Chapter 23

British flakes with ground edges are by no means common. One from Yorkshire, in my own collection, is a thin, flat, external flake, having both edges (which are parallel) ground from both faces to an angle of about 60°. It has, unfortunately, been broken square across, about 2 inches from the butt-end, and is 1 inch wide at the fracture. Another, from Bridlington, is an ovate flat external flake, produced, not by art, but by natural fracture, and having one side brought to a sharp edge by grinding on both faces. With the exception of its being partially chipped into shape at both ends, this grinding is all that has been done to convert a mere splinter of flint into a serviceable tool. It is an interesting example of the selection of a natural form, where adapted for a particular purpose, in preference to making the whole implement by hand. The small celt, Fig. 31, affords an analogous instance. In the Greenwell Collection are also two or three very rude flakes from the Yorkshire Wolds, which are ground at some portion of their edges.In a barrow on Seamer Moor, Yorkshire, the late Lord Londesborough[1302]found, with other relics, a delicate knife made from a flake of flint,41⁄4inches long, and dexterously ground. A trimmed flake, like Fig. 239, some small celts, and delicate lozenge-shaped arrow-heads, like Fig. 276, were also present. The whole are now in the British Museum.A flake, from Charleston, in the East Riding, presented to me by Canon Greenwell, is shown in Fig. 196. It is of thin triangular section, slightly bowed longitudinally, having one edge, which appears to have{291}been originally blunt, sharpened by secondary working. The other edge has been sharpened to an angle of about 45° by grinding both on the inner and outer faces of the flake. The point, which is irregular in shape, is rounded over either by friction or by grinding. It seems well adapted for use as a knife when held between the ball of the thumb and the end of the first finger, without the intervention of any handle.Fig. 196.—Charleston.1⁄2Another specimen, 4 inches long, ground to a sharp edge along one side, was in the collection of the late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S., and is now in mine. It was found near Thetford.Mr. Flower had also a flake from High Street, near Chislet, Kent, with both edges completely blunted by grinding, perhaps in scraping stone.I have two trimmed flakes with the edges carefully ground, from the neighbourhood of Icklingham, Suffolk, and another ridged flake,23⁄8inches long, pointed at one end and rounded at the other, one side of which has been carefully ground at the edge. I found it in a field of my own, in the parish of Abbot’s Langley, Herts. Canon Greenwell obtained another21⁄2inches long, ground on both edges, from Mildenhall Fen.I have seen a flake about 3 inches long, with the edge ground, that had been found on the top of the cliffs at Bournemouth; and another, from a barrow near Stonehenge, in the possession of the late Mr. Frank Buckland.A flat flake, with a semicircular end, and ground at the edges so as to form “a beautiful thin ovoidal knife three and a half inches long,” was found by Dr. Thurnam,[1303]with many other worked flints, in the chambered long barrow at West Kennet, Wilts. Another, carefully ground at one edge, was found by Sir R. Colt Hoare,[1304]at Everley.An oval knife, about 2 inches long, ground at the edge and over a great part of the convex face, found at Micheldean, Gloucestershire, is in the museum at Truro.A cutting instrument, with a very keen edge, nicely polished, is recorded as having been found, with twenty other flint implements or tools of various shapes, accompanying a skeleton, in a barrow near Pickering.[1305]A so-called spear-head, neatly chipped and rubbed, was found with burnt bones in another barrow near the same place.[1306]A few flat flakes, ground at the edge, have been discovered in Scotland. One21⁄2inches long was found at Cromar,[1307]Aberdeenshire; and a portion of another in a cairn in Caithness,[1308]in company with a polished perforated hammer and other objects.Irish flakes are rarely sharpened by grinding. I have, however, one of Lydian stone,[1309]found in Lough Neagh, and ground to an edge at the end.Fig. 197.—Nussdorf.1⁄2In form the Charleston flake, Fig. 196, much resembles some of the Swiss flakes, which, from examples that have been found in the{292}Lake-dwellings, are proved to have been mounted in handles. One of these, from Nussdorf, in the Ueberlinger See,[1310]is in my own collection, and is shown in Fig. 197. It is fastened into a yew-wood handle by an apparently bituminous cement. The edge has been formed by secondary chipping on the ridged face of the flake. I am unable to say whether the edge of the flake still embedded in the wood is left as originally produced or no, but several unmounted flakes from the same locality have been re-chipped on both edges. In some instances, however, only one edge is thus worked. In the case of many of the small narrow flakes from the Dordogne caves, one edge is much worn away, and the other as sharp as ever, as if it had been protected by being inserted in a wooden handle.From the hole in the handle, this form of instrument would appear to have been carried attached to a string, like a sailor’s knife at the present day—a similarity probably due to the somewhat