Chapter VI: Polished Celts (2)

The form shown in Fig. 71 is inserted among those of Britain, though geographically it may be regarded as French rather than British, having been found in Guernsey. I have engraved it from a cast presented to the Society of Antiquaries by the late Mr. F. C. Lukis, F.S.A. The form occurs in various materials—rarely flint—and is common through the whole of France. A specimen from Surrey is in the British Museum. I have seen one which was said to have been found in the neighbourhood of London, but it was not improbably an imported specimen.

Should authenticated instances of the finding of celts of this class in our southern counties be adduced, they will be of interest as affording _primâ facie_ evidence of intercourse with the Continent at an early period.

Small hatchets, both oval and circular in section, have been found at Accra,[409] West Africa, and others, larger, on the Gold Coast.[410] The same form is not uncommon in Greece and Asia Minor.

Major Sladen brought several small jade celts of this form, but flatter at the sides, from Yun-nan, in Southern China. Through his liberality several are in the Christy Collection, and one in my own. Some hæmatite celts found in North America[411] are of much the same size and form.

The specimen engraved as Fig. 72 was found in the neighbourhood of Wareham, Dorsetshire, and is in my own collection. It is formed of syenite, and, unlike the instruments previously described, is narrower at the edge than in the middle of the blade; the section shows that the faces are nearly flat. I have another celt, in which these peculiarities are exaggerated, the |128| faces being flatter, the blade thinner, and also wider in the middle in proportion to the edge, it being 5 1∕2 inches long, 2 1∕4 inches wide in the middle, and 1 1∕2 inches at the edge, and rather less than an inch in thickness. The material is a _Serpula_ limestone, and the celt was no doubt formed from a travelled block, as it was found in a Boulder-clay district at Troston, near Bury St. Edmunds. I have a much heavier implement from the same locality, and formed of the same kind of stone. It is 10 inches long, and rather wider in proportion than Fig. 72. It does not narrow towards the edge, but in section and general form may be classed with the specimen there figured.

A large celt, 10 inches long, of the same section, but thinner proportionally, and with straighter and more parallel sides, in outline more like Fig. 79, was found at Pilmoor, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and forms part of the Greenwell Collection. It is of clay-slate. Another in the same collection, and from North Holme, in the same Riding (10 inches), is broader and flatter, with the sides somewhat more square, and the edge more curved. One face is somewhat hollowed towards one side, possibly to grind out the trace of a too deep chip. A third is from Barmston, in the East Riding (10 1∕2 inches), and a beautiful celt of hornblendic serpentine (10 5∕8 inches), oval in section and pointed at the butt, was found at Cunningsburgh,[412] Shetland, and another of diorite (10 1∕8 inches), rather broader in its proportions than Fig. 72, on Ambrisbeg Hill,[413] Island of Bute. An analogous form from Japan is in the museum at Leyden.

A long narrow chisel-like celt, with an oval section, is given in Fig. 73. The original is of dark greenstone, and was found in Forfarshire. It is in the National Museum at Edinburgh. I have a larger celt of the same form (5 1∕2 inches), formed of a close-grained grit, and found at Sherburn, Yorkshire. Messrs. Mortimer have another of schist (4 1∕2 inches), from Thixendale, Yorkshire. This form occurs, though rarely, in Ireland.

A much larger celt, of metamorphic rock, 8 1∕2 inches long, 3 inches broad at the edge, and 1 3∕4 inches at the butt, 1 3∕8 inches thick, was found on Throckley Fell, Northumberland, and is in the Museum at Newcastle.

Fig. 74 gives a shorter form of implement truncated at the butt. The original, which is in my own collection, is formed of greenstone, and was found at Easton, near Bridlington. It is carefully polished towards the edge, but at the butt it is roughened, apparently with the intention of rendering it more capable of adhesion to its socket. The celt from Malton, Fig. 81, is roughened in a similar manner, and the same is the case with many of the hatchets from the Swiss lake-dwellings, which have been frequently found still fixed in their sockets of stag’s horn. |129|

I have another specimen, from South Back Lane, Bridlington, which, however, is not roughened at the butt, and the sides of which have had a narrow flat facet ground along them. It is 6 inches long, and 3 1∕2 inches wide at the edge. Mr. W. Tucker has shown me a broken specimen like Fig. 74, found near Loughborough.

Another form presents a rather pointed, and unusually elongated oval in section, and is pointed at the butt. Fig. 75 represents a highly-finished celt of this kind made of light green, almost jade-like stone, preserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh, and said to have been found in Caithness. It is so thoroughly Carib in character, and so closely resembles specimens I possess from the West Indian Islands, that for some time I hesitated to engrave it. There are, however, sufficiently numerous instances of other implements of the same form having been found in this country for the type to be accepted as British. The celt found at Glasgow,[414] in a canoe at a depth of twenty-five feet below the surface, was of this kind. In the Greenwell Collection is one of porphyritic greenstone (7 inches), and of nearly this form, found at Grantchester, Cambridge. Two celts of this character, the one from Jamaica and the other from the North of Italy, are engraved in the _Archæologia_.[415] Both are in the British Museum.

A celt like Fig. 75 (4 1∕2 inches), of a material like jadeite, is said to |130| have been found about 60 years ago at King’s Sutton,[416] Northamptonshire. It has much the appearance of being Carib.

