Wood.[1] Another is in the Museum of the Hartley Institution at Southampton.
In the Berlin Museum[2] is a curious knife, found, I believe, in Prussia, which shows great skill in the adaptation of flint for cutting purposes It consists of a somewhat lanceolate piece of bone, about 714 inches long, and at the utmost 12 inch wide, and 14 inch thick. The section is approximately oval, but along one of the narrow sides a groove has been worked, and in this are inserted a series of segments of thin flakes of flint, so carefully chosen as to be almost of one thickness, and so dexterously fitted together that their edges constitute one continuous sharp blade, projecting about three-sixteenths of an inch from the bone. In some examples from Scandinavia the flint flakes are let in on both edges of the blade.[3] The flakes sometimes form barbs, as already mentioned.
The Mexican[4] swords, formed of flakes of obsidian attached to a blade of wood, were of somewhat the same character, and remains of what appears to have been an analogous sword, armed with flint flakes, have been found in one of the mounds of the Iroquois country.
Another use to which pointed flint flakes have occasionally been applied is for the formation of fishing-hooks. Such a hook, the stem formed of bone, and the returning point made of flint bound at an acute angle to the end of the bone, has been engraved by Klemm.[5] It was found in a grave in Greenland. Fishhooks formed entirely of flint, and found in Sweden, have been engraved by Nilsson,[6] and others, presumed to have been found in Holderness, by Mr. T. Wright, F.S.A.[7] These latter are, however, in all probability, forgeries.
Besides the flakes which may be regarded as merely tools for cutting or scraping, there are some which may with safety be reckoned as saws, their edges having been intentionally and regularly serrated, though in other respects they have been left entirely unaltered in form.
A specimen, found in a pit which appeared to have been excavated by the primitive inhabitants of the district, at Brighthampton, Oxon, has been figured;[8] and another oblong flint flake, with a regularly serrated edge, but the teeth not so deep or well defined as in this instance, was found by Dr. Thurnam in a chambered long barrow at West Kennet, Wilts, with numerous flakes and "scrapers."[9]
Figs. 199 to 201 represent similar instruments in my own collection from the Yorkshire Wolds. The largest has been serrated on both edges, but has had the teeth much broken and worn away on the thinner edge.
- ↑ "Nat. Hist, of Man," vol. ii. p. 32.
- ↑ See Archiv. f. Anth., vol. v. p. 234.
- ↑ Worsaae, "Prim. Ants. of Den.," p. 17. Nilsson, "Stone Age," pl. vi. 125, 126. Madsen, "Afb.," pl. xl.
- ↑ Wilson's "Preh. Man," vol. i. p. 225. "Anct. Mon. of Missis. Valley," p. 211. Squier, " Abor. Mon. of New York," p. 180.
- ↑ "Cultur-wiss,," vol. i. p. 61.
- ↑ "Stone Age," pl. ii. pp. 28, 29.
- ↑ "Remains of a Primitive People, &c., in Yorkshire."
- ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iv. 233.
- ↑ Arch., vol. xxxviii. p. 417.