analogous conditions of life of the old Lake-dwellers to those of seamen. In some French and Swiss flakes[1311]which seem to have been used in a similar manner, the ends are squared, and a central notch worked in each, apparently for the reception of a cord. In this case, a loop at the end of the cord would answer the same purpose as the hole in the handle, which with these flakes seem to have been needless. They are abundant at Pressigny.A pointed flake in the museum at Berne[1312]is hafted like a dagger, in a wooden handle, which is bound round with a cord made from rushes.Some of the Swiss handles are not bored, and occasionally they are prolonged at one end to twice the length of the flint, so as to form a handle like that of a table-knife, the flint flake, though let in to a continuation of the handle, projecting and forming the blade. In some cases there is a handle at each end, like those of a spoke-shave. The handles are of yew, deal, and more rarely of stags’-horn; and the implements, though usually termed saws, are not regularly serrated, and may with equal propriety be termed knives.The late Sir Edward Belcher showed me an Eskimo “flensing knife,” from Icy Cape, hafted in much the same manner. The blade is an ovate piece of slate about 5 inches long, and is let into a handle made of several pieces of wood, extending along nearly half the circumference, and secured together by resin. Other specimens of the same kind are in the British Museum, and in the Ethnological Museum at Copenhagen. The stone blades are more like the flat Picts’[1313]knives,{293}such as Fig. 263, than ordinary flint flakes. An iron blade, hafted in a closely analogous manner by the Eskimos, is engraved by Nilsson.[1314]As already mentioned, some of the Australian savages about King George’s Sound make knives or saws on a somewhat similar plan; but instead of one long flake they attach a number of small flakes in a row in a matrix of hard resin at one end of a stick. Spears are formed in the same manner.In other cases, however, flakes are differently hafted. One such is shown in Fig. 198, from an original in the Christy Collection. One edge of this flake has been entirely removed by chipping so as to form a thick, somewhat rounded back, not unlike that of an ordinary knife-blade, though rather thicker in proportion to the width of the blade. The butt-end has then had a portion of the hairy skin of some animal bound over it with a cord, so as to give it a sort of haft, and effectually protect the hand that held it. The material of the flake appears to be horn-stone. Another knife of the same character, from Queensland, is in the Museum of the Hartley Institution at Southampton.Fig. 198.—Australia.1⁄2Another example, from the Murray River,[1315]but without the skin handle, has been figured.A friend in Queensland tried to procure one of these knives for me, but what he obtained was a flake of glass made from a gin bottle, and the wrapping was of calico instead of kangaroo-skin. Iron blades[1316]are sometimes hafted in the same way with a piece of skin. Some Australian jasper or flint knives,[1317]from Carandotta, are hafted with gum, and provided with sheaths made of sedge. These gum-hafted knives are in use on the Herbert River[1318]for certain surgical operations.Some surface-chipped obsidian knives from California are hafted by having a strip of otter skin wound round them, and Prof. Flinders Petrie[1319]has found an Egyptian flint knife hafted with fibre lashed round with a cord.Occasionally flakes of quartz or other silicious stone were mounted at the end of short handles by the Australians, so as to form a kind of dagger or chisel. One such has been engraved by the Rev. J. G.{294}Wood.[1320]Another is in the Museum of the Hartley Institution at Southampton.In the Berlin Museum[1321]is a curious knife, found, I believe, in Prussia, which shows great skill in the adaptation of flint for cutting purposes. It consists of a somewhat lanceolate piece of bone, about71⁄4inches long, and at the utmost1⁄2inch wide, and1⁄4inch thick. The section is approximately oval, but along one of the narrow sides a groove has been worked, and in this are inserted a series of segments of thin flakes of flint, so carefully chosen as to be almost of one thickness, and so dexterously fitted together that their edges constitute one continuous sharp blade, projecting about three-sixteenths of an inch from the bone. In some examples from Scandinavia the flint flakes are let in on both edges of the blade.[1322]The flakes sometimes form barbs, as already mentioned.The Mexican[1323]swords, formed of flakes of obsidian attached to a blade of wood, were of somewhat the same character, and remains of what appears to have been an analogous sword, armed with flint flakes, have been found in one of the mounds of the Iroquois country.Another use to which pointed flint flakes have occasionally been applied is for the formation of fishing-hooks. Such a hook, the stem formed of bone, and the returning point made of flint bound at an acute angle to the end of the bone, has been engraved by Klemm.[1324]It was found in a grave in Greenland. Fishhooks formed entirely of flint, and found in Sweden, have been engraved by Nilsson,[1325]and others, presumed to have been found in Holderness, by Mr. T. Wright, F.S.A.[1326]These latter are, however, in all probability, forgeries.