Four greenstone celts of this type, one of them rather crooked laterally, were found in 1869 at Bochym,[417] Cury, Cornwall.

Another of aphanite (11 1∕2 inches) from Cornwall[418] is in the Edinburgh Museum, where is also one of the same material and form (10 1∕2 inches) from Berwickshire,[419] two others of grey porphyritic stone (9 inches) from Aberdeenshire,[420] and another of porphyrite (10 inches) found near Lerwick,[421] Shetland.

I have specimens of the same type from various parts of France. In the Greenwell Collection is a Spanish celt of the same form found near Cadiz.

The bulk of the celts found in Ireland, and formed of other materials than flint, approximate in form to Figs. 69 to 75, though usually rather thinner in their proportion. They range, however, widely in shape, and vary much in their degree of finish.

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I now come to the fourth of the subdivisions under which, mainly for the sake of having some basis for classification, I have arranged the polished celts. In it, I have placed those which present any abnormal peculiarities; and the first of these which I shall notice are such as do not materially affect the outline of the celts; as, for instance, the existence of a second cutting edge at the butt-end, at a part where, though the blade is usually tapered away and ground, yet it very rarely happens that it has been left sharp. Indeed, in almost all cases, if in shaping and polishing the celt the butt-end has at one time been sharpened, the edge has been afterwards carefully removed by grinding it away.

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The beautifully-formed implement of ochreously-stained flint represented in Fig. 76, was found at Gilmerton, in East Lothian, and is preserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh. The sides are flat with the angles rounded off, and the blade expands slightly at the ends, both of which are sharpened. It is carefully polished all over, so as to show no traces of its having been chipped out, except a slight depression on one face, and this is polished like the rest of the blade. It is upwards of a century since this instrument was turned up by the plough, as described in the _Minutes of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_[422] for April 2, 1782, where it is mentioned as the “head of a hatchet of polished yellow marble, sharpened at both ends.”

Another from Shetland[423] (11 1∕2 inches) is made of serpentine and has both ends “formed to a rounded cutting edge.” |131|

A celt from Kirklauchline, Wigtownshire, mentioned at page 135, is much like Fig. 76 in outline.

A somewhat similar instrument, but narrower at the butt, formed of jade (?) and 11 inches long, found at Nougaroulet, is engraved in the _Revue de Gascogne_.[424]

Fig. 77 represents another celt, in the Edinburgh Museum, of similar section, but expanding only at the butt-end, which is sharpened, |133| and contracting from the middle towards the broader end, which, as usual, seems to have been the principal cutting end. It is formed of compact greenstone, and was found in Stirlingshire. In general outline, it closely resembles a common Cumberland form, of which, however, the butt is not sharp. Several such were found in Ehenside Tarn,[425] Cumberland, varying in length from 6 to 14 1∕2 inches. One of them was in its original haft. The whole are now in the British Museum. Another celt (10 3∕4 inches), made of a fine volcanic ash, was found in 1873 near Loughrigg Tarn,[426] Westmorland. Two celts of much the same form from Drumour,[427] Glenshee, Forfarshire, in 1870, are mentioned on page 119.

Celts with an edge at each end are rare on the Continent, though they are of more frequent occurrence in Ireland. One of this character, found in Dauphiné, France,[428] has been engraved by M. Chantre.

Another from Portugal[429] has been described by myself elsewhere.

A celt of shorter proportions, but also provided with a cutting edge at each end, is shown in Fig. 78. It is in the Greenwell Collection, and was found at Harome, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, where several stone implements of rare form have been discovered. The material is a hard clay-slate. The tool seems quite as well adapted for being used in the hand without any mounting, as for attachment to a haft. |135|

Another of these implements, with a cutting edge at either end, is shown in Fig. 79.

As will be observed, it is curved longitudinally, so that if attached to a handle, it must have been after the manner of an adze and not of an axe. The sides curve slightly inwards, which would render any attachment to a handle more secure.

The material of which it is formed is a dark green porphyry. It was found in a cairn at Daviot,[430] near Inverness, in company with a celt of oval section, and pointed at the butt (9 1∕2 inches); and also with a greenstone pestle (?) (10 1∕4 inches), rounded at each end. This latter was probably formed from a long pebble. They are all preserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh. A curved celt of this character but pointed at the butt-end (14 inches), formed of indurated clay-stone, was found in Shetland.[431] A straighter celt of felstone (13 inches), blunt at the butt-end, was found at Kirklauchline,[432] Wigtownshire.

The next peculiarity which I have to notice, is that of the tapering sides of the celt being curved inwards, as if for the purpose of being more securely fixed either to a handle or in a socket. In the last implement described, the reduction in width towards the middle of the blade would appear to have been intended to assist in fastening it at the end of a handle, as an adze cutting at each end. In Fig. 80 the reduction in width is more abrupt, and the blade would appear to have been mounted as an axe. It is formed of a compact light grey metamorphic rock, and was formerly in the collection of the Rev. S. Banks, of Cottenham, Cambridgeshire. I have a greenstone celt found at Carnac, Brittany, with shoulders of the same character about the middle of the blade. A form of celt expanding into a kind of knob at the butt-end is peculiar to the Lower Loire.[433] It is known as the “_hâche à bouton_,” or “_hâche à tête_.”

