Flint Axes Research Articles

Jættestuen Jordhøj

Jættestuen Jordhøj

Myrthue, et gårdsanlæg fra jernalder

Myrthue, et gårdsanlæg fra jernalder

Stendyngegrave fra jættestuetid

Cairn Burials from the Passage-Grave Period Among those areas of the Jutland heathland which have only recently and as yet only partially been broken in to cultivation and which have therefore preserved those relics of prehistoric times which of necessity disappear under the plough, one area, the northern part of Østerbølle Parish in Rinds Herred, takes an important place. It is flat and sandy and bas therefore been especially suited to the primitive agriculture of the New Stone Age; and the discovery of graves from all the Neolithic periods shows that it was in fact continuously inhabited from the Dolmen Period, through the Passage-Grave and Separate­Grave Periods, to the Slab-Cist Period.It was during Professor Gudmund Hatt's exeavation of the Iron Age settle­ment of Østerbølle that a local landowner, J. Chr. Sørensen, informed him of the discovery, on his land, of "cairns containing flint axes". And the West­Himmerland Museum thereby commenced an investigation of the area which provided an outline of the history of human settlement in the parish, in addition to solving the problem of the mysterious cairns.In addition to those already discovered four new cairns were now found on a narrow strip of uncultivated heathland. They lay 10-20 meters apart and consisted of low oval heaps of stones covered by sparse heather.Cairn I (figs. 1 & 2) was 5 by 3 meters in size and 55 cms. high, oval and aligned SE-NW. In the centre was an area free of stones, in the NW end of which was a pit measuring 140 X 65 cms. by 30 cms. deep. No relics were found in this pit but 2 thin-bladed flint axes and a polished flint chisel (fig. 3) came to light in the SE part of the complex.Cairn II resembled Cairn I completely, except that it was edged on the south by a single row of large stones (fig. 4). It was aligned N-S, measured 5 X 4½ meters and was 50 cms. high. Two pits were found, one in the south end of the central stone-free area, aligned SE-NW and measuring 140 x 85 cms. by 25 cms. deep (fig. 5), and the other under the cairn, aligned N-S and measuring 125 X 50 cms. by 30 cms. deep. No objects were found in this cairn.Cairn III was aligned SE-NW and had measured approximately 8 by 3½ meters (fig. 6). A pit at the SE end was aligned SE-NW, measured 140 x 70 cms. and was 75 cms. deep, while in the NW end a similar pit measured 120 X 90 x 90 cms. In the soil which filled the latter pit scattered sherds of a thick-walled vessel of Stone Age characteristics were found.Cairn IV was less compact than the previous cairns and measured E-W 3 meters, N-S 2½ meters and 40 cms. in height (fig. 7). A grave (fig. 8) lay below ground level in the centre, formed like a somewhat irregular slab-cist of stones set on edge. It measured 76 x 34 cms. and was 20 cms. deep. There were no roof slabs, nor did the cairn contain any relics.Of the four cairns previously found one had measured 7-8 x 1 meters and its stone-free centre had been divided into two compartments of varying size. Two thick-butted axes lay in the east end. The second cairn had measured 2 x 1 meters, had been open at the east end and contained the butt-end of a thick-butted axe. The third had been about 7-8 meters long and had con­tained 5 thick-butted axes, while the fourth, found on a neighbor's land, had contained one thick-butted axe.In consideration of the very small number of inhumation graves with passage-grave furniture hitherto found it is tempting to see in this comparatively large group signs of the conservatism of an isolated Stone-Age village.S. Vestergaard Nielsen

Stenalderens flintteknik

Stenalderens flintteknik

En flintsmedie på Fornæs

En flintsmedie på Fornæs

James Reid Moir, 1879 - 1944

In October 1910, Mr J. Reid Moir, who then assisted his father in the management of a tailor’s and outfitter’s business in the Throughfare (Butter Market) of Ipswich, broke into print by addressing a letter to The Times . The letter duly appeared in the issue of 17 October, side by side with one which was concerned with the revision of the Prayer Book. In his letter Reid Moir challenged the beliefs then prevalent, viz.—that man first arrived in England in post-glacial times; that the flint axes found in valley gravels, represented the earliest tools of man. The arrival of man in England, he affirmed, had taken place before the ancient Crag deposits of East Anglia had been laid down, for from the ‘Bone Bed’ which underlies them he had, at several sites, extracted flints which showed evidence of having been shaped into implements by human hands. Secondly, he maintained that the implements he had found under the Crag were the ancestral forms from which the hand-axes of the valley gravels had been evolved. Thirdly, he maintained that the Sub-Crag implements were the work, not of beginners, but of men who had already attained a degree of skill, and that there must be still older forms which would link them to the Eoliths found by Benjamin Harrison on the Kentish plateau in 1885. The letter was couched in terms which showed the writer was certain of his facts and had full confidence in himself. The greater part of Reid Moir’s life was spent in searching the formations of East Anglia for evidence of man’s presence in them. Geologists had unravelled their history before Reid Moir touched them; but it was he more than any one else who made them pages of human history. Reid Moir humanized the Crag deposits; that, in brief, seems to me to summarize his contribution to knowledge.