In a barrow on Seamer Moor, Yorkshire, the late Lord Londesborough[1302]found, with other relics, a delicate knife made from a flake of flint,41⁄4inches long, and dexterously ground. A trimmed flake, like Fig. 239, some small celts, and delicate lozenge-shaped arrow-heads, like Fig. 276, were also present. The whole are now in the British Museum.

A flake, from Charleston, in the East Riding, presented to me by Canon Greenwell, is shown in Fig. 196. It is of thin triangular section, slightly bowed longitudinally, having one edge, which appears to have{291}been originally blunt, sharpened by secondary working. The other edge has been sharpened to an angle of about 45° by grinding both on the inner and outer faces of the flake. The point, which is irregular in shape, is rounded over either by friction or by grinding. It seems well adapted for use as a knife when held between the ball of the thumb and the end of the first finger, without the intervention of any handle.

Fig. 196.—Charleston.1⁄2

Another specimen, 4 inches long, ground to a sharp edge along one side, was in the collection of the late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S., and is now in mine. It was found near Thetford.

Mr. Flower had also a flake from High Street, near Chislet, Kent, with both edges completely blunted by grinding, perhaps in scraping stone.

I have two trimmed flakes with the edges carefully ground, from the neighbourhood of Icklingham, Suffolk, and another ridged flake,23⁄8inches long, pointed at one end and rounded at the other, one side of which has been carefully ground at the edge. I found it in a field of my own, in the parish of Abbot’s Langley, Herts. Canon Greenwell obtained another21⁄2inches long, ground on both edges, from Mildenhall Fen.

I have seen a flake about 3 inches long, with the edge ground, that had been found on the top of the cliffs at Bournemouth; and another, from a barrow near Stonehenge, in the possession of the late Mr. Frank Buckland.

A flat flake, with a semicircular end, and ground at the edges so as to form “a beautiful thin ovoidal knife three and a half inches long,” was found by Dr. Thurnam,[1303]with many other worked flints, in the chambered long barrow at West Kennet, Wilts. Another, carefully ground at one edge, was found by Sir R. Colt Hoare,[1304]at Everley.

An oval knife, about 2 inches long, ground at the edge and over a great part of the convex face, found at Micheldean, Gloucestershire, is in the museum at Truro.

A cutting instrument, with a very keen edge, nicely polished, is recorded as having been found, with twenty other flint implements or tools of various shapes, accompanying a skeleton, in a barrow near Pickering.[1305]A so-called spear-head, neatly chipped and rubbed, was found with burnt bones in another barrow near the same place.[1306]

A few flat flakes, ground at the edge, have been discovered in Scotland. One21⁄2inches long was found at Cromar,[1307]Aberdeenshire; and a portion of another in a cairn in Caithness,[1308]in company with a polished perforated hammer and other objects.

