In many of the Welsh specimens about to be mentioned, the flat faces are absent, and the notch or groove does not extend all round the stone, but exists only on the two sides through which the longer transverse axis of the pebble passes. In this case the wedges, if any, were probably driven in on the flatter side of the boulder.The ends of the pebbles are usually much worn and broken by hammering, and not unfrequently the stone has been split by the violence of the blows that it has administered. It is uncertain whether they were merely used for crushing and pounding metallic ores, or also in mining operations; but with very few exceptions they occur in the neighbourhood of old mines, principally copper-mines.In some copper mines at Llandudno,[852]near the great Orme’s Head, Carnarvonshire, an old working was broken into about sixty years ago, and in it were found a broken stag’s horn, and parts of what were regarded as of two mining implements or picks of bronze, one about 3 inches and the other about 1 inch in length. In 1850, another ancient working was found, and on the floor a number of these stone mauls, described as weighing from about 2 lbs. to 40 lbs. each. They had been formed from water-worn boulders, probably selected from{234}the beach at Pen-maen-mawr. One of the mauls in the Warrington Museum[853]is65â„8inches long, and weighs 3 lbs. 14 ozs. One of basalt, measuring nearly a foot in length, was found in ancient workings at Amlwch Parys Mine,[854]in Anglesea. Others have been discovered in old workings in Llangynfelin Mine,[855]Cardiganshire, and at Llanidan,[856]Anglesea.A ponderous ball of stone, about 5 inches in diameter, probably used in crushing and pounding the ore, a portion of stag’s horn, fashioned so as to be suited for the handle of some implement, and anironpick-axe, were found in some old workings in the Snow Brook Lead Mines, Plinlimmon, Montgomeryshire.[857]Two of these hammer-stones,41â„2and 5 inches in length, were obtained by the late Hon. W. O. Stanley, within hut circles, possibly the remains of the habitations of copper miners in ancient times, at Ty Mawr, in the Island of Holyhead. Some of these mauls are figured in theArchæological Journal,[858]and are of much the same form as Fig. 159, the original of which probably served another purpose. Others of the same character, formed of quartzite, were found at Pen-y-Bonc,[859]Holyhead, and Old Geir,[860]Anglesea. They have also been found at Alderley Edge,[861]Cheshire.A boulder, like those from Llandudno, but found at Long Low, near Wetton, Staffordshire, is in the Bateman Collection.[862]One from Wigtownshire[863]has been regarded as a weight.They are of not uncommon occurrence in the south of Ireland,[864]especially in the neighbourhood of Killarney, where, as also in Cork, many of them have been found in ancient mines. They have, in Ireland, been denominated miners’ hammers. One of them is engraved in “Flint Chips.â€[865]I have seen an example from Shetland.They have also been found in ancient copper mines in the province of Cordova,[866]at Cerro Muriano, Villanueva del Rey,[867]and Milagro, in Spain; in those of Ruy Gomes,[868]in Alemtejo, Portugal; and at the salt mines of Hallstatt,[869]in the Salzkammergut of Austria, and at Mitterberg,[870]near Bischofshofen.A large hammer of the same class, but with a deeper groove all round, has been recorded from Savoy.[871]They are not, however, confined to European countries, for similar stone hammers were found by Mr. Bauerman in the old mines of Wady Maghara,[872]which were worked for turquoises (if not also for{235}copper ore) by the ancient Egyptians, so early as the third Manethonian Dynasty. It is hard to say whether the grooved stone found by Schliemann at Troy[873]was used as a hammer or a weight.What is more remarkable still, in the New World similar stone hammers are found in the ancient copper mines near Lake Superior.[874]As described by Sir Daniel Wilson,[875]“many of these mauls are mere water-worn oblong boulders of greenstone or porphyry, roughly chipped in the centre, so as to admit of their being secured by a withe around them.