The original of Fig. 81 was found in a gravel-pit near Malton, Yorkshire. It was at first supposed to have been found in undisturbed |136| drift, and some correspondence upon the subject appeared in the Times newspaper.[434] The gravel, however, in which it was found seems to belong to the series of Glacial deposits, and if so, is of considerably greater antiquity than any of the old River-gravels, in which the unpolished flint implements have been discovered. This celt is of greenstone, carefully polished at the edge, and towards the butt slightly roughened by being picked with a sharp pointed tool. This roughening is in character similar to that which has been observed on many of the celts from the Swiss Lake-dwellings and from France,[435] and was no doubt intended in their case to make the stone adhere more firmly in the socket of stag’s horn in which it was inserted. The object in this case would appear to be the same; and, like other polished celts, it belongs to the Neolithic Period. The expansion of the blade towards the edge is very remarkable.

A celt of the same type as that from Malton, but somewhat oblique at the edge, and formed of quartz containing pyrites, found at Soden, is in the Museum at Bonn.

A flat form of stone hatchet, expanding rapidly from a slightly tapering butt about half the entire length of the blade, so as to form a semicircular cutting-edge, has been found in South Carolina.[436] There is a small perforation in the centre, as if for a pin, to assist in securing it in its handle.

Another form, with the blade reduced for about half its length, so as to form a sort of tang, is engraved by Squier and Davis.[437]

The celt engraved in Fig. 82 presents an abrupt shoulder on one side only, which, however, is in this case probably due to the form of the pebble from which it was made, a portion of which had split off along a line of natural cleavage. It is formed of a reddish, close-grained porphyritic rock, and is subquadrate in section at the butt. It was found at Mennithorpe, Yorkshire, and is in the Greenwell Collection. In the same collection is a thin celt of clay-slate, 4 3∕4 inches long, of much the same form, but rounded at the shoulder. It was found at Ryedale, in the North Riding of Yorkshire.

Some of the shouldered implements may have been intended for use in the hand, without hafting. This appears to be the case with the greenstone celt shown in Fig. 83. It was found on Middleton Moor, Derbyshire, and was in the collection of the late Mr. J. F. Lucas. The shallow grooves at the sides seem intended to receive the fingers much in the same manner as the grooves in the handles of some of |137| the tools of the Eskimos or the handles of the bronze sickles of the Swiss Lake-dwellers.[438] An Irish celt, 8 inches long, and now in the Blackmore Museum, has two notches on one side only, and more distinctly formed, “seemingly to receive the fingers and give a firmer hold when used in the hand without a haft.”

Another peculiar instrument adapted for being held in the hand is shown in Fig. 83A. It was found at Keystone, Huntingdonshire,[439] and is now in the British Museum. It is made of greenstone, and in form resembles the sharp end of a celt with flat sides let into a spherical handle. Some hand-hatchets from Australia are of much the same character, but in their case the knob is distinct from the blade, and formed of hard _xanthorrhæa_ gum. |138|

The original of Fig. 84 is in the Greenwell Collection, and was found near Truro. It is of serpentine, with an oblique edge, and seems to have been formed from a pebble with little labour beyond that of sharpening one end. Though much flatter on one face than the other, it would appear, from the slanting edge, to have been used as an axe and not as an adze, unless indeed it were a hand-tool.

A beautiful adze formed of chalcedonic flint is shown in Fig. 84A. kindly lent by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The original was found at Fernie Brae,[440] Slains, Aberdeenshire. It is 7 inches long, and of nearly triangular section. A somewhat similar adze of greenstone was found at Little Barras,[441] Drumlithie, Kincardineshire. I have a flint adze (5 inches) of much the same character, but not so flat and blunt at the butt-end, and ground at the edge only, which was found in Reach Fen, Cambs. It is shown in Fig. 35A at page 92.

Another peculiarity of form is where the edge, instead of being as usual nearly in the centre of the blade, is almost in the same plane as one of the faces, like that of a joiner’s chisel. An implement of this character, from a “Pict’s castle,” Clickemin, near Lerwick, Shetland, is shown in Fig. 85.

It was presented to me by the late Rev. Dr. Knowles, F.S.A. The material appears to be a hard clay-slate. The form is well adapted for being mounted as an adze, much in the same manner as the nearly similar implements in use by the South Sea Islanders. A New Zealand[442] adze of precisely the same character has been figured.

Sometimes the edge of a celt, instead of being sharp, has been carefully removed by grinding, so as to present a flat or rounded surface. |139| In Fig. 86 is represented a singular implement of this kind in flint. It is polished all over; one side is straight, and the other curved; both ends are curved, but one is rounded at the edge and the other flat. It is difficult to understand for what purpose such an instrument can have been intended. There is no reason for supposing that the grinding at the ends was later in date than the formation of the other parts. I have others like Fig. 30 with the edge also flattened, one of these I found, as already mentioned, at Abbot’s Langley; and I have seen another flint celt of much the same form, found at Chesterford, Cambs., with a somewhat flat edge, but rounded and worn away, as if by scraping some soft substance. Small transverse _striæ_, such as might have been caused by particles of sand, are visible on the worn edge. In the Greenwell Collection is a portion of a celt of greenstone, the fractured face ground flat and a portion of the edge also ground away.