Irish flakes are rarely sharpened by grinding. I have, however, one of Lydian stone,[1309]found in Lough Neagh, and ground to an edge at the end.

Fig. 197.—Nussdorf.1⁄2

In form the Charleston flake, Fig. 196, much resembles some of the Swiss flakes, which, from examples that have been found in the{292}Lake-dwellings, are proved to have been mounted in handles. One of these, from Nussdorf, in the Ueberlinger See,[1310]is in my own collection, and is shown in Fig. 197. It is fastened into a yew-wood handle by an apparently bituminous cement. The edge has been formed by secondary chipping on the ridged face of the flake. I am unable to say whether the edge of the flake still embedded in the wood is left as originally produced or no, but several unmounted flakes from the same locality have been re-chipped on both edges. In some instances, however, only one edge is thus worked. In the case of many of the small narrow flakes from the Dordogne caves, one edge is much worn away, and the other as sharp as ever, as if it had been protected by being inserted in a wooden handle.

From the hole in the handle, this form of instrument would appear to have been carried attached to a string, like a sailor’s knife at the present day—a similarity probably due to the somewhat analogous conditions of life of the old Lake-dwellers to those of seamen. In some French and Swiss flakes[1311]which seem to have been used in a similar manner, the ends are squared, and a central notch worked in each, apparently for the reception of a cord. In this case, a loop at the end of the cord would answer the same purpose as the hole in the handle, which with these flakes seem to have been needless. They are abundant at Pressigny.

A pointed flake in the museum at Berne[1312]is hafted like a dagger, in a wooden handle, which is bound round with a cord made from rushes.

Some of the Swiss handles are not bored, and occasionally they are prolonged at one end to twice the length of the flint, so as to form a handle like that of a table-knife, the flint flake, though let in to a continuation of the handle, projecting and forming the blade. In some cases there is a handle at each end, like those of a spoke-shave. The handles are of yew, deal, and more rarely of stags’-horn; and the implements, though usually termed saws, are not regularly serrated, and may with equal propriety be termed knives.

The late Sir Edward Belcher showed me an Eskimo “flensing knife,” from Icy Cape, hafted in much the same manner. The blade is an ovate piece of slate about 5 inches long, and is let into a handle made of several pieces of wood, extending along nearly half the circumference, and secured together by resin. Other specimens of the same kind are in the British Museum, and in the Ethnological Museum at Copenhagen. The stone blades are more like the flat Picts’[1313]knives,{293}such as Fig. 263, than ordinary flint flakes. An iron blade, hafted in a closely analogous manner by the Eskimos, is engraved by Nilsson.[1314]

As already mentioned, some of the Australian savages about King George’s Sound make knives or saws on a somewhat similar plan; but instead of one long flake they attach a number of small flakes in a row in a matrix of hard resin at one end of a stick. Spears are formed in the same manner.

In other cases, however, flakes are differently hafted. One such is shown in Fig. 198, from an original in the Christy Collection. One edge of this flake has been entirely removed by chipping so as to form a thick, somewhat rounded back, not unlike that of an ordinary knife-blade, though rather thicker in proportion to the width of the blade. The butt-end has then had a portion of the hairy skin of some animal bound over it with a cord, so as to give it a sort of haft, and effectually protect the hand that held it. The material of the flake appears to be horn-stone. Another knife of the same character, from Queensland, is in the Museum of the Hartley Institution at Southampton.

Fig. 198.—Australia.1⁄2

Another example, from the Murray River,[1315]but without the skin handle, has been figured.