†They weigh from 10 to 40 lbs., and are found in enormous numbers. M. Marcou[876]has given an account of the discovery of some of those mauls in the Mine de la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest, at Point Kievenau, Lake Superior. He describes them as formed of leptynite (quartz and felspar), quartz, and porphyry, and weighing from 5 to 8 lbs. each; and mentions having seen one of quartz weighing about 5 lbs., which was in the possession of some Kioway Indians, and was bound to a handle with a strip of bison skin.This similarity or identity in form of implements used in countries so wide apart, and at such different ages, does not, I think, point of necessity to any common origin, nor to any so-called “continuity of form,†but appears to offer another instance of similar wants with similar means at command, resulting in similar implements for fulfilling those wants. Grooved hammers for other purposes, as evinced by their smaller size, and a few grooved axes, occur in Scandinavia. An example among one of the lower races in modern times is afforded by a large crystal of quartz, with its terminal planes preserved at both ends, which has been slightly grooved at the sides for the purpose of attaching it to a handle, and was brought by Captain Cook, from St. George’s Sound, where it appears to have been used as a hammer or pick. It is now in the British Museum, and has been described by Dr. Henry Woodward.[877]Even in Britain the hammer-stones of this form are not absolutely confined to mining districts. Canon Greenwell, in one of the barrows at Rudstone,[878]near Bridlington, found on the lid of a stone-cist two large greenstone pebbles 8 and93â„4inches long, each with a sort of “waist†chipped in it, as if to receive a withe, and having marks at the ends of having been in use as hammers.Closely connected in form and character with the mining hammers, though as a rule much smaller in size, and in all probability intended for a totally different purpose, is the class of stone objects of one of which Fig. 159 gives a representation, reproduced from theArchæological Journal.[879]This was found in company with two others at Burns, near Ambleside, Westmorland; and another, almost precisely similar in size and form, was found at Percy’s Leap, and is preserved at Alnwick Castle. Another, from Westmorland, is in the Liverpool Museum, and they have, I believe, been observed in some numbers in that district. A stone of the same character, but more elaborately worked,{236}having somewhat acorn-shaped ends, was found by the late Hon. W. O. Stanley, at Old Geir,[880]Anglesea. Others from Anglesea,[881]one of them ornamented, have been figured. They were originally regarded as hammer-stones, but such as I have examined are made of a softer stone than those usually employed for hammers, and they are not battered or worn at the ends. It is, therefore, probable that they were used as sinkers for nets or lines, for which purpose they are well adapted, the groove being deep enough to protect small cord around it from wear by friction. They seem also usually to occur in the neighbourhood either of lakes, rivers, or the sea. A water-worn nodule of sandstone, 5 inches long, with a deep groove round it, and described as probably a sinker for a net or line, was found in Aberdeenshire,[882]and is in the National Museum at Edinburgh; and I have one of soft grit, and about the same length, given me by Mr. R. D. Darbishire, F.G.S., and found by him near Nantlle, Carnarvonshire.Fig. 159.—Ambleside.1â„2Many of these sink-stones are probably of no great antiquity. With two transverse grooves, they are still in use in Shetland.[883]The Fishing Indians of Vancouver’s Island[884]go out trolling for salmon in a fast canoe, towing behind them a long line made of tough seaweed, to which is attached, by slips of deer hide, an oval piece of granite perfectly smooth, and the size and shape of a goose’s egg. It acts as a sinker, and is said to spin the bait. A net-sinker, formed of a pebble slightly notched or grooved, is among the antiquities from{237}Lake Erie, engraved by Schoolcraft.[885]Others have been found in the State of New York.[886]See C. Rau’s “Prehistoric Fishing.â€[887]Sink-stones are by no means rare in Ireland, and continue in use to the present day. One of the same class as Fig. 159, but grooved round the long axis of the pebble, is engraved by Sir W. Wilde.[888]Similar stones occur in Denmark, and were regarded by Worsaae[889]as sink-stones, though some of them, to judge from the wear at the ends, and the hardness of the material, were used as hammers. I have seen, in Sweden, the leg bones of animals used as weights for sinking nets.Another form of sink-stone, weight, or plummet, was formed by boring a hole towards one end of a flattish stone. Such a one, weighing141â„4oz., was dredged from the Thames at Battersea.[890]Another, of oval form, pierced at one end, from Tyrie,[891]Aberdeenshire, is in the National Museum at Edinburgh; and a wedge-shaped perforated stone from Culter, Lanarkshire,[892]was probably intended for the same purpose. These may have been in use for stretching the warp in the loom when weaving. They are found of this form with Roman remains.[893]
In many of the Welsh specimens about to be mentioned, the flat faces are absent, and the notch or groove does not extend all round the stone, but exists only on the two sides through which the longer transverse axis of the pebble passes. In this case the wedges, if any, were probably driven in on the flatter side of the boulder.
