JAVELIN AND ARROW HEADS.
I now come to a series of flint weapons, small but varying in size,
which though presenting a general resemblance in character to each
other, are still susceptible of being classified under several types.
The similarity is probably due to their having been all intended for
the same purpose—that of piercing the skin, whether of enemies in war,
or of animals in the chase; the differences may result from some of
the weapons having served for warlike and others for hunting purposes.
The variation in size probably arises from some of them having tipped
spears to be held in the hand for close encounters, while others may
have been attached to lighter shafts, and formed javelins to be thrown
at objects at some distance; and the majority of the smaller kind were,
beyond doubt, the heads of arrows discharged from bows.
The possibly successive ideas of pointing a stake as a weapon of
offence, of hardening the point by means of fire, and of substituting
a still harder point made of horn, bone, or stone, must have occurred
to mankind at the earliest period of its history, and weapons of one or
all of these kinds are to be found among savage tribes in all parts of
the world. The discovery of the bow, as a means of propelling javelins
on a small scale to a distance, seems to belong to a rather higher
grade of culture, and its use is not universal among modern savages.
The use of the bow and arrow was totally unknown to the aborigines
of Australia,[1629] and even the Maories[1630] of New Zealand—who
were by no means in the lowest stage of civilization—had, when first
discovered, no bows and arrows, nor even slings; in fact, no missile
weapon except the lance, which was thrown by hand.
In Europe, however, the use of the bow seems to date back to a
|361| very remote period, as in some of the cave-deposits of the
Reindeer Period of the South of France, what appear to be undoubtedly
arrow-heads are found. In other caves, possibly, though not certainly,
inhabited at a somewhat later period, such arrow-heads are absent,
though what may be regarded as harpoon-heads of bone occur; and in the
River Gravel deposits, nothing that can positively be said to be an
arrow-head has as yet been found, though it is barely possible that
some of the pointed flakes may have served to tip arrows.
The Greek myth[1631] that bows and arrows were invented by Scythes,
the son of Jove, or by Perses, the son of Perseus, though pointing
to an extreme antiquity for the invention, not improbably embodies
a tradition of the skill in archery of the ancient Scythians and
Persians.[1632]
The simplest form of stone-pointed spear or lance at present in use
among savages, consists of a long sharp flake of obsidian, or some
silicious stone, attached to a shaft, like that shown in Fig. 195;
and arrows, tipped with smaller flakes, having but little secondary
working at the sides, beyond what was necessary to complete the point,
and to form a small tang for insertion into the shaft, may also be
seen in Ethnological collections. Between these almost simple flakes
and skilfully and symmetrically-chipped lance and arrow heads, all the
intermediate stages may be traced among weapons still, or until quite
recently, in use among savages; as well as among those which once
served to point the weapons of the early occupants of this country.
It is indeed probable that besides these stone-tipped weapons, other
seemingly less effective, but actually more deadly missiles, were
in use among them in the form of poisoned arrows; but as these at
the present day are usually tipped with hard wood or bone, as better
adapted than stone for retaining the poison, the same was probably the
case in ancient times; and while those of wood have perished, those of
bone, if found, have not as yet been recognized. Such arrow-heads of
bone were also in use without being poisoned, as, for instance, among
the Finns, or Fenni, as Tacitus calls them, whose principal weapons
were, for want of iron, bone-pointed arrows.[1633] The use of poisoned
arrows had, among the Greeks and Romans, long ceased in classical
times,[1634] and is always represented |362| by authors, from the
time of Homer downwards, as a characteristic of barbarous nations; and
yet, in our own language, a word in common use survives as a memorial
of this barbarous custom having been practised by the Greeks probably
long before the days of Homer. For from τόξον a bow (or occasionally
an arrow[1635]), was derived τοξικὸν—_toxicum_—the poison for arrows;
a term which gradually included all poisons, even those of the milder
form, such as alcohol, the too free use of which results in that form
of poisoning still known among us as _intoxication_.
One of the first to mention the discovery of flint arrow-heads
in Britain was Dr. Plot, who, in his “Natural History of
Staffordshire”[1636] (1686), speaking of the use of iron by “the
Britains” in Cæsar’s time, observes: “we have reason to believe that,
for the most part at lest, they sharpen’d their warlike instruments
rather with stones than metall, especiall in the more northerly and
inland countries, where they sometimes meet with flints in shape of
arrow-heads, whereof I had one sent me by the learned and ingenious
Charles Cotton, Esq., found not far from his pleasant mansion at
Beresford, exactly in the form of a bearded arrow, jagg’d at each
side, with a larger stemm in the middle, whereby I suppose it was fixt
to the wood.” “These they find in Scotland in much greater plenty,
especially in the prefectury of Aberdeen, which, as the learned S^r
Robert Sibbald[1637] informs us, they there call Elf-arrows—_Lamiarum
Sagittas_—imagining they drop from the clouds, not being to be found
upon a diligent search, but now and then by chance in the high beaten
roads.” “Nor did the Britans only head their arrows with flint, but
also their _mataræ_ or British darts, which were thrown by those that
fought _in essedis_, whereof I guess this is one I had given me, found
near Leek, by my worthy friend Mr. Thomas Gent, curiously jagg’d at
the edges with such-like teeth as a sickle, and otherwise wrought upon
the flat, by which we may conclude, not only that these arrow and
spear-heads are all artificial, whatever is pretended, but also that
they had anciently some way of working of flints by the toole, which
may be seen by the marks, as well as they had of the Egyptian porphyry;
which, as the aforesaid worthy Gent. Sir Robert Sibbald, thinks, they
learned of the Romans, who, as Aldrovandus[1638] assures us, anciently
used such weapons made of stones. However, still, |363| it not being
hence deducible, but they may be British, they are not ill-placed here,
whatever original they have had from either nation.”
Plot gives engravings both of a stemmed and barbed arrow-head, and of a
leaf-shaped lance-head or knife.
Sir Robert Sibbald, in his[1639] “Scotia Illustrata,” 1684, expresses
his belief that the flint arrow-heads are artificial. He possessed
two, one like the head of a lance and the other like the end of an
anchor, or tanged and barbed. He also relates the account given him by
the Laird of Straloch, in Aberdeenshire, which he had passed on to the
historian of Staffordshire.
It will be observed that Plot alludes to different opinions regarding
these instruments, it being a matter in dispute whether they were
artificial, natural, or partly natural; in the same manner as at the
time when the flint implements were first discovered in the River
Gravels doubts were expressed by some as to their artificial origin,
while others regarded them as fossils of natural formation; and others
again carried their unconscious Manichæism so far as to ascribe all
fossils, and we may presume these included, to diabolical agency.
The old Danish collector, Olaf Worm, speaks of a flint of a dark
colour[1640] exhibiting the form of a spear-head with such accuracy
that it may be doubted whether it is a work of art or of nature, and
of others like daggers, which, as being found in ancient grave-hills,
are regarded by some as the arms of an early people; while others doubt
whether they are the work of art or nature; and others consider them to
be thunderbolts. One reason in former times for doubting the artificial
origin of the most highly finished instruments was ignorance of how
such objects could have been chipped out. After describing one of the
beautiful Danish daggers, with the delicately “ripple-marked” blade and
the square ornamented handle, Worm remarks—“si silex ullo modo arte
foret tractabilis, potius Arte quam Naturâ elaboratum esse hoc corpus
jurares.”[1641]
Aldrovandus[1642] engraves a flint arrow-head as a Glossopetra—a stone
which, according to Pliny,[1643] “resembleth a man’s tongue, and
groweth not upon the ground, but in the eclipse of the moone falleth
from heaven,” and which “is thought by the magicians to be verie
necessarie for those that court faire women.”
But perhaps one of the most curious of these early notices of flint
|364| arrow-heads is that given in the “Catalogue and Description of
the Natural and Artificial Rarities belonging to the Royal Society
and preserved at Gresham College,”[1644] made by Nehemiah Grew, M.D.,
F.R.S. In Part III., Chap. V., Of Regular Stones, Dr. Grew speaks of
“The flat Bolthead—_Anchorites_. Of affinity with that well described
by Wormius[1645] with the title of _Silex venabuli ferreum cuspidem
exacte referens_. By Moscardo[1646] with that of _Pietre Ceraunie_;
who also figures it with three or four varieties. This like those
of a perfect Flint and semiperspicuous. ’Tis likewise, in the same
manner, pointed, like a _Speer_, having at the other end, like those of
Moscardo, a short handle. But, moreover, hath this peculiar, that ’tis
pointed or spiked also backward on both sides of the Handle, with some
resemblance to an Anchor or the head of a Bearded Dart, from whence I
have named it. ’Tis likewise tooth’d on the edges, and the sides as
it were wrought with a kind of undulated sculpture, as those before
mentioned. Another different from the former, in that it is longer,
hath a deeper indenture, but no handle. Both of them strike fire like
other _flints_.” There is a representation given of this Anchorites,
which shows it to have been a common barbed arrow-head with a central
stem.
Moscardo’s[1647] figures which are here cited represent for the most
part tanged arrow-heads. He says that Bonardo relates that they fall
from the clouds, and that those who carry them cannot be drowned or
struck by lightning. They produce, moreover, pleasant dreams.
Mention has already been made of the superstition attaching to flint
arrow-heads in Scotland, where they were popularly regarded as the
missiles of Elves. In speaking of them Dr. Stuart[1648] quotes Robert
Gordon of Straloch, the well-known Scottish geographer, who wrote about
1661. After giving some details concerning elf-darts, this writer says
that these wonderful stones are sometimes found in the fields and in
public and beaten roads, but never by searching for them; to-day,
perhaps one will be found where yesterday nothing could be seen, and
in the afternoon in places where before noon there was none, and this
most frequently under |365| clear skies and on summer days. He then
gives instances related to him by a man and a woman of credit, each
of whom while riding found an arrow-head in their clothes in this
unexpected way. Mr. F. C. Lukis, F.S.A.,[1649] draws a distinction
between the elf-shot or elf-arrow and the elf-dart, the latter being
of larger dimensions and leaf-shaped. He gives an engraving of one
which has been mounted in a silver frame and worn as a charm. The cut
is here reproduced, as Fig. 271. The initials at the back are probably
those of the owner, who mounted the amulet in silver, and of his wife.
It was worn by an old Scottish lady for half a century. Others thus
mounted were exhibited in the Museum of the Archæological Institute at
Edinburgh in 1856.[1650]
[Illustration: Fig. 271.—Elf-Shot.]
Another arrow-head, also thus mounted, is engraved by Douglas,[1651]
but in this instance it was found in Ireland, where “the peasants call
them elf-arrows, and frequently set them in silver, and wear them on
their necks as amulets against the AITHADH or elf-shot.” Others are
engraved in the _Philosophical Transactions_[1652] and in Gough’s
“Camden’s Britannia.”[1653] Sir W. Wilde[1654] informs us that in the
North of Ireland, when cattle are sick and the cattle doctor or fairy
doctor is sent for, he often says that the beast has been elf-shot, or
stricken by fairy or elfin darts, and by some legerdemain contrives to
find in its skin one or more poisoned weapons, which, with some coins,
are then placed in the water which is given the animal to drink, and a
cure is said to be effected. The Rev. Dr. Buick,[1655] in an article on
Irish flint arrow-heads, has given some particulars as to their use in
curing cattle that are bewitched, and the Folklore Society[1656] has
published some details as to the beliefs still existing with regard to
fairy darts. The same view of disease being caused by weapons shot by
fairies at cattle, and |366| much the same method of cure, prevailed,
and indeed in places even now prevails, in Scotland.[1657]
The late Dr. J. Hill Burton informed me that it is still an article of
faith that elf-bolts after finding should not be exposed to the sun, or
they are liable to be recovered by the fairies, who then work mischief
with them.
Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt has recorded a similar elf-arrow
superstition[1658] as obtaining in Derbyshire, where flint arrow and
spear heads are by some regarded as fairy darts, and supposed to
have been used by the fairies in injuring and wounding cattle. It
was with reference to discoveries near Buxton, in that county, that
Stukeley wrote—“Little flint arrow-heads of the ancient Britons, called
elfs’-arrows, are frequently ploughed up here.”[1659]
The late Sir Daniel Wilson[1660] gives many interesting particulars
regarding the elf-bolt, elf-shot, or elfin-arrow, which bears the
synonymous Gaelic name of _Sciat-hee_, and cites from Pitcairn’s
“Criminal Trials,” the description of a cavern where the archfiend
carries on the manufacture of elf-arrows with the help of his attendant
imps, who rough-hewed them for him to finish. He also mentions the
passage in a letter from Dr. Hickes[1661] to Pepys, recording that my
Lord Tarbut, or some other lord, did produce one of those elf-arrows
which one of his tenants or neighbours took out of the heart of one of
his cattle that died of an usual death (_sic_). Dr. Hickes had another
strange story, but very well attested, of an elf-arrow that was shot at
a venerable Irish bishop by an evil spirit, in a terrible noise louder
than thunder, which shaked the house where the bishop was.