A small flint celt, with a round polished edge instead of a cutting one as usual, was found, with other objects, in a barrow on Elton Moor, Derbyshire.[443] I have seen a small flint celt like Fig. 33, with the edge perfectly rounded by grinding. It was found between Deal and Dover, near Kingsdown, by Mr. Hazzeldine Warren, of Waltham Cross.

It is hard to say for what purpose the edge was thus made blunt. In some cases, however, the instruments may have been used as battle-axes, the edges of which when of the perforated forms are usually flattened or rounded, probably with the view of preventing accidental injury to those who carried them. In some celts, however, the broad end is so much rounded that they can hardly be said to have an edge, and they have more the appearance of having-been burnishing or |140| calendering tools. I have observed this rounding of the end in some Irish and French specimens, not made of flint, as well as in one from India.

Occasionally, but very seldom, a circular concave recess is worked on each face of the celt, apparently for the purpose of preventing it from slipping when held in the hand and used either as a chopping or cutting instrument. That engraved as Fig. 87 was kindly lent me by Mr. J. R. Mortimer, who found it on Acklam Wold, Yorkshire. It is of greenstone, and has been polished over almost the entire surface. The butt-end is nearly flat transversely, and ground in the other direction to a sweep, so as to fit beneath the forefinger, when held by the thumb and middle-finger placed in the recesses on the faces. Such recesses are by no means uncommon on the stones intended for use as hammers, and farther on (p. 242) I have engraved a hammer-stone of this class which would seem to have been originally a celt such as this, but which has entirely lost any approach to an edge by continual battering. In Mr. Mortimer’s specimen the edge is fairly sharp, though it has lost some splinters from it in ancient times.

In the same collection is another specimen, found near Fimber, formed of a green metamorphic rock. The butt-end is ground flat, and the sides nearly so. There is a slight depression worked on each face. The edge is slightly rounded, and shows longitudinal _striæ_. By the owner’s kindness I am able to engrave it as Fig. 88.

In General Pitt Rivers’s Collection is a celt from Hindostan, with a cup-shaped depression on one of its faces. A celt of basalt from Portugal[444] has such a depression on each face.

In the fine and extensive Greenwell Collection, so often referred to, is another remarkable celt, Fig. 89, which, though entirely different in character from those last described, may also have been intended for holding in the hand. It is of greenstone, the surface of which is considerably decomposed, and was found at Duggleby, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. On each side is an elongated concavity, well adapted for receiving the end of the forefinger when the instrument is held in the hand with the thumb on one face and the middle finger on the other. At first sight it might appear that the depressions had been made |141| with the view of perforating the blade, so as to make it like Fig. 133. It is, however, too thin for such a purpose, and as the depressions can hardly be connected with any method of hafting, it appears probable that they are merely for the purpose of giving the hand a secure grip, when using the instrument as a cutting tool. This form is not uncommon in India.

Some of the stone hatchets from British Guiana[445] have a notch on either side, apparently to assist in fastening them to their haft. A form with projecting lugs half-way down the blade has been found in Armenia.[446]

The last peculiarity I have to notice is when the blade of the celt assumes an ornamental character, by being fluted or otherwise ornamented. That represented in Fig. 90 is deeply fluted on either face. I have engraved the figure from a cast in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries, the original of which was in the possession of F. C. Lukis, Esq., M.D. It was found at St. Sampson, Guernsey. Assuming the figure given by M. Brouillet to be correct, a somewhat similar celt of red flint was found with skeletons in the Tombelle de Brioux, Poitou.[447] Another with three hollow facets on the lower parts of one face was found in Finistère.[448] I have a small celt of nearly similar form, but not so hollow on the faces, from Costa Rica. Such specimens are extremely rare, and I cannot at present point to any other examples. Indeed, it may be questioned how far the implements found in the Channel Islands come within the scope of the present work. The |142| grooves in the faces of the celt found at Trinity, near Edinburgh,[449] can hardly have been intended for ornament.

A kind of celt, not uncommon in Denmark, like Fig. 55, but with a small hole drilled through it at the butt-end, as if for suspension, like a sailor’s knife, has very rarely been found in England, but I have a broken specimen from Cavenham, Suffolk, formed of greenstone. When perfect the celt must have been in outline like Fig. 69, but thinner.

A perfect example is shown in Fig. 90A. It is formed of whin-stone and was found in 1896 at Wereham, near Stoke Ferry, Norfolk. It is in the collection of Mr. E. M. Beloe, F.S.A., who has kindly permitted me to figure it. It is curiously striated towards the butt-end, possibly from friction in a socket. One from Thetford, perforated through the centre of the face, is in the National Museum at Edinburgh. Another of felstone (11 1∕4 inches), oval in section, found at Melness, Sutherlandshire, was exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in March, 1897. Bored celts, though rare in Britain, occur in Brittany[450] and other parts of France, as well as in Italy.[451] A few have also been found in Ireland.[452] A stone hatchet from Quito in the Christy Collection, though of somewhat different form, is perforated at the end in this manner.

A vastly greater number of instances of the discovery in Britain of stone hatchets or celts might have been cited; but inasmuch as in most cases where mention is made of celts, no particulars are given of their form, and as they occur in all parts of the country, it seems needless to encumber my pages with references. As an instance of |143| their abundance, I may mention that the late Mr. Bateman[453] records the discovery of upwards of thirty, at fourteen different localities within a small district of Derbyshire. Numerous discoveries in Yorkshire are cited by Mr. C. Monkman.[454]

Dr. Joseph Stevens has recorded several from the Thames near Reading,[455] and a very large number of those in my own and various public collections I have had to leave unnoticed for want of space.

