ancient times, unless possibly by Sotacus.[1] As already observed, it is occasionally found at the present day on our Eastern coast.
Beads formed of selected pebbles of quartz or other material are rarely found accompanying interments of the Stone Age in Britain. In France[2] they seem to be more common. Some neatly-pierced pebbles of rose-quartz, bored in the same manner as the perforated stone hammers, were found in the Allée couverte of Argenteuil; and pendants of jasper and callais in some of the tumuli near Carnac, Brittany.
It is rather doubtful whether the discs of Kimmeridge shale, so abundantly found in Dorsetshire, and to which the absurd name of Kimmeridge coal-money has been given, date back to pre-Roman times. Many of them were found by General Pitt Rivers,[3] in the Romano-British village at Woodcuts. These discs, as is well known, have on the one face a centre-mark showing where they revolved on the centre of the "back-poppet" in the course of being turned; and on the other face a square recess,[4] or occasionally two or three smaller round holes, showing the manner by which they were attached to the chuck or mandrel of the lathe. Very rarely they occur with a portion of an armlet, which has broken in the process of turning, still attached to their edges. One such has been engraved in the Archæological Journal,[5] and another is in my own collection. There can, therefore, be no doubt, that instead of their having been expressly made for any purpose, such as for use as money, they are merely the refuse or waste pieces from the lathe. They all appear to me to have been worked with metal tools, and, from a mass of them having been found "conglomerated by the presence of irony matter,"[6] these would appear to have been of iron or steel; at the same time, however, numerous chippings of flint were found, which, if used at all in the turning process, may have served for roughing out the discs. I have, however, not had an opportunity of personally examining these flint chippings. An interesting article on objects made of Kimmeridge shale[7] has been written by Mr. J. C. Mansel-Pleydell.
Fig. 384.—Kent's Cavern. 11
Rings of different sizes formed of stone are occasionally found, but their purpose is unknown. In a barrow at Heathwaite,[8] in Furness, half a stone ring, about a couple of inches in diameter, and apparently of circular section, was found. A ring of diorite, 414 inches in diameter, with a central hole of 114 inches, sharp at the edge, but 138 inches thick at the border of the perforation, and of nearly triangular section, was found at Wolsonbury, Sussex, and was in the collection of the late Mrs. Dickinson of Hurstpierpoint. A somewhat similar ring of serpentine, 512 inches in diameter, is in the Museum at Clermont Ferrand. Another was found near Dijon. A ring of black stone, found above the stalagmite in Kent's Cavern, is shown in Fig. 384. It is slightly rounded at its edges.
Five small rings about an inch in diameter, of a brown colour and- ↑ Plin., "Nat. Hist.," lib. xxxvii. c. 2.
- ↑ Rev. Arch., vol. xv. p. 364.
- ↑ "Exc. on Cranborne Chase," vol. i. pl. xlix.
- ↑ See Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. i. p. 325.
- ↑ Vol. xvi. p. 299.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 300.
- ↑ Proc. Dorset Nat. Hist. and Ant. Field Club, vol. xiii., 1892, p. 178.
- ↑ Arch., vol. xxxi. p. 452.