Similar superstitions prevailed among the Scandinavian[1662] nations,
by whom a peculiar virtue was supposed to be inherent in flint
arrow-heads, which was not to be found in those of metal.
The fact, already mentioned, of arrow-heads of flint being appended to
Etruscan[1663] necklaces of gold, apparently as a sort of charm, seems
to show that a belief in the supernatural origin of these weapons, and
their consequent miraculous powers, was of |367| very ancient date.
It has still survived in Italy,[1664] where the peasants keep flint
arrow-heads to preserve their houses from lightning, believing that
the lightning comes down to strike with a similar stone—a superstition
which Professor Gastaldi also found prevalent in Piedmont. In some
instances they are carried on the person as preservatives against
lightning, and in parts of the Abruzzo[1665] they are known as _lingue
di S. Paolo_, and the countryman who finds one devoutly kneels down,
picks it up with his own tongue, and jealously preserves it as a most
potent amulet. In the Foresi Collection[1666] at the Paris Exhibition
were some arrow-heads mounted in silver as amulets, like those in
Scotland, but brought from the Isle of Elba. Another has been engraved
by Dr. C. Rosa.[1667]
M. Cartailhac[1668] has published an interesting pamphlet on such
superstitions, and Professor Bellucci has also dilated upon them. They
are abundant in the neighbourhood of Perugia.[1669]
It is a curious circumstance, that necklaces formed of cornelian beads,
much of the shape of stemmed arrow-heads, with the perforation through
the central tang, are worn by the Arabs of Northern Africa at the
present day, being regarded, as I was informed by the Rev. J. Greville
Chester, as good for the blood. Similar charms are also worn in Turkey.
I have a necklace of fifteen such arrow-head-like beads, with a central
amulet, which was purchased by my son in a shop at Kostainicza,[1670]
in Turkish Croatia. Among the Zuñis[1671] of New Mexico, stone
arrow-heads are frequently attached to figures of animals so as to form
charms or fetishes.
Enough, however, has been said with regard to the superstitions
attaching to these arrow-heads of stone; the existence of such a
belief in their supernatural origin, dating, as it seems to do, to a
comparatively remote period, goes to prove that even in the days when
the belief originated, the use of stone arrow-heads was not known,
nor was there any tradition extant of a people whose weapons they had
been. And yet it is probable that of all the |368| instruments made
of stone, arrow-heads would be among the last to drop out of use,
being both well adapted for the purpose they served, and at the same
time formed of a material so abundant, that with weapons so liable
to be lost as arrows, it would be preferred to metal, at a time when
this was scarce and costly. In this country, at all events, the
extreme scarcity of bronze arrow-heads is remarkable, while we know
from interments that flint arrow-heads were in common use by those
who employed bronze for other weapons or implements. There appears to
be some doubt as to whether the arrow-heads, or rather the flakes of
black flint or obsidian which have been found in considerable numbers
associated with bronze arrow-heads on the field of Marathon, were made
in Greece, or whether they were not rather in use among some of the
barbarian allies of the Persian King. M. Lenormant[1672] is clearly
of the opinion that they are not of Greek origin,[1673] but this is
contested by others, and probably with reason. Whatever their origin,
there is a strong argument against stone arrow-heads having been in use
among the Greeks at so late a period as the battle of Marathon, B.C.
490, in the fact that Herodotus,[1674] writing but shortly afterwards,
records, as an exceptional case, that in the army of Xerxes, _circa_
B.C. 480, the arrows of some of the Æthiopian contingent were tipped
with stone, while those of some Indian nations were even pointed with
iron. So early as the days of Homer the arrow-heads of the Greeks were
of bronze, and had the three longitudinal ribs upon them, like those in
that metal found at Marathon, for he speaks of the χαλκήρἐ ὀϊστόν[1675]
and applies to it the epithet τριγλώχιν.[1676]
Even among such rude tribes as the Massagetæ and Scythians, the
arrow-heads, in the days of Herodotus, were of bronze; as he records
an ingenious method adopted by one Ariantas,[1677] a king of the
Scythians, to take a census of his people by levying an arrow-head from
each, all of which were afterwards cast into an enormous bronze vessel.
Besides the Æthiopians there was another nation which made use of
stone-pointed arrows in Africa, as is proved by the arrows from
Egyptian tombs, of which specimens are preserved in several of our
museums. The head, which is of flint, differs however from |369|
all the ordinary forms, inasmuch as it is chisel-shaped rather than
pointed, and in form much resembles a small gun-flint. The tip of
one of these, secured to the shaft by bitumen, is shown in Fig. 272.
The original is in the British Museum. In my own collection are some
specimens of such arrows. Their total length is about 35 inches and
the shafts for about two-thirds of their length are made of reed, the
remainder towards the point being of wood. Near the notch for the
string are distinct traces of there having been a feather on either
side, in the same plane as the notch. It is probable that arrow-heads
of similar character may have been in use in Britain, though they have
hitherto almost escaped observation, owing to the extreme simplicity of
their form. To these I shall subsequently recur.
[Illustration: Fig. 272.—Egypt. 1∕1]
Some of the Egyptian arrows[1678] have supplemental flakes at the
sides, so as practically to make the edge of the arrow-head wider.
In October, 1894, the Ghizeh Museum acquired from a Sixth Dynasty tomb
at Assiut, two squadrons of soldiers, each of forty figures carved in
wood. The figures of one set, presumed to be Egyptians, have a brown
complexion and are armed with bronze-tipped spears and with shields.
The figures are about 13 inches high. The other group is shorter, and
the soldiers are black-skinned and armed with bow and arrows only;
each has a bow in his left hand, and in his right four arrows with
chisel-shaped heads of flint.[1679]
The better-known forms of arrow-heads which occur in Britain may be
classed as the leaf-shaped, the lozenge-shaped, the tanged or stemmed,
and the triangular, each presenting several varieties. The arrow-heads
of the third class are in this country usually barbed; those of the
fourth but rarely.
* * * * *
Whether the forms were successively developed in this order is a
question difficult of solution; but in an ingenious paper by Mr. W.
C. Little, of Liberton, published early in this century, being “An
Inquiry into the Expedients used by the Scotts before the Discovery of
Metals,”[1680] the lozenge-shaped are regarded as the earliest; next,
those |370| barbed with two witters,[1681] but no middle tang; and
last, the tanged. The same author argues from analogy that the ancients
could extend this flint manufacture to other purposes, “as the same
ingenuity which formed the head of an arrow could also produce a knife,
a saw, and a piercer.”
Colonel A. Lane-Fox, now General Pitt Rivers, in his second lecture on
“Primitive Warfare,”[1682] arranges the forms of arrow-heads in the
same manner as I have here adopted, and shows that the transition from
one form to the other is easy and natural. There are, indeed, some
arrow-heads of which it would be impossible to say whether they were
leaf-shaped or lozenge-shaped, or whether they were lozenge-shaped or
tanged.
Sir William Wilde regards the triangular as the primary form, and the
leaf-shaped and lozenge-shaped as the last.
Mr. W. J. Knowles[1683] has suggested a somewhat different
classification, but it seems unnecessary to alter the arrangement here
adopted. He does not enter into the question of the development of the
forms. An exhaustive paper on Irish flint arrow-heads, by the Rev. Dr.
Buick,[1684] may be usefully consulted.
Whatever may have been the order of the development of the forms, it
would, in my opinion, be unwarrantable to attempt any chronological
arrangement founded upon mere form, as there is little doubt of the
whole of these varieties having been in use in one and the same
district at the same time, the shape being to some extent adapted to
the flake of flint from which the arrow-heads were made, and to some
extent to the purposes which the arrows were to serve. The arrow-heads
in use among the North American Indians,[1685] when intended for
hunting, were so contrived that they could be drawn out of the wound,
but those destined for war were formed and attached to the shaft in
such a manner, that when it was attempted to pull out the arrow, its
head became detached, and remained in the wound. The poisoned arrows
of the Bushmen of South Africa[1686] are in like manner made with
triangular heads of iron, which become detached in the body if an
attempt is made to withdraw the arrow from the wound that it has caused.
I have already remarked on the difficulty of distinguishing between
javelin and arrow heads; but, from their size, I think that the late
Dr. Thurnam was justified in regarding those engraved as Figs. 273,
274, 275, as heads of javelins; and they may therefore be taken
first in order. Two of them have already been engraved.[1687] Their
beautifully worked surfaces had, however, hardly had justice done them,
and, by |371| the kindness of Dr. Thurnam, I was able to have them
engraved afresh full size. They were found in 1864, in company with
another almost identical in form with the middle figure, in an oval
barrow on Winterbourn Stoke Down, about a mile and a half north-west of
Stonehenge, close to the head of a contracted skeleton. They are most
skilfully chipped on both faces, which are equally convex, and they are
not more than a quarter of an inch in thickness. Three are leaf-shaped,
and one lozenge-shaped, and this latter, though larger, is thinner and
more delicate. They have acquired a milky, porcellanous surface while
lying in the earth. They are all four now in the British Museum. As has
been remarked by Dr. Thurnam, objects of this description have rarely
been found in barrows.
[Illustration:
Fig. 273. Fig. 274. Fig. 275.
Winterbourn Stoke.]
The two javelin-heads, if such they be, found by Mr. J. R. Mortimer
in the Calais Wold barrow, near Pocklington, Yorkshire,[1688] are
lozenge-shaped and much more acutely pointed, and were accompanied
by two lozenge-shaped arrow-heads. By the kindness of the late Mr.
Llewellynn Jewitt they are all four here reproduced as Figs. 276
to 279. A similar javelin-head to Fig. 277, 2 3∕4 inches long, now
in the British Museum, was found by the late Lord Londesborough
in a barrow on Seamer |372| Moor, near Scarborough.[1689] A fine
lozenge-shaped javelin-head (5 inches) was found with arrow-heads,
scrapers, and knives, near Longcliffe,[1690] Derbyshire, and some
delicate arrow-heads, broken, at Harborough Rocks,[1691] in the same
county. Javelin-heads of much the same form as those from Winterbourn
Stoke and Calais Wold occur not unfrequently in Ireland, but are rarely
quite so delicately chipped. Lozenge-shaped arrow-heads are recorded
from a cairn at Unstan,[1692] Orkney, and from the Culbin Sands.[1693]
The class having both faces polished, though still only chipped at the
edges, like Wilde’s[1694] Fig. 27, has not, except in Portugal, as
yet occurred out of Ireland. A few of these may have served as knives
or daggers, as they are intentionally rounded by grinding at the more
tapered end, which at first sight appears to have been intended for the
point and not for the handle. The long lozenge-shaped form is found in
the Government of Vladimir, Russia.[1695]
[Illustration:
Fig. 276. Fig. 277. Fig. 278. Fig. 279.
Calais Wold Barrow.]
Large lozenge-shaped lance-heads were occasionally in use among the
North American Indians;[1696] but the more usual form is a long blade,
notched at the base to receive the ligature which binds it to the
shaft. |373|
* * * * *
Of leaf-shaped arrow-heads, which form the first class now to be
described, there are several minor varieties, both in outline and
section, some being longer in proportion to their breadth than others,
rounder or more pointed at the base, thicker or thinner, or more
carefully chipped on one face than the other. A few typical examples
are given full size in the annexed woodcuts. The originals are all in
my own collection, unless otherwise specified.
* * * * *
Fig. 280 is from the neighbourhood of Icklingham, Suffolk, of flint
become nearly white by weathering, and carefully chipped on both
faces, one of which is, however, more convex than the other. I have a
larger but imperfect specimen of the same form from Oundle. A nearly
similar arrow-head, of yellow flint, from Hoxne, Suffolk, has been
figured.[1697] It was supposed to have occurred in the same deposit as
that containing large palæolithic implements and elephant remains; but
nothing certain is known on this point, and from the form there can be
no hesitation in assigning it to the Neolithic Period. A rather smaller
arrow-head, but of much the same character, was found at Bradford
Abbas, Dorset.[1698] Professor Buckman had several leaf-shaped arrows
from the same neighbourhood. Some of them were long and slender, more
like Fig. 286.
In Fig. 281 is shown an arrow-head of rather broader proportions,
from Gunthorpe, Lincolnshire, which has been engraved in the
_Reliquary_,[1699] whence the block is borrowed. I have specimens
of the same form, delicately chipped on both faces, and found near
Icklingham and Lakenheath, Suffolk. Occasionally, one face of the
arrow-heads of this form is left nearly flat.
