368 AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL STONE WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS, 



According to Smyth* this is a rare form of tomahawk, and is 

 known as Pur-ut-three in Victoria. He figured one from a kitchen- 

 midden at Lake Condah, and it was identified by an aboriginal as 

 used for splitting open large trees. It is rather larger than the 

 Queensland implement, being eight inches long and five wide, 

 with a weight of four pounds eight and a-half ounces ; the groove 

 is also much nearer the butt. 



Two examples of the grooved tomahawk are given by 

 MacPhersonf from Telligerry Creek, Port Stephens, N. S. Wales, 

 both slightly larger and heavier than the Queensland implement. 

 The figured example is also much broader across the cutting edge. 

 Mr. MacPherson appeared to be in doubt whether or no these 

 stones might not be used as sinkers as well as tomahawks, but I 

 think little doubt need be entertained that the latter supposition 

 is their true use. The occurrence of grooved tomahawks at 

 distances so far apart as North Queensland, Port Stephens, and 

 Lake Condah, Normanby, Victoria, establishes the wide distribu- 

 tion of this method of hafting. 



That we have under the present heading more than one form 

 of tomahawk is, I think, manifest from another figure given by 

 Smyth J of an implement found at Winchelsea, in Victoria. In 

 shape it is allied to the small deltoid type of out first section, the 

 butt truncate, and the groove situated far back: It was polished 

 all over and had a keen cutting edge. 



This method of hafting is not confined to the rarer form of 

 Australian tomahawk, but was in practice amongst the men of 

 the so-called Neolithic Period, throughout Central and South- 

 western Europe, and was used in connection with tools regarded 

 as hammer-stones or mauls,§ and found usually in the neighbour- 

 hood, if not actually in, old mines, " principally copper mines." 



* Aborigines of Victoria, 1878, I., p. 368, f. 183. 



t Joum. R. Soc. N. S. Wales for 1885 [1886], xix., p. 114, 1st PI., f. 4. 



t Aborigines of Victoria, 1878, L, p. 372, f. 195. 



§ Evans, Ancient Stone Implements, &c, Gt. Brit., 1872, p. 208. 



