FLINT FLAKES, CORES, ETC.
The different forms of implements and weapons which have been treated
of in the preceding pages have, for the most part, been fashioned from
larger or smaller blocks of stone, reduced into shape by chipping; the
chips having apparently been mere waste products, while the block from
which they were struck was eventually converted into the tool or weapon
required. With the majority, though by no means all, of the Neolithic
forms which we still have to pass in review, the reverse holds good;
for the raw materials, if I may so term them, from which the bulk of
them were made, were flakes or splinters of flint struck off from
larger blocks, in such a manner that it was the splinters that were
utilized. The block from which they were struck, instead of being the
object of the manufacture, became, when all the available flakes had
been removed from it, mere refuse, to be thrown away as useless.
Before considering any of the various tools and weapons into which
these flakes or splinters were converted by subsequent or secondary
working, it will be well to say a few words about the simpler forms of
flakes, and the cores or _nuclei_ from which they were struck.
I have already, in speaking of the manufacture of stone implements,
described the manner in which flakes or spalls are, at the present day,
struck off by successive blows from the parent block or core, and have
suggested the probable methods employed in ancient times for producing
similar results. Remarks on the method of production of flint flakes
have also been made by Sir W. Wilde,[1158] Sir John Lubbock,[1159] Mr.
S. J. Mackie,[1160] Prof. T. McK. Hughes,[1161] and others. I need not,
therefore, re-open the subject, |273| though it will be well again to
call attention to some of the distinctive marks by which artificially
formed flakes may be distinguished from mere splinters of natural
origin. The formation of these latter is usually due either to the
flint, while still embedded in the chalk, having received some violent
shock from disturbance of the stratum; or to unequal expansion, which
sometimes causes flints to split up into rudely prismatic forms, much
like those assumed by starch in drying, and sometimes causes cracks
on the surface, which enable water and frost to complete the work
of splitting them. Occasionally, nearly flat planes of fissure are
caused by the expansion of some small included particle of a different
mineralogical character from the surrounding flint. In such cases
a series of concentric and more or less circular rings may usually
be traced on the surface surrounding the central particle, which
apparently mark the intervals of repose, when its expansion had ceased
for a time to exert sufficient force to continue the fissure. This kind
of fracture is most prevalent in flints upon or near the surface of the
ground, such as those in drift-deposits.
In hardly any instances of natural fracture does the surface of the
splinter show any trace of its having been produced by a blow, though
the violent impact of one stone upon another, by means of a fall from a
cliff, or of other natural causes, might produce a splinter of the same
form as if it had been struck off by a hammer. There would, however, be
the mark of the blow on one face only of such a splinter, whereas in a
perfectly artificial flake the traces of the blow by which each facet
was produced would be discernible. On the sea-shore, natural splinters
of flint, resulting from the blow of one wave-borne pebble on another,
may occasionally be found, some of them having a kind of secondary
working at the edges, the result of attrition among the pebbles on the
shore.
If a blow from a spherical-ended hammer be delivered at right angles
on a large flat surface of flint, the part struck is only a minute
portion of the surface, which may be represented by a circle of very
small diameter. If flint were malleable, instead of being slightly
elastic, a dent would be produced at the spot; but, being elastic, this
small circle is driven slightly inwards into the body of the flint, and
the result is that a circular fissure is produced between that part
of the flint which is condensed for the moment by the blow, and that
part which is left untouched. As each particle in the small circle on
which the hammer impinges may be considered to rest on more than one
other particle, it is |274| evident that the circular fissure, as it
descends into the body of the flint, will have a tendency to enlarge
in diameter, so that the piece of flint it includes will be of conical
form, the small circle struck by the hammer forming the slightly
truncated apex. That this is not mere theory will be seen from the
annexed woodcut, Fig. 188, showing a cone of flint produced by a single
blow of a hammer.[1162]
[Illustration: Fig. 188.—Artificial Cone of Flint.]
Sometimes, as has been shown by Prof. T. McK. Hughes, F.R.S., the sides
of the cone are in steps, the inclination varying from 30° to 110°.
This is probably to some extent due to the character of the blow, and
the form of the hammer.
If the blow be administered near the edge, instead of in the middle of
the surface of the block, a somewhat similar effect will be produced,
but the cone in that case will be imperfect, as a splinter of flint
will be struck off, the fissure probably running along the line of
least resistance; though, owing to the suddenness of the blow, the
conical character of fracture is at first produced at the point of
impact. This fracture will vary to some extent in accordance with the
angle at which the blow is given, and the character of the hammer; but
in all cases where a splinter of flint is struck off by a blow, there
will be a bulb or projection, of a more or less conical form, at the
end where the blow was administered, and a corresponding hollow in the
block from which it was dislodged. This projection is usually known as
the “bulb of percussion,” a term, I believe, first applied to it by the
late Dr. Hugh Falconer, F.R.S.; and on every flake, all the facets of
which are purely artificial, this bulb will be found at the butt-end
of the larger flat face, and the hollow depressions, or portions of
depressions, on all the other facets. If on a splinter of flint such a
bulb occurs, it proves that it must have resulted from a blow, in all
probability, but not of necessity, given by human agency; but where the
bulb is on the principal face, and analogous depressions, or portions
of them, are visible on the several other faces, and at the same end
of a flake, all of them presenting the same character, |275| and in a
definite arrangement, it is in the highest degree probable that such
a combination of blows must be the result of design, and the features
presented are almost as good a warrant for the human origin of the
flake as would be the maker’s name upon it. When, however, several of
such flakes are found together, each bearing these marks of being the
result of several successive blows, all conducing to form a symmetrical
knife-like flake,[1163] it becomes a certainty that they have been the
work of intelligent beings.
In size and proportions flakes vary considerably, the longest English
specimens that I have seen being as much as 8 or 9 inches long, while
some, which still appear to have been made use of as tools, are not
more than an inch in length. Their proportional breadth is almost as
variable.
With regard to the classification and nomenclature of these objects,
I would suggest that the name of flake should be limited to such
artificial splinters of flint as, either in their section or outline,
or in both, present a certain amount of symmetry, and appearance of
design; and that the ruder forms, such as would result from chipping
some large object into shape, without any regard to the form of the
parts removed, should be called chips or spalls.[1164] Such as show
no bulb of percussion may be termed splinters. The Scottish name for
flakes is “skelbs.”
The inner, or flat face of a flake, is that produced by the blow which
dislodged it from the parent block, core, or nucleus. The outer, ridged
or convex face comprises the other facets, or, in some instances, the
natural surface of the flint. The base, or butt-end of a flake, is that
at which the blows to form it were administered; the other end is the
point.
