numbers, I may mention Maiden Bower, near Dunstable; Pulpit Wood, near Prince's Risborougb; Cissbury,[1] Beltout Castle, and other encampments in Sussex; Little Solsbury Hill, near Bath; Castle Ring,[2] Cannock Chase; Avebury,[3] Wilts; and Callow Hill,[4] Oxfordshire. They have been found in wonderful abundance on the surface in the counties already mentioned, and their occurrence has been noticed near Bradford Abbas;[5] near Folkestone;[6] at Possingworth Manor,[7] Uckfield; near Hastings;[8] at Stonham[9] and Icklingham, Suffolk; near Grime's Graves, Norfolk;[10] at St. Mary Bourne,[11] Hants; and in a turbary at Heneglwys,[12] Anglesea, an island in which no flint occurs naturally. Two from Carno, Montgomeryshire, are engraved in the Archæologia Cambrensis.[13] They have also been found under a submerged forest on the coast of West Somerset.[14] I have seen a few flakes made from Lower Tertiary conglomerate.
In districts where flint was an imported luxury, other stones, usually containing a large proportion of silica, and when broken presenting a conchoidal fracture, served, so far as the material allowed, the same purposes as flint. Of this a few instances have already been given. In some cases even laminated sandstones, shales, and slates seem to have been utilized. Numerous relics of this kind, some so rude that their purposes may appear doubtful, were found by the late Mr. S. Laing,[15] in Caithness. Large oval flakes, made from sandstone pebbles, occurred in very great numbers in and around the ancient dwelling at Skaill, Orkney. In form, however, these approximate more nearly to the Pict's knives, of which hereafter, than to ordinary flakes. The method of their manufacture has been described by Mr. Laing.[16]
A curious stone knife or dagger, found beside a stone cist in Perthshire,[17] is described as a natural formation of mica-schist, the peculiar shape of which has suggested its adaptation as a rude but efficient implement.
Some rude spear-heads of flint and greenstone are said to have been found near Pytchley,[18] Northamptonshire; and some of Kentish rag at Maidstone.[19] I have also seen them made of Oolitic flint.
Flakes of quartzite have been found, together with some of flint and quartz and with polished celts, in. some of the caverns inhabited during the Neolithic Period in the Pyrenees of the Ariège,[20] and also in the Lake Settlement of Greug.[21]
When we consider how well adapted for cutting purposes were
- ↑ Arch., vol, xlii. p. 64.
- ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xx. p. 198.
- ↑ "Salisb. Vol. Arch. Inst.," p. 106.
- ↑ Journ. Ethn. Soc., vol. i. p. 10.
- ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xxiii. p. 300; vol. xxv. p. 155.
- ↑ Geol. Mag., vol. vii. 443.
- ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xxii. p. 68.
- ↑ Suss. Arch. Coll., vol. xix. p. 53.
- ↑ Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xxiv. p. 182, &c.
- ↑ Journ. Ethn. Soc., vol. ii. p. 421.
- ↑ "Flint Impts.," Jos. Stevens, 1867.
- ↑ Arch. Journ., vol xxi. p. 168.
- ↑ 3rd S., vol. iii. p. 304.
- ↑ Journ. Ethn. Soc., vol. ii. p. 141.
- ↑ "Prehist. Rem. of Caithness," Proc. Soc Ant. Scot., vol. vii. p. 37.
- ↑ P. S. A. S., vol. vii. p. 73.
- ↑ P. S. A. S., vol. i. p. 101.
- ↑ Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. ii. p. 203.
- ↑ Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xiii. p. 319.
- ↑ Garrigou et Filhol, "Age de la Pierre polie," &c., pl. vii. and viii.
- ↑ De Bonstetten, "2nd Supp. au Rec. d'Ant. Suisses," pl. i.
