60 SIE DANIEL WILSON 



iu the caves of France aud Belgium, among remains pertaining to the Palaeolithic age ; 

 and are among the most interesting disclosures of the greatly more modern, though still 

 prehistoric age of the barrows aud cairns of the Allophylian period of Britain, and of 

 western Europe generally. Sir R. C. Hoare records the finding, among the contents of a 

 cinerary urn, in a Wiltshire barrow, " chipped flints prepared for arrow heads, a long 

 piece of flint, aud a pyrites, both evidently smoothed by usage." ' More recent explorers, 

 apprised of the significance of such discoveries, have noted the presence of nodules of 

 pyrites, accompanying the personal ornaments and weapons occurring in graves of the 

 same age — deposited there either as tokens of regard, or more probably with a vague 

 idea of their utility to the dead in the life beyond the grave. In a communication to 

 the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland on a group of stone cists disclosed, iu 1879, on the 

 farm of Teinside, Teviotdale, Lord Rosehill thus describes part of the contents of one 

 of them. " It was filled with dark-coloured earth, mixed with charcoal ; and closely 

 intermingled in cA^ery part with fragments of bones which had been exposed to the action 

 of fire." A broken urn lay about ten inches from the top. " Close to the urn was a 

 rounded piece of metallic-looking substance, which appears to be ' radiated iron pyrites,' 

 aud which," adds Lord Rosehill, "I have myself discovered in several interments." - 

 More recently, in 1883, Major Colin Mackenzie reported to the same Society the discovery 

 of a cist and urn in the Black Isle, Ross-shire. He thus proceeds : " Whilst gathering 

 together the broken pieces of the urn, a round-nosed flint-flake or scraper, chipped 

 at the edges, was found amongst the debris, and proved to have a bluish tinge, 

 as if it had been subjected to the action of fire. Close beside it there was foiind 

 a round piece of iron pyrites, «flat on one side, in shape somewhat like the half of 

 an egg, divided lengthways, only smaller. Dr. Joseph Anderson at once recognized 

 this as forming, along with the solitary flint, nothing less than a prehistoric ' strike- 

 light' apparatus."'' No flint is procurable iu the locality; aud after the closest search, 

 no other flint implement or flake was found on the site. In communicating this 

 interesting discovery to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Major Mackenzie 

 reviewed the disclosures of this class in Great Britain, so far as they had been noted 

 by Hoare, Borlase, Batemau, Grreeuwell and Evans, furnishing a tabulated statement of 

 eleven examples, chiefly found iu barrows, and ranging over an area extending from 

 Cornwall to Ross-shire. He draws attention to their occurrence in localities which pro- 

 duce neither pyrites nor flint. But with the former, at least, this need not surprise us. 

 The prized aud easily transported pyrites may be looked for in any ancient barrow or 

 sepulchral deposit ; and has probably in many cases passed unnoted before its significance 

 was understood. Now that this is fully appreciated, it is seen to haA^e been in use from 

 the early dawn of primitiA'e art ; and doubtless the pyrites aud flint found iu localities 

 remote from those where they occur as natural products are in most cases due to primitive 

 barter. 



The old Promethean myth represents the fire-bringer interposing on behalf of a 

 degraded race of beings whose helpless lot had been preceded by the Hesiodic Golden, 

 Silver and Bronze ages, as well as by an Heroic age of such demigods as the Titan sou of 



' Hoare's Soutli Wilts., p- 195. ^ Proceedings of the Society of Anti(iuaries of Scotland, viii. 137. 



Proc. of Soc Antiq. Scot, N. S., vii. 356. 