Flakes may be subdivided into—
1. External, or those which have been struck off by a single blow
from the outer surface of a nodule of flint. Many of these are as
symmetrical as those resulting from a more complicated process of
manufacture, and they have frequently been utilized, especially for
scrapers.
2. Ridged flakes, or those presenting a triangular section. One face
of these sometimes presents the external crust of the flint, as in
Fig. 190. In others, the ridge has been formed by transverse |276|
chipping, as is the case with the long flakes from Pressigny (Fig. 6),
but this method appears to have been almost unknown in Britain.
3. Flat, where the external face is nearly parallel to the internal,
and the two edges are formed by narrow facets, as in Fig. 200.
4. Polygonal, where the external face consists of many facets, as in
Fig. 192.
These several varieties may be long or short, broad or narrow, straight
or curved, thick or thin, pointed or obtuse. The character of the base
may also vary, being rounded or flat, thick or thin, broad or narrow.
The cores from which flakes have been struck are, of course, of various
forms, some having had only one or two flakes removed from them,
and others several. In the latter case they are often more or less
regularly polygonal, though only few of the facets will be of the full
breadth of the flakes, as the external face of every successive flake
carries off some part of the traces of those previously struck off. Not
unfrequently some of the facets are arrested at a little distance from
the end where the blows were struck, in consequence of the flake having
broken short off, instead of the fissure continuing to the end of the
block. Occasionally, and more especially on the Yorkshire Wolds, the
nuclei are very small, and much resemble in character those found, with
numerous flakes, in India, in the neighbourhood of Jubbulpore.[1165]
It has been suggested[1166] that cores were occasionally made on
purpose for use as tools; but this appears very doubtful. Of course,
if a core were at hand, and seemed capable of serving some special
purpose, it would be utilized.
[Illustration: Fig. 189.—Weaverthorpe. 1∕1]
* * * * *
The core here engraved of the full size in Fig. 189 was found by myself
at Weaverthorpe, Yorkshire. I have already suggested that in striking
off such small flakes as those removed from this core, some sort of
punch may have been used, instead of the blows being administered
directly by a hammer. We have no conclusive evidence as to the purpose
to which such minute flakes were applied, but they may have been
fashioned into drills or scraping or boring tools, of very diminutive
size. Such small objects are so liable to escape observation, that
though they may exist in considerable numbers, they are but rarely
found on the |277| surface of the ground. Numerous flakes, however,
quite as minute, with their edges showing evident signs of wear, are
present among the refuse left by the cave-dwellers of the Reindeer
Period of the South of France. As will subsequently be seen, these
minute flakes have been also found in Egypt and in Asia, as well as
in Britain. See Fig. 232 A to 232 F. There is a class of ancient
Scandinavian harpoon-heads, the stems of which are formed of bone with
small flint flakes cemented into a groove on either side so as to form
barbs. Knives of the same kind are subsequently mentioned.
Among the Australians[1167] we find very minute splinters of flint and
quartz secured to wooden handles by “black-boy” gum, and forming the
teeth of rude saws and the barbs of javelins. Some remarkably small
flakes have also been found in the diamond-diggings of South Africa in
company with fragments of ostrich-egg shell, such as with the aid of
the flakes might have been converted into the small perforated discs
still worn as ornaments by the Bushmen.
There are but few published notices of the discovery of English cores
of flint, though they are to be found in numbers over a considerable
tract of country, especially where flint abounds.
I have recorded their finding at Redhill,[1168] near Reigate, and
at Little Solsbury Hill,[1169] near Bath. I also possess numerous
specimens from Herts, Gloucestershire, Sussex, Bedfordshire, Suffolk,
and Yorkshire. In several instances two series of flakes have been
struck off, the one set at right angles to the other. More rarely the
flakes have been obtained from both ends of the block.
A core from the Fens[1170] is in the Museum of the Cambridge
Antiquarian Society, and several were found, with other worked flints,
in the chambered Long Barrow at West Kennet, Wiltshire.
Numerous specimens from Peter’s Finger, near Salisbury, and elsewhere,
are in the Blackmore Museum; and a number were found by General Pitt
Rivers in his researches at Cissbury, Sussex, and by Canon Greenwell
at Grime’s Graves.[1171] Mr. Joseph Stevens has described specimens
from St. Mary Bourne,[1172] Hants. They are recorded also as found with
flakes at Port St. Mary,[1173] Isle of Man.
A long bludgeon-shaped nodule of flint, from one end of which a
succession of flakes had been struck, was found in a grave, with a
contracted skeleton, in a barrow near Winterbourn Stoke,[1174] Wilts.
Illustrations of cores, and of the manner in which flakes have been
struck from them, have been given by various authors.[1175]
The existence of flakes involves the necessity of there having been
cores from which they were struck; and as silicious flakes occur in
almost all known countries, so also do cores. A series of French
_nuclei_ is |278| figured by Mortillet,[1176] and a fine example from
Olonetz,[1177] Russia, by Worsaae. They have also been found in the
Arabian desert.[1178] Those of large size and of regular polygonal form
are rare in Britain and Ireland, and, indeed, generally in Europe.
Some of the largest and most regular occur in Scandinavia. I have also
some good examples from Belgium. Many of the cores from Spiennes, near
Mons, were subsequently utilized as celts; and the same was the case to
some extent at Pressigny, the large cores from which have already been
described. The Mexican[1179] and East Indian[1180] forms, in obsidian
and cherty flint, have also been mentioned. They are unsurpassed for
symmetry and for the skill exhibited in removing flakes from them.
[Illustration: Fig. 190.—Newhaven. 1∕2]
[Illustration: Fig. 191.—Redhill. Reigate. 1∕2]
[Illustration: Fig. 192.—Icklingham. 1∕2]
[Illustration: Fig. 193.—Seaford. 1∕2]
It is worthy of remark that cores and flakes of obsidian, almost
identical in character with those from Mexico, but generally of
small size, have been found in Greece, principally in the island of
Melos.[1181] Specimens are in the Christy Collection, and I possess
several. Obsidian nuclei are also found in Hungary.
Simple flakes and splinters of flint have been found in considerable
numbers over almost the whole of Britain. Of the four here shown,
Fig. 190 was found near Newhaven, Sussex; Fig. 191 near Reigate,
Surrey; Fig. 192 near Icklingham, Suffolk; and Fig. 193 at Seaford,
Sussex. At each of these places they occur in great numbers on the
surface, and near Reigate some thousands were collected nearly forty
years ago by Mr. Shelley,[1182] of whose discoveries I have given an
account elsewhere. The counties in which they principally abound are
perhaps |279| Cornwall,[1183] Devonshire,[1184] Dorsetshire, Wilts,
Hants,[1185] Surrey,[1186] Oxfordshire,[1187] Sussex, Suffolk, Norfolk,
Derbyshire, Lancashire,[1188] and Yorkshire; but they may be said to be
ubiquitous. In some parts of Devonshire, and especially near Croyde,
they occur in great numbers, so great, indeed, as to have led Mr.