[Illustration: Fig. 280.—Icklingham.]
[Illustration: Fig. 281.—Gunthorpe.]
[Illustration: Fig. 282.—Yorkshire Wolds.]
Fig. 282 shows a smaller specimen in the extensive Greenwell
Collection. In this instance, the flake from which the arrow-head was
made has been but little retouched on the flat face. It is slightly
curved |374| longitudinally, but probably not to a sufficient extent
to affect the flight of the arrow. This form is of common occurrence on
the Yorkshire Wolds, though very variable in its proportions, and also
in point of symmetry, both as regards outline and similarity of the two
faces.
[Illustration: Fig. 283.—Yorkshire Wolds.]
[Illustration: Fig. 284.—Little Solsbury Hill.]
In Fig. 283 is shown another and broader form, from Butterwick, on the
Yorkshire Wolds. It is in the same collection, and is worked on both
faces. The sides are slightly ogival, so as to produce a sharper point.
[Illustration: Fig. 285.—Yorkshire Wolds.]
[Illustration: Fig. 286.—Bridlington.]
Occasionally, instead of being sharply pointed, arrow-heads are more
oval in form. An instance of this kind is given in Fig. 284, the
original of which was found by Mr. Francis Galton, F.R.S., on the
occasion of a visit with me to the camp of Little Solsbury Hill, near
Bath. It is of flint that has become white with exposure, equally
convex on the two faces, and rather thick in proportion to its size. I
have a somewhat similar but broader specimen from the camp of Maiden
Bower, near Dunstable, and others even more rounded at the point, and
larger and thinner, from Willerby Wold, Yorkshire, and from Icklingham.
I have one Yorkshire specimen, which is almost circular in form,
and bears traces of grinding on one of its faces. In the Greenwell
Collection are specimens of almost all intermediate proportions between
an oval like Fig. 284 and a perfect circle. |375|
More lanceolate forms are shown in Figs. 285 and 286, both from
Yorkshire. Fig. 285, though worked on both faces, still exhibits
portions of the original surface of the flake from which it was made;
but Fig. 286, from Grindale, near Bridlington, is of transparent
chalcedonic flint, beautifully and symmetrically worked over both
faces. This elongated form is not of common occurrence. I have a
beautiful example, of the same general character, but pointed at either
end, found near Icklingham, Suffolk. A large example of this form, from
Derbyshire, in the Bateman Collection, may have been a javelin-head.
[Illustration: Figs. 287 and 288.—Yorkshire Wolds.]
Other and shorter forms are shown in Figs. 287 and 288, the former of
which has been made from a flat flake, the original surface of which
remains intact on a large portion of each face. Fig. 288, on the
contrary, is carefully chipped over the whole of both faces, which are
equally convex. It has a slightly heart-shaped form.
* * * * *
It will have been observed that in all these specimens the base of the
arrow-head is much more rounded that the point. This, however, is by no
means universally the case with the leaf-shaped arrow-heads, the bases
of which are in some instances almost, if not quite, as acute as the
points. It is, in fact, sometimes difficult to say which of the ends
was intended for the point.
[Illustration: Fig. 289.—Lakenheath.]
[Illustration: Figs. 290 and 291.—Yorkshire Wolds.]
* * * * *
Fig. 289 shows a large arrow-head from Lakenheath, Suffolk, from the
collection of the late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S. It is equally convex
on both faces, and almost equally sharp at both ends. In the Greenwell
Collection are similar specimens from Burnt Fen, Cambs. |376| Others,
of the same character, but of smaller size, are engraved in Figs. 290
and 291. Both the originals are from the Yorkshire Wolds.
That shown in Fig. 290 is in the Greenwell Collection. It is thin,
slightly curved longitudinally, and very neatly worked into shape at
the edges. It is a form of not unfrequent occurrence in the Yorkshire
Wolds, sometimes of larger dimensions, and more roughly chipped, but
more commonly of smaller size. I have a beautifully-made arrow-head of
nearly the same size and shape, found at Lakenheath, Suffolk. It is not
more than one-eighth of an inch in thickness. One of wider proportions
from Burnt Fen is in the Greenwell Collection. Fig. 291 is thicker in
proportion to its width, more convex on one face than the other, and
less acutely pointed at the base.
In Figs. 292 and 293 are shown some more or less unsymmetrical
varieties of form. Fig. 292 is, towards the point, equally convex on
each face; but at the base the flat inner face of the original flake
has been left untouched, so that the edge is like that of a “scraper,”
or of a round-nosed chisel. Though the point is, in all respects,
identical with that of undoubted arrow-heads, and though I have placed
it here among them, it is possible that that end may, after all, have
been intended for insertion in a handle, and that it was a small
cutting tool, and not an arrow-head.
[Illustration: Figs. 292 and 293.—Yorkshire Wolds.]
There can be no doubt of the purpose of Fig. 293, which is of white
flint delicately chipped, and is equally convex on the two faces. On
one side the outline is almost angular, instead of forming a regular
sweep, so that it shows how easy is the passage from the leaf-shape to
the lozenge form.
There are often instances like that afforded by the arrow-head engraved
in Fig. 294, where it is hard to say under which form a specimen should
be placed. The original of this figure forms part of the Greenwell
Collection, and is neatly worked on both faces. I have a somewhat
broader arrow-head of the same character, which I found in the camp of
Maiden Bower, near Dunstable. General Pitt Rivers found one of the same
form, and one like Fig. 311, within an earthwork at Callow Hill,[1700]
Oxfordshire. Another was found with a perforated hammer, a flint flake
ground at the edge, some scrapers, and other objects, in a cairn in
Caithness.[1701] One like Fig. 294, but smaller, was found in the
Horned Cairn[1702] of Get, at Garrywhin, Caithness. A large specimen
from Glenluce[1703] has been figured. Another, very thin, found at
Urquhart, Elgin, is in the Edinburgh Museum.
[Illustration: Fig. 294.—Yorkshire Wolds.]
* * * * *
It is to arrow-heads of this leaf-shaped form, but approximating |377|
closely to the lozenge-shaped, that Dr. Thurnam[1704] is inclined to
assign a connection with the class of tumuli known as long barrows; and
in support of this view he has cited several cases of their discovery
in this form of barrow, in which no barbed arrow-heads have hitherto
been found. Some leaf-shaped arrow-heads were found in a long barrow at
Walker’s Hill, Wilts.[1705]
* * * * *
The annexed cut, kindly furnished by the Society of Antiquaries, shows
an arrow-head from a long barrow near Fyfield, Wilts. It is delicately
chipped, and weighs only forty-three grains. Another, 1 1∕2 inches in
length, from a long barrow on Alton Down, is of surprising thinness,
and weighs only thirty grains. Others, it would seem purposely injured
at the point, were found in the long chambered barrow at Rodmarton,
Gloucestershire.[1706] Others, again, were found by Mr. Bateman in
long barrows in Derbyshire and Staffordshire. One of these, from
Ringham Low, is 2 1∕4 inches long and 1 inch broad, yet weighs less
than forty-eight grains. In Long Low, Wetton,[1707] were three such
arrow-heads, and many flakes of flint. Dr. Thurnam, in speaking of the
leaf-shaped as the long-barrow type of arrow-head, does not restrict it
to that form of tumulus, but merely indicates it as that which is alone
found there. The form indeed occurred elsewhere, thus, one was found in
a bowl-shaped barrow at Ogbourne,[1708] Wilts.
[Illustration: Fig. 295.—Fyfield.]
The Calais Wold barrow,[1709] already mentioned as having produced
four lozenge-shaped javelin and arrow heads, is circular, while
that on Pistle Down, Dorsetshire,[1710] which contained four
beautifully-chipped arrow-heads of this type, is oblong.
Leaf-shaped arrow-heads are mentioned as having been found with burnt
bones in Grub Low, Staffordshire.[1711] The same forms, more or less
carefully chipped, and occasionally almost flat on the face, are
frequently found on the surface in various parts of Scotland,[1712]
especially in the counties of Aberdeen, Banff, Elgin, and Moray.
One not of flint, but apparently of quartzite, was found near
Glenluce,[1713] Wigtownshire. Numbers have been found on the Culbin
Sands,[1714] and at Urquhart.[1715] They are comparatively abundant
in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Suffolk, but rarer in the southern
counties of England. They |378| have been found at Grovehurst,[1716]
near Milton, Kent, and I have picked up a specimen near Kit’s Coty
House. I have seen specimens found at Redhill, near Reigate;[1717] near
Bournemouth; at Prince Town, Dartmoor; and near Oundle; besides the
localities already mentioned.
[Illustration: Fig. 296.—Bridlington.]
[Illustration: Fig. 297.—Newton Ketton.]
Typical lozenge-shaped arrow-heads are, in Britain, and, indeed, in
other countries, rarer than the leaf-shaped. That shown in Fig. 296
has been made from a flat flake, and is nicely chipped on both faces,
though not quite straight longitudinally. It was found at Northdale
Farm, Grindale, Bridlington. A Scottish specimen, from Urquhart,[1718]
Elginshire, slightly smaller, has been figured. The original of Fig.
297 forms part of the Greenwell Collection, and has been made from
a very thin, transparent flake. It is rather less worked on the
face opposite to that here shown. It was found at Newton Ketton,
Durham. One like Fig. 297 was found on Bull Hill,[1719] Lancashire.
A regularly-chipped arrow-head of lozenge shape is said to have been
found at Cutterly Clump, Wilts;[1720] and I have seen a few specimens
from Derbyshire. Those from the Calais Wold Barrow have already been
mentioned.
A diamond-shaped arrow-head was found at Cregneesh,[1721] Isle of Man;
and another, as well as one of leaf shape, within a stone circle near
Port Erin.[1722] Lozenge-shaped arrow-heads are frequently found in
Scotland.
[Illustration: Figs. 298 and 299.—Yorkshire Wolds.]
A more elongated form is shown in Figs. 298 and 299, taken from
specimens found on the Yorkshire Wolds. Both of them are neatly chipped
on either face, and have but little left of the original surface of the
flakes from which they were formed. One of the shorter sides of Fig.
299 is somewhat hollowed, _possibly_ to give a slight shoulder, and
thus prevent its being driven into the shaft.
This is more evidently the case with the arrow-head represented in
|379| Fig. 300, which, like so many others, comes from the Wolds of
Yorkshire. It is made from a slightly curved flake, and is more convex
on one face than the other, especially at the stem or tang.
In the collection of Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield, is another
Yorkshire arrow-head, which is leaf-shaped, but provided with a slight
tang.
Leaf-shaped arrow-heads, with a decided stem like that of the leaf,
found in Arabia and Japan, will be mentioned at a subsequent page.
[Illustration: Fig. 300.—Yorkshire Wolds.]
[Illustration: Fig. 301.—Amotherby.]
Another of these stemmed but barbless arrow-heads, from the same
district, is shown in Fig. 301. It was found at Amotherby, near Malton,
and was given to me by the late Mr. Charles Monkman, of that place. It
has been made from a flat flake, and has been worked into shape by a
slight amount of chipping along the edges, which does not extend over
the face. There are numerous arrow-heads of the same class, though
not of the same form, which have been made from flakes of the proper
thickness, by a little secondary working to give them a point, and by
slightly trimming the butt-end of the flake. They usually approximate
to the leaf-shape in form, but, as might be expected, vary considerably
in size, proportions, and the amount of symmetry displayed. It seems
needless to engrave specimens.
[Illustration: Fig. 302.—Iwerne Minster.]
The weapon point shown in Fig. 302 is so large that possibly it may
be regarded as that of a javelin, and not of an arrow. In was in the
collection of Mr. H. Durden, of Blandford, and is now in the British
Museum. It was found on Iwerne Minster Down, Dorsetshire. It is boldly
and symmetrically chipped, thick in proportion to its breadth, and
equally convex on both faces; though distinctly stemmed, it can hardly
be said to be barbed. It much resembles an Italian specimen in the
Arsenal of Turin.[1723]
A somewhat more distinctly-barbed arrow-head from the Yorkshire Wolds
is represented in Fig. 303. Its thickness, 5∕16 inch, is great in
proportion to its size; the two faces are equally convex, and the
stem widens out slightly at the base. The same is the case with a
smaller and thinner arrow-head in my collection, of somewhat similar
form, found near the camp of Maiden Bower, Dunstable. A third, from
the Yorkshire Wolds, presents the same peculiarity, which is still
more apparent in an arrow-head from a barrow on Seamer Moor, near
Scarborough,[1724] if indeed it has been correctly figured. |380|
A magnificent specimen of much the same type as Fig. 303, but nearly
twice as long, has been kindly lent me for engraving by Messrs.
