Fig. 171.—Ty Mawr.
They have been found in Cornwall[1] and in Ireland.[2]
Others have been discovered in Brittany.
Hand-mills of granite formed in much the same manner have been in use until lately in Brandenburg. The lower stones are described as from 2 feet to 4 feet long, and nearly as wide, with channels, after long use, as much as 6 inches deep; the mullers are either spherical or oval, and of such a size that they can be held in the hand.[3]
A large sandstone, with a small bowl-shaped concavity worked in it, was found near burnt bones, in a barrow at Elkstone,[4] Staffordshire; and two others in barrows near Sheen.[5] Another, with a cup-shaped concavity, 212 inches in diameter, occurred in a barrow near Pickering;[6] and in other barrows were found sandstone balls roughly chipped all over, from 4 inches to 1 inch in diameter, in one instance associated with a bronze dagger. A ball of sandstone, 212 inches in diameter, was found with flint instruments accompanying a contracted skeleton in a barrow near Middleton.[7] A round stone like a cannon-ball was also found in a barrow near Cromer,[8] and three balls of stone, from 214 inches to 134 inches in diameter, were picked up in a camp at Weetwood,[9] Northumberland.
Mealing-stones, both flat and hollowed, were found in Schliemann's[10] excavations at Troy.
In grinding and pounding a considerable amount of grit must have been worn off the stones and been mixed with the meal. The usual worn condition of the teeth in the skulls from ancient barrows may be connected with this attrition. Mr. Charters-White,[11] by examination of- ↑ "Nænia Cornub.," p. 221.
- ↑ Wood-Martin "Lake-dw. of Ireland," 1886, p. 85.
- ↑ Kirchner, "Thor's Donnerkeil," 1853, p. 97.
- ↑ "Ten Years' Diggings," p. 172.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 177.
- ↑ Ibid., pp. 213, 224, 226.
- ↑ "Vestiges Ant. Derb.," p. 99.
- ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. vii. p. 190.
- ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xxiv. p. 81.
- ↑ "Troy," 1875, pp. 151, 163.
- ↑ British Med. Journ., April 2nd, 1887, quoted in Essex Naturalist, vol. i. p. 92.