A friend in Queensland tried to procure one of these knives for me, but what he obtained was a flake of glass made from a gin bottle, and the wrapping was of calico instead of kangaroo-skin. Iron blades[1316]are sometimes hafted in the same way with a piece of skin. Some Australian jasper or flint knives,[1317]from Carandotta, are hafted with gum, and provided with sheaths made of sedge. These gum-hafted knives are in use on the Herbert River[1318]for certain surgical operations.

Some surface-chipped obsidian knives from California are hafted by having a strip of otter skin wound round them, and Prof. Flinders Petrie[1319]has found an Egyptian flint knife hafted with fibre lashed round with a cord.

Occasionally flakes of quartz or other silicious stone were mounted at the end of short handles by the Australians, so as to form a kind of dagger or chisel. One such has been engraved by the Rev. J. G.{294}Wood.[1320]Another is in the Museum of the Hartley Institution at Southampton.

In the Berlin Museum[1321]is a curious knife, found, I believe, in Prussia, which shows great skill in the adaptation of flint for cutting purposes. It consists of a somewhat lanceolate piece of bone, about71⁄4inches long, and at the utmost1⁄2inch wide, and1⁄4inch thick. The section is approximately oval, but along one of the narrow sides a groove has been worked, and in this are inserted a series of segments of thin flakes of flint, so carefully chosen as to be almost of one thickness, and so dexterously fitted together that their edges constitute one continuous sharp blade, projecting about three-sixteenths of an inch from the bone. In some examples from Scandinavia the flint flakes are let in on both edges of the blade.[1322]The flakes sometimes form barbs, as already mentioned.

The Mexican[1323]swords, formed of flakes of obsidian attached to a blade of wood, were of somewhat the same character, and remains of what appears to have been an analogous sword, armed with flint flakes, have been found in one of the mounds of the Iroquois country.

Another use to which pointed flint flakes have occasionally been applied is for the formation of fishing-hooks. Such a hook, the stem formed of bone, and the returning point made of flint bound at an acute angle to the end of the bone, has been engraved by Klemm.[1324]It was found in a grave in Greenland. Fishhooks formed entirely of flint, and found in Sweden, have been engraved by Nilsson,[1325]and others, presumed to have been found in Holderness, by Mr. T. Wright, F.S.A.[1326]These latter are, however, in all probability, forgeries.

Besides the flakes which may be regarded as merely tools for cutting or scraping, there are some which may with safety be reckoned as saws, their edges having been intentionally and regularly serrated, though in other respects they have been left entirely unaltered in form.