The ends of the pebbles are usually much worn and broken by hammering, and not unfrequently the stone has been split by the violence of the blows that it has administered. It is uncertain whether they were merely used for crushing and pounding metallic ores, or also in mining operations; but with very few exceptions they occur in the neighbourhood of old mines, principally copper-mines.
In some copper mines at Llandudno,[852]near the great Orme’s Head, Carnarvonshire, an old working was broken into about sixty years ago, and in it were found a broken stag’s horn, and parts of what were regarded as of two mining implements or picks of bronze, one about 3 inches and the other about 1 inch in length. In 1850, another ancient working was found, and on the floor a number of these stone mauls, described as weighing from about 2 lbs. to 40 lbs. each. They had been formed from water-worn boulders, probably selected from{234}the beach at Pen-maen-mawr. One of the mauls in the Warrington Museum[853]is65â„8inches long, and weighs 3 lbs. 14 ozs. One of basalt, measuring nearly a foot in length, was found in ancient workings at Amlwch Parys Mine,[854]in Anglesea. Others have been discovered in old workings in Llangynfelin Mine,[855]Cardiganshire, and at Llanidan,[856]Anglesea.
A ponderous ball of stone, about 5 inches in diameter, probably used in crushing and pounding the ore, a portion of stag’s horn, fashioned so as to be suited for the handle of some implement, and anironpick-axe, were found in some old workings in the Snow Brook Lead Mines, Plinlimmon, Montgomeryshire.[857]
Two of these hammer-stones,41â„2and 5 inches in length, were obtained by the late Hon. W. O. Stanley, within hut circles, possibly the remains of the habitations of copper miners in ancient times, at Ty Mawr, in the Island of Holyhead. Some of these mauls are figured in theArchæological Journal,[858]and are of much the same form as Fig. 159, the original of which probably served another purpose. Others of the same character, formed of quartzite, were found at Pen-y-Bonc,[859]Holyhead, and Old Geir,[860]Anglesea. They have also been found at Alderley Edge,[861]Cheshire.
A boulder, like those from Llandudno, but found at Long Low, near Wetton, Staffordshire, is in the Bateman Collection.[862]One from Wigtownshire[863]has been regarded as a weight.
They are of not uncommon occurrence in the south of Ireland,[864]especially in the neighbourhood of Killarney, where, as also in Cork, many of them have been found in ancient mines. They have, in Ireland, been denominated miners’ hammers. One of them is engraved in “Flint Chips.â€[865]I have seen an example from Shetland.
They have also been found in ancient copper mines in the province of Cordova,[866]at Cerro Muriano, Villanueva del Rey,[867]and Milagro, in Spain; in those of Ruy Gomes,[868]in Alemtejo, Portugal; and at the salt mines of Hallstatt,[869]in the Salzkammergut of Austria, and at Mitterberg,[870]near Bischofshofen.
A large hammer of the same class, but with a deeper groove all round, has been recorded from Savoy.[871]
They are not, however, confined to European countries, for similar stone hammers were found by Mr. Bauerman in the old mines of Wady Maghara,[872]which were worked for turquoises (if not also for{235}copper ore) by the ancient Egyptians, so early as the third Manethonian Dynasty. It is hard to say whether the grooved stone found by Schliemann at Troy[873]was used as a hammer or a weight.
What is more remarkable still, in the New World similar stone hammers are found in the ancient copper mines near Lake Superior.[874]As described by Sir Daniel Wilson,[875]“many of these mauls are mere water-worn oblong boulders of greenstone or porphyry, roughly chipped in the centre, so as to admit of their being secured by a withe around them.†They weigh from 10 to 40 lbs., and are found in enormous numbers. M. Marcou[876]has given an account of the discovery of some of those mauls in the Mine de la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest, at Point Kievenau, Lake Superior. He describes them as formed of leptynite (quartz and felspar), quartz, and porphyry, and weighing from 5 to 8 lbs. each; and mentions having seen one of quartz weighing about 5 lbs., which was in the possession of some Kioway Indians, and was bound to a handle with a strip of bison skin.
