BORERS, AWLS, OR DRILLS.
Another of the purposes to which flint flakes were applied appears to
have been that of boring holes in various materials. Portions of stags’
horns, destined to serve either as hammers, or as sockets for hatchets
of stone, had either to be perforated or to have recesses bored in
them; and holes in wood were, no doubt, requisite for many purposes,
though in this country we have but few wooden relics dating back to
the time when flint was the principal if not the only material for
boring-tools. To form some idea of the character of the objects in the
preparation of which such tools were necessary, we cannot do better
than refer to the vivid picture of ancient life placed before us by
the discoveries in the Swiss Lake-dwellings. Besides perforated stone
axes and hammers, such as have been already described in these pages,
we find stag’s horn and wooden hafts or helves, with holes and sockets
bored in them, plates of stone, teeth of animals, bone and stag’s horn
instruments, and wooden knife handles pierced for suspension, and
portions of bark perforated, so as to serve like corks for floating
fishing-nets.
Even in the caverns of the Reindeer Period of the South of France we
find the reindeer horns with holes bored through them in regular rows,
and delicate needles of hard bone with exquisitely formed eyes drilled
through them—one of which has also been found in Kent’s Cavern—as well
as teeth, shells and fossils perforated for suspension as ornaments or
amulets. So beautifully are the eyes in these ancient needles formed,
that I was at one time much inclined to doubt the possibility of their
having been drilled by means of flint flakes; but the late Mons.
E. Lartet demonstrated the feasibility of this process, by himself
drilling the eye of a similar needle with a flint borer, found in one
of the French caves. I have myself bored perfectly round and smooth
holes through both stag’s horn and wood with flint flakes, and when a
|322| little water is used to facilitate the operation, it is almost
surprising to find how quickly it proceeds, and how little the edge of
the flint suffers when once its thinnest part has been worn or chipped
away, so as to leave a sufficient thickness of flint to stand the
strain without being broken off.
[Illustration: Fig. 227.—Yorkshire Wolds. 1∕1]
* * * * *
The most common form of boring tool, to which by some writers the name
of awl or drill[1442] has been given, is that shown in Fig. 227, from
the Yorkshire Wolds. It is formed from a flat splinter of flint, and
shows the natural crust of the stone at the broad end. At the other,
each edge has been chipped away from the flat face, so as to reduce
it by a rapid curve on each side to a somewhat tapering blade, with
a sharp point. The section of this portion of the blade is almost of
the form of half a hexagon when divided by a line joining opposite
angles. A borer of this kind makes a very true hole, as whether turned
round continuously or alternately in each direction, it acts as a
half-round broach or rimer, enlarging the mouth of the hole all the
time it is being deepened by the drilling of the point. The broad base
of the flake serves as a handle by which to turn the tool. Several
boring instruments of this form were found in the pits at Grime’s
Graves,[1443] already so often mentioned.
A borer of this kind has been experimentally[1444] tried and found
efficient for drilling a hole in jet.
[Illustration: Fig. 228. Bridlington. 1∕1]
Borers of the same character occur in Ireland[1445] and in
Scotland,[1446] where natural crystals[1447] of quartz seem also
occasionally to have been used as drills. I have also seen several
found near Pontlevoy, France, in the collection of the Abbé Bourgeois.
Similar boring instruments of flint have been found in Denmark, in
company with scrapers and other tools. Two of them have been engraved
by Mr. C. F. Herbst.[1448]
They are common in some parts of North America, and finely chipped
tools of the kind occur in Patagonia.[1449] They are also found in
Natal[1450] and in Japan.
Sometimes the borer consists of merely a long narrow pointed flake,
which has had the point trimmed to a scraping edge on either side. A
specimen of the kind, found near Bridlington, is shown in Fig. 228. The
point, for about a |323| sixteenth of an inch in width, has been ground
to a nearly square edge, so that it acts like a drill. Such a form was
probably attached to a wooden handle for use, but I doubt whether any
mechanical means were used for giving it a rotary motion as a drill,
and regard these borers rather as hand-tools to be used much in the
same way as a broach or rimer.
Some implements from the lake settlement at Meilen, regarded by Dr.
Keller[1451] as awls or piercers, are perforated at one end, and appear
to be ground over their whole surface.
Occasionally some projecting spur at the side of the flake has been
utilized to form the borer, as is the case in Fig. 229, also from the
Yorkshire Wolds. In this instance, the two curved sweeps, by which the
boring part of the tool is formed, have been chipped from the opposite
faces of the flake, so that the cutting edges are at opposite angles
of the blade, which is of rhomboidal section. This is the case with
some of the Scottish specimens,[1452] which closely resemble Fig. 229.
Such a tool seems best adapted for boring by being turned in the hole
continuously in one direction. In some instances the projecting spur
is so short that it can have produced but a very shallow cavity in the
object to be bored.
