been found in Scotland. A good example from Machermore Loch,[1] Wigtownshire, and several others,[2] have been figured.
Fig. 161a.—Goldenoch. 11
That from Goldenoch, shown in Fig. 161a,[3] has a deep recess on each face. Others from Fife[4] have the recess on one face only. In the case of one from the Island of Coll[5] the recesses are at the sides instead of on the faces.
In some cases the depressions are shallower, and concave rather than conical. I have a flat irregular disc of greenstone, about 214 inches diameter and 58 inch thick, thinning off to the edges, which are rounded, and having in the centre of each face a slight cup-like depression, about 58 inch in diameter. It was found in a trench at Ganton, Yorkshire. In the Greenwell Collection is a somewhat larger disc of sandstone, worn on both faces and round the whole edge, and with a slight central depression. It was found in a cairn at Harbottle Peels, Northumberland. In form, these instruments are identical with the Tilhuggersteene[6] of the Danish antiquaries, and it is possible that some of them, especially those of the circular form, may have been used for the purpose of chipping out other kinds of stone implements.
The type is not of uncommon occurrence in Ireland.[7] It is rare in France, but a broken example from the neighbourhood of Amiens is in the Blackmore Museum.
I have a specimen which might be mistaken for Danish or Irish, but which was brought me from Port Beaufort, Cape of Good Hope, by Captain H. Thurburn, F.G.S. It must have been in use there at no very remote period.
An oval stone, with what appears to be a cup-shaped depression on one face, 38 inch deep, is engraved by Schoolcraft[8] as a relic of the Congarees. Another, from the Delaware River, of the Danish form, is described by Nilsson[9] as a tool for making arrow-points. He also engraves one from Greenland. Other so-called hammer-stones in the same plate are more probably "strike-a-light" stones, and under any circumstances belong to the Early Iron Period. Abbott[10] and Rau[11] also describe Indian hammer-stones, some like Fig. 161.
Highly polished, and deep cup-shaped or conical depressions are occasionally to be observed occurring on one or both faces of large pebbles, usually of quartz, and sometimes in two or three places on- ↑ P. S. A. S., vol. xi. p. 583, Munro "Lake-dw.," p. 448.
- ↑ P. S. A. S., vol. xiv. 127; xv. 267; xxiii. p. 211.
- ↑ Kindly lent by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
- ↑ P. S. A. S., vol. xxii. p. 62.
- ↑ P. S. A. S., vol. xii. p. 688.
- ↑ Worsaae's "Nord. Oldsager," No. 32, 33. Nilsson's "Stone Age," pl. i. 14. A Lüneburg specimen, with deep conical depressions, is given by Lindenschmit. "Alt. u. h. V.," vol. i. Heft viii. Taf. i. 4.
- ↑ Wilde's "Cat. Mus. R. I. A.," fig. 75.
- ↑ "Ind. Tribes," vol. iv. p. 165.
- ↑ "Stone Age," p. 12, pl. i. 2, 3.
- ↑ "Prim. Industry," p. 425, et. seqq.
- ↑ Arch. f. Anth., vol. v. p. 263.