Archæology as a Science

THE antithesis between history and science as central disciplines in education for citizenship can be resolved by making history more archaeological and recognizing that archae is a science. Mr. Hansel's just complaint1 that the humanities specialize in inhumanity instruction in the accumulated evil, strife and intrigue of the ages does not apply to prehistory, which is exclusively archaeological-and archaeology does not stop short when written history begins. For archaeology, evil is not cumulative one might be tempted to say, is what is not cumulative. In the archaeological record (in a Mesopotamian tell, for example) the destruction wrought by strife is overshadowed by reconstruction. What archaeology reveals is precisely the progress of mankind of art, science and industry from the painted caves of mammoth-hunters not only to the early cities of Sumer and Crete but also right down to Manhattan and Magnitogorsk. Flint axes and rotary querns, the history of which is provided by archaeology alone, are just as much embodiments of science as the cyclotron. The cowrie shells from the Mediterranean adorning a Cro-Magnon skeleton in central France 30,000 years ago and the seals imported from India to Ur 4,500 years ago are just as reliable indexes of intercourse (and so of the pooling of ideas) as Board of Trade lists.

Mesolithic Dwellings at Farnham, Surrey

EXHIBITS illustrating the culture of the inhabitants of mesolithic pit-dwellings at Farnham, Surrey, are now on view in the Prehistoric Galleries of the British Museum (Bloomsbury). These dwellings, on a site which is the only one of its kind as yet found in Britain, have been excavated by Dr. and Mrs. Grahame Clark. The results of the excavation, which has occupied two seasons, were described by Dr. Clark at a recent meeting of the Prehistoric Society. The site of the settlement, which is the property of the Farnham Urban District Council, consists of a number of irregularly shaped pits, three feet deep in places, which have been scraped out of the gravel of the old Blackwater River. These pits represent the chief habitations of a mesolithic people, who probably spent their summers hunting on the Lower Greensand, when they lived in temporary shelters. Four huts have been excavated. In one pit there was a hearth and near another there were signs of a post, which probably had supported some light framework arranged tent-wise. Generally, however, the roofing seems to have been of the nature of a lean-to. Large numbers of microlithic implements were discovered, with flint axes, scrapers and waste flint cores and flakes. Altogether, between forty and fifty thousand worked flints have been discovered, and fifteen thousand flints cracked by fire have been found. These houses are, as stated, the first of their kind to be found in Britain; and they probably represent the first type of habitation in use in Britain other than the cave. They are considered to date from about 3000 B.C., and support the contention that artificially constructed dwellings are more ancient than has been thought. On the Continent, evidence is accumulating that mesolithic man was nomadic, inhabiting light shelters in the summer, and more or less permanent dwellings, usually of the pit-dwelling type, in the winter. The exhibits now shown in the British Museum are drawn from two of the dwellings excavated, and include a large and representative selection of the implements found.

Meare Lake Village

THE three habitations (Nos. xx, xxii and xxiv), which have been examined by Mr. H. St. George Gray and Dr. Arthur Bulleid in the course of the current season's investigation of the eastern division of Meare Lake Village, Somerset, by the character of the finds, more particularly those in hut No. xxii, have emphasized both the importance of the weaving industry in the economy of the inhabitants, and their appreciation of personal ornament of a colourful type. In hut xxii, in which five superimposed hearths of stone and clay have been uncovered, no fewer than twelve combs for beating down the weft and woof threads have been found, with bobbins, loom weights and a dozen spindle-whorls of stone, bone or baked clay. Among other finds were half a dozen saddle querns, hammer-stones and whetstones, a polished flint axe converted into a hammer, flint scrapers, bone awls and modelling tools, iron tools, bone gouges and handles and other objects of red and roe-deer antler, including a 'gaming piece'. A scapula, or shoulder-blade of ox, is ornamented with the dot-and-circle pattern. By far the largest series of remains, however, it is stated in a report on the excavations in The Times of September 16, may be classed as personal ornaments. These include two toggles or dress-fasteners, one finely engraved with four rows of dot-and-circles, the other of a zoomorphic character, having one end resembling the head of a fish. A remarkable large flat brooch is of bronze, of which the surface was probably inlaid with enamel. The finest of the armlets of Kimmeridge shale is carved, while jet appears in the village for the first time in the form of a bead. Another bead of amber has been found, and beads of glass are numerous, the colours being blue, dark red, yellow and black. Some of the beads of clear glass ornamented with yellow spirals were found in a group. The smallest beads (blue) are only two millimetres in diameter. Canine teeth of the dog had been pierced for suspension as a necklace. In hut xxii more pottery, mostly cooking wares, has been found than in any other dwelling.

