FABRICATORS, FLAKING TOOLS, ETC.
In treating of the manufacture of stone implements in prehistoric times
I have already (p. 41) described certain tools of flint with a blunted,
worn, and rounded appearance at one or both ends, as if resulting from
attrition against a hard substance, and I have suggested that their
purpose may have been for chipping out arrow-heads and other small
instruments of flint. As, however, it was not desirable to introduce
unnecessary details when dealing only with the processes adopted in the
manufacture of stone implements, the more particular description of
some of the tools was deferred, until after an account had been given
of the objects in the making of which they had probably assisted.
[Illustration: Fig. 346.—Yorkshire Wolds.]
* * * * *
In Fig. 346 is shown, full size, a characteristic specimen of the tool
to which I have provisionally assigned the name of “flaking tool,”
or fabricator. It is symmetrically chipped out of grey flint, and is
curved at one extremity, probably with the view of adapting it for
being better held in the hand. The side edges, which were originally
left sharp, have been slightly rounded by grinding, apparently from the
same motive. The angles at the curved end have been smoothed off, but
the other end is completely rounded, and presents the half-polished,
worn appearance characteristic of these tools. The curvature lengthways
to some extent resembles that of the Eskimo arrow-flakers engraved
as Figs. 8 and 9, and is of common occurrence among these tools.
They vary much in the amount of workmanship they display; some being
mere flakes with the edges rounded |413| by chipping, and others as
carefully wrought into form as any flint hatchet or chisel. These
skilfully-chipped specimens are frequently much more convex on one face
than the other. They vary in length from about 2 to 4 inches.
An unusually long example is, by permission of the Society of
Antiquaries of Scotland, shown in Fig. 346A. It was found on the
Hill of Corennie,[1970] Aberdeenshire, and closely resembles another
implement of the same kind found near Fordoun,[1971] Kincardineshire.
[Illustration: Fig. 346A.—Corennie. 1∕1]
[Illustration: Fig. 347.—Bridlington. 1∕1]
The rougher kinds are usually clumsy in their proportions, as if
strength were an object, and they not unfrequently show a certain
amount of abrasion at each end. An instrument of this coarser
description is shown in Fig. 347. It is worn away and rounded, not
only at the point, but for a considerable distance along the sides,
the abraded surface having a somewhat bruised appearance. It is
remarkable that many of the Danish flint knife-daggers, especially
those which have been so long in use that their blades have been much
diminished in size by having been frequently re-chipped, present at
the |414| end and sides of the handles precisely the same kind of
worn surface. At one time I thought it possible that constant contact
with hard hands, not free from sand and dirt, might have produced
this rounding of the angles; but closer examination proves that this
cannot have been the only cause of the wear, as it is sometimes the
case that at a certain distance from the end of the hilt, the abraded
character disappears entirely, and, with the exception of a slight
polish, the angles are as fresh as on the day when the daggers were
first manufactured. This feature is most observable in the poignards
with the beautifully-decorated handles. I possess one of this kind—like
Worsaae, No. 52—with the sides near the blade exquisitely ornamented
with a delicate wavy edging, and with a line of similar ornament
running along the centre of one face of the handle, the butt-end having
also been edged in a similar manner; but for an inch and a half from
the end the whole of this ornamentation is completely worn away, and
the sides are battered and rounded. To such an extent has this part of
the handle been used, that one of the projecting points of the original
fishtail-like end has entirely disappeared, and the other is completely
rounded. The blade is probably now not more than one-third of its
original size, so that we may infer that it must have been long in use
for its legitimate purposes. But during all this time the hilt must
have been made to serve some other and less appropriate purpose than
that of a handle, and as a result its original beauty of ornamentation
has been entirely destroyed. I think that this purpose must have been
the chipping, or rather the re-working, of the edges of other flint
instruments.
Whether this was effected by pressure or by slight blows it is hard to
say; but it appears probable that the ancient possessor of two such
daggers used the hilt of the one for re-chipping the blade of the
other, and it may be for re-chipping other implements. An indirect
inference deducible from this disfigurement of the beautifully wrought
handles, is that they were not originally made by the owners who thus
misused them—though they also must have been fairly accomplished
workers in flint—but that the daggers were procured by barter of
some kind from the cutlers of the period, whose special trade it
was to work in flint. For we can hardly conceive that those who had
bestowed so much time and skill in the ornamentation of these hilts,
should afterwards wantonly disfigure their own artistic productions.
In Britain, where the larger forms of finely-wrought instruments are
scarcer, it seems most likely that these flakers were principally used
in the making of arrow-heads, though probably hard bone or stag’s horn
was also employed, as already suggested.
