Irish
form, which is sometimes 3 feet 6 inches in diameter. One, 3 feet in
diameter, found near Hollingbourne,[1045] Kent, was probably of no
great antiquity. |259| The same may be said of a six-sided quern,
with an iron pivot, found in Edinburgh.[1046] A quern, found at West
Coker,[1047] Somerset, with a fleur-de-lis over the passage by which
the meal escaped, has been assigned to the thirteenth century. The
lower stone of a quern accompanied an apparently Saxon interment at
Winster,[1048] Derbyshire. It was of the beehive[1049] shape, and made
of millstone grit. Similar querns, with iron pins, have been found at
Breedon,[1050] Leicestershire, as well as others with the upper stone
more conical. One of this class was also found near Rugby.[1051] They
frequently accompany Roman[1052] remains, but these are generally of
smaller size, and of a more hemispherical form, the favourite material
being the Lower Tertiary conglomerate, or Hertfordshire pudding-stone.
Those of Andernach lava, from the Rhine, are usually flat.
A complete quern was found at Ehenside Tarn,[1053] Cumberland. The
upper half of another was in a post-Roman circular dwelling, near
Birtley,[1054] Northumberland.
Querns of various forms are of frequent occurrence in Wales, especially
in Anglesea. An upper stone from Lampeter,[1055] Cardiganshire, has a
semicircular projection at the margin round the hole for the handle.
In some districts[1056] they have been in use until quite recent
times.[1057]
In Scotland, querns are of frequent occurrence in the ancient brochs
and hill forts. In one of the former, at Kettleburn,[1058] Caithness,
a stone in preparation for a quern was found; in another, in
Aberdeenshire, an upper stone, 18 inches in diameter, was discovered.
Another stone of the same size, surrounded by four border stones to
prevent the scattering of the grain in grinding, was discovered in
a subterranean chamber in a hill fort at Dunsinane,[1059] Perth. A
curious pot-quern, the lower stone decorated with a carved human face,
was found in East Lothian, and is engraved by Wilson.[1060]
Some interesting notices of Scottish querns have been given by Sir
Arthur Mitchell.[1061]
The upper stone, ornamented with raised lines, shown in Fig. 180, from
a cut kindly lent me by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, was
found in trenching a moss in the parish of Balmaclellan, New Galloway,
with some curious bronze objects of “late-Celtic” workmanship.[1062]
An upper stone (18 inches), ornamented in a nearly similar way, was
found near Stranraer,[1063] Wigtownshire, and another, with a tribrach
instead of a cross, at Roy Bridge,[1064] Inverness-shire. |260|
Some ornamentally carved upper stones of querns, one of them with
spiral and leaf-shaped patterns upon it, much like those on the
bronze ornaments of the “late-Celtic” Period, have been discovered in
Anglesea.[1065]
[Illustration: Fig. 180.—Balmaclellan.]
Querns of green sandstone are stated, by Sir R. Colt Hoare,[1066] to be
numerous in British villages and pit-dwellings in Wiltshire, as indeed
they are in other counties,[1067] though formed of various kinds of
grit. They rarely occur in barrows, though burnt granite querns have
been found with burnt bones in cromlechs in Jersey.[1068]
Some observations on querns by the Rev. Dr. A. Hume, are published in
the _Archæologia Cambrensis_.[1069] As these utensils belong, for the
most part, to Roman and post-Roman times, I have thought it needless
to enter into any more minute description of their forms, or of the
circumstances under which they have been found.
|261|