ON THE STONE AGE. 67 



from traders, who bartered it for oth^i- needful supplies. Au interesting group of flint 

 pits of this latter class has been subjected to careful exploration by the Rev. Canon Green- 

 well ; and in a former paper read to this Section, attention was drawn to the ingenious 

 inference of the traces of a left-handed workman among the flint-miners of the Neolithic 

 age. This was based on facts noted in reference to two picks fashioned from the antlers 

 of the red deer, corresponding to others of the ancient miners' tools found scattered 

 through the long-deserted shafts and galleries of the flint pits. 



The shallow depressions on the surface, which guide the explorer to those shafts of 

 the ancient workmen, are analogous to others that reveal the funnel-shaped excavations 

 hereafter described, on Flint Ridge, the sites of ancient flint pits of the American 

 arroM'makers. In France, G-ermany and Switzerland, as well as Great Britain, many 

 localities are no less familiar, on which the refuse flakes, and chippiugs of flint and other 

 available material, show where they have been systematically fashioned into implements. 

 The museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland has acquired numerous interesting- 

 additions to its collections of objects of this class by encouraging systematic research. 

 From the sands at Colviu and Findhoin, Morayshire; Little Ferry, Sutherlandshire ; 

 and from Burghhead, Draiuie and Culbin sands, Elginshire, nearly seven thousand 

 specimens have been recovered, consisting chiefly of Hint flakes and chippiugs ; but also 

 including several hundred arrow-heads, knives, and scrapers, many of them unfinished or 

 broken. 



Thus, in various localities, remote from native sources of flint, a systematic manu- 

 facture of implements appears to have been carried on. There can, therefore, be scarcely 

 any hesitation in inferring, from the evidence adduced, first a trade in the raw material 

 brought from the distant localities of the flint mines ; and then a local traffic in the manu- 

 factured implements, as was undoubtedly the case among the American aborigines at no 

 remote date ; if, indeed, it is not still practiced on this continent. Tliis aspect of primitive 

 interchange, both of the raw material and the products of industrial skill, in so far as it is 

 illustrated in the practice of the Indian tribes of this continent, merits the most careful 

 study, as a help to the interpretation of the archaeological evidence pertaining to pre- 

 historic times. To the superficial observer, stone is of universal occurrence ; and it seems, 

 therefore, needless to inquire where the implement-maker of any Stone age procured the 

 rough block out of which he fashioned his weapon or tool. Only when copper, bronze, 

 and iron superseded the crude material of the Stone age is it supposed to be needful to 

 determine the soixrces of supply. But this is a hasty and wholly incorrect surmise. The 

 untutored savage is indeed greatly limited in his choice of materials. Wo are familiar 

 with the shell workers of the Caribbees and the Pacific Islands, and the horn and ivory 

 workers of the Ari;tic regions ; but where the resources of an ample range could be turned 

 to account, the primitive workman learned at a very early date to select by preference 

 such stones as break with a conchoidal fracture. Only where such could not be had, the 

 most available chance-fractured chip or the apt water-worn stone was turned to account. 

 Rude implements are accordingly met with fashioned of trap, sieuite, diorite, granite, and 

 other