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The circumstances under which stone celts of various forms have been discovered must now be considered, with a view of throwing some light on their antiquity, and the length of time they have remained in use. And it must at the outset be confessed that we have but little to guide us on these points. We have already seen that they have been found with objects of bronze; for in the barrow on Upton Lovel Down,[456] examined by Sir R. Colt Hoare, flint celts, both rough and polished, were discovered in company with a perforated stone axe, and a bronze pin, though in this instance there were two interments. The Ravenhill tumulus, near Scarborough,[457] is more conclusive; for in it was an urn containing burnt bones, a broken flint celt, flint arrow-heads, and a beautiful bronze pin one and a-half inches long. The evidence of other recorded cases is but weak. Near Tynewydd, in the parish of Llansilin, Denbighshire,[458] a greenstone celt and a bronze socketed celt were found together in moving an accumulation of stones, which did not, however, appear to have been a cairn. In another instance,[459] three stone celts, one roughly chipped, the others polished, are stated to have been found with a bronze socketed celt in the parish of Southend, Kintyre, Argyllshire. At Campbelton, in the same district,[460] were found two polished stone celts, and with them, on the same spot, two stone moulds for casting looped spear-heads of bronze.

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Though there may be doubts as to the true association of stone celts with instruments of bronze in some of these cases, the presumptive evidence is strong of their having remained in use, as might indeed have been reasonably expected, after the introduction of bronze for cutting-tools. By the time bronze knife-daggers had become common, perforated battle-axes had also come to form part of a warrior’s ordinary equipment. These are often found with the daggers in graves, and there can be no doubt of the ordinary form of stone hatchet having preceded that with a shaft-hole. There are, however, a number of facts in connection with the occurrence of the ordinary |144| stone celt that must not be passed over, inasmuch as at first sight they tend to raise a presumption of celts having remained in use even during the period of the Roman occupation of this country. I will shortly recapitulate the principal facts to which I allude.

In excavating a Roman building at Ickleton,[461] Cambs., the late Lord Braybrooke found a greenstone celt; and another is said to have been found with Roman remains at Alchester, Oxfordshire.[462] A flint celt is also described as having been found with Roman antiquities at Eastbourne.[463]

Among the relics discovered by Samuel Lysons, F.R.S., in the Roman villa at Great Witcombe,[464] Gloucestershire, is described “a British hatchet of flint.” Another flint celt was found close by a Roman villa at Titsey.[465] Flint celts and scrapers were found in the Romano-British village in Woodcuts Common,[466] Dorset, by General Pitt Rivers.

A stone celt, like Fig. 70, has been engraved by Artis[467] as a polishing stone used in the manufactory of Roman earthen vessels, but no evidence is given as to the cause of its being thus regarded.

At Leicester, a fragment of a flint celt was found at a depth of twelve feet from the surface on an old “ground line,” and accompanied by bone objects which Sir Wollaston Franks assigned to a late Roman or even possibly to an early Saxon period.[468]

In the Saxon burial-place at Ash, in Kent, were found a polished flint celt, “a circular flint stone,” and a Roman fibula.[469]

In 1868, a fibrolite hatchet was found within a building at Mont Beuvray, the ancient Bibracte,[470] with three Gaulish coins of the time of Augustus.

Others of flint were found in a Merovingian cemetery at Labruyère, in the Côte d’Or.[471]

The occurrence at Gonsenheim, near Mainz, of a series of thin polished celts with remains presumably Roman, has already been mentioned. In two, if not more, instances in Denmark,[472] fragments of iron have been found in tumuli, and apparently in association with polished hatchets and other instruments of flint and stone. It seems doubtful, however, whether in these cases the iron was not subsequently introduced.

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The association of these stone implements with Roman, and even Post-Roman, remains in so many different places, would at first sight appear to argue their contemporaneity; but in the case of the celts being found on the sites of Roman villas, two things are to be remarked—First, that sites once occupied may, and constantly do, continue in occupation for an indefinite length of time, so that the imperishable relics of one age, such as those in |145| stone, may become mixed in the soil with those of a long subsequent date; and second, that had these stone implements been in common use in Roman times, their presence among Roman remains would have been the rule and not the exception, and we should have found them mentioned by Latin authors. Moreover, if their use had survived in this manner into Roman times, we should expect to find them still more abundantly associated with tools of the Bronze Age. We have, however, seen how rarely this class of stone instruments is found with bronze.

As to the stone celt discovered at Ash, Mr. Douglas remarks it may not “be improbable that this stone instrument was deposited with the dead, as an amulet; and which the owner had found and preserved with a superstitious reverence.” In a tumulus in Flanders,[473] six celts were found placed upright in a circle round the interment, but from the difference in the condition of their surface they appeared to be of different ages, so that it has been suggested that they also were gathered from the surface of the soil and placed in the tomb as amulets. We shall subsequently see that flint arrow-heads were frequently thus preserved in Merovingian cemeteries.

