chambered barrow at Temple Bottom,[1] Wilts. It is formed of a portion split from a leg-bone of some mammal, about 314 inches long, and 58 inch wide, sharpened from both faces to a segmental edge at one end. A broader instrument of the same character was found with some long bone pins or awls near Cawdor Castle;[2] and "a celt-shaped instrument, 5 inches long, with a cutting edge, made from part of the lower jaw of a large quadruped, rubbed down," was found with calcined bones in a barrow near Monsal Dale.[3]
As has already been mentioned, bone instruments in the shape of a chisel occur in considerable numbers in the Swiss Lake-dwellings and elsewhere, and have been regarded as tools used in making and ornamenting earthen vessels.[4] That bone chisels are, however, susceptible of more extensive use, is proved by the practice of the Klah-o-quat Indians of Nootka Sound,[5] who, without the aid of fire, cut down the large cedars for their "dug-out" canoes with chisels formed from the horn of the Wapiti, struck by mallets of stone hafted in withes, or like dumb-bells in shape.
The only other forms of implement I need mention are those of a hammer and a hoe, formed of the lower end of a stag's horn, cut off and perforated. A hammer, or possibly a celt-socket, was found with a skeleton in Cop Head Hill barrow,[6] near Warminster, together with fragments of flint "polished by use;" another in a barrow at Collingbourn,[7] Wilts, and a third in a barrow near Biggin,[8] with a contracted interment, and in company with flint celts, arrow-heads, and knives. Canon Greenwell has likewise found one in a barrow at Cowlam, Yorkshire, with an unburnt body, and together with a stone axe-hammer among burnt bones in a barrow at Lambourn,[9] Berks. They have also been found in some numbers in the Thames, near Kew.
I have already spoken of the use of stag's horn for pick-axes, and for sockets for stone-hatchets; occasionally, also, the horn itself was sharpened and used as an axe or hoe.[10] One from the Thames[11] near Wandsworth, with its wooden handle still preserved, has been recorded by Mr. G. F. Lawrence. Stag's-horn axes occur in various countries on the Continent. They are by no means rare in Scandinavia, except in the case of those having ring and other ornaments engraved upon them.[12] On an adze of
- ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 215.
- ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. i. p. 395.
- ↑ "Ten Years' Dig.," p. 77.
- ↑ Keller, "Lake-dw.," 2nd S., p. 26.
- ↑ Catlin's "Last Rambles," p. 101.
- ↑ Hoare's "South Wilts," p. 68. "Cat. Devizes Mus.," No. 224a.
- ↑ Arch., vol. xliii. p. 438.
- ↑ "Vest. Ant. Derb.," p. 42.
- ↑ Arch., vol. lii. p. 60, fig. 27.
- ↑ Sproat, "Scenes and Studies of Savage Life, 1868," p. 86. Trans. Ethn. Soc., N. S., vol. v. p. 250.
- ↑ Daily Graphic, Dec. 28, 1896.
- ↑ Ant. Tidsk., 1852-64, p. 9. Mem. de la Soc. des Ant. du Nord, 1850-60, p. 29. Madsen, "Afb.," pl. xxv.
