SLING-STONES ROUGHLY CHIPPED FROM FLINT.
419
Fig. 350.—Yorkshire Wolds. 1/2
The objects to which in this country the name of sling-stone has been generally applied are more or less roughly-chipped, and approximately lenticular blocks of flint, varying considerably in proportionate thickness, and usually from about 11/2 to 3 inches in diameter. An average specimen from the Yorkshire Wolds is shown in Fig. 350. The contour is frequently more truly circular or oval, and the faces somewhat more carefully chipped. They are found in considerable numbers on the Yorkshire Wolds, in Suffolk, Sussex, and other counties where chalk flints are common. Occasionally also they occur in Scotland.[1] Similar forms are also abundant in the Danish kjökken-möddings and "coast-finds." In this latter case it appears quite as probable that they may have served for net-sinkers as for sling-stones; although, as Sir John Lubbock[2] has remarked, "that some have really served as sling-stones seems to be indicated by their presence in the peat-mosses, which it is difficult to account for in any other way."
Prof. Nilsson
[3] objects that they are so irregular and sharp-cornered, "that they would soon wear out the sling, even if it were made of leather." He presumes "that these sharp-cornered stone balls were the first hand-missile weapons of the earliest and rudest savages, and used by them to throw at wild animals or enemies." This objection to regard them as sling-stones seems hardly well founded; especially if we consider them to have been in use with a stick-sling, in which case their angularity would have been of some service in retaining them in the cleft, while their lenticular form adapts them well for this kind of sling. A more valid objection raised by Prof. Nilsson is that no one "would give himself all this trouble to fashion sling-stones which were to be thrown away the next moment, when he could find many natural pebbles quite as suitable." But to this it may be replied, that at the present day we do find the New Caledonians, the Tahitians, and other tribes, carefully fashioning their sling-stones; and also that this flat lenticular form is better adapted for the stick-sling than a natural pebble of the usual oval form. As a fact, however, I think it will be found that these flint discs, to which the name of sling-stones is applied, are most abundant in those districts where natural rolled pebbles happen to be scarce. If the case be really so, we can readily understand why the cores, from which flakes had been struck for conversion into arrow-heads and other instruments, should have been themselves utilized as sling-stones. If these missiles were necessary, it would be a question of which would involve the least trouble, whether to chip into the required form a certain number of flints which came readily to hand, at the same time making use of the resulting chips; or to select and bring together, possibly from a distant sea-coast, a bed of a stream, or some uncovered patch of gravel, a number of pebbles of the right size and form for slinging. In the camp at Hod Hill, near Blandford,
- ↑ Wilson, "Preh. Ann. of Scot.," vol. i. p. 197.
- ↑ "Preh. Times," 4th ed., p. 105.
- ↑ "Stone Age," p. 51.