In many cases in Germany,[474] stone axes, for the most part perforated, are said to have been found in association with objects of iron; but the proofs of the contemporaneity of the two classes of objects are not satisfactory. The religious veneration attaching to the Thor’s hammers may, however, have had to do with their interment in graves, at a time when they had ceased to be in ordinary use. Moreover, the axes may have been preserved to ward off lightning.

Another argument in favour of these instruments having remained in use in Britain until a comparatively late period, has been derived from the circumstance of the words _stan-æx_ and _stan-bill_, occurring in Ælfric’s Saxon glossary. These words are translated by Lye[475] as a stone axe, a stone bill—terms which have naturally been regarded as referring to axes and bills made of stone, which, therefore, it might be reasonably inferred were in use at the time when the glossary was written, or about A.D. 1000. On examination, however, it appears that no such inference is warranted. The glossary is Latin with the Saxon equivalents annexed to each word, and the two words referred to are |146| _Bipennis_, rendered _twibille_ and _stan-æx_; and Marra, rendered _stan-bill_. Now _Bipennis_ is an axe cutting at either end, and the word is accurately rendered by “twibille;”[476]—the axe having “bill” or steel at its two edges. But a double-cutting axe in stone is a form of very rare occurrence, and this alone raises a presumption of the _stan_ in _stan-æx_ referring to stone in some other manner than as the material of which the axe was made. The second word, _Marra_, seems to clear up the question, for this was a mattock or pick-axe, or some such tool, and this is rendered _stan-bill_,—the steel for use on or among stones. The stone axe may be one for cutting stones, like the mill-bill of the present day, which is used for dressing mill-stones, and this being usually sharp at each end, might not inaptly be regarded as the equivalent of the ancient _bipennis_. An axe is still a bricklayer’s tool, and is also occasionally used by stone-cutters. It seems, then, that the “_stan_” in these two Saxon words refers, not to the material of which the axes or bills were made, but to the stones on or among which they were used. In Halliwell’s “Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words,”[477] the interpretation of Stone-axe is given as “A stone-worker’s axe,” but it is not stated where the term occurs.

In the “_Matériaux_”[478] M. Soreil has called attention to a very early German poem, possibly of the fifth century, in which the heroes are described as contending with stone axes. The subject has been discussed by Dr. Much,[479] who suggests that the name survived long after the actual use of the weapons, and points out that the modern word Hellebarde (halberd) has the same meaning, _hella_ in Old German signifying “stone,” and _barte_ being still used to signify an “axe” or “chopper.” He also hints at a connection between the _scrama-seax_ or large knife, with _saxum_. The whole paper is worth reading.

In the Song of Hildebrand and Hadubrand, probably of the eighth century, stone hammers, _staim-borts_, are also mentioned.

“Do stoptun tosamane staimbort chludun Hewun harmlicco huitte scilti.”[480]

The passage in “William of Poitiers,”[481]—“Jactant cuspides ac |147| diversorum generum tela, sævissimas quasque secures ac lignis imposita saxa,”—which has been cited as proving that some of the Anglo-Saxons fought with weapons of stone at the battle of Hastings, seems only to refer to stone missiles probably discharged from some engines of war, and serving the same purpose as the stone cannon-balls of more recent times. Professor Nilsson[482] has pointed out that _jactare_ often signifies to brandish, and argues that the large stone axes were too heavy either for brandishing or throwing as weapons. It seems to me, however, that _jactare_ in this passage is used in the sense of throwing, the same as in Virgil,[483]—

“Deucalion vacuum lapides jactavit in orbem, Unde homines nati, durum genus.”

If it be uncertain to how late a period these Neolithic implements remained in use in this country, it is still more uncertain to how early a period their introduction may be referred. If we take the possible limits in either direction, the date at which they fell into disuse becomes approximately fixed as compared with that at which they may first have come into use in Britain. For we may safely say that the use of bronze must have been known in this country 500 or 600 years B.C., and, therefore, that at that time cutting tools of stone began to be superseded; while by A.D. 1100, it will be agreed on all hands that they were no longer in use. We can, therefore, absolutely fix the date of their desuetude within at the outside two thousand years; but who can tell within any such limits the time when a people acquainted with the use of polished stone implements first settled in this island, or when the process of grinding them may have been first developed among native tribes? The long duration of the period which intervened between the deposit of the River-gravels (containing, so far as at present known, implements chipped only and not polished), and the first appearance of polished hatchets, is not in this country so well illustrated as in France; but even there, all that can be said as to the introduction of polished stone hatchets, is that it took place subsequently to the accumulation in the caves of the south of France, of the deposits belonging to an age when reindeer constituted one of the principal articles of food of the cave-dwellers. As to the date at which those cave-deposits were formed, history and tradition are silent, and at present even Geology affords but little aid in determining the question. |148|

But though we cannot fix the range in time of these implements, it will be well to notice some of the circumstances under which they have been found, if only as illustrative of the habits and customs of the ancient people who used them. Of course the most instructive cases are those in which they have occurred with interments, and some of these I have already incidentally mentioned; as, for instance, the discovery in a barrow on Upton Lovel Down of a roughly chipped celt, with others polished at the edge, and other objects; and that of two very roughly chipped flint celts found by Dr. Mantell, in a barrow at Alfriston, Sussex.

