Archæology in the Isle of Man 1

Abstract

THESE notes form a useful handbook to the geology and antiquities of.the Isle of Man, and those responsible for persuading the authors to reprint and amplify their scattered notices have conferred a benefit on the public. Although the little volume runs to little more than 100 pages, it includes a good survey of both branches of the subject, and emphasises the interest of the island in the two aspects of its remoteness in some respects from its neighbours and as a meeting place of the arts of the Celt and the Northman. The evidences of man's presence in the island naturally begin with the Neolithic period, the climatic conditions of the Pleistocene age effectually preventing him from reaching so far north; but from Neolithic times onwards the story of the island can be traced by its archeology. Flint appears only to exist in the form of nodules washed from the Boulder-clay, and the “factories “of flint implements are always on actual deposits of Boulderclay. Some of the implements figured are, as the authors admit, of very rude make, as well as of very curious types (Fig. 4).