Fig. 199.—Willerby Wold.1⁄1Fig. 200.—Yorkshire Wolds.1⁄1A specimen, found in a pit which appeared to have been excavated by the primitive inhabitants of the district, at Brighthampton, Oxon, has been figured;[1327]and another oblong flint flake, with a regularly serrated edge, but the teeth not so deep or well defined as in this instance, was found by Dr. Thurnam in a chambered long barrow at West Kennet, Wilts, with numerous flakes and “scrapers.”[1328]Figs. 199 to 201 represent similar instruments in my own collection from the Yorkshire Wolds. The largest has been serrated on both edges, but has had the teeth much broken and worn away on the thinner edge.{295}Fig. 200 is very minutely toothed on both edges, and has a line of brilliant polish on each margin of its flat face, showing the friction the saw had undergone in use, not improbably in sawing bone or horn.Fig. 201 is more coarsely serrated, and shows less of this characteristic polish, which is observable on a large proportion of these flint saws. The teeth are on many so minute that without careful examination they may be overlooked. Others, however, are coarsely toothed. Canon Greenwell has found saws in considerable numbers, and varying in the fineness of their serration, in the barrows on the Yorkshire Wolds, near Sherburn and elsewhere. In the soil of a single barrow at Rudstone there were no less than seventy-eight of these saws. Some have been found by Mr. E. Tindall in barrows near Bridlington,[1329]as well as on the surface. Some well-formed flint saws have also been found near Whitby,[1330]and some of small size at West Wickham,[1331]Kent. In the Greenwell Collection is a finely-toothed saw, made from a curved flake, found at Kenny Hill, Mildenhall.Five flint saws, finely serrated, were found in a barrow at Seaford,[1332]and another on St. Leonard’s Forest,[1333]Horsham. One was also found in a barrow on Overton Hill,[1334]Wilts. Seven saws, thirteen scrapers, and other worked flints were among the materials of another barrow at Rudstone.[1335]The teeth are usually but not universally worked in the side edges of the flakes. In Fig. 202 it is the chisel-like broad end of a flake that has been converted into a saw. This specimen was found by the late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S., in a barrow at West Cranmore, Somerset, in company with numerous flint flakes and “scrapers.” A bronze dagger was found in the same barrow.Near Newhaven, Sussex, I found on the downs a flat flake, about21⁄2inches long, and slightly curved sideways towards the point. At this part the inner curve is neatly worked into a saw, and the outer curve carefully chipped into a rounded edge as a scraping tool.A flint knife serrated at the back to serve as a saw was found by Mr. Bateman in Liff’s Low, near Biggin.[1336]In Scotland several saws have been procured from the Culbin Sands,[1337]{296}and near Glenluce.[1338]They are also recorded from Forglen,[1339]near Banff, and Craigsfordmains,[1340]Roxburghshire.In Ireland, flakes converted into saws are scarce; they occur occasionally, though but rarely, with neolithic interments in France. In the Museum at le Puy is a very good specimen of a flat flake, neatly serrated with small teeth, found with a skeleton near that town. Another, found in a dolmen in Poitou,[1341]has been published by M. de Longuemar. Mortillet[1342]includes several forms under the general denomination ofscies.Fig. 201.—Scamridge.1⁄1Fig. 202.—West Cranmore.1⁄1Similar saws to those first described, and made from flakes more or less coarsely toothed, have been found in the cave-deposits of the Reindeer Period of the South of France, but in some caves, as, for instance, that at Bruniquel explored by M. V. Brun, they were much more abundant than in others. In the Vicomte de Lastic’s cave at the same place but few occurred, and in most of the caves of the Dordogne they appear to be absent. An irregularly-notched flake was probably almost as efficient a saw as one more carefully and uniformly toothed.Flakes of flint, carefully serrated at the edge, have been found in the Danish kjökken-möddings[1343]; in Posen,[1344]Prussia; and with relics of the Early Bronze Period in Spain.[1345]One is recorded from the Algerian Sahara.[1346]It has been suggested that some serrated flints were potters’ tools, by which parallel mouldings were produced on vessels.[1347]Among the more highly finished Scandinavian stone implements there is some difficulty in determining exactly which have served the purpose of saws. The flat, straight tapering instrument, with serrated edges, which, from its many teeth at regular distances from each other, Nilsson[1348]is disposed to think has probably been a saw, Worsaae[1349]{297}regards as a lance-point. I am inclined to think that they were not saws, for on such specimens as I have examined minutely I find no trace of the teeth being polished by use. They cannot, however, in all cases have been lance-heads, as I have one of those serrated instruments,81⁄4inches long, with the sides nearly parallel and both ends square.Some of the crescent-shaped[1350]blades have almost similar teeth on the straighter edge, and some of these are polished on both faces as if by being worked backwards and forwards in a groove, and have no polish between the teeth, such as would result from their being used crossways like combs. From this I infer that such specimens at all events have been used for cutting purposes, and not, as may have been the case with others, as instruments[1351]for dressing skins, or heckling flax or hemp. As has been pointed out by Professor J. J. Steenstrup, many of these crescent-shaped blades seem to have had their convex edges inserted in wooden handles, which would render them convenient for use as saws. Their action on wood, though not rapid, is effectual, and with the aid of a little water I have with one of them cut through a stick of dry sycamore seven-eighths of an inch in diameter in seven minutes. In Thomsen’s[1352]opinion, these implements with teeth were intended for saws. Nilsson[1353]also regards some of them in the same light. The form seems to be confined to the North of Germany and Scandinavia.[1354]They are frequently found in pairs, one being smaller than the other. Mr. T. Wright,[1355]after engraving one of these Danish saws as a British specimen, remarks that several have been found in different parts of England. I believe this statement to be entirely without foundation, so far as this particular form is concerned.I have left what I originally wrote upon this subject with very little modification, but Prof. Flinders Petrie’s[1356]discoveries have thrown a flood of light upon the purposes for which serrated flints were used. We now know that the Egyptian sickle was formed of a curved piece of wood in shape much like the jaw-bone of a horse, armed along the inner edge with a series of serrated flint flakes, cemented into a groove. Not only are there numerous pictorial representations of such instruments going back so far as the 4th dynasty, but the sickles themselves have been found in a complete state, as well as numbers of the serrated flakes that formed their edge. Similar flakes, which no doubt served the same purpose, were found by Schliemann on the site of Troy.[1357]Others have been found at Helouan.[1358]The whole subject has been treated exhaustively by Mr. Spurrell,[1359]to whose paper the reader is referred.[1360]Dr. Munro is, however, inclined to regard most European examples as saws.