Mortimer, of Driffield, Yorkshire. It was found in the neighbourhood
of Fimber, and is shown in Fig. 304. It is neatly chipped over both
faces, which are equally convex, and the stem is carefully shaped and
of considerable thickness. The edges, as is not unfrequently the case,
are serrated.
[Illustration: Fig. 303.—Yorkshire Wolds.]
The fine arrow-head engraved as Fig. 305 shows the barbs or “witters”
still more strongly developed. One of them is, however, less pointed
than the other. From its size, this and others may have formed the
heads of javelins rather than of arrows, though arrow-heads as large
are still in use among some savage tribes. It was found at Pick Rudge
Farm,[1725] Overton, Wilts, in company with the oblong implement
engraved as Fig. 255. It is now in the Blackmore Museum, the Trustees
of which kindly allowed me to figure it.
I have a very fine specimen with even longer barbs, from Ashwell,
Herts, which is shown in Fig. 305A.
[Illustration: Fig. 304.—Yorkshire Wolds.]
[Illustration: Fig. 305.—Pick Rudge Farm.]
Fig. 306 represents another unusually large specimen, found on Sherburn
Wold, Yorkshire. It is nicely worked on both faces, and the end of the
stem or tang has been carefully chipped to a sharp semicircular edge,
well adapted for fixing into the split shaft. One similar to it was
found on Bull Hill,[1726] Lancashire. Mr. A. C. Savin, of Cromer, |381|
has a rather smaller arrow-head of this type, but with the sides more
curved outwards, like Fig. 313, found near Aylsham. Barbed arrow-heads
of various forms and sizes are of frequent occurrence in some parts of
the Yorkshire Wolds and Moors, and in parts of Berkshire, Oxfordshire,
Gloucestershire, Suffolk and Derbyshire.
[Illustration: Fig. 305A.—Ashwell.]
[Illustration: Fig. 306.—Sherburn Wold.]
[Illustration:
Fig. 307. Fig. 308. Fig. 309.
Fig. 310. Fig. 311. Fig. 312.
Yorkshire Wolds.]
It would be tedious to attempt to exhibit all the different varieties,
but specimens of the more ordinary forms are given in Figs. 307 to 312,
from originals principally in the Greenwell Collection. As a rule,
there is but little difference in the convexity of the two faces,
though very |382| frequently one face is decidedly flatter than the
other; and occasionally the flat face of the original flake has been
left almost untouched. Fig. 311 affords an example of this kind,
being nearly flat on the face not shown, while the other face still
retains part of the crust of the flint nodule from which the flake was
struck. The central stem or tang varies much in its proportions to the
size of the arrow-head, and occasionally forms but an inconsiderable
projection, as in Fig. 309, making the form approximate to the
triangular. Sometimes, as in Fig. 312, the ends of the barbs are
carefully chipped straight, as is the case with many arrow-heads from
the more southern parts of England, some of which will shortly be
noticed. An arrow-head like Fig. 312 was found near Ashwell,[1727]
Herts.
[Illustration: Figs. 313 and 314.—Yorkshire Wolds.]
Before quitting the arrow-heads of the Yorkshire Wolds, I must insert
figures of two other specimens illustrative of another form. Of
these, that shown in Fig. 313 was found at Northdale Farm, Grindale,
Bridlington. It is thick in proportion to its size, and skilfully
chipped on both faces. The tang is thin and slight. The other
arrow-head Fig. 314 is not so thick in proportion. In both, if the
sweep of the outline were continued past the barbs, it would about
meet the extremity of the tang, and give a leaf-shaped form; so that
it seems probable that this class was made by first chipping out the
simple leaf-shaped form, and then working in a notch on either side
to produce the tangs and barbs. The same type occurs in Suffolk. An
exaggerated example, rather like Fig. 320 but broader, found near
Icklingham, is shown in Fig. 314A.
[Illustration: Fig. 314A.—Icklingham.]
The next specimen that I have selected for engraving, Fig. 315, is
from another part of the country, having been found by myself in
1866 on the surface of a field, at the foot of the Chalk escarpment
between Eddlesborough and Tring, Herts. It can hardly be regarded as
unfinished, though one of the surfaces is very rough and the outline
far from symmetrical. It rather shows how rude were some of the
appliances of our savage predecessors in Britain. Curiously enough,
some barbed flint arrow-heads of nearly similar form, and but little
more |383| symmetrical (to judge from the engravings), were found in
1763 at Tring Grove, Herts,[1728] with an extended skeleton. They lay
between the legs, and at the feet were some of the perforated plates
of greenish stone of the character of Fig. 354. An arrow-head of much
the same form was found in a barrow near Tenby,[1729] with human bones
and a part of a curious ring-shaped ornament, supposed to be of ivory.
The long tapering arrow-head shown in Fig. 316 affords a contrast to
this broad form. Its barbs are unfortunately not quite perfect, but
the form being uncommon I have engraved it. It was found in Reach Fen,
Cambridgeshire. A ruder example of the same form as Fig. 316, from
Bourn Fen, has been figured in Miller and Skertchly’s “Fen-land.”[1730]
A longer specimen, almost as acutely pointed, and with square-ended
barbs, found on Lanchester Common,[1731] Durham, is in the Museum of
the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle. I have several others of the
same type from Suffolk, some with the sides curved slightly inwards.
[Illustration: Fig. 315.—Eddlesborough.]
[Illustration: Fig. 316.—Reach Fen.]
[Illustration: Fig. 317.—Isleham.]
The next Figure (317) is illustrative of the extraordinary amount
of care and skill that was sometimes bestowed on the manufacture of
objects so liable to be broken or lost in use as arrow-heads. This
specimen was found at Isleham, Cambridgeshire, and has unfortunately
lost its central stem, the outline of which I have restored from a
nearly similar arrow-head found at Icklingham, Suffolk, which has lost
both its barbs. It is very thin, so much so that its weight is only
thirty-eight grains, but it is neatly chipped over the whole of both
faces. Nothing, however, can exceed the beautiful regularity of the
minute chipping by which the final outline was given to the edges,
extremely small flakes having been removed at regular intervals so
close to each other that there are twenty of them in an inch. The inner
sides and ends of the barbs are worked perfectly straight, the ends
forming right angles to the sides of the arrow-head, and the inner
sides being nearly parallel with each other, so that the barbs are
somewhat dovetailed in form.
The broader, but almost equally beautiful arrow-head shown in Fig.
|384| 318 was found in front of the face of an unburnt body, in a
barrow at Rudstone, near Bridlington, by Canon Greenwell. I have a
beautiful specimen of the same type from Dorchester Dykes, Oxon, given
to me by the late Mr. Davey, of Wantage. It is shown in Fig 318A. A
less highly finished example from Chatteris Fen[1732] has been figured.
[Illustration: Fig. 318.—Rudstone.]
[Illustration: Fig. 318A.—Dorchester Dykes.]
[Illustration: Fig. 319.—Lambourn Down.]
[Illustration: Fig. 320.—Fovant.]
The ends of the barbs thus chipped straight sometimes, as in Fig.
312, form a straight line. Occasionally, as in the arrow-heads found
by Sir R. Colt Hoare[1733] in one of the Everley barrows, the base
of the barbs forms an obtuse angle with the sides of the arrow-head,
so that there is a sharp point at the inner side of the barbs. In
others the end forms an acute angle with the sides of the arrow-head,
so that the point of each barb is at the outer side. A beautiful
specimen of this kind is shown in Fig. 319. It is one of six, varying
in size and somewhat in shape, but all beautifully worked, found in
barrows on Lambourn Down, Berks, and now in the British Museum. In
some few instances the sides of the arrow-head are rather ogival
in form (like the Scotch |385| specimen, Fig. 326), which adds to
the acuteness of the point. In one of this character from a barrow
on the Ridgeway Hill,[1734] Dorsetshire, and others from one of the
Woodyates barrows,[1735] the barbs are also acutely pointed at the
outer side. I have a rather smaller specimen than that figured, from
Lakenheath, Suffolk, and others from Thetford and Reach Fen, with the
sides even more ogival than in Fig. 326. Others of the same character,
found in Derbyshire, are in the Bateman Collection. In some of the
arrow-heads[1736] from the Wiltshire barrows the barbs are inordinately
prolonged beyond the central tang, which is very small. Fig. 320,
copied from Hoare,[1737] gives one of those from a barrow near Fovant,
found with a contracted interment, in company with a bronze dagger and
pin, and some jet ornaments. One of similar character was found in a
barrow on Windmill Hill,[1738] Avebury, but its barbs are not so long.
An arrow-head with equally long barbs, but with the central tang of the
same length as the barbs, was found in a dolmen in the Morbihan, and is
in the Musée de St. Germain.
[Illustration: Fig. 321.—Yorkshire Moors.]
Before proceeding to notice one or two Scottish specimens, I must
devote a short space to an exceptional form of arrow-head shown in
Fig. 321. Like so many others, it is from the Yorkshire Moors, and was
probably either barbed on both sides or intended to have been so. But
one of the barbs having been broken off, possibly in the course of
manufacture, the design has been modified, and the stump, so to speak,
of the barb, has been rounded off in a neat manner by surface-flaking
on both faces. The one-barbed arrow-head thus resulting presents some
analogies with several of the triangular form, such as Figs. 336 to
338, about to be described.
[Illustration: Figs. 322 and 323.—Yorkshire Wolds.]
Arrow-heads either accidentally lost before they were finished, or
thrown away as “wasters,” in consequence of having been spoilt in
the making, are occasionally found. Examples, apparently of both
classes, are shown in Figs. 322 and 323. The originals form part of the
Greenwell Collection. Fig. 322, from Sherburn Wold, appears to have
been completely finished, with the exception of the notch on one side
of the central tang. The face not shown in the figure exhibits on the
left side a considerable portion of the surface of the original flake,
the edge of which has been neatly trimmed along the right side of the
face here shown. The base has been chipped on both faces to a sharp
hollow edge, in which one notch has been neatly worked to form the
barb and one side of the stem. There is no apparent reason why |386|
the other notch should not have been formed, so that the probability
is that the arrow-head was lost just before completion. In the other
case the arrow-head, after being skilfully chipped on both faces into a
triangular form, has had one of the notches worked in its base; but in
effecting this the tool has been brought so near the centre of the head
as to leave insufficient material for the tang, and the barb has also
been broken off. In this condition it appears to have been thrown away
as a waster.
Whether these views be correct or not, one deduction seems allowable,
viz., that the barbed flint arrow-heads were, as a rule, finished at
their points, and approximately brought into shape at their base,
before the notches were worked to form the central tang and develop the
barbs.
A curious double-pointed arrow-head from Brompton,[1739] Yorkshire, is,
by the kindness of the Society of Antiquaries, shown in Fig. 323A. It
had probably at first only a single point, and having been broken was
trimmed into its present shape. Some of the “exceptional” forms from
Brionio, in the Veronese, approximate to this, but with all respect to
the Italian archæologists, I agree with Mr. Thomas Wilson,[1740] and
cannot accept these forms as genuine.
[Illustration: Fig. 323A. Brompton. 1∕1]
I must now give a few examples of the stemmed and barbed flint
arrow-heads found in Scotland, which, however, do not essentially
differ in character from those of the more southern part of Britain.
First among them I would place a remarkably fine specimen found in the
Isle of Skye,[1741] which has already been published more than once. It
is very acutely pointed, and expands at the base so as to give strength
to the barbs, which are slightly curved inwards. From its size it may
have served to point a javelin rather than an arrow.
The edges of some of the Scottish arrows are sometimes neatly serrated.
An example of this kind is given in Fig. 325, from a specimen in the
National Museum at Edinburgh. It is formed of chalcedonic flint, and
was found with others of ordinary types at Urquhart,[1742] Elgin.
The original of Fig. 326 is in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries
of London, and was found in Aberdeenshire. Its sides (like those of
some in the National Museum at Edinburgh) are slightly ogival, so as to
give sharpness to the point. Another from Urquhart,[1743] Elgin, has
been figured, as well as one from Ballachulish,[1744] with straighter
sides. One from Montblairy, Banff,[1745] is of the same type, as is one
from Kilmarnock.[1746] The sides of Fig. 327 are curved outwards. This
arrow-head was found in Glenlivet, Banff, a district where arrow-heads
are common, and is in the Greenwell Collection, now the property of Dr.
Allen Sturge, at Nice. |387|
I have already mentioned the counties of Scotland in which “elf-bolts”
are most abundantly found. I may now enumerate a few of the spots,
and the characters of the specimens of this form. One much like Fig.
327, but with the barbs more pointed, is figured by Wilson,[1747] as
well as another[1748] like Fig. 305, found in a tumulus at Killearn,
Stirlingshire. One from the Isle of Skye,[1749] like Fig. 316, and
another from Shapinsay, Orkney,[1750] like Fig. 312, have been figured
by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Others, found with burnt
bones in an urn deposited in a cairn in Banff, have been engraved by
Pennant,[1751] and some from Lanarkshire are given in the _Journal of
the Archæological Association_.[1752]
[Illustration: Fig. 324.—Isle of Skye.]
