STONE AGE IN NEW JERSEY. 313 



the "fliut" implements of New Jersey as tliis identity in the more im- 

 portant features with those of distant countries. We liave seen tliis 

 similarity in the axes and arrow-heads ; and now in the scrapers, we 

 obtain an example of identity in a specimen from the South of France, 

 and one from Central New Jersey- ; the former has existed as manj' cen- 

 turies as the latter has years, and yet the latter must be more than two 

 hundred years old. 



CnArxER XUI. 



HAMIMERS. 



There are occasionally found about our fields, slender oval stones and 

 some of more irregular shape, with grooves entirely around them, as 

 in one pattern of axes, which stones would serve as good axes had they 

 a cutting-edge. Being without such edge their use as hammers is un- 

 questionable. Such an oval, grooved pebble is well represented in fig- 

 ures 133, 133a. There has been no chipping or pecking of this specimen 

 other than was necessary to produce the narrow, shallow groove, to bet- 

 ter secure the handle. This hammer is seven inches in length, about 

 three inches wide in the middle, and tapers quite uniformly to the some- 

 what narrower ends. To what uses such grooved stones were put it is not 

 easy to determine. In this instance there is not the battered ap^iear- 

 ance at the ends, indicating use as a hammer for striking other stones, 

 as in the ends of chisels and gouges. Very probably it was a weapon, as 

 its weight and size certainly do not suggest any heavy mechanical works, 

 such as the ancient copper-mining, where immense stone mauls were 

 largely used. 



Figure 131: represents an interesting form of stone hammer, being 

 peculiar in that one portion has been pecked into such shai)e as to an- 

 swer as a handle, instead of being so shaped as to require a wooden one. 

 Probably the stone originally bore some resemblance to its present sliape. 

 There has been a rude edge chipped upon the lower margin of the head 

 of this hammer of about one-quarter of an inch in width. When this 

 specimen was first described by us,* it was suggested that a handle had 

 been attached to the present stone stem or handle ; but this is improb- 

 able. W^hether it was used as a weapon or a domestic tool is indeter- 

 minable. This is the only specimen we have met with of this style. 



Figure 135 represents the more usual shape and size of these stone 

 hammers, as we find them in New Jersey. Of course occasional speci- 

 mens of this and other styles occur that are several times larger. This 

 specimen is exactly five inches in length. It was originally of the ordi- 

 nary oval outline so common to the cobble-stones of the river-bed, and 

 afterward pecked at the head to make it flatter. It has a very shallow 

 groove pecked irregularly about it ; the dressing down was apparently 

 more with a view to obliterate projecting angles than to secure a de- 



* Amer. Nat., vol. vi, p. 158. 