Whitley[1189] to suppose them to have been formed by natural causes
rather than by human agency. Far more rational accounts of them have
been given by Mr. Townshend M. Hall,[1190] Mr. H. S. Ellis,[1191] and
Mr. C. Spence Bate.[1192]
Flakes and splinters of flint frequently occur in and around ancient
encampments and settlements, as well as in association with interments
both by cremation and inhumation. Many of the immense number of
“spear-heads” collected by Mr. Bateman in his investigations were
of the simple flake form, and others were flakes with but slight
secondary working at the edges, such as will hereafter be noticed.
Many other instruments which he discovered were merely flakes, such
as the thick-backed cutting instrument of flint three inches long,
with a bronze dagger and two small balls of stone, in a barrow
containing a skeleton near Pickering,[1193] which would appear to
have been of this character. They occurred with burnt bones in
cinerary urns at Broughton,[1194] Lincolnshire, in one case with a
flat bronze arrow-head; at Summer Hill,[1195] near Canterbury; with a
flint arrow-head at Sittingbourne;[1196] with burnt bones and bronze
daggers in a barrow at Teddington,[1197] Middlesex; at Penhow,[1198]
Monmouth; and in the Gristhorpe Barrow,[1199] near Scarborough; with
burnt bones in a circle of stones near Llanaber,[1200] Merionethshire,
where no flint occurs naturally; with burnt bones in an urn beneath
a tumulus at Brynbugeilen,[1201] Llangollen; in a barrow near
Blackbury Castle,[1202] Devon; and in one on Dartmoor;[1203] and
at Hollingsclough and Upper Edge,[1204] Derbyshire. Flakes, not of
flint, but of a hard silicious grit, occurred in a cist with burnt
bones near Harlech;[1205] and of some other hard stone in a cist in
Merionethshire.[1206] Other instances have been cited by General Pitt
Rivers,[1207] who found several rough flakes and splinters of grit
and felspathic ash in cairns near Bangor, North Wales. Some of these
showed signs of rubbing and use on their edges; in some cases they had
the appearance of having been scraped by metal. Whether they were the
weapons and tools of the people buried in the cairns, or |280| merely
votive offerings, appeared to be somewhat doubtful. The urns associated
with them were such as might well belong to the Bronze Period.
Flint flakes are described as found in graves with contracted
interments at Amble,[1208] Northumberland; Driffield,[1209] Yorkshire;
Ballidon Moor,[1210] Derbyshire; Littleton Drew,[1211] and Winterbourn
Stoke,[1212] Wilts. Canon Greenwell[1213] has also found them in
great numbers with interments of different characters. They occurred
with extended burials at Oakley Park,[1214] near Cirencester. In some
of the long barrows they are especially numerous, upwards of three
hundred having been found by Dr. Thurnam at West Kennet,[1215] while
there were three only in that of Rodmarton,[1216] and two were found
at the base of the cairn in the chambered tumulus at Uley,[1217]
Gloucestershire. Another accompanied a skeleton in a long barrow near
Littleton Drew.[1218] Sir Richard Colt Hoare speaks of a great quantity
of chipped flints, prepared for arrows or lances, as having been found
in barrows on Long Street Down,[1219] and at Brigmilston, Wilts;[1220]
but, as a rule, he seems not to have taken much notice of such simple
forms. Others have been discovered with ashes at Helmingham,[1221]
Suffolk.
It is, however, needless, to cite more instances of their occurrence
with interments belonging to the Stone and Bronze Ages, as the presence
of flakes and chippings of flint is in such cases the rule rather than
the exception.
In Scotland, where flint is a scarcer natural product, they are also
found. As instances, I may cite one found in an urn within a cist at
Tillicoultry,[1222] Clackmannanshire; and in a cist in Arran.[1223] In
some parts of Aberdeenshire[1224] and Banffshire they are numerous,
and in the Buchan district are associated with shell mounds, or
kjökken-möddings. They occur also in Lanarkshire and Elgin.[1225] In
Orkney[1226] they abound: as also at the Bin of Cullen,[1227] where
a manufactory of arrow-heads seems to have existed. In cists in
Roxburghshire[1228] were sepulchral urns and numerous flint flakes;
and in Argyllshire[1229] there were in a cist with a skeleton flint
flakes in such numbers as to form a heap from eighteen inches to two
feet in height. Some of white quartz have been found associated with
arrow-heads in Banffshire.[1230] Little heaps[1231] of six or eight
were found in each corner of a grave at Clashfarquhar, Aberdeen. They
abound on the sand-hills near Glenluce and on the Culbin Sands.
Of ancient encampments or settlements where flint flakes occur in
|281| numbers, I may mention Maiden Bower, near Dunstable; Pulpit
Wood, near Prince’s Risborough; Cissbury,[1232] Beltout Castle,
and other encampments in Sussex; Little Solsbury Hill, near Bath;
Castle Ring,[1233] Cannock Chase; Avebury,[1234] Wilts; and Callow
Hill,[1235] Oxfordshire. They have been found in wonderful abundance
on the surface in the counties already mentioned, and their occurrence
has been noticed near Bradford Abbas;[1236] near Folkestone;[1237]
at Possingworth Manor,[1238] Uckfield; near Hastings;[1239] at
Stonham[1240] and Icklingham, Suffolk; near Grime’s Graves,
Norfolk;[1241] at St. Mary Bourne,[1242] Hants; and in a turbary
at Heneglwys,[1243] Anglesea, an island in which no flint occurs
naturally. Two from Carno, Montgomeryshire, are engraved in the
_Archæologia Cambrensis_.[1244] They have also been found under a
submerged forest on the coast of West Somerset.[1245] I have seen a few
flakes made from Lower Tertiary conglomerate.
In districts where flint was an imported luxury, other stones, usually
containing a large proportion of silica, and when broken presenting a
conchoidal fracture, served, so far as the material allowed, the same
purposes as flint. Of this a few instances have already been given.
In some cases even laminated sandstones, shales, and slates seem to
have been utilized. Numerous relics of this kind, some so rude that
their purposes may appear doubtful, were found by the late Mr. S.
Laing,[1246] in Caithness. Large oval flakes, made from sandstone
pebbles, occurred in very great numbers in and around the ancient
dwelling at Skaill, Orkney. In form, however, these approximate more
nearly to the Pict’s knives, of which hereafter, than to ordinary
flakes. The method of their manufacture has been described by Mr.