[Illustration: Fig. 325.—Urquhart.]
[Illustration: Fig. 326.—Aberdeenshire.]
[Illustration: Fig. 327.—Glenlivet.]
Stemmed and barbed arrow-heads are recorded to have been found
in |388| Aberdeenshire at the following localities:—Slains,[1753]
Forgue,[1754] Kintore;[1755] Kildrummy,[1756] Strathdon,[1757]
and Cruden;[1758] one 3 inches long and 2 1∕2 inches wide, at
Tarland,[1759] and a large number at Cloister-Seat Farm,[1760] Udny.
In Banff, at Mains of Auchmedden,[1761] Eden[1762] and Bowiebank, King
Edward; Cullen of Buchan,[1763] Glen Avon,[1764] Alvah,[1765] and
Longman,[1766] Macduff.
In Elgin, at St. Andrew’s, Lhanbryd;[1767] Urquhart, and elsewhere.
In Forfarshire, at Carmyllie[1768] and elsewhere. Some Ayrshire[1769]
specimens have been figured.
They have also been found near Gretna Green[1770] and Linton,[1771]
Peebles, and in numbers on the Culbin Sandhills,[1772] Morayshire,
and Killearn,[1773] Stirlingshire. In Fifeshire, in a cist at
Dairsie;[1774] near Fordoun,[1775] Kincardineshire; Glenluce,[1776]
Wigtownshire; and stemmed but not barbed, at Philiphaugh,[1777]
Selkirkshire. This last is shown in Fig. 327A.
[Illustration: Fig. 327A. Philiphaugh.]
Other specimens, of which the form is not mentioned, were exhibited in
a temporary Museum of the Archæological Institute at Edinburgh from
the following localities:—Caithness,[1778] Cruden, Cromar, Kinellar,
Aberdeenshire; Robgill, Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire; Arbuthnot, Bervie
and Garvoch, Kincardineshire; Braidwood and Carluke, Lanarkshire; and
Burgh-head, Wigtownshire.
Other have been found at Elchies, Keith,[1779] and Oldtown of
Roseisle,[1780] Morayshire; Abernethy,[1781] Inverness; and at
Mortlach[1782] and Lesmurdie,[1783] Banff.
In this place, also, it will be well to mention some of the discoveries
of stemmed and barbed flint arrow-heads in England which have not
already been cited. The following have been engraved:—One much like
Fig. 303, found in the Kielder Burn,[1784] North Tyne; one like
Fig. 327, found with burnt bones in an urn on Baildon Common,[1785]
Yorkshire; another from Lake, Wilts;[1786] others, like Figs. 312
and 319, from the Green Low Barrow,[1787] Derbyshire; one like Fig.
308, from |389| Hastings;[1788] one like Fig. 307, found near
urns, scrapers, &c., at Wavertree, near Liverpool;[1789] some like
Fig. 307, with ashes, at Carno,[1790] Montgomeryshire; and several
others from barrows in Wilts,[1791] Dorsetshire, and Derbyshire. A
considerable number of flint arrow-heads are engraved in a plate
in the _Transactions of the Historical Society of Lancashire and
Cheshire_.[1792] They are, however, for the most part forgeries. Others
from East Lancashire[1793] and Rochdale[1794] have been described.
Besides the discoveries recorded by Hoare and Bateman, and those made
in Yorkshire,[1795] such arrow-heads are mentioned as having been found
in the Thames;[1796] in the cemetery at Standlake,[1797] Oxon; in West
Surrey,[1798] from which a number of arrow-heads of various forms have
been figured by Mr. F. Lasham; St. Leonard’s Forest,[1799] Horsham;
Plymouth,[1800] on Dartmoor,[1801] Devonshire; at Horndean,[1802]
Hants; and in large numbers in Derbyshire, especially on Middleton
Moor.[1803] Both the leaf-shaped and the barbed forms have been found
near Leicester.[1804] A number have been found at Carn Brê,[1805]
Cornwall.
Arrow-heads, of which the form is not specified, have been found at
Wangford,[1806] Suffolk; Cliffe,[1807] near Carlebury, on the Yorkshire
side of the Tees; Priddy,[1808] Somerset; Sutton Courtney,[1809] Berks;
Lingfield Mark Camp,[1810] Surrey; near Ramsgate;[1811] Bigberry
Hill,[1812] near Canterbury; Manton,[1813] Lincolnshire; Anstie
Camp[1814] and Chart Park, Dorking.
Besides specimens already cited, and many from the Yorkshire Wolds
and Moors, there are in my collection stemmed and barbed arrow-heads
from the following localities:—One much like Fig. 307, from Staunton,
near Ixworth, Suffolk; many others from West Stow, Lakenheath, and
Icklingham, in the same county; from Hunsdon, near Ware, Brassington,
Derbyshire, and Turkdean, Gloucestershire, much like Fig. 308; one
from Abingdon, like Fig. 327; and one from St. Agnes, Truro, of the
same form as Fig. 317, but not so delicately worked; and others from
Wicken and Reach Fens, Cambs. I have also |390| numerous examples of
different forms from Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, and from the
neighbourhood of Wallingford. The Earl of Ducie has a series found near
Sarsden House, Chipping Norton.
In the British Museum is a stemmed and barbed arrow-head, rather more
curved at the sides than Fig. 307, found at Hoxne, Suffolk. Another
of the same class, from Necton, Norfolk, is in the Norwich Museum,
together with a smaller specimen like Fig. 308, from Attleborough. In
the Cambridge Antiquarian Society’s Museum is one like Fig. 306, but
with one of the barbs square-ended. It is 2 5∕8 inches long, and 1 1∕2
inch wide, and very thin, and was found in Burwell Fen. Another, like
it, but 2 1∕4 inches long, was found near Aldreth, Cambs., and was in
the collection of the Rev. S. Banks. Canon Greenwell obtained one of
somewhat similar character, but narrow, from Barton Mills, Suffolk;
and the Rev. C. R. Manning found one like Fig. 311 on a tumulus near
Grime’s Graves, Norfolk. One of the same class is in the Penzance
Museum; and Mr. Spence Bate, F.R.S., has shown me a broken one like
Fig. 308, found under six feet of peat at Prince Town, Dartmoor, where
also a leaf-shaped arrow-head was found. Prof. Buckman had one much
like Fig. 327, found at Barwick, Somersetshire. One like Fig. 309, from
Milton, near Pewsey, Wilts, is in the collection of Mr. W. H. Penning,
F.G.S. Mr. Durden had one rather smaller than Fig. 308 from the
neighbourhood of Blandford. I have seen them both stemmed and barbed
and leaf-shaped, found near Bournemouth. Sir John Lubbock has one with
square-ended stem, and barbs separated from it by a very narrow notch,
found at Shrub Hill, Feltwell, Norfolk; and numerous specimens exist in
other collections.
[Illustration: Fig. 328.—Icklingham.]
[Illustration: Fig. 329.—Langdale End.]
[Illustration: Fig. 330.—Amotherby.]
Before entering into the circumstances under which flint arrow-heads
have been discovered, it will be well to describe the remaining
class—the triangular. Some of these differ only from those last
described in the absence of the central stem. Although this form is
very common in Ireland and in Scandinavia, it occurs but rarely in
Britain. The arrow-head shown in Fig. 328 was found near Icklingham,
Suffolk, and was formerly in the collection of Mr. H. Trigg, of Bury
St. Edmunds. Messrs. Mortimer possess a very similar specimen from
the Yorkshire Wolds near Fimber. One has also been figured by Mr.
C. Monkman[1815] as from Yorkshire. An arrow-head from Forfarshire,
and one or two others of this type, are in the National Museum at
Edinburgh. One from Ellon,[1816] Aberdeenshire, has been engraved, as
|391| well as one of much more elongated form, with a semicircular
notch at the base, from Glenluce,[1817] Wigtownshire. A broader
arrow-head of the same type was found by the Rev. James M. Joass at
Golspie, Sutherland, and is now in the Dunrobin Museum. An example
was also found by Canon Greenwell in the material of a barrow at
Childrey,[1818] Berks. Prof. Flinders Petrie has found the type in
Egypt.[1819]
A beautiful specimen of another double-barbed triangular form is shown
in Fig. 329. It was found at Langdale End, on the Moors of the North
Riding of Yorkshire, and is in the Greenwell Collection. It has been
surface-chipped over part of one face, but on the other it still shows
the central ridge of the flake from which it was made. The sides are
neatly serrated.
Fig. 330 represents a broader and less distinctly barbed form. The
original was found at Amotherby, near Malton, and is chipped over both
faces. I have another longer specimen from Sherburn, the base of which
is less indented. Allied to this longer form, but having the sides
more curved, is that shown in Fig. 331. The original was found by
Canon Greenwell in one of the barrows examined by him at Weaverthorpe,
Yorkshire. Varieties of this form, with the sides more or less
straight, are of not unfrequent occurrence in Yorkshire. The same type
has been found near Mantua.[1820]
[Illustration: Fig. 331.—Weaverthorpe.]
[Illustration: Fig. 332.—Lakenheath.]
[Illustration: Fig. 333.—Yorkshire Wolds.]
The more perfectly triangular form shown in Fig. 332 is of rather rare
occurrence. This arrow-head was found near Lakenheath, Suffolk, and is
now in the Greenwell Collection. It is neatly chipped over both faces,
which are equally convex. I possess other specimens from Suffolk.
Some arrow-heads of the same shape from Gelderland are in the Christy
Collection.
In many instances rude triangular arrow-heads have been formed from
flakes and splinters of flint, which were evidently selected as being
nearly of the desired form, and were brought into shape by the least
possible amount of subsequent chipping. The secondary working on Fig.
333 nowhere extends back so much as an eighth of an inch from the
edges, and the bulb of percussion of the splinter of flint from which
it was made is at the right-hand angle of the base, but not on the face
here figured. |392|
In Fig. 334 the bulb is at the back of the left-hand angle, but this
specimen is much thicker, and shows a considerable amount of skilful
chipping on both faces. The angle at the bulb is rounded, while on
the opposite side of the base it is somewhat curved downwards, so as
to form a kind of barb. This obliquity of the face is more apparent
in Fig. 335, though the barb is less pronounced. The flat face of the
original flake is in this instance left nearly untouched, but the ridge
side has been neatly wrought by removing a series of minute parallel
flakes. This form occurs in Ireland,[1821] and has been regarded as
rather a knife than an arrow-head. I have seen an arrow-head of much
the same form found at Bournemouth.
[Illustration: Fig. 334.—Yorkshire Wolds.]
[Illustration: Fig. 335.—Yorkshire Wolds.]
[Illustration: Fig. 336.—Bridlington.]
[Illustration: Fig. 337.—Bridlington.]
The character of surface-flaking, observable in Figs. 335, 336 and 337,
is almost peculiar to Yorkshire; and one of the most beautiful examples
that I have seen of it is on the arrow-head engraved as Fig. 336, which
was found on Northdale Farm, Grindale, Bridlington. The ripple-like
flaking extends over nearly two-thirds of one face, the remainder of
which is a flat portion of the original surface of the flake from which
the arrow-head was made. On the other face a rather larger portion of
the original surface is left, but the |393| surface-chipping, though,
neat, is not of this regular character. The base is chipped on both
faces, so as to leave a sharp edge with a delicate projecting barb
at one angle only. The other angle is perfect, and has never been
continued so as to form a barb. I have fragments of other arrow-heads
of the same kind, from the same neighbourhood, and on some the fluting
along the base is as regular as that on the side, and the two series
of narrow shallow grooves “mitre” together with great accuracy. I
have arrow-heads of the same general form and character from the
neighbourhood of Icklingham, Suffolk; and in the Greenwell Collection
is a small and elegant example from Lakenheath; but these are devoid
of the parallel flaking, as are also some of the Yorkshire specimens.
The late Mr. J. F. Lucas, however, had an arrow-head of this form, with
the fluted chipping, from Middleton Moor, Derbyshire. Such regular
fluting can, I think, only have been produced by pressure, probably
with a pointed instrument of stag’s-horn, as before described. It comes
nearer in character to the wonderful “ripple-mark flaking” on some of
the Danish daggers or lance-heads, and of the Egyptian knives, than the
workmanship of any other British specimens.
The same style of work is observable on another arrow-head, Fig. 337,
found on the same farm, though it is not of equal delicacy. In this
case, however, the flaking extends along both sides, and the two series
meet in the middle of the face, where but a very small portion of the
original surface of the flake is visible. The face not shown is chipped
in the same manner, but less neatly. One of the angles at the base has
unfortunately been broken off, but there is no appearance of there
having been more than one barb.