Fig. 199.—Willerby Wold.1⁄1Fig. 200.—Yorkshire Wolds.1⁄1

Fig. 199.—Willerby Wold.1⁄1

Fig. 200.—Yorkshire Wolds.1⁄1

A specimen, found in a pit which appeared to have been excavated by the primitive inhabitants of the district, at Brighthampton, Oxon, has been figured;[1327]and another oblong flint flake, with a regularly serrated edge, but the teeth not so deep or well defined as in this instance, was found by Dr. Thurnam in a chambered long barrow at West Kennet, Wilts, with numerous flakes and “scrapers.”[1328]

Figs. 199 to 201 represent similar instruments in my own collection from the Yorkshire Wolds. The largest has been serrated on both edges, but has had the teeth much broken and worn away on the thinner edge.{295}

Fig. 200 is very minutely toothed on both edges, and has a line of brilliant polish on each margin of its flat face, showing the friction the saw had undergone in use, not improbably in sawing bone or horn.

Fig. 201 is more coarsely serrated, and shows less of this characteristic polish, which is observable on a large proportion of these flint saws. The teeth are on many so minute that without careful examination they may be overlooked. Others, however, are coarsely toothed. Canon Greenwell has found saws in considerable numbers, and varying in the fineness of their serration, in the barrows on the Yorkshire Wolds, near Sherburn and elsewhere. In the soil of a single barrow at Rudstone there were no less than seventy-eight of these saws. Some have been found by Mr. E. Tindall in barrows near Bridlington,[1329]as well as on the surface. Some well-formed flint saws have also been found near Whitby,[1330]and some of small size at West Wickham,[1331]Kent. In the Greenwell Collection is a finely-toothed saw, made from a curved flake, found at Kenny Hill, Mildenhall.

Five flint saws, finely serrated, were found in a barrow at Seaford,[1332]and another on St. Leonard’s Forest,[1333]Horsham. One was also found in a barrow on Overton Hill,[1334]Wilts. Seven saws, thirteen scrapers, and other worked flints were among the materials of another barrow at Rudstone.[1335]

The teeth are usually but not universally worked in the side edges of the flakes. In Fig. 202 it is the chisel-like broad end of a flake that has been converted into a saw. This specimen was found by the late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S., in a barrow at West Cranmore, Somerset, in company with numerous flint flakes and “scrapers.” A bronze dagger was found in the same barrow.

Near Newhaven, Sussex, I found on the downs a flat flake, about21⁄2inches long, and slightly curved sideways towards the point. At this part the inner curve is neatly worked into a saw, and the outer curve carefully chipped into a rounded edge as a scraping tool.

A flint knife serrated at the back to serve as a saw was found by Mr. Bateman in Liff’s Low, near Biggin.[1336]

In Scotland several saws have been procured from the Culbin Sands,[1337]{296}and near Glenluce.[1338]They are also recorded from Forglen,[1339]near Banff, and Craigsfordmains,[1340]Roxburghshire.