Laing.[1247]
A curious stone knife or dagger, found beside a stone cist in
Perthshire,[1248] is described as a natural formation of mica-schist,
the peculiar shape of which has suggested its adaptation as a rude but
efficient implement.
Some rude spear-heads of flint and greenstone are said to have been
found near Pytchley,[1249] Northamptonshire; and some of Kentish rag at
Maidstone.[1250] I have also seen them made of Oolitic flint.
Flakes of quartzite have been found, together with some of flint and
quartz and with polished celts, in some of the caverns inhabited during
the Neolithic Period in the Pyrenees of the Ariège,[1251] and also in
the Lake Settlement of Greug.[1252]
* * * * *
When we consider how well adapted for cutting purposes were |282|
these simple flakes of flint, and how they constituted, as it were,
the raw material for so many of the more finished forms, such as
arrow-heads, of which the consumption in ancient times must have been
enormous; and when, moreover, we take into account that in producing a
well-formed flake many waste flakes and mere splinters must probably
have been struck off, and that in forming the large implements of flint
almost innumerable chips or spalls must have been made, their abundance
on the sites of ancient dwelling-places is by no means surprising,
especially as the material of which they are formed is almost
indestructible.
Such fragments of flint must have been among the daily necessities of
ancient savage life, and we can well understand the feeling which led
the survivors of the departed hunter to place in his grave not only
the finished weapons of the chase, but the material from which to form
them, as a provision for him in “the happy hunting grounds,” the only
entrance to which was through the gate of Death.
The occurrence of flint chips and potsherds in the soil of which
barrows are composed, may in some cases be merely the result of their
being made up of earth gathered from the surface of the ground, which
from previous occupation by man was bestrewn with such remains. It is,
however, often otherwise, especially when the flakes are in immediate
association with the interment. The practice of throwing a stone on
a cairn is no doubt a relic of an ancient custom.[1253] The “shards,
flint, and pebbles” which Ophelia should have had thrown on her in her
grave may, as has been suggested by Canon Greenwell,[1254] point to
a sacred Pagan custom remembered in Christian times, but then deemed
irreligious and unholy.
The presence of flint flakes in ancient graves is not, however,
limited to those of the so-called Stone and Bronze Periods, but they
occur with even more recent interments. For it seems probable that
the flint was in some cases buried as a fire-producing agent, and not
as the material for tools or weapons. In a cist at Lesmurdie,[1255]
Banffshire, apparently of early date, were some chips of flint which
appeared to the discoverer to have been originally accompanied by a
steel or piece of iron and tinder. The oxide of iron may, however,
have been merely the result of |283| the decomposition of a piece
of iron pyrites. At Worle Hill,[1256] Somersetshire, “flint flakes,
prepared for arrow-heads,” were found with iron spear-heads and
other objects, though it is very doubtful whether they were in true
association. In Saxon graves,[1257] however, small nests of chipped
flints are not unfrequent, and the same is the case with Merovingian
and Frankish interments, sometimes accompanied by the steels or
_briquets_,[1258] at other times without them. I have a wrought flint
of this class, curiously like a modern gun-flint, from an early
German grave near Wiesbaden. Occasionally flakes of other materials
than flint occur. Their presence in graves is regarded by M. Baudot
as due to a reminiscence of some ancient rite of sepulchre. In the
Anglo-Saxon burial-ground at Harnham Hill,[1259] near Salisbury, and
at Ozengal, steels were also found. Canon Greenwell found a steel, in
form much like those of modern date, in a Saxon grave at Uncleby in
the East Riding of Yorkshire. As has been pointed out by Mr. Akerman,
Scheffer[1260] informs us that so late as the seventeenth century, the
Lapps were buried with their axe, bow, and arrows, and a flint and
steel, to be used both in a life to come and in finding their way to
the scene of their future existence.
Flakes and rudely chipped pieces of flint are also of very common
occurrence on the sites of Roman occupation, as, for instance, at
Hardham,[1261] Sussex, where Prof. Boyd Dawkins found them associated
with Roman pottery. At Moel Fenlli,[1262] also, in the vale of Clwyd,
there occurred with Roman pottery some flint flakes which have been
figured as arrow-heads, and with them what is termed a stone knife,
but which is, however, more probably a whetstone used to sharpen those
of steel. I have myself noticed flint flakes at Regulbium (Reculver),
Verulamium (St. Alban’s), and on other Roman sites. Many of them were
no doubt used for producing fire, but the more finished flakes may
possibly have served as carpenters’ tools for scraping, in the same way
as fragments of glass are in use at the present day.
There is, however, another cause why rude splinters of flint |284|
should accompany Roman remains, especially in the case of villas
in country districts, for the _tribulum_, or threshing implement
employed both by the Romans and other ancient civilized nations,
was a “sharp threshing instrument having teeth,”[1263] in most
cases of flint. Varro[1264] thus describes the _tribulum_:—“Id fit
e tabulâ lapidibus aut ferro exasperatâ, quæ imposito auriga aut
pondere grandi trahitur jumentis junctis ut discutiat e spicâ grana.”
Another form of the instrument was called _traha_ or _trahea_. In the
East, in Northern Africa, Spain, Portugal, Madeira, Teneriffe, and
probably other parts of the world, threshing implements, which no
doubt closely resemble the original _tribula_, are still in use. The
name is still preserved in the Italian _trebbiatrice_, the Spanish
_trilla_, and the Portuguese _trilho_, but survives, metaphorically
alone, in our English _tribulation_. In Egypt their name is _nureg_,
and in Greece ἁλωνίιστρα, from ἁλωνία, a threshing-floor. Drawings of
various _tribula_ have been given by various travellers,[1265] and
the implements themselves from different countries may be seen in the
Christy Collection and in the Blackmore Museum. They are flat sledges
of wood, five to six feet in length, and two or three in breadth, the
under side pitted with a number of square or lozenge-shaped holes,
mortised a little distance into the wood, and having in each hole a
flake or splinter of stone. I have seen them in Spain mounted with
simple pebbles. In those from Madeira the stone is a volcanic rock,
but in that from Aleppo—preserved in the Christy Collection,[1266]
and shown in Fig. 194—each flake is of cherty flint and has been
artificially shaped. Occasionally there are a few projecting ribs or
runners of iron along part of the machine, but in most instances the
whole of the armature is of stone. As each _trilho_ is provided with
some hundreds of chipped stones, we can readily understand what a
number of rough flakes might be left in the soil at places where they
were long in use, in addition to the flakes and splinters which for
centuries have been used for striking a light.
[Illustration: Fig. 194—Tribulum from Aleppo.]