* * * * *

A celt of greenstone, ground at the edge only, was found in a barrow with a burnt body on Seamer Moor, Yorkshire, by the Rev. F. Porter; and in another[484] barrow on the same moor, Canon Greenwell found a celt of clay-slate, like Fig. 50, burnt red, in association with a deposit of burnt bones. In a third tumulus on the same moor, opened by the late Lord Londesborough, there were numerous interments, but one of these consisted of a small portion of human bones,[485] four flint celts, five beautifully formed arrow-heads of flint, two rude spear-heads of flint, two well-formed knives and spear-heads of flint, two very large tusks of the wild boar, and a piece of deer-horn, perforated at the end and drilled through, which was thought to be the handle for one of the celts.

In these three instances the polished celts accompany interments by cremation, and probably belong to a late period of the Stone Age in Britain. They have, however, been frequently found with the remains of unburnt bodies. In one of the banks of an ancient settlement near Knook Castle, Upton Lovel, Sir R. Colt Hoare[486] discovered a skeleton with its head towards the north and at its feet a fine black celt. In a barrow about seven miles east of Pickering,[487] besides other interments is said to have been one of a skeleton with the head towards the south, and a “beautiful stone adze or celt, 3 1∕2 inches long, wrought in green basalt, and a very elaborately chipped spear of flint, near four inches long, near its right hand.”

In another barrow in the same district[488] the skeleton was accompanied by “a very small celt or chisel of grey flint, smoothly rubbed, and a plain spear-head of the same material.”

In another barrow on Elton Moor, Derbyshire,[489] there lay behind the skeleton a neatly ornamented “drinking cup,” containing three pebbles of quartz, a flat piece of polished iron ore, a small celt of flint, with a rounded instead of a cutting edge, a beautifully chipped cutting tool, twenty-one circular-ended instruments, and seventeen rude pieces of flint.

In Liffs Low, near Biggin,[490] Mr. Bateman found a skeleton in the |149| contracted position, and with it two flint celts beautifully chipped and polished at the cutting edges; two flint arrow-heads delicately chipped, two flint knives polished on the edge, and one of them serrated on the back to serve as a saw; numerous other objects of flint, some red ochre, a small earthenware cup, and a hammer-head of stag’s horn.

In Cross Low, near Parwich,[491] a fragment of a celt and a small piece of chipped flint were with a human skeleton in a cist; and a kind of flint axe or tomahawk is reported to have been similarly found in a barrow near Pickering.[492]

In the Gospel Hillock barrow, near Buxton, Captain Lukis, F.S.A., found near the shoulder of a contracted skeleton, a polished flint celt, of which an engraving is given in the _Reliquary_.[493]

In what appears to have been a tumulus at Seaford,[494] Sussex, celts both whole and broken, and other forms of worked flint, were found, but the account given of the exploration is rather confused.

It will be observed that in these cases stone celts accompany the earliest form of interment with which we are acquainted, that in which the body is deposited in the contracted position. The reason why bodies were interred in that posture appears to be that it was in all probability the usual attitude of sleep, at a period when the small cloak of the day must generally have served as the only covering at night.

In Scotland stone celts seem to be of frequent occurrence in cairns. I have one, already mentioned,[495] which is said to have been found with four others in a cairn on Druim-a-shi, near Culloden.

Three others, of which two have been already described,[496] were discovered in a cairn in Daviot parish, Inverness, together with a cylindrical implement, possibly a pestle, and are now in the National Museum at Edinburgh. Not improbably my specimen came from the same cairn.

Another[497] was found in the Cat’s Cairn, Cromartyshire. A second,[498] pointed at the butt, is said to have been found in a “Druidical circle,” Aberdeenshire. A third,[499] of black flint, from the parish of Cruden, Aberdeenshire, would seem to have accompanied an interment, as with it was found a necklace of large oblong beads of jet, and rudely shaped pieces of amber.

None, however, of these instances afford any absolute testimony as to their exact or even approximate age, unless, indeed, the jet and amber, if they really accompanied the flint celt, point in that case to a date at all events not far removed from that of the bronze objects with which such necklaces have frequently been found.

In the other cases of interments in barrows, however ancient they may be, it seems probable that they are not those of the earliest occupants of this country, by whom polished stone celts, or those of the same character rough hewn only, were in use. The labour bestowed in the formation of the graves and the erection of the barrows must |150| have been immense, and could hardly have been undertaken until a stage of civilization had been reached higher than that of some of the ruder savage races of the present day.

It may be mentioned that stone celts are not unfrequently found in the soil of which barrows are composed, but in no way connected with the interments in the barrow.

There are a few instances of the finding of these instruments, not in association with interments, where the circumstances under which they have been discovered testify to a great, though still indeterminate antiquity. One, for instance, of greenstone, in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries, is stated to have been “found deep in the clay whilst digging the Chelsea Waterworks at Kingston.”[500] Others in a sand-bed near York[501] were 6 or 7 feet below the surface, and nearly a quarter of a mile from the river which is thought to have deposited the sand.

In Wilson’s “Prehistoric Annals of Scotland”[502] is recorded the finding of a greenstone celt in a primitive canoe, formed of a hollowed trunk of oak, at a depth of 25 feet from the surface, at Glasgow; and in the Norwich Museum is one of brown flint, ground all over, 4 1∕4 inches long, similar to Fig. 54, but with facets towards the edge, as if from repeated grinding, which is stated to have been found fixed in a tree in the submarine forest at Hunstanton, by the Rev. George Mumford, of East Winch, in the year 1829.