In Ireland, flakes converted into saws are scarce; they occur occasionally, though but rarely, with neolithic interments in France. In the Museum at le Puy is a very good specimen of a flat flake, neatly serrated with small teeth, found with a skeleton near that town. Another, found in a dolmen in Poitou,[1341]has been published by M. de Longuemar. Mortillet[1342]includes several forms under the general denomination ofscies.

Fig. 201.—Scamridge.1⁄1Fig. 202.—West Cranmore.1⁄1

Fig. 201.—Scamridge.1⁄1

Fig. 202.—West Cranmore.1⁄1

Similar saws to those first described, and made from flakes more or less coarsely toothed, have been found in the cave-deposits of the Reindeer Period of the South of France, but in some caves, as, for instance, that at Bruniquel explored by M. V. Brun, they were much more abundant than in others. In the Vicomte de Lastic’s cave at the same place but few occurred, and in most of the caves of the Dordogne they appear to be absent. An irregularly-notched flake was probably almost as efficient a saw as one more carefully and uniformly toothed.

Flakes of flint, carefully serrated at the edge, have been found in the Danish kjökken-möddings[1343]; in Posen,[1344]Prussia; and with relics of the Early Bronze Period in Spain.[1345]One is recorded from the Algerian Sahara.[1346]It has been suggested that some serrated flints were potters’ tools, by which parallel mouldings were produced on vessels.[1347]

Among the more highly finished Scandinavian stone implements there is some difficulty in determining exactly which have served the purpose of saws. The flat, straight tapering instrument, with serrated edges, which, from its many teeth at regular distances from each other, Nilsson[1348]is disposed to think has probably been a saw, Worsaae[1349]{297}regards as a lance-point. I am inclined to think that they were not saws, for on such specimens as I have examined minutely I find no trace of the teeth being polished by use. They cannot, however, in all cases have been lance-heads, as I have one of those serrated instruments,81⁄4inches long, with the sides nearly parallel and both ends square.

Some of the crescent-shaped[1350]blades have almost similar teeth on the straighter edge, and some of these are polished on both faces as if by being worked backwards and forwards in a groove, and have no polish between the teeth, such as would result from their being used crossways like combs. From this I infer that such specimens at all events have been used for cutting purposes, and not, as may have been the case with others, as instruments[1351]for dressing skins, or heckling flax or hemp. As has been pointed out by Professor J. J. Steenstrup, many of these crescent-shaped blades seem to have had their convex edges inserted in wooden handles, which would render them convenient for use as saws. Their action on wood, though not rapid, is effectual, and with the aid of a little water I have with one of them cut through a stick of dry sycamore seven-eighths of an inch in diameter in seven minutes. In Thomsen’s[1352]opinion, these implements with teeth were intended for saws. Nilsson[1353]also regards some of them in the same light. The form seems to be confined to the North of Germany and Scandinavia.[1354]They are frequently found in pairs, one being smaller than the other. Mr. T. Wright,[1355]after engraving one of these Danish saws as a British specimen, remarks that several have been found in different parts of England. I believe this statement to be entirely without foundation, so far as this particular form is concerned.

I have left what I originally wrote upon this subject with very little modification, but Prof. Flinders Petrie’s[1356]discoveries have thrown a flood of light upon the purposes for which serrated flints were used. We now know that the Egyptian sickle was formed of a curved piece of wood in shape much like the jaw-bone of a horse, armed along the inner edge with a series of serrated flint flakes, cemented into a groove. Not only are there numerous pictorial representations of such instruments going back so far as the 4th dynasty, but the sickles themselves have been found in a complete state, as well as numbers of the serrated flakes that formed their edge. Similar flakes, which no doubt served the same purpose, were found by Schliemann on the site of Troy.[1357]Others have been found at Helouan.[1358]The whole subject has been treated exhaustively by Mr. Spurrell,[1359]to whose paper the reader is referred.[1360]Dr. Munro is, however, inclined to regard most European examples as saws.

I now pass on to an instrument of very frequent occurrence in Britain.

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