Excavation of a Neolithic Barrow in Kent

SIR EDMUND DAVIS'S excavation of Julaber's Grave, Chilham Hill, Kent, under the direction of Mr. R. F. Jesup, in continuation of the investigations of 1937, after a brief interruption during the recent crisis, owing to the absence of the director, has been brought to a close, after being carried to a point at which it was proved conclusively that the barrow is of neolithic age. Reports of the result of the excavation (The Times, October 1 and 12), state that a polished flint axe, about six inches long, with flattened sides, curved edge, and made of creamy white flint, was found in a layer at a depth of four feet six inches, in which were also rough sherds, a human tooth, pointing to a burial, and a number of flint flakes, such as are found only in the area of the mound in the adjacent cultivated soil. Traces of charcoal in the core of the mound, particularly in the neolithic turf layer, support the theory that the area was cleared by burning. The polished flint axe, which substantiates the neolithic dating of the mound, is of Scandinavian type, and, it is suggested, allies the mound with the megalith builders of the Baltic, rather than with the long barrow peoples of Dorset and Wiltshire. It is certainly significant that, as the report points out, Julaber's Grave, in relation to the other long barrows of Britain, stands in a position of isolation. Further investigation of the Roman burial containing the skeletal remains of three individuals, which was found in 1937, has revealed a remarkable, and at first sight puzzling, construction of flint at the southern end of the grave. This has proved to cover the burial of a man and a horse. The head of the horse, however, is missing, and the usual platter and bowl are in fragments. Apparently the burial had been disturbed; while the flint structure had been placed there to prevent the remains, buried in the side of the mound, from slipping into the ditch.

A flint axe and two beakers from East Kent

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Neolithic Camp in Sussex

DISCOVERIES which will have a bearing of no little importance on the future study of the neolithic age in Britain are reported from Whitehawk Camp, near Brighton. Mr. E. Cecil Curwen, acting on behalf of the Sussex Archaeological Society, with the assistance of Miss Leslie Scott, who has worked at Maiden Castle, Dorchester, has held an archaeological watching brief while the Corporation of Brighton has been engaged in constructing a road across the camp. Whitehawk Camp, which is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments Acts, is one of the largest and best surviving specimens of the neolithic camp of concentric interrupted ditches. In places, the original ramparts still stand seven feet high. The line of the road cuts the line of all four ditches on both sides of the camp, and these are now being cleared down to the bottom and the original chalk. According to a report in The Times of November 4, up to the present, the inner ditch has proved rich in neolithic pottery, also yielding great quantities of animal bones, flint flakes, saws, scrapers and a flint axe. Two small pits full of neolithic pottery and animal bones appear to be unconnected with the ditches. Another interesting discovery is a piece of chalk scored with a chess board pattern, similar to a device found on the wall of a pit shaft on Harrow Hill, near Cissbury. Several post-holes on the ramparts appear to have supported palisades, and a similar structure is indicated as forming a side wall to the entrance passage through the outer rampart. These are unique in British neolithic camps. The pottery, which is of modified Windmill Hill type and a type with whipped cord impressions, suggesting Peterborough ware (Neolithic B), should prove an important addition to existing material.

Miscellaneous Relics found in Wigtownshire

Artefacts included stone and flint axes, flint arrowheads, a bronze socketed axe, a glass bead, jet pendants, a clay mould, a coin, a medieval carved headstone and a carved stone depicting a coat-of-arms.

Flint Axe and “Chisel” Found at Newmarket Heath

This axe and chisel of flint were found together on the Round Course, Newmarket Heath, by a workman “bushgating” on the Course. They are in the possession of Dr. Chas. Lucas, of Burwell, Cambs.Mr. R. A. Smith (Hoards of Neolithic Celts, Archæologia 71, p. 113) pleads for the publication of authentic associated finds of surface stone implements in order to provide material for determining the chronological sequence of types. The axe (l. 4.3-in.) and chisel (l. 4.7-in) figured, merit record in this connection. Both are of chipped flint, with the cutting edges ground, and with a slight amount of grinding elsewhere, done to remove excrescences. The technique seems to be exactly the same in each case. The patination is similar; the chisel milky white, with darker patches, the axe creamy white.

Harpoons under Peat in Holderness, Yorks

ON page 481 of NATURE for October 7, Mr. O. G. S. Crawford states that he believes one of the alleged harpoons said to have been found under the peat in Holderness to be genuine. At the Hull Meeting of the British Association he thought that both were genuine. After the spade-work to which he refers, I feel satisfied that he will consider both of them are modern. I am also glad to learn that he now regards the evidence supplied by the flint axe to be of no value, whereas formerly he considered that it helped to prove the great age of the harpoons.