cularly such as would have required a large quantity of metal for their formation. In tombs therefore which decidedly belong to the bronze-period, we occasionally meet with wedges and axes, knives and axes, but most frequently hammers, all of stone, which must have been used at a much later period. A great number of them are very carefully wrought, and also bear evident marks of having been bored through with round metal cylinders. But although implements of stone and bronze were at a certain period used together; yet it is an established fact that a period first prevailed during which stone alone was used for implements and weapons; and that, subsequently, a time arrived when the use of bronze appears to have been the all-prevailing custom.
Among the implements of bronze which are of most frequent occurrence are the Paalstabs [1] as they are called, which are from three to nine inches in length, of the shape of a chisel expanded towards the edge. They were fastened at the smaller end to a wooden handle[2]. They were probably used as a kind of axe or pickaxe, at all events similar tools of iron attached to wooden handles, are still used in
- ↑ This term Paalstab, was formerly applied in Scandinavia and Iceland, to a weapon used for battering the shields of the enemy, as is shewn by passages in the Sagas. Although not strictly applicable to the instrument in question, this designation is now so generally used by the antiquaries of Scandinavia and Germany, that it seems desirable with the view of securing a fixed terminology, that it should be introduced into the archæology of England.—T.
- ↑ In the curious paper on the Classification of Bronze Celts, contributed by Mr. Du Noyer to the Archaeological Journal, we find the following example of one of the modes in which weapons of this form could be hafted. It is taken from a specimen brought from Little Fish Bay in Africa, by Capt. Adams, R.N., and by that gentleman presented to Mr. Ball the Curator of the University Museum, Dublin.—T.
