little doubt of this having been merely a hand tool. A portion of the edge at the narrow end is worn away as if by scraping bone or something equally hard. This wearing away does not extend to the end of the tool. Another specimen from Yorkshire is in the Blackmore Museum.[1]
Fig. 112.—Helperthorpe. 12
A chisel from Suffolk,[2] ground at both ends, has been figured.
The implement shown in Fig. 112 appears to belong to this same class of tools, though closely resembling some of those which will hereafter be described as "arrow-flakers," from which it differs only in not showing any signs of being worn away at the ends. It is of flint neatly chipped, and was found at Helperthorpe, Yorkshire. I have another of the same form, but a trifle longer, found by Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., near Baldock, Herts. Neither of them shows any traces of grinding.
A similar chisel of flint, square at the edge, and found near Londinières[3] (Seine Inférieure), is engraved by the Abbé Cochet.
Implements, which can without hesitation be classed as chisels, are rare in Ireland, though long narrow celts approximating to the chisel form are not uncommon. These are usually of clay-slate, or of some metamorphic rock. I have, however, specimens of oval section not more than an inch wide, and as much as 5 inches long, with narrow straight edges, which seem to be undoubtedly chisels. I do not remember to have seen a specimen in flint, those described by Sir W. Wilde[4] being more celt-like in character.
Narrow chisels, occasionally 10 and 12 inches long, and usually square in section, and either polished all over or merely ground at the edge, are of common occurrence in Denmark and Sweden.[5] They are sometimes, but more rarely, oval in section.
In Germany and Switzerland the form is scarce, but one from the Sigmaringen district is engraved by Lindenschmit,[6] and a Swiss specimen, in serpentine, by Perrin.[7]
Some of the small celts found in the Swiss lakes appear to have been rather chisels than hatchets or adzes, as they were mounted in sockets[8] bored axially in hafts of stag's horn. In some instances the hole was bored transversely through the piece of horn, but even then, the tools are so small that they must have been used rather as knives or drawing chisels than as hatchets. Chisels made of bone are abundant in the Swiss Lake-settlements. They are also plentiful in some of the caverns in the French Pyrenees, which have been inhabited in Neolithic times. Several have also occurred in the Gibraltar caves.
- ↑ "Flint Chips," p. 76.
- ↑ Proc. Suff. Inst. Arch., vol. vii. p. 209.
- ↑ "Seine Inf.," 2nd ed., p. 528.
- ↑ "Cat. Mus. R.I.A.," p. 27.
- ↑ Worsaae, "Nord. Olds." Nos. 20, 22; Nilsson, "Stone Age," pl. vi. 127.
- ↑ "Hohenz. Samml.," Taf. xliii. 5.
- ↑ "Etude Préhist. sur la Savoie," 1869, pl. ii. 4.
- ↑ Desor, "Palafittes," p. 23, fig. 19.