* * * * *

On the whole evidence it would appear, from the number of implements of this class which has been discovered, from the various characters of the interments with which they are associated, and from the circumstances under which they have been found, that these stone celts must have been in use in this country during a long period of years; though we still revert to our first confession, that it is impossible to determine at how early a date this period commenced, or to how late a date it may have extended. If, however, the occupation of this part of the globe by man was continuous from the period of the deposit of the old River-gravels unto the present day, it seems probable that some of these implements may claim an almost fabulous antiquity, while in certain remote districts of Britain into which civilization made but a tardy approach, it is possible that their use may have lingered on to a time when in other parts of the country, owing to the superiority and abundance of metallic tools, these stone hatchets had long fallen into disuse.

Instances of this comparatively late use of stone celts appear to be afforded by some of the discoveries made in the Orkney and Shetland Isles; and it is doubtful whether in Ireland the use of |151| stone implements did not survive in some parts of the country to a far more recent date than would at first sight appear probable. I have, however, remarked on this subject elsewhere.[503] Sir Arthur Mitchell’s book, “The Past in the Present,” may also be consulted.

The methods in which these instruments were used and mounted must to some extent have varied in accordance with the purposes to which they were applied. In describing the forms, I have pointed out that in some cases they were used as axes or hatchets, and in other cases as adzes, and that there are some celts which not improbably were used in the hand without any handle at all, or else were mounted in short handles, and used after the manner of chisels or knives.

The instances of their being found in this country still attached to their handles are rare. In the case of the celt found near Tranmere,[504] Cheshire, and now in the Mayer Museum at Liverpool, “the greater part of the wood had perished, but enough remained to show that the handle had passed in a slightly diagonal direction towards the upper end of the stone.” In the Christy Collection is a large felstone celt 12 1∕4 inches long and 3 1∕4 inches broad, of the same section as Fig. 43, slightly flattened at the sides, on the face of which the mark of the handle is still visible, crossing it obliquely near the middle. This specimen was found at Pentney, Norfolk. Similar marks may not improbably be observed on other specimens, like that from Drumour already mentioned at page 119.

In the Solway Moss, near Longtown, a hafted hatchet was found by a labourer digging peat, at the depth of rather more than six feet, but the handle appears to have been broken, even at the time when the sketch was made from which the woodcut |152| given in the _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries_[505] was engraved, which is, by permission, here reproduced. The instrument is now in the British Museum, but the haft, in drying, has, unfortunately, quite lost its form, and is still further broken. The process of preserving wood when in the tender condition in which it is found after long burial in peat was probably not known at the time. It has been adopted with great success by Mr. Engelhardt in preserving the wooden antiquities from the Danish peat bogs, and consists in keeping the objects moist until they have been well steeped, or even boiled, in a strong solution of alum, after which they are allowed to dry gradually, and are found to retain their form in a remarkable manner.

It is probably owing to the broken and distorted condition of the wood that the sketch was inaccurate as to the position of the blade with regard to the handle, for the mark of the wood where it was in contact with the stone is still visible, and proves that the central line of the blade was inclined outwards at an angle of about 100° to the haft, instead of being nearly vertical, as shown. The edge of the hatchet is oblique to nearly the same extent as the inclination of the blade to the haft. It would seem from this, that the obliquity of the edge was in some cases connected with the method of hafting, and not always, as suggested by Nilsson,[506] the result of the blade being most worn away in the part farthest from the hand holding the shaft.

The preservation of the wooden handle has been more successfully effected in the case of the celt shown in Fig. 92, engraved from a photograph kindly supplied me by Mr. R. D. Darbishire, F.G.S. It is figured on a larger scale in the _Archæologia_,[507] where all the circumstances of the discovery are set forth in detail. The axe was found, in the year 1871, in peat which had once formed the bed of a small lake, known as Ehenside Tarn, near Egremont, in Cumberland, which has now been drained. With it were found another haft of the same character, and several stone celts, one of them 14 1∕2 inches in length, with the sides but slightly curved, and almost equally broad at each end. Some wooden paddles and clubs formed of beech and oak, pottery and other objects, were also found. The farmer who cultivates the former bed of the lake had previously discovered some stone antiquities which were brought under the notice of Sir Wollaston Franks, |153| who induced Mr. Darbishire to make the search which was so amply rewarded. The haft is formed of a hard root of beech-wood, and has been most carefully carved, the surface exhibiting alternate cuts and ridges forming small concave facets about 1∕8-inch apart, and arranged spirally. The other haft for a celt is of oak-wood, and is not so well preserved. It will be noticed that the end of the beech-wood handle has originally been recurved, possibly with a view of steadying the butt-end of the celt.

Curiously enough, in the outline of a celt in its handle, carved on the under side of the roof-stone of a dolmen, known as La Table des Marchands, near Locmariaker, Brittany,[508] the end of the handle seems also to be curved back beyond the socket for the blade, which however it does not touch. At the other end of the handle there is a loop like a sword guard, for the insertion of the hand. There is some little difficulty in determining the exact form of this incised carving, as the lines are shallow, and the light does not fall upon them. I speak from a sketch I made on the spot in 1863. Other such representations occur in Brittany.[509]