Flakes and splinters of silicious stone, whether flint, jasper, chert,
iron-stone, quartzite, or obsidian, are to be found in almost all
known countries, and belong to all ages. They are in fact |285| the
most catholic of all stone implements, and have been in use “semper,
ubique, et ab omnibus.” Whether we look in our old River-gravels of the
age of the mammoth, in our old cave-deposits, our ancient encampments,
or our modern gun-flint manufactories, |286| there is the inevitable
flake. And it is almost universally the same in other countries—in
Greenland or South Africa, on the field of Marathon or in the backwoods
of Australia, among the sands of Arabia[1267] or on the plains of
America,—wherever such flakes and splinters are sought for, they are
almost sure to be found, either in use among the savage occupants of
the country at the present day, or among civilized nations, left in the
soil as memorials of their more or less remote barbarian ancestors.
* * * * *
Flint flakes are found in great abundance in Ireland, especially in
Ulster, where the raw material occurs in the chalk. At Toome Bridge,
on the shores of Lough Neagh, many thousands have been found, and
they occur in abundance in the valley of the Bann,[1268] and in
slightly raised beaches along the shores of Belfast Lough. They are
rarely more than 4 or 5 inches in length; and symmetrical, flat,
parallel flakes are extremely rare. Many pointed flakes have been
slightly trimmed[1269] at the butt-end, and converted into a sort of
lance-head without further preparation. Such flakes may have pointed
fishing-spears. They are occasionally formed of Lydian stone.
In Scandinavia, the art of flaking flint attained to great perfection,
and flat or ridged symmetrical flakes, as much as 6 inches long, and
not more than 3∕4-inch wide, are by no means uncommon. Occasionally
they are no less than 13 inches long.[1270] Two in the Museum at
Copenhagen[1271] (9 inches) fit the one on the other. The ridge is
sometimes formed by cross-chipping. The bulk of the flakes from the
kjökken-möddings are of a rude character, though very many show traces
of use.
In Germany, long flakes of flint are rare, but one about 6 1∕2 inches
long, found in Rhenish-Hesse, is engraved by Lindenschmit.[1272]
In some parts of France they are extremely plentiful, especially on and
around the sites of ancient flint _ateliers_. Some flakes, like those
produced at Pressigny, were of great length. One not less than 13 1∕4
inches long, and not more than 1 1∕2 inches broad at the butt, found at
Pauilhac, in the Valley of the Gers, has been figured in the _Revue de
Gascogne_.[1273] A flake from Gergovia, 9 inches long, is in the Museum
at Clermont Ferrand.
One 8 3∕4 inches long was found in the Camp de Catenoy[1274] (Oise).
Long flakes found in France have been engraved by numerous
authors,[1275] and some from Belgium by Le Hon.[1276]
Obsidian cores and flakes have been found in Lorraine,[1277] the
material having been brought from Auvergne. |287|
Flakes occur, but not so abundantly, in Spain and Portugal. A
fragment of a ridged flake of jasper, found in the cave of Albuñol in
Spain,[1278] is 1 1∕2 inches long. In one of the Genista Caves[1279] at
Gibraltar there was found one of the long flakes, but of which a part
had been broken off. Another was 6 1∕2 inches long and 5∕8 inch wide.
In Algarve,[1280] Portugal, they have been found up to 15 inches in
length; some of them are beautifully serrated at the edges.
In Italy they are by no means uncommon, sometimes of great length. One,
7 inches long, is figured by Nicolucci.[1281]
Among the Swiss Lake-dwellers considerable use was made of flint
flakes, not only as the material for arrow-heads, but for cutting
tools. So great was the abundance of flint left on the site of some of
their habitations, as at Nussdorf,[1282] that in after ages the spot
was resorted to for generations, in order to procure flints for use
with steel. It was by their being thus known as flint-producing spots
that some of the Lake-dwellings were discovered. A flake nearly 7
inches long, from peat, in the Canton de Vaud, has been engraved by De
Bonstetten.[1283]
A flake 9 inches long from Transcaucasia[1284] has been figured.
In Egypt[1285] flakes of flint have been found in considerable
numbers in certain localities, some of them associated with polished
stone hatchets; others are possibly of no extreme antiquity, though
undoubtedly of artificial origin, and not of merely natural formation,
as has been suggested by Lepsius.[1286] That distinguished antiquary
has, however, found a number of well-formed ridged and polygonal flakes
in Egypt, some of them in a grave which he has reason to assign to
about 2500 B.C.
A vast number of discoveries of flint flakes and other forms of worked
flints has, of late years, been made in Egypt. It will probably be
sufficient to indicate in a note[1287] some of the principal memoirs
relating to the subject. They are found also in the Libyan[1288]
desert. The discoveries at Helouan will be subsequently mentioned.
The presence of numerous flakes, scrapers and other forms of flint
instruments, has also been noticed in Algeria.[1289] They are for the
most part rude and small.
Flint flakes and tools are found on Mount Lebanon,[1290] and on the
Nablus[1291] road from Jerusalem there are mounds entirely composed of
flint chippings. |288|
[Illustration: Fig. 195.—Admiralty Islands.]
In Southern Africa,[1292] near Capetown and Grahamstown, flakes abound
on the surface of the ground, sometimes of chert or flint, but often of
basaltic rock. I have one from Grahamstown 8 inches in length.
Their occurrence in India has already been noticed. The flakes from
Jubbulpore[1293] are for the most part of small size, but some of those
removed from the cores found in the river Indus must have been at least
5 or 6 inches long.
In America, flint, or rather horn-stone flakes, are not uncommon,
though not so often noticed as the more finished forms. Some found in
the mounds of Ohio are of considerable length, one engraved by Squier
and Davis[1294] being 5 1∕2 inches long. Some of the Mexican flakes of
obsidian are fully 6 inches in length.
* * * * *
In ancient times the Ichthyophagi are described by Diodorus[1295] as
using antelopes’ horns and stones broken to a sharp edge in their
fishing, “for necessity teaches everything.” Flakes are still in some
cases used without any secondary chipping or working into form.
We find, for instance, flakes of flint or obsidian, and even of glass,
almost in the condition in which they were struck from the parent
block, employed as lance and javelin-heads, among several savage
people, such as the natives of Australia,[1296] and of the Admiralty
Islands.[1297] One of those said to be in use among the latter people
is shown, half-size, in Fig. 195,[1298] and exhibits the method of
attachment to the shaft. The butt-end of the flake is let into a socket
in a short tapering piece of wood, into the other extremity of which
the end of the long |289| light shaft is inserted; both flake and
shaft are next secured by tying, and then the whole of the socket and
ligatures is covered up with a coating of resinous gum, occasionally
decorated with zigzag and other patterns. Some flakes are mounted as
daggers.
