Feb., 1912. Jade. 51 



J. H. Rivett-Carnac, 1 after whom it is here reproduced on Plate XIII, 

 Fig. 2, a and b (upper and lower faces). The original is now preserved 

 in the British Museum. It is 13 cm long and 6.5 cm wide. Rivett- 

 Carnac describes it as made of a tough, grayish quartzite, somewhat 

 resembling a modern hammer in form, being flat at the ends and slightly 

 curved on the upper surface. A groove has been carefully carried 

 round the centre. The base has been hollowed out with equal care in 

 a gouge-like form. The whole arrangement suggests that the hammer 

 was attached by a ligature to a wooden or withy handle, the ligature 

 being kept in its place by the upper groove, while the lower groove 

 held the hammer in position on the rounded haft. Mr. Cockburn has 

 pointed out certain minute marks, especially on the lower groove, 

 which suggest the possibility of metal implements having been used 

 in the fashioning of the hammer, and it may be that this implement 

 belongs to the transition stage from stone to metal, when metal, though 

 available, was scarce. This specimen is believed, concludes the author, 

 to be the first of this description found in India; he adds that his col- 

 lection contains several other grooved hammers of a less perfect form, 

 bearing no trace of metallic tooling, which appear to be water-worn 

 pebbles grooved to admit of being attached to a withy handle. 



Figure 3 on Plate XIII 2 shows a grooved stone hammer found in a 

 shell-mound north-west of Korsakovsk on the southern shore of 

 Saghalin Island by Dr. Iijima. 



N. G. Munro (Prehistoric Japan, p. 140, No. 1, Yokohama, 1908) 

 has figured a similar type from Japan, without defining the locality 

 of the find, but he diagnoses it as a sinker, 3 with the remark: "This 

 stone is sometimes described as a hammer, but those that I have seen 

 are made of rather friable lava and would not stand much concussion. 

 I have more than once seen these objects placed on tomb-stones, in 

 fishing localities." I do not believe that this supposition is correct, 

 but think that Mr. Edward S. Morse (Shell Mounds of Omori, p. 15, 

 and Plate XVII, 1-2, Tokyo, 1879) who has discovered two grooved 

 hammers in these shell-mounds of Ainu origin is perfectly right in 

 identifying them as hammers, and in saying "it is hardly probable 

 that they were intended for net sinkers." 



Farther north-east, we find the grooved stone hammer in modern 

 times as a common household utensil among the Chukchi (Plate 



1 On Stone Implements from the North Western Provinces of India, p. 6 (Cal- 

 cutta, 1883). 



2 Derived from the Journal of the Anthrop. Soc. of Tokyo, Vol. XXI, No. 247, 

 1906. 



3 Doubtless prompted by J. Evans, Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain, 

 p. 236 (Second ed., London, 1897). 