In some Egyptian arrow-heads from Abydos the surface seems to have been
made smooth by grinding before the final flaking, just as was the case
with the large blades mentioned on p. 359.
Less finely executed arrow-heads, with a long projecting wing or barb
at one of the angles of the base, are of common occurrence in Yorkshire
and Suffolk. They usually retain a considerable portion of the surface
of the flakes from which they have been manufactured. They are also
found in Gloucestershire[1822] and Worcestershire.[1823]
[Illustration: Fig. 338.—Fimber]
An unusually well-finished specimen of this class is engraved as Fig.
338. It was found in the neighbourhood of Fimber, Yorkshire, and is
in the collection of Messrs. Mortimer, who have kindly allowed me to
figure it. It has been made from an external flake, as there is a
portion of the crust of the flint visible on one of the faces, both
of which are neatly chipped. It is barbed at both angles of the base,
though the projection is far longer and more curved on the one side
than on the other. In most instances, however, there can hardly be said
to be any barb at all at one of the angles.
The form with the long single barb appears to be common on the |394|
Derbyshire Moors. In one instance a rectangular notch has been worked
in the curved side, with what object it is hard to say. This specimen,
shown in Fig. 339, was found in a barrow at Hungry Bentley, Derbyshire,
by the late Mr. J. F. Lucas. It had been buried together with a jet
ornament and beads, subsequently described, in an urn containing burnt
bones.
The single-winged form is of rare occurrence in Scotland, but what
appears to be an arrow-head of this kind, from Caithness,[1824] has
been engraved by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and the cut is
here, by their kindness, reproduced. Another from Urquhart and several
from the Culbin Sands, Elginshire, and Glenluce Sands, Wigtownshire,
are in the Edinburgh Museum. By some[1825] they are regarded as knives,
with the tang for insertion in a handle. The same form is found in
greater abundance in the North of Ireland. A somewhat analogous shape
from Italy has been figured by Dr. C. Rosa.[1826] The type also occurs
in Egypt.
[Illustration: Fig. 339.—Hungry Bentley.]
[Illustration: Fig. 340.—Caithness.]
The varieties here engraved of single-barbed triangular arrow-headeds
of flint are, I think, enough to establish them as a distinct class,
though they have received but little attention among the antiquities of
any other country than the United Kingdom, nor have they been observed
in use among modern savages. Many of the early bone harpoons, as well
as those of the Eskimos, are barbed along one side only; and some of
the Persian iron arrow-heads, as well as those of the Mandingoes,[1827]
and of some South American tribes, are also single-barbed. The same is
the case with some arrow-heads of iron belonging to the Merovingian
period.[1828]
Another form of triangular arrow-head is round instead of hollow
at the base, and bears an affinity with the leaf-shaped rather than
the barbed variety. One of these from the neighbourhood of |395|
Lakenheath, in the Greenwell Collection, is shown in Fig. 341. It is
surface-chipped on both faces.
The chisel-ended type in use among the ancient Egyptians has already
been mentioned, and a specimen engraved in Fig. 272.
Another and much longer[1829] Egyptian form has now become known. It
approaches a triangle in form, but the base is indented like the tail
of many homocercal fishes. The specimens vary in length from 3 or 4
inches to as much as 7 or 8 inches, so that some appear to have been
javelin-heads. The flaking is wonderfully delicate, and the edges,
for the most part, minutely serrated. Mr. Spurrell has described and
figured a triangular blade, 4 1∕2 inches long, which much resembles
the Egyptian form so far as general character is concerned. It was
found in Cumberland,[1830] and is now in the British Museum. I have
specimens from Abydos of a small, narrow, pointed and tanged arrow-head
beautifully serrated at the sides. Other forms are figured by De Morgan.
[Illustration: Fig. 341.—Lakenheath.]
[Illustration: Fig. 342.—Urguhart.]
In Fig. 342 is shown what appears to be a large example of the
chisel-ended type, which was found at Urquhart,[1831] Elgin, and is in
the National Museum at Edinburgh. The edge is formed by the sharp side
of a flake, and the sharp angles at the two sides of the arrow-head
have been removed by chipping, probably to prevent their cutting the
ligaments that attached it to the shaft. Another was found at the same
place. A small specimen from Suffolk is in the Christy Collection, and
I have a few from the same county. Canon Greenwell has obtained others
from Yorkshire. It is questionable whether the specimens like Fig. 231
ought not also to have been classed as arrow-heads.
A similar form to Fig. 342 occurs in France. In one of the dolmens on
the plateau of Thorus, near Poitiers, I found a small chisel-ended
wrought flint, closely resembling the Egyptian arrow-heads; and I
have observed in the collection of the late Rev. W. C. Lukis, F.S.A.,
others of the same form from chambered tumuli in Brittany. They have
been discovered with ancient interments in other parts of France,[1832]
|396| and I have specimens found on the surface of the soil near
Pontlevoy, and given to me by the Abbé Bourgeois.
Baron Joseph de Baye has found them in considerable numbers in
sepulchres of the Stone Age in the department of La Marne.[1833] One
was found embedded in a human vertebra. They also occur in the Camp de
Catenoy, Oise.
One from St. Clement’s, Jersey, is in the British Museum.
Some are recorded from Namur and other parts of Belgium.[1834]
Two arrow-heads of this class, found in Denmark, have been engraved
by Madsen;[1835] one of them, to which I shall again refer, was still
attached to a portion of its shaft.
Nilsson[1836] has also engraved some specimens of this form found in
Scandinavia. A considerable number of them were found at Lindormabacken
in Scania,[1837] some of which, by the kindness of Dr. Hans Hildebrand,
are in my collection. I have also specimens from Denmark. There are
others from the same countries in the Christy Collection, where is also
an example of the same kind from Southern Italy. Several are engraved
by Bellucci.[1838]
They occur also in Germany,[1839] Spain,[1840] and Portugal.[1841] Some
crescent-shaped flints with sharp edges and a central tang, found on an
island in the Lake of Varese,[1842] may possibly be arrow-heads. Forms
of nearly the same kind have been found near Perugia.[1843]
In General Pitt Rivers’s collection are some Persian arrows with
chisel-edged tips of iron. Crescent-like[1844] arrow-heads or
bolt-heads, with a broad hollowed edge, were used in hunting in
the Middle Ages, and some are preserved in museums. The Emperor
Commodus[1845] is related to have shown his skill in archery by
beheading the ostrich when at full speed with crescent-headed arrows.
There still remains to be noticed another form of triangular
arrow-head, of which, however, I have never had the opportunity of
seeing a British specimen. It has a notch on either side near the base,
which is slightly hollowed, and in general form closely resembles a
common type of North American arrow-heads. A specimen of this form,
said to have been found at Hamden Hill,[1846] near Ilchester, has been
engraved. Another, described as of much the same shape, was found in a
barrow in Rookdale, Yorkshire.[1847] A broken specimen, with the base
flat instead of hollowed, and found in Lanarkshire,[1848] has also been
figured.
I am not, however, satisfied that this triangular form, with notches in
the sides, is a really British type, though lance-heads notched in this
manner have been found in France.
Both in Yorkshire and on the Wiltshire Downs arrow-heads have from
time to time been found with their surface much abraded. There |397|
seems little doubt that this wearing away has been effected during
their sojourn in the gizzards of bustards.
* * * * *
Having now described the principal types of arrow-heads found in
Britain, it will be well to notice some of the circumstances of their
discovery in barrows and with interments, which throw light on the
manners and the stage of civilization of those who used them.
I am not aware of any well-established discovery of flint arrow-heads
in this country in association with iron weapons, and certainly such
a mixture of materials would require careful sifting of evidence to
establish it. And yet we can readily conceive conditions under which
flint arrow-heads might be present in Saxon graves, either from
their having been dug in barrows of an earlier period, in which case
a flint arrow-head might already exist in the soil with which the
grave was filled; or from the occupant of the tomb having carried an
“elf-bolt” as a charm, or even as the flint for his _briquet à feu_.
In the Frankish cemetery of Samson,[1849] near Namur, a broken flint
arrow-head, almost of a lozenge form, accompanied a human skeleton
with an iron sword and a lance; and another stemmed arrow-head (now
in the Namur Museum) was found in the soil. At Sablonnières[1850]
(Aisne) flint arrow-heads were associated with Merovingian remains, and
numerous instances of such associations have been adduced by the Baron
de Baye.[1851] Even in modern times flint arrow-heads have served for
this fire-producing purpose. The late Earl of Enniskillen informed me
that with flint-guns and muskets in Ireland[1852] the gun-flint was
frequently neither more nor less than an “elf-bolt” often but slightly
modified in form.
The occurrence in Northern Italy of a flint arrow-head, in company
with ten of the degenerate imitations of the gold coin of Philip II.
of Macedon, known by the Germans as Regenbogen-schüsseln, recorded
by Promis,[1853] may also have been accidental. I have in my own
collection a stone celt which is said to have been found with a hoard
of Anglo-Saxon coins of the tenth century in Ireland,[1854] but which
can hardly be regarded as contemporaneous with them. There are,
however, as I have already observed, many well-attested instances
in which flint arrow-heads have been discovered in this and other
countries in true association with weapons of bronze. Sir R. Colt
Hoare records several such in his |398| examination of the barrows of
South Wilts. In one near Woodyates[1855] a skeleton in a contracted
position was buried with a bronze dagger and pin or awl, a jet button
and pulley-like ornament, four arrow-heads (one of them engraved as
Fig. 320), and “some pieces of flint, chipped and prepared for similar
weapons; in another bowl-shaped barrow at Wilsford an interment of
burnt bones was accompanied by a small bronze dagger, some whetstones,
and instruments formed of stag’s horn, an arrow-head of flint, and
another in an unfinished condition.”
It is stated in the _Archæologia_[1856] that with the well-known
interment in the hollowed oak-trunk found in the Gristhorpe tumulus,
near Scarborough, were “a brass and a flint spear-head and flint
arrow-heads,” &c. The flints[1857] were, however, in this instance,
merely flakes and the “brass spear-head” a bronze dagger.
In Borther Low,[1858] near Middleton, Derbyshire, Mr. Bateman found by
the side of a skeleton a flint arrow-head, a pair of canine teeth of
fox or dog, and a diminutive bronze celt; and in a barrow on Roundway
Hill,[1859] North Wilts, a barbed flint arrow-head, like Fig. 327, was
found close to the skull of a skeleton in a contracted posture, with a
tanged bronze dagger at its left hand. Another bronze fragment, and a
small plate of chlorite slate engraved as Fig. 355, were found at the
same time. Similar plates, as well as flint arrow-heads, accompanied
the skeleton at Tring Grove,[1860] Herts, and an interment at Cruden,
Aberdeen.[1861]
A stemmed and barbed arrow-head of calcined flint was found in one of
the urns containing burnt bones in the cemetery at Standlake,[1862]
Oxfordshire. In another urn was a spiral finger-ring of bronze, the
only fragment of metal brought to light during the excavations.
Flint arrow-heads have been so frequently found in barrows containing
both burnt and unburnt interments, and in company with other implements
of stone and with pottery, that it seems needless to adduce all the
recorded instances of such discoveries. I give a few references
below.[1863] |399|
The stemmed and barbed variety is of the most common occurrence in
tumuli; but, as has already been shown, one leaf-shaped form appears
to be, to some extent, peculiar to a class of long barrows, though the
stemmed and barbed,[1864] lozenge and leaf-shaped forms have been found
in the soil of the same grave mound.
In several instances, stemmed and barbed arrow-heads have been
discovered with skeletons, accompanied also by the finely-chipped
leaf-shaped knife-daggers of flint. In Green Low,[1865] Alsop Moor,
Derbyshire, the dagger-blade lay behind the shoulders, and three
arrow-heads behind the back; in one, as already mentioned, on Seamer
Moor, near Scarborough,[1866] “two beautifully formed knives and
spear-heads of flint,” and four flint celts, accompanied “beautifully
formed arrow-heads of flint;” and the dagger (Fig. 264) appears to have
been found in the same barrow as the arrow-heads, on Lambourn Down.
Occasionally arrow-heads are found in the “drinking-cups” accompanying
the skeleton, as in Mouse Low,[1867] Staffordshire.
It remains for me to say a few words as to the points of difference
and resemblance between the arrow-heads of Britain and those of other
countries;[1868] and also as to the method of shafting in use in
ancient times.