Some of the long parallel flakes also appear to have been hafted.
One such, probably from Mexico, has been engraved by Aldrovandus as
a _culter lapideus_.[1299] A tool in use among the natives of Easter
Island[1300] consisted of a broad flake of obsidian, with a roughly
chipped tang which was inserted in a slit in the handle to which it was
bound, the binding being tightened by means of wooden wedges driven in
under the string.
To return, however, to the flakes of flint which were used in this
country for scraping or cutting purposes, at an early period, when
metal was either unknown or comparatively scarce. Each flake, when
dexterously made, has on either side a cutting edge, so sharp that it
almost might, like the obsidian flakes of Mexico, be used as a razor.
Some flakes indeed seem to have served as surgical instruments, as
the practice of trephining was known in the Stone Period. So long as
the edge is used merely for cutting soft substances it may remain for
some time comparatively uninjured, and even if slightly jagged its
cutting power is not impaired. If long in use, the sides of the blade
become rather polished by wear, and I have specimens, both English
and foreign, on which the polish thus produced can be observed. If
the flake has been used for scraping a surface, say, for instance, of
bone or wood, the edge will be found to wear away, by extremely minute
portions chipping off nearly at right angles to the scraping edge, and
with the lines of fracture running back from it. The coarseness of
these minute chips will vary in accordance with the amount of pressure
used, and the material scraped; but generally speaking, I think that
I am right in saying that they are more delicate and at a more obtuse
angle to the face, than the small chipping produced by the secondary
working of the edge of a flake, of which I shall presently speak. In
all cases where any considerable number of flakes of flint occur, such
as there appears to be good reason for attributing to a remote period,
a greater or less proportion of them will, on examination, be found to
bear these signs of wear upon them, extending over, at all events, some
portion of their edges. |290|
It is, however, difficult if not impossible, always to determine
whether the chipping away of the edge of a flake is merely the result
of use, or whether it is intentional. There can be no doubt that for
many purposes the acute edge of a flake, as originally formed, was too
delicate and brittle, and that it was therefore re-worked by subsequent
chipping, so as to make the angle more obtuse, and thus strengthen
the edge of the tool. It is curious to observe how rarely the edges
of flakes were sharpened by grinding. It was probably considered less
troublesome to form a new flake than to sharpen an old one; in the
same way as it is recorded that the Mexican barbers threw away their
obsidian flakes as soon as they were dull and made use of new ones.
Dr. E. B. Tylor, in the free translation of the passage in Torquemada
relating to these razors, appears, as has been pointed out by Messrs.
Daubrée and Roulin,[1301] to have fallen into a mistake in representing
them to have been sharpened on a hone, the original author having
merely said that the edge of the obsidian flakes was as keen as if they
had been forged in iron, ground on a stone, and finished on a hone.
* * * * *
British flakes with ground edges are by no means common. One from
Yorkshire, in my own collection, is a thin, flat, external flake,
having both edges (which are parallel) ground from both faces to an
angle of about 60°. It has, unfortunately, been broken square across,
about 2 inches from the butt-end, and is 1 inch wide at the fracture.
Another, from Bridlington, is an ovate flat external flake, produced,
not by art, but by natural fracture, and having one side brought to a
sharp edge by grinding on both faces. With the exception of its being
partially chipped into shape at both ends, this grinding is all that
has been done to convert a mere splinter of flint into a serviceable
tool. It is an interesting example of the selection of a natural form,
where adapted for a particular purpose, in preference to making the
whole implement by hand. The small celt, Fig. 31, affords an analogous
instance. In the Greenwell Collection are also two or three very rude
flakes from the Yorkshire Wolds, which are ground at some portion of
their edges.
In a barrow on Seamer Moor, Yorkshire, the late Lord
Londesborough[1302] found, with other relics, a delicate knife made
from a flake of flint, 4 1∕4 inches long, and dexterously ground.
A trimmed flake, like Fig. 239, some small celts, and delicate
lozenge-shaped arrow-heads, like Fig. 276, were also present. The whole
are now in the British Museum.
A flake, from Charleston, in the East Riding, presented to me by Canon
Greenwell, is shown in Fig. 196. It is of thin triangular section,
slightly bowed longitudinally, having one edge, which appears to have
|291| been originally blunt, sharpened by secondary working. The other
edge has been sharpened to an angle of about 45° by grinding both on
the inner and outer faces of the flake. The point, which is irregular
in shape, is rounded over either by friction or by grinding. It seems
well adapted for use as a knife when held between the ball of the thumb
and the end of the first finger, without the intervention of any handle.
[Illustration: Fig. 196.—Charleston. 1∕2]
Another specimen, 4 inches long, ground to a sharp edge along one side,
was in the collection of the late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S., and is now
in mine. It was found near Thetford.
Mr. Flower had also a flake from High Street, near Chislet, Kent, with
both edges completely blunted by grinding, perhaps in scraping stone.
I have two trimmed flakes with the edges carefully ground, from the
neighbourhood of Icklingham, Suffolk, and another ridged flake, 2 3∕8
inches long, pointed at one end and rounded at the other, one side of
which has been carefully ground at the edge. I found it in a field
of my own, in the parish of Abbot’s Langley, Herts. Canon Greenwell
obtained another 2 1∕2 inches long, ground on both edges, from
Mildenhall Fen.
I have seen a flake about 3 inches long, with the edge ground, that
had been found on the top of the cliffs at Bournemouth; and another,
from a barrow near Stonehenge, in the possession of the late Mr. Frank
Buckland.
A flat flake, with a semicircular end, and ground at the edges so as
to form “a beautiful thin ovoidal knife three and a half inches long,”
was found by Dr. Thurnam,[1303] with many other worked flints, in the
chambered long barrow at West Kennet, Wilts. Another, carefully ground
at one edge, was found by Sir R. Colt Hoare,[1304] at Everley.
An oval knife, about 2 inches long, ground at the edge and over a great
part of the convex face, found at Micheldean, Gloucestershire, is in
the museum at Truro.
A cutting instrument, with a very keen edge, nicely polished, is
recorded as having been found, with twenty other flint implements or
tools of various shapes, accompanying a skeleton, in a barrow near
Pickering.[1305] A so-called spear-head, neatly chipped and rubbed, was
found with burnt bones in another barrow near the same place.[1306]
A few flat flakes, ground at the edge, have been discovered
in Scotland. One 2 1∕2 inches long was found at Cromar,[1307]
Aberdeenshire; and a portion of another in a cairn in Caithness,[1308]
in company with a polished perforated hammer and other objects.
