Page:Natural History Review (1861).djvu/504

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ORIGINAL ARTICLES.

were of Danish manufacture is proved by the discovery of moulds, and in some cases of the "tags" formed in the hole through which the metal was poured.

With the Stone age we arrive at a time when the use of metal was altogether unknown in Denmark. The inhabitants supported themselves by hunting and fishing, and had no domestic animals, except the dog, nor so far as we are aware, any knowledge of agriculture.

Reduced thus to implements of stone, and fortunate in being able to obtain excellent flint, they attained to a rare skill in this art, and some of their flint spears and knives are wonderfully well made. The common form of flint axe, or celt, is represented in Pl. VII. fig. 1. These weapons though found elsewhere, are rare, except in Denmark, where they occur in the barrows of the Stone period. A few have been met with in England, principally in rivers, but our specimens seem to be generally narrower, with sloping sides, and arched above and below, while the Danish forms are flatter and with perpendicular sides. They were made by a succession of blows, and then the angles were ground down on sandstone blocks, several of which have been discovered. In this respect they differ from the celts found in the gravel beds at Amiens and Abbeville, which are always left angular. Smaller hatchets of stone are common in and to all countries. Some of the other objects belonging to this first great phase in the civilisation of Scandinavia are represented in Pl. VII. It might at first be doubted whether the triangular flint flake (fig. 7) was necessarily artificial. Similar flakes, however, either of flint or obsidian, have been and are still, used by savages in various parts of the world. They were made by taking an oblong stone and continually splitting off the projecting edges. Many obsidian flakes and one of the pieces from which they were struck may be seen in the British Museum, and I have represented in Pl. VII. fig. 6, a similar piece of flint from Denmark. The tombs of this period are chambers formed by enormous blocks of stone, so large that it is difficult to imagine how they can have been brought into position. The bodies were placed in a sitting posture, with their backs resting against the stones, and their knees brought up under their chins. When the tomb was intended only for one or two bodies it was small and the height was determined by the size of the stones forming the sides. Sometimes, however, a number were buried together, the tomb having, perhaps, served as a last resting place for a whole family. When this was the case the walls were formed by two rows of stones, and the space enclosed was much larger. In one that we visited the chamber was about 25 feet long by 10 broad, and there was a passage leading from the side to the exterior. The tomb was finally covered over by great slabs, and earth was heaped upon it, so as to form a mound, and a row of stones was placed round the edge. They are, therefore, quite different from the Barrows of the Bronze period which "have no circles of massive stones, no stone chambers, in general no large stones on the bottom,