Against regarding the ends of these tools as having been worn away
in the manufacture of other instruments of flint, it may be urged
that the butt-ends of some chisels present a similar appearance, and
therefore that the wear may be the result of hammering with some kind
of hard mallet. It must, however, be remembered that no hammering at
the ends would produce the wearing away apparent on the sides of the
tools, and that the chisels which present the worn ends are in form and
size much the same as the “flaking tools,” and may, like the Danish
daggers, have served a double purpose. It is also worthy of notice
that these “flaking tools” are most abundant in districts where flint
arrow-heads occur in the greatest numbers, as, for instance, on |415|
the Yorkshire Wolds. In parts of Suffolk where arrow-heads are common
they too are abundantly present. I have also found them in the camp at
Maiden Bower, near Dunstable, in company with arrow-heads.
In the case of the straight implements, like Fig. 347, it is by no
means impossible that they were used with a mallet as punches or sets,
to strike off flakes in the manufacture of arrow-heads and similar
articles. As already mentioned, some of the American tribes use a bone
punch for this purpose.
[Illustration: Fig. 348.—Sawdon. 1∕1]
[Illustration: Fig. 349.—Acklam Wold. 1∕1]
In Figs. 348 and 349 I have engraved two Yorkshire instruments,
the one from Sawdon, and the other from Acklam Wold; both from the
rich Greenwell Collection. At first sight they seem chisel-like in
character, but the edge in both is semicircular, and not ground, but
merely chipped. Fig. 348 is worked on both faces, though more convex
on one than on the other. Fig. 349 is merely a flake with its edges
chipped towards its outer face, so that it resembles a long narrow
scraper. The butt-end in that from Sawdon is much worn and rounded,
its sides are also worn away for about 3∕4 inch at that end; the butt
of that from Acklam Wold is also rounded, but principally towards the
flat face. The edges of both are sharp and uninjured. It therefore
appears probable that these tools were also made with a view to being
used at the blunt, and not at the sharp end; and it is possible that
the semicircular sharp ends may have been for insertion in some form
of wooden handle, in which the instruments were tightly bound, and
their projecting ends then used, it may be, for flaking other flints. A
flaking-tool from Unstan Cairn,[1972] Orkney, is of the same character
as Fig. 349, but longer. What seems to have been a “fabricator” was
found at Torre Abbey Sands,[1973] Torbay. On referring to page 38, will
be seen some Eskimo arrow-flakers of reindeer horn |416| attached to
wooden handles; and the instrument from Acklam Wold seems well adapted
for similar attachment, with its flat side towards the wood.
Some bone instruments which have been found in barrows may possibly
have served as arrow-flakers. One from Green Low,[1974] Derbyshire,
has been figured. An implement of deer’s horn, with a small piece of
hard bone inserted in the small end, was found in the Broch[1975] of
Lingrow, Scapa, Orkney, but seems to belong to the Iron Period. No
flint arrow-heads are recorded from the Broch.
I must confess that the suggestions I have offered with regard to the
use of these tools are by no means conclusive. I can only hope that
future discoveries may throw more light upon the subject.
Canon Greenwell, who has figured a specimen—like Fig. 346—in the
_Archæological Journal_,[1976] was inclined to think that the other
form of instrument, like Figs. 348 and 349, was “used in dressing
hides, the sharp end for removing the loose parts of the skin, the
smooth end for rubbing down the seams when the leather was made up
into a garment.” I do not think that this can really have been their
purpose, as for smoothing down the seams a natural pebble would
probably be preferable, and for cutting or removing the loose parts a
flint flake would answer better. Still, I have seen a somewhat pointed
concretionary nodule of stone, the end and point of which were polished
from use by a glovemaker, in recent times, in smoothing down the seams
of coarse leather gloves. The late Mr. C. Monkman,[1977] like myself,
regarded these instruments as punches or fabricators, used for chipping
arrows and delicate flint weapons into shape. This is also Canon
Greenwell’s present opinion. He has figured an example in “British
Barrows.”[1978] In Yorkshire they are known as “finger-flints.”
The worn appearance of the pointed end of some flakes is not improbably
due, as has already been observed, to their having been employed in
“picking” into shape implements—such as hatchets or axes—formed of
greenstone and other rocks of a somewhat softer nature than flint.
The ends of the flaking tools, punches, or fabricators are, however,
usually far too blunt for them to have been applied to such a purpose.
Another of the causes of the blunted and worn-away appearance of the
ends, and even sides, of originally sharp flint flakes and instruments,
I have already described when treating of scrapers—namely, the striking
off by their means particles from a block of pyrites, with a view of
procuring fire.
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