Irish flakes are rarely sharpened by grinding. I have, however, one of
Lydian stone,[1309] found in Lough Neagh, and ground to an edge at the
end.
In form the Charleston flake, Fig. 196, much resembles some of the
Swiss flakes, which, from examples that have been found in the |292|
Lake-dwellings, are proved to have been mounted in handles. One of
these, from Nussdorf, in the Ueberlinger See,[1310] is in my own
collection, and is shown in Fig. 197. It is fastened into a yew-wood
handle by an apparently bituminous cement. The edge has been formed
by secondary chipping on the ridged face of the flake. I am unable to
say whether the edge of the flake still embedded in the wood is left
as originally produced or no, but several unmounted flakes from the
same locality have been re-chipped on both edges. In some instances,
however, only one edge is thus worked. In the case of many of the small
narrow flakes from the Dordogne caves, one edge is much worn away,
and the other as sharp as ever, as if it had been protected by being
inserted in a wooden handle.
[Illustration: Fig. 197.—Nussdorf. 1∕2]
From the hole in the handle, this form of instrument would appear
to have been carried attached to a string, like a sailor’s knife at
the present day—a similarity probably due to the somewhat analogous
conditions of life of the old Lake-dwellers to those of seamen. In some
French and Swiss flakes[1311] which seem to have been used in a similar
manner, the ends are squared, and a central notch worked in each,
apparently for the reception of a cord. In this case, a loop at the end
of the cord would answer the same purpose as the hole in the handle,
which with these flakes seem to have been needless. They are abundant
at Pressigny.
A pointed flake in the museum at Berne[1312] is hafted like a dagger,
in a wooden handle, which is bound round with a cord made from rushes.
Some of the Swiss handles are not bored, and occasionally they are
prolonged at one end to twice the length of the flint, so as to form
a handle like that of a table-knife, the flint flake, though let in
to a continuation of the handle, projecting and forming the blade. In
some cases there is a handle at each end, like those of a spoke-shave.
The handles are of yew, deal, and more rarely of stags’-horn; and the
implements, though usually termed saws, are not regularly serrated, and
may with equal propriety be termed knives.
The late Sir Edward Belcher showed me an Eskimo “flensing knife,” from
Icy Cape, hafted in much the same manner. The blade is an ovate piece
of slate about 5 inches long, and is let into a handle made of several
pieces of wood, extending along nearly half the circumference, and
secured together by resin. Other specimens of the same kind are in the
British Museum, and in the Ethnological Museum at Copenhagen. The stone
blades are more like the flat Picts’[1313] knives, |293| such as Fig.
263, than ordinary flint flakes. An iron blade, hafted in a closely
analogous manner by the Eskimos, is engraved by Nilsson.[1314]
As already mentioned, some of the Australian savages about King
George’s Sound make knives or saws on a somewhat similar plan; but
instead of one long flake they attach a number of small flakes in a row
in a matrix of hard resin at one end of a stick. Spears are formed in
the same manner.
In other cases, however, flakes are differently hafted. One such is
shown in Fig. 198, from an original in the Christy Collection. One
edge of this flake has been entirely removed by chipping so as to
form a thick, somewhat rounded back, not unlike that of an ordinary
knife-blade, though rather thicker in proportion to the width of the
blade. The butt-end has then had a portion of the hairy skin of some
animal bound over it with a cord, so as to give it a sort of haft, and
effectually protect the hand that held it. The material of the flake
appears to be horn-stone. Another knife of the same character, from
Queensland, is in the Museum of the Hartley Institution at Southampton.
[Illustration: Fig. 198.—Australia. 1∕2]
Another example, from the Murray River,[1315] but without the skin
handle, has been figured.
A friend in Queensland tried to procure one of these knives for me, but
what he obtained was a flake of glass made from a gin bottle, and the
wrapping was of calico instead of kangaroo-skin. Iron blades[1316] are
sometimes hafted in the same way with a piece of skin. Some Australian
jasper or flint knives,[1317] from Carandotta, are hafted with gum, and
provided with sheaths made of sedge. These gum-hafted knives are in use
on the Herbert River[1318] for certain surgical operations.
Some surface-chipped obsidian knives from California are hafted by
having a strip of otter skin wound round them, and Prof. Flinders
Petrie[1319] has found an Egyptian flint knife hafted with fibre lashed
round with a cord.
Occasionally flakes of quartz or other silicious stone were mounted at
the end of short handles by the Australians, so as to form a kind of
dagger or chisel. One such has been engraved by the Rev. J. G. |294|
Wood.[1320] Another is in the Museum of the Hartley Institution at
Southampton.
In the Berlin Museum[1321] is a curious knife, found, I believe,
in Prussia, which shows great skill in the adaptation of flint for
cutting purposes. It consists of a somewhat lanceolate piece of bone,
about 7 1∕4 inches long, and at the utmost 1∕2 inch wide, and 1∕4
inch thick. The section is approximately oval, but along one of the
narrow sides a groove has been worked, and in this are inserted a
series of segments of thin flakes of flint, so carefully chosen as
to be almost of one thickness, and so dexterously fitted together
that their edges constitute one continuous sharp blade, projecting
about three-sixteenths of an inch from the bone. In some examples
from Scandinavia the flint flakes are let in on both edges of the
blade.[1322] The flakes sometimes form barbs, as already mentioned.
The Mexican[1323] swords, formed of flakes of obsidian attached to a
blade of wood, were of somewhat the same character, and remains of what
appears to have been an analogous sword, armed with flint flakes, have
been found in one of the mounds of the Iroquois country.
Another use to which pointed flint flakes have occasionally been
applied is for the formation of fishing-hooks. Such a hook, the stem
formed of bone, and the returning point made of flint bound at an
acute angle to the end of the bone, has been engraved by Klemm.[1324]
It was found in a grave in Greenland. Fishhooks formed entirely of
flint, and found in Sweden, have been engraved by Nilsson,[1325] and
others, presumed to have been found in Holderness, by Mr. T. Wright,
F.S.A.[1326] These latter are, however, in all probability, forgeries.
* * * * *
Besides the flakes which may be regarded as merely tools for cutting
or scraping, there are some which may with safety be reckoned as saws,
their edges having been intentionally and regularly serrated, though in
other respects they have been left entirely unaltered in form.