[Illustration: Fig. 229.—Yorkshire Wolds. 1∕1]
[Illustration: Fig. 230.—Bridlington. 1∕1]
The tools, of which a specimen is shown in Fig. 230, also appear to
have been intended for boring. It is, however, possible that after all
they may have served some other purpose. That here engraved was found
near Bridlington, and is weathered white all over. It is made from a
flake, and the edge of the blade on the left in the figure is formed as
usual by chipping from the flat face. The other edge is more acute, and
has been formed by secondary chipping on both faces. The spur to the
left, which may have served as a handle for turning the tool round when
in use, has originally been longer, but the end has been lost through
an ancient fracture. The edges at the point of the tool are somewhat
worn away by friction.
I am uncertain whether the instruments shown in Figs. 231 and 232
|324| can be with propriety classed among boring tools, as it is
possible that they may have been intended and used for some totally
different purpose, such, for instance, as forming the tips of arrows,
for which, from their symmetrical form, they are not ill adapted.
Though the points of those, like Fig. 231, are much rounded, it
may be that they were mounted like the chisel-edged Egyptian flint
arrow-heads, of which hereafter. A number of instruments of this form
have been found in Derbyshire and Suffolk, but that here figured came
from the Yorkshire Wolds, and has been made from a part of a thin flat
flake, one edge of which forms the base opposite to the semicircular
point. The side edges, which expand with a sweep to the base, are
carefully chipped to a sharp angle with the face of the flake; but in
some instances this secondary working extends over a greater or less
portion of both faces. Some specimens are also much longer in their
proportions. The original edge of the flake, which extends along the
base, is usually unworn by use, so that if these objects were boring
tools this part may have been protected by being inserted in a notch in
a piece of wood, which in such a case would serve as a handle for using
the tool after the manner of an auger. A few examples of this kind have
been found on the Culbin Sands[1453], Elginshire. The same form has
been found in the Camp de Chassey[1454] (Saône et Loire).
[Illustration: Fig. 231.—Yorkshire Wolds. 1∕1]
[Illustration: Fig. 232.—Yorkshire Wolds. 1∕1]
Fig. 232 is also from the Yorkshire Wolds. Though more acutely pointed
than Fig. 231, it seems to have been intended for much the same
purpose, and it has been formed in a similar manner. The secondary
working is principally on the convex face of the flake, but owing to
an irregularity in the surface of the flat face, a portion of it has
been removed by secondary chipping along one edge, so as to bring it as
nearly as possible in the same plane as the other. For whatever purpose
this instrument may have been designed, its symmetry is remarkable.
I have a somewhat similar instrument from Bridlington, but triangular
in form, with the sides curved slightly inwards, and the two most
highly wrought edges produced by chipping almost equally on both faces
of the flake. Such a form approximates most closely to some of those
which there appears reason for regarding as triangular arrow-heads.
In America, some forms which might be taken for arrow-heads have been
regarded as drills.
There is a series of minute tools of flint to which special attention
|325| has been called by Mr. J. Allen Brown, F.G.S., the Rev. Reginald
A. Gatty[1455], and Mr. W. J. Lewis Abbott, F.G.S.[1456] Through the
kindness of the last, specimens from a kjökken mödding at Hastings are
shown in Figs. 232A, 232B, and 232C. They have been made from small
flakes and are of various forms, though I have only selected three for
illustration. In two of these the end of the flake has been chipped
into a straight scraping edge at an acute angle to the body of the
flake, so as to form a tool which can be held in the hand and used for
scraping a flat surface, perhaps of bone. Whether the chipping of the
edge is intentional or the result of wear, or arising partly from both
of these causes, is a question of secondary importance. The oblique
ends resemble those of the flakes from Kent’s Cavern, Figs. 398–400,
and the _selci romboidale_[1457] of Italian antiquaries. In the other
form, one side of a flake has been chipped in a similar manner, so as
to form a segment of a circle, or occasionally an obtuse angle; the
other side being left intact. This may possibly have been inserted
in wood, and the tool thus formed may have been used for scraping or
carving. Mr. Abbott disagrees with this view, and thinks that many of
the flakes may have been utilized in the formation of fish-hooks. Such
tools have been found in Lancashire, far from the sea, and a series
from hills in the eastern part of that county has been presented to the
British Museum by Dr. Colley March. Owing to their diminutive size they
may readily escape observation. Mr. Gatty has found some thousands of
these “Pygmy flints” on the surface in the valley of the Don between
Sheffield and Doncaster. They no doubt exist in many other districts.
[Illustration:
Fig. 232A. Fig. 232B. Fig. 232C. 1∕1
Hastings.]
[Illustration:
Fig. 232D. Fig. 232E. Fig. 232F. 1∕1
Vindhya Hills.]
Curiously enough, identical forms have been found in some abundance
on the Vindhya Hills[1458] and the Banda district, India; at
Helouan,[1459] Egypt, in France, and in the district of the
Meuse,[1460] Belgium. Such an identity of form at places geographically
so remote does not imply any actual communication between those who
made the tools, but merely shows that some of the requirements of daily
life, and the means at command for fulfilling them being the same,
tools of the same character have been developed, irrespective of time
or space.
|326|