In comparing the arrow-heads of Great Britain with those of what is now
the sister kingdom of Ireland, we cannot but be struck, in the first
place, with the far greater abundance found in Ireland, especially
in its northern parts. How far this is due to their use having come
down into later times, and how far to the character of the country,
it is difficult to say. It is, however, evident that over so large an
area of morass and bog, the number of arrows lost in the chase during
a long series of years must have been immense; that when once lost
they would be preserved uninjured, and remain undiscovered until the
operations of draining and obtaining peat for fuel again brought them
to light; and further, that the former of these operations has only
been carried on to a large extent within the last few years, while
the latter has also in all probability increased. On hard and stony
soil, on the contrary, even assuming an originally equal abundance of
arrow-heads, agricultural operations, after being carried on for a few
|400| centuries, would infallibly destroy a large number of them, and
what were left would not be so instantly apparent to the eye as those
in a peaty soil, and would consequently be found in fewer numbers. In
districts where flint is scarce many ancient arrow-heads must have been
used as strike-a-lights and gun-flints. In Ireland,[1869] as already
stated, they were highly esteemed for the latter purpose. Even on
land recently enclosed, and where arrow-heads and worked flints may
exist in abundance, unless some unusual inducement is offered, they
remain unnoticed by the farm-labourers; and it is only owing to the
diligence of local collectors that such numbers have been found on the
Yorkshire Wolds, the Derbyshire Moors, and in parts of Gloucestershire,
Oxfordshire and Suffolk. There seems, however, either from the
character of the game pursued, or from some different customs of the
early occupants of the country, to have been a far greater production
of arrow-heads in these districts than in some other parts of Britain,
such, for instance, as the Sussex Downs,[1870] where on land but
recently enclosed, almost innumerable flakes, scrapers, and other
instruments of flint may be found, but where I have hitherto never
succeeded in finding a single arrow-point. It is possible that in some
districts, bone may have been preferred to stone.
Apart from the greater general abundance in Ireland, there is a far
greater relative abundance of some particular forms, especially of
the barbed triangular arrow-heads without a central stem, and of the
elongated form with the stem and barbs. Lozenge-shaped arrow-heads
are also more frequent, and some of the varieties of this form do not
appear to occur in Britain. As a rule, Irish arrow-heads are also of
larger size than the British. Their forms have been described by Sir W.
Wilde,[1871] Mr. Wakeman[1872] and others.
* * * * *
In France, flint arrow-heads are at least as rare as in England, if
not indeed rarer. In some of the dolmens of Brittany explored by the
Rev. W. C. Lukis, F.S.A.,[1873] he has found them both leaf-shaped
and stemmed and barbed. Among the latter there are some of extremely
neat workmanship, and closely resembling in form Fig. 312. I have
seen the same form from the Côtes du Nord. Some beautiful examples,
more elongated than Fig. 319 and with very small tangs, were found
in a tumulus at Cruguel,[1874] Morbihan. The more common |401|
French form is like Fig. 311, but with both stem and barb rather
longer and the sides straighter. Specimens have been engraved from
the neighbourhood of Londinières;[1875] from a dolmen at Villaigre,
Poitou;[1876] a lake-habitation at La Péruse[1877] (Charente); the
Valley of the Saône,[1878] the department of the Aisne,[1879] the Camp
de Chassey,[1880] and other places.
Various forms from the Landes,[1881] Gironde,[1882] Marne,[1883]
Gard,[1884] and other Departments[1885] have been figured. Dr. Leith
Adams traced a manufactory of flint arrow-heads in Guernsey.[1886]
I have several tanged, and stemmed and barbed arrow-heads from Poitou,
as well as some of triangular form, both with a rounded segmental base
and with barbs. I have also leaf-shaped, lozenge-shaped, and tanged and
barbed examples from the neighbourhood of Clermont Ferrand. Twenty-two
of the latter form were found together, in company with a bronze
dagger, in a cist in Brittany.[1887]
Another common variety is stemmed and but very slightly barbed. Some
of these approximate in form to a lozenge, with two of its sides
curved inwards. Specimens from the dolmen of Bernac[1888] (Charente),
the Grotte de St. Jean d’Alcas,[1889] and Argenteuil (Seine et
Oise),[1890] and the dolmens of Taurine, Pilande, and des Costes
(Aveyron), may be cited. In several of the latter both leaf-shaped and
lozenge-shaped specimens were also found. Many are neatly serrated
at the edges, sometimes so as to form a sort of regular pattern,
with only two or three projections on each of the sides. A pointed
leaf-shaped arrow-head in a human vertebra was found in the Grotte du
Castellet[1891] (Gard).
The same varieties, as well as some triangular arrow-heads, occurred in
the Camp de Chassey.[1892] Some of them are barbed without having the
central tang.
A large arrow-head from the dolmen of Bernac, with pointed barbs,
has a strongly dovetailed central stem. I have seen other much more
elongated javelin-heads, four and five inches long, and an inch or an
inch and a quarter broad, with similar tangs, but without barbs, the
tang being formed by notches on either side at the base, as is the case
with so many North American specimens, which these resemble in form.
They were found at Corente, in Auvergne, and were in the collection
|402| of M. Aymard at Le Puy, where was also a leaf-shaped arrow-head
with side notches, from Clermont. Another of the same kind, 4 inches
long, with a more dovetail-like tang and better-developed barbs, has
been found near Laon.[1893] Others of smaller size were found in the
Grotte des Morts, Durfort (Gard).[1894]
A somewhat similar form has occurred among the lake-dwellings of the
Ueberlinger See.[1895]
A type much like Fig. 314 also occurs in the lake-habitations of
Switzerland,[1896] where, as might have been expected, a large number
of stone arrow-heads have been found. Some few of them are stemmed and
barbed, much like Fig. 311, but with the tang and barbs rather longer
and sharper. More of them are tanged only, or but slightly barbed, and
in many, the tang has so slight a shoulder that the outline is almost,
and in some quite, lozenge-shaped. The most common form, however,
appears to be the triangular, with the sides slightly curved outwards
and the base flat, or even slightly rounded outwards. Many are a little
hollowed at the base, so much so, in some cases, as to be distinctly
barbed. At Nussdorf one arrow-head was formed of serpentine, and
another of translucent quartz. One or two specimens are of bone.
Leaf-shaped and stemmed arrows without barbs, from Hasledon and Yvoir,
are in the Museum at Namur, in Belgium. Belgian arrow-heads have been
described by Van Overloop.[1897]
In the lake-dwellings of Northern Italy,[1898] as, for instance, at
Mercurago, near Arona, and Cumarola, near Modena, the tanged arrows
prevail, though leaf-and lozenge-shaped also occur. The same is the
case in the south, where numerous discoveries of arrow-heads have been
recorded by Nicolucci.[1899] At Cumarola[1900] some skeletons were
found interred with flint arrow-heads and weapons of stone, in company
with others of copper and bronze.
In the valley of the Vibrata,[1901] in the Abruzzo, Dr. C. Rosa has
found numerous arrow-heads, principally stemmed and barbed, but some
also triangular and leaf-shaped. One specimen appears to be barbed on
one side only, and a lance-head has a notch on each side near the base
like those from Auvergne.
In the Lake of Varese,[1902] where the site of a manufactory of
arrow-heads was discovered by Captain Angelucci, the principal forms
were those with a pointed tang and barbs. The roughly-chipped-out
blocks were of a leaf-shaped form. A fine specimen like Fig. 302, |403|
but rather longer, was found near Civitanova[1903] (Piceno), and the
form occurs in Central Italy. A long leaf-shaped arrow from Italy is
engraved by Lindenschmit,[1904] as well as a tanged form without barbs.
The latter form occurs in the Isle of Elba.[1905] I have a series,
from near Bergamo, nearly all of which are tanged, though few of them
are distinctly barbed. The various forms of lance and arrow heads in
the province of Perugia[1906] have been described by Prof. Bellucci.
The stone arrow-heads frequently cited as having been found on the
plains of Marathon[1907] appear to be only flakes,[1908] as are many
of those from Tiryns.[1909] At Mycenæ,[1910] however, in the fourth
sepulchre, Schliemann found thirty-five beautifully-wrought arrow-heads
of obsidian. They are mainly of triangular form, hollowed at the base,
though the long leaf shape is also present. In general _facies_ they
closely resemble the Danish forms.
In a dolmen in Andalusia[1911] a broken arrow-head of flint, with
pointed stem and barbs, was found; and inasmuch as the fragment
is engraved by Don Manuel de Gongora y Martinez as the head of a
three-pointed dart, it appears that the form is not common in Spain.
A number of arrow-heads, mostly tanged, have, however, been found in
the south-east of Spain by MM. Siret.[1912] In Portugal[1913] the
arrow-heads are usually triangular, but often with long-projecting
wings or barbs.
Returning northwards, I may cite a small series of flint arrow-heads
in my collection, found near Luxembourg, where they appear to be not
uncommon. They present the following forms: leaf-shaped, tanged, tanged
and barbed, triangular with a straight base, and the same with barbs.
Numerous arrow-heads of flint have also been found in Gelderland, and
a collection of them is to be seen in the Leyden Museum. Some are
also in the Christy Collection. The most common forms are triangular,
with barbs, or with a somewhat rounded base, and stemmed and barbed.
Leaf-shaped and tanged arrow-heads appear to be rarer. Some scarce
triangular forms are equilateral, and others long and somewhat
expanding at the base. I have a series from Heistert, Roermond, Limburg.
In Central and Southern Germany flint arrow-heads appear to be rather
scarce. In Pomerania the prevailing type is triangular hollowed at
the base. The same form occurs in Thuringia. In the Königsberg Museum
there are arrow-heads leaf-shaped pointed at both ends, lozenge-shaped,
slightly tanged, tanged and barbed, and triangular with and without the
hollowing at the base. |404| Lindenschmit[1914] engraves specimens,
like Figs. 311 and 327, from the Rhine and Oldenburg, and a tanged
arrow-head of serpentine from Inzighofen, near Sigmaringen, on
the Danube.[1915] Lisch also engraves a few specimens from North
Germany,[1916] which resemble the Scandinavian in character. Near
Egenburg,[1917] in Lower Austria, a considerable number have been
found. Some Austrian[1918] arrow-heads are barbed, but without the
central tang.
Considering the wonderful abundance of flint implements in Denmark and
Southern Sweden, it is not a little singular that arrow-heads should be
there comparatively so rare. The leaf-shaped form is extremely scarce,
but a triangular form, resembling the leaf-shaped in all respects but
in having a rounded notch at the base in lieu of a rounded end, is more
common. Stemmed and barbed arrow-heads are also very scarce, and those
merely tanged are usually flakes simply trimmed at the edges, with
the exception of those of equilateral triangular section, which are
peculiar to Scandinavia. The lozenge-shape appears to be unknown; and
by far the greater number of arrow-heads are of the triangular form,
sometimes but slightly, if at all, hollowed at the base, though usually
furnished with long projecting wings or barbs. The same type occurs
in Norway.[1919] Occasionally the notch between the barbs is square,
and the ends of the barbs worked at an angle of about 45°, like Fig.
319, without the central stem. In some rare instances the barbs curve
outwards at the points, giving an ogee form to the sides. In others the
barbs curve inwards. In many, the sides are delicately serrated, and
in most the workmanship is admirable. What appear to be lance-heads
are sometimes notched on either side near the base, like the common
North American form, and like those already mentioned as occurring
occasionally in France.[1920]
In Norway,[1921] and more rarely in Sweden,[1922] stemmed and acutely
barbed arrow-and lance-heads, made of hard slate ground on the surface,
are occasionally found. Knives of the same material also occur. They
much resemble some of those from Greenland, and are probably of
comparatively late date. Some spear-head-like implements of slate,
ornamented with incised lines, have been found in a circular fort on
Dunbuie Hill,[1923] near Dumbarton.
Triangular arrow-heads of flint, more or less excavated at the base
like those from Scandinavia, are also sometimes found in Russia.
Specimens from Ekaterinoslav in the South, and Olonetz in the North,
were exhibited at Paris in 1867. Others from Archangel approach more
nearly to the North American form. They are occasionally tanged.[1924]
|405|
In Northern Africa flint arrow-heads have been discovered, and the
leaf-shaped, triangular, and tanged and barbed forms have been found
in the dolmens of Algeria.[1925] Some have also been collected in
Tunis,[1926] and simple tanged arrow-heads have been found in the
Sahara.[1927]
But little is at present known of the stone antiquities of a great
part of Asia; but an arrow-head from India[1928] was in the possession
of Prof. Buckman, who obligingly furnished me with a sketch of it. It
is acutely pointed, about 2 5∕8 inches long, and tanged and barbed,
though the barbs are now broken off. Some small leaf-shaped arrow-heads
have been found at Ranchi,[1929] in the Chota-Nagpore district. Mr.