* * * * *
A specimen, found in a pit which appeared to have been excavated by
the primitive inhabitants of the district, at Brighthampton, Oxon, has
been figured;[1327] and another oblong flint flake, with a regularly
serrated edge, but the teeth not so deep or well defined as in this
instance, was found by Dr. Thurnam in a chambered long barrow at West
Kennet, Wilts, with numerous flakes and “scrapers.”[1328]
Figs. 199 to 201 represent similar instruments in my own collection
from the Yorkshire Wolds. The largest has been serrated on both edges,
but has had the teeth much broken and worn away on the thinner edge.
|295|
[Illustration: Fig. 199.—Willerby Wold. 1∕1]
Fig. 200 is very minutely toothed on both edges, and has a line of
brilliant polish on each margin of its flat face, showing the friction
the saw had undergone in use, not improbably in sawing bone or horn.
[Illustration: Fig. 200.—Yorkshire Wolds. 1∕1]
Fig. 201 is more coarsely serrated, and shows less of this
characteristic polish, which is observable on a large proportion of
these flint saws. The teeth are on many so minute that without careful
examination they may be overlooked. Others, however, are coarsely
toothed. Canon Greenwell has found saws in considerable numbers,
and varying in the fineness of their serration, in the barrows on
the Yorkshire Wolds, near Sherburn and elsewhere. In the soil of
a single barrow at Rudstone there were no less than seventy-eight
of these saws. Some have been found by Mr. E. Tindall in barrows
near Bridlington,[1329] as well as on the surface. Some well-formed
flint saws have also been found near Whitby,[1330] and some of small
size at West Wickham,[1331] Kent. In the Greenwell Collection is a
finely-toothed saw, made from a curved flake, found at Kenny Hill,
Mildenhall.
Five flint saws, finely serrated, were found in a barrow at
Seaford,[1332] and another on St. Leonard’s Forest,[1333] Horsham. One
was also found in a barrow on Overton Hill,[1334] Wilts. Seven saws,
thirteen scrapers, and other worked flints were among the materials of
another barrow at Rudstone.[1335]
The teeth are usually but not universally worked in the side edges of
the flakes. In Fig. 202 it is the chisel-like broad end of a flake that
has been converted into a saw. This specimen was found by the late
Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S., in a barrow at West Cranmore, Somerset, in
company with numerous flint flakes and “scrapers.” A bronze dagger was
found in the same barrow.
Near Newhaven, Sussex, I found on the downs a flat flake, about 2 1∕2
inches long, and slightly curved sideways towards the point. At this
part the inner curve is neatly worked into a saw, and the outer curve
carefully chipped into a rounded edge as a scraping tool.
A flint knife serrated at the back to serve as a saw was found by Mr.
Bateman in Liff’s Low, near Biggin.[1336]
In Scotland several saws have been procured from the Culbin
Sands,[1337] |296| and near Glenluce.[1338] They are also recorded
from Forglen,[1339] near Banff, and Craigsfordmains,[1340]
Roxburghshire.
In Ireland, flakes converted into saws are scarce; they occur
occasionally, though but rarely, with neolithic interments in France.
In the Museum at le Puy is a very good specimen of a flat flake, neatly
serrated with small teeth, found with a skeleton near that town.
Another, found in a dolmen in Poitou,[1341] has been published by M.
de Longuemar. Mortillet[1342] includes several forms under the general
denomination of _scies_.
[Illustration: Fig. 201.—Scamridge. 1∕1]
[Illustration: Fig. 202.—West Cranmore. 1∕1]
Similar saws to those first described, and made from flakes more or
less coarsely toothed, have been found in the cave-deposits of the
Reindeer Period of the South of France, but in some caves, as, for
instance, that at Bruniquel explored by M. V. Brun, they were much more
abundant than in others. In the Vicomte de Lastic’s cave at the same
place but few occurred, and in most of the caves of the Dordogne they
appear to be absent. An irregularly-notched flake was probably almost
as efficient a saw as one more carefully and uniformly toothed.
Flakes of flint, carefully serrated at the edge, have been found in
the Danish kjökken-möddings[1343]; in Posen,[1344] Prussia; and with
relics of the Early Bronze Period in Spain.[1345] One is recorded from
the Algerian Sahara.[1346] It has been suggested that some serrated
flints were potters’ tools, by which parallel mouldings were produced
on vessels.[1347]
Among the more highly finished Scandinavian stone implements there
is some difficulty in determining exactly which have served the
purpose of saws. The flat, straight tapering instrument, with serrated
edges, which, from its many teeth at regular distances from each
other, Nilsson[1348] is disposed to think has probably been a saw,
Worsaae[1349] |297| regards as a lance-point. I am inclined to think
that they were not saws, for on such specimens as I have examined
minutely I find no trace of the teeth being polished by use. They
cannot, however, in all cases have been lance-heads, as I have one of
those serrated instruments, 8 1∕4 inches long, with the sides nearly
parallel and both ends square.
Some of the crescent-shaped[1350] blades have almost similar teeth
on the straighter edge, and some of these are polished on both faces
as if by being worked backwards and forwards in a groove, and have
no polish between the teeth, such as would result from their being
used crossways like combs. From this I infer that such specimens at
all events have been used for cutting purposes, and not, as may have
been the case with others, as instruments[1351] for dressing skins,
or heckling flax or hemp. As has been pointed out by Professor J. J.
Steenstrup, many of these crescent-shaped blades seem to have had
their convex edges inserted in wooden handles, which would render them
convenient for use as saws. Their action on wood, though not rapid,
is effectual, and with the aid of a little water I have with one of
them cut through a stick of dry sycamore seven-eighths of an inch in
diameter in seven minutes. In Thomsen’s[1352] opinion, these implements
with teeth were intended for saws. Nilsson[1353] also regards some of
them in the same light. The form seems to be confined to the North of
Germany and Scandinavia.[1354] They are frequently found in pairs, one
being smaller than the other. Mr. T. Wright,[1355] after engraving one
of these Danish saws as a British specimen, remarks that several have
been found in different parts of England. I believe this statement
to be entirely without foundation, so far as this particular form is
concerned.
I have left what I originally wrote upon this subject with very little
modification, but Prof. Flinders Petrie’s[1356] discoveries have
thrown a flood of light upon the purposes for which serrated flints
were used. We now know that the Egyptian sickle was formed of a curved
piece of wood in shape much like the jaw-bone of a horse, armed along
the inner edge with a series of serrated flint flakes, cemented into
a groove. Not only are there numerous pictorial representations of
such instruments going back so far as the 4th dynasty, but the sickles
themselves have been found in a complete state, as well as numbers of
the serrated flakes that formed their edge. Similar flakes, which no
doubt served the same purpose, were found by Schliemann on the site of
Troy.[1357] Others have been found at Helouan.[1358] The whole subject
has been treated exhaustively by Mr. Spurrell,[1359] to whose paper the
reader is referred.[1360] Dr. Munro is, however, inclined to regard
most European examples as saws.
I now pass on to an instrument of very frequent occurrence in Britain.
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