This similarity or identity in form of implements used in countries so wide apart, and at such different ages, does not, I think, point of necessity to any common origin, nor to any so-called “continuity of form,†but appears to offer another instance of similar wants with similar means at command, resulting in similar implements for fulfilling those wants. Grooved hammers for other purposes, as evinced by their smaller size, and a few grooved axes, occur in Scandinavia. An example among one of the lower races in modern times is afforded by a large crystal of quartz, with its terminal planes preserved at both ends, which has been slightly grooved at the sides for the purpose of attaching it to a handle, and was brought by Captain Cook, from St. George’s Sound, where it appears to have been used as a hammer or pick. It is now in the British Museum, and has been described by Dr. Henry Woodward.[877]
Even in Britain the hammer-stones of this form are not absolutely confined to mining districts. Canon Greenwell, in one of the barrows at Rudstone,[878]near Bridlington, found on the lid of a stone-cist two large greenstone pebbles 8 and93â„4inches long, each with a sort of “waist†chipped in it, as if to receive a withe, and having marks at the ends of having been in use as hammers.
Closely connected in form and character with the mining hammers, though as a rule much smaller in size, and in all probability intended for a totally different purpose, is the class of stone objects of one of which Fig. 159 gives a representation, reproduced from theArchæological Journal.[879]This was found in company with two others at Burns, near Ambleside, Westmorland; and another, almost precisely similar in size and form, was found at Percy’s Leap, and is preserved at Alnwick Castle. Another, from Westmorland, is in the Liverpool Museum, and they have, I believe, been observed in some numbers in that district. A stone of the same character, but more elaborately worked,{236}having somewhat acorn-shaped ends, was found by the late Hon. W. O. Stanley, at Old Geir,[880]Anglesea. Others from Anglesea,[881]one of them ornamented, have been figured. They were originally regarded as hammer-stones, but such as I have examined are made of a softer stone than those usually employed for hammers, and they are not battered or worn at the ends. It is, therefore, probable that they were used as sinkers for nets or lines, for which purpose they are well adapted, the groove being deep enough to protect small cord around it from wear by friction. They seem also usually to occur in the neighbourhood either of lakes, rivers, or the sea. A water-worn nodule of sandstone, 5 inches long, with a deep groove round it, and described as probably a sinker for a net or line, was found in Aberdeenshire,[882]and is in the National Museum at Edinburgh; and I have one of soft grit, and about the same length, given me by Mr. R. D. Darbishire, F.G.S., and found by him near Nantlle, Carnarvonshire.
Fig. 159.—Ambleside.1â„2
Fig. 159.—Ambleside.1â„2
Many of these sink-stones are probably of no great antiquity. With two transverse grooves, they are still in use in Shetland.[883]
The Fishing Indians of Vancouver’s Island[884]go out trolling for salmon in a fast canoe, towing behind them a long line made of tough seaweed, to which is attached, by slips of deer hide, an oval piece of granite perfectly smooth, and the size and shape of a goose’s egg. It acts as a sinker, and is said to spin the bait. A net-sinker, formed of a pebble slightly notched or grooved, is among the antiquities from{237}Lake Erie, engraved by Schoolcraft.[885]Others have been found in the State of New York.[886]See C. Rau’s “Prehistoric Fishing.â€[887]
Sink-stones are by no means rare in Ireland, and continue in use to the present day. One of the same class as Fig. 159, but grooved round the long axis of the pebble, is engraved by Sir W. Wilde.[888]Similar stones occur in Denmark, and were regarded by Worsaae[889]as sink-stones, though some of them, to judge from the wear at the ends, and the hardness of the material, were used as hammers. I have seen, in Sweden, the leg bones of animals used as weights for sinking nets.
Another form of sink-stone, weight, or plummet, was formed by boring a hole towards one end of a flattish stone. Such a one, weighing141â„4oz., was dredged from the Thames at Battersea.[890]
Another, of oval form, pierced at one end, from Tyrie,[891]Aberdeenshire, is in the National Museum at Edinburgh; and a wedge-shaped perforated stone from Culter, Lanarkshire,[892]was probably intended for the same purpose. These may have been in use for stretching the warp in the loom when weaving. They are found of this form with Roman remains.[893]