Bauerman, F.G.S., found, at Ghenneh, in Wady Sireh, Sinai, a flint
arrow-head, neatly chipped on both faces, of a very peculiar form,
being leaf-shaped, with a tang attached. It is in all nearly 2 inches
long, of which the leaf-shaped part occupies about 1 1∕2 inches, and
the slender tang or stalk the other 1∕2 inch. It lay in a tomb[1930]
with a lance-head of flint, a bracelet of copper, and a necklace of
spiral shells. A very similar arrow-head, 2 1∕2 inches long, from Wady
Maghara, was presented by Major Macdonald[1931] to the British Museum.
The form seems also to occur in North America.[1932]
The Abbé Richard found some very finely worked arrow-heads on and
around Mount Sinai.[1933] Two[1934] from that locality were presented
to the Society of Antiquaries in 1872. Flint arrow-heads have been
found on Mount Lebanon,[1935] mostly tanged, but without pronounced
barbs. A few are leaf-shaped and triangular.
Some obsidian arrow-heads from the Caucasus[1936] are triangular, with
a semicircular notch at the base. Some of flint and of leaf-shaped form
have been found at Hissar,[1937] near Damghan, Persia.
Arrow-heads from Japan[1938] are curiously like those from Europe,
being triangular with or without barbs, and stemmed and slightly
barbed. For the most part, they are narrower in their proportions
than the European. Some are formed of obsidian. Besides these, the
lozenge-shaped, the leaf-shaped, and a peculiar form with broad-ended
barbs and no central tang, occur. There is a fine series in the Museum
at Leyden and in the British Museum.
In Greenland flat arrow-heads and harpoon-points of chalcedony and
slate are found, most of which approximate to ordinary North American
forms. I have one triangular arrow-head with the sides |406| curved
outwards and delicately serrated. In Newfoundland[1939] a narrow,
triangular form prevails, sometimes ground sharp at the base.
One of the ordinary types in North America,[1940] viz., that with a
notch at the base on either side, has already been mentioned more
than once. This form shades off into that with a central dovetailed
tang, sometimes with well-developed barbs. Others again have merely a
central tang, with little or no attempt at barbs. The triangular form,
usually but little excavated at the base, is also common. A rare form
terminates in a semicircular edge. The leaf-shaped form is rare. For
the most part the chipping is but rough, as the material, which is
usually chert, horn-stone, or even quartz, does not readily lend itself
to fine work. They were made of various sizes, the smaller for boys,
and those for men varying in accordance with the purpose to which they
were to be applied.[1941] They have been so fully described by others
that I need not dilate upon them. Some broken arrow-heads have been
converted into scrapers.
As we proceed southwards in America, the forms appear more closely to
resemble the European. Some of the obsidian and chalcedony arrow-heads
from Mexico are stemmed and barbed, and almost identical in shape
with English examples. Don Antonio de Salis[1942] relates that in the
Palace of Montezuma there was one place where they prepared the shafts
for arrows and another where they worked the flint (obsidian) for the
points. In Tierra del Fuego[1943] the natives still fashion stemmed
arrow-heads tanged and barbed, or of a triangular form, with a tang
extending from the centre of the base. In Patagonia,[1944] triangular,
stemmed, and stemmed and barbed arrow-heads occur in deposits analogous
to the Danish kjökken-möddings. One brought from Rio Grande, and
presented to me by Lieut. Musters, R.N., has a broad stem somewhat
hollowed at the base. Mr. Hudson,[1945] in giving an account of
arrow-heads from the valley of the Rio Negro, formed of agate, crystal,
and flint of various colours, remarks that beauty must have been as
much an aim to the worker as utility.
Some of the flint and chalcedony arrow-heads from Chili are beautifully
made, and closely resemble those from Oregon, farther north. A tanged
and barbed point, embedded in a human vertebra, was found in a burial
mound near Copiapo.[1946]
A tanged arrow-head from Araucania, with a well-marked shoulder at the
base of the triangular head, so that it might almost be called barbed,
is engraved by the Rev. Dr. Hume.[1947] It is like an Italian form.
|407|
Stemmed arrow-or harpoon-heads of quartz are found in Chili and Peru
of much the same form as Fig. 303. The barbs, if such they may be
called, are usually at rather more than a right angle to the stem, and
occasionally project considerably from the side of the blade, giving
it a somewhat cruciform appearance. I have several which were dug out
by the late Mr. David Forbes, F.R.S., from graves close to the shore,
about two miles south of Arica.[1948] In some instances they are still
attached to their shafts, which are unlike those of ordinary arrows,
being shorter and clumsier. I have them of two sizes, the larger 10 1∕2
inches long, about 5∕8 inch in diameter at the end, where the head has
been inserted in a socket, increasing to 7∕8 in diameter towards the
other end. At a distance of 2 inches from this, however, there is an
abrupt shoulder, so that the diameter is increased by at least 1∕4 of
an inch, and the shaft then rapidly tapers in the contrary direction.
The shafts have thus a stopper-like termination, which Mr. Forbes
suggests may have been inserted in the end of a longer shaft of bamboo,
so that the whole weapon was a sort of spear or javelin, and not,
strictly speaking, an arrow. The smaller kind of shaft is of the same
character, but only 6 inches long, and proportionately smaller. This
may possibly have served as part of an arrow. The wood of all has been
coloured with a red pigment.
One arrow-head from the same spot is of remarkably elegant form, and of
wonderfully good workmanship. In general outline it is not unlike Fig.
324, but the blade expands more rapidly to form the barbs, which stand
out well from the stem, and are separated from it by a slight hollow.
It is 1 5∕8 inches long. Its greatest width at the barbs is but 1∕2 an
inch; and the extreme acuteness and delicacy of the point may be judged
of from the fact, that a distance of an inch from the apex the width
is less than 1∕4 of an inch. The heads appear to have been secured in
their sockets by binding with thread formed of vegetable fibre. In some
instances the wooden shaft is furnished with barbs made of bronze, tied
on a little distance behind the stone point.
Leaf-shaped arrow-heads, as well as tanged and barbed, and barbed
without a central tang, are found in Peru.[1949] Some leaf-shaped
arrows with a stalk, from New Granada, are in the Albert Memorial
Museum at Exeter.
* * * * *
It will, however, be thought that enough, and more than enough, has
been said as to the forms of arrow-heads occurring in various parts of
the world. Allowing for local differences, the general correspondence
in form is so great that we cannot wonder at Dr. Woodward’s[1950]
suggestion that the first model of flint arrow-heads was probably
brought from Babel, and preserved after the dispersion of mankind.
To most, however, it will appear that this general similarity
affords another proof that in all places, and in all times, similar
circumstances and similar wants, with |408| similar materials only at
command for gratifying them, result in similar contrivances.
I must, in conclusion, say a few words as to the method of mounting
these stone points upon the arrows; and here we are not left absolutely
to conjecture, though the discoveries of flint arrow-heads still
attached to their shafts, in any part of the United Kingdom, are
extremely rare. But in Ballykillen Bog, King’s County, a stemmed and
barbed flint arrow-head was found, still remaining in a part of its
“briar-wood” shaft, and with a portion of the gut-tying by which it had
been secured, still attached. It is in the museum of Mr. Murray, of
Edenderry, and has been figured by Sir W. Wilde.[1951] Another Irish
example was found in Kanestown Bog,[1952] co. Antrim, and has been
published by Mr. W. J. Knowles. In this case the head was barbed though
not stemmed, but the shaft was cleft to receive it, and was bound round
with gut or sinew for a length of about 4 inches. The shaft is thought
to have been of ash.
A third example was found in a moss at Fyvie,[1953] Aberdeenshire,
and has been described by Dr. Joseph Anderson. By the kindness of the
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland it is shown in Fig. 342A. The point
is leaf-shaped, approaching to a lozenge. It is inserted in a cleft in
the tapering shaft, which extends almost to the point. The nature of
the tough wood, of which the shaft is made, has not been determined,
and the manner in which the head was secured in the shaft seems
uncertain; but there may have been a binding which has perished. Dr.
Anderson was able to reproduce the shaft in soft wood, making use of
flint tools only.
[Illustration: Fig. 342A.—Fyvie, Aberdeenshire. 1∕1]
[Illustration: Fig. 343.—Switzerland. 1∕1]
Specimens have also been found in Switzerland and Germany. |409| One
of the former has been figured by Dr. Keller,[1954] whose engraving I
here reproduce, as Fig. 343, in the full size of the original arrow,
instead of on the scale of one-half. It was found, not in any of the
Lake habitations, but in the moss of Geissboden.
The arrow-heads found among the ancient Swiss lake-dwellings, often
bear on their surface some portion of the bituminous cement which
helped to attach them to the shafts. Dr. Clément[1955] possessed one,
apparently tanged but not barbed, the base of which is completely
incrusted with bitumen, with traces of the wood of the shaft upon
it, and of the cord by which the whole was bound together. Another,
leaf-shaped, similarly incrusted, is in the Museum at Lausanne. The
attachment of a conical bone arrow-head to its shaft is of the same
character. Some single-barbed[1956] arrows were made by tying a bone
pin, pointed at each end, diagonally to the extremity of the shaft.
[Illustration: Fig. 344.—Fünen, Denmark. 1∕1]
Another specimen has been engraved by Madsen,[1957] who, however, does
not appear to have recognised it as an arrow-head. He describes it as
“a flint instrument, fastened by means of fine bast-fibre to a wooden
shaft, of which only 1 1∕2 inch remains.” I have here reproduced his
engraving, as Fig. 344, and there can I think be little doubt that it
represents the point of an arrow of the same character as those in use
among the ancient Egyptians.[1958] It was found in a peat moss in the
parish of Vissenberg, Odense, in the Isle of Fünen.
[Illustration: Fig. 345.—Modern Stone Arrow-head.]
Among modern savages, we find the stone points sometimes attached to
the shafts by vegetable fibre, not unfrequently aided by some resinous
gum, and also by means of animal sinew. The annexed woodcut, Fig. 345,
kindly supplied by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland,[1959] shows
an arrow-head, stated to be from one of the South Sea Islands, but more
probably from California, |410| attached by means of tendon to a reed
shaft. The Indians of California certainly affix their arrow-heads in
a similar manner; but commonly there are notches on either side of
the head at the base, to receive the sinew or split intestine, which
is in the form of tape about 1∕8 inch wide. The binding extends about
an inch along the shaft, and is of the neatest description. North
American[1960] arrow-heads, fastened in this manner, have been engraved
by Sir John Lubbock and the Rev. J. G. Wood. The end of the shaft has
a shallow notch in it to receive the flint, which is cemented into the
notch before being bound on.
Among the Kaffirs,[1961] the iron heads of the assagais are usually
bound to the shafts with strips of wet hide, which contract and tighten
in drying.
The shafts of arrows are frequently of reed, in which case there is
often a longer or shorter piece of solid wood joined on to the reed to
which the head is attached. This is the case with the ancient Egyptian
arrows, and with those of the Bushmen,[1962] in which, however, bone
and ivory replace the wood; and the shaft generally consists of three
pieces—reed, ostrich bone, and ivory, to which latter the head of iron
is attached. In other cases the shafts consist of straight-growing
shoots of trees. Among the Eskimos,[1963] where wood is so scarce,
a peculiar tool—formed of bone, with an oval or lozenge-shaped hole
through it—is used for the purpose of straightening arrow-shafts. The
tang of their arrow-heads is inserted in a socket, and bound fast with
sinew.
For harpoons there is often a hole in the triangular armature. One of
these points was found in the body of a seal killed in Iceland[1964] in
1643, and Olaf Worm judiciously thought that the seal had been wounded
by a Greenlander.
In most countries the shafts are feathered at the bow-string end,
and such was the case in the earliest historical times. Hesiod[1965]
describes the arrows of Hercules as feathered from the wings of a
black eagle, and Homer[1966] speaks of the πτερόεντες ὀϊστοί—if
indeed, as Mr. Yates suggests, this latter refers to the plumes.[1967]
Herodotus,[1968] however, mentions, as a remarkable fact, that the
arrows of the Lycians in the army of Xerxes, like those of the Bushmen
and some other savages of the present day, had no |411| feathers, so
that this addition to the shaft was not indispensable. It is said that
some North American arrow-heads are “bevelled[1969] off on the reverse
sides, apparently to give them a revolving motion,” so as to answer the
same purpose as plumes. But this result seems very doubtful.
From what kind of wood the bows in Britain were made at the time when
flint-pointed arrows were in use is uncertain; the yew, however, which
is probably the best European wood for the purpose, is indigenous to
this country. It is not probable that the cross-bow was known in these
early times, though it was in use during the Roman period, as may be
seen on a monument in the museum at Le Puy.
I need, however, hardly enter into further details with regard to
arrows, and I therefore proceed to the consideration of other forms of
stone implements, including those by which it seems probable that some
of the arrow-heads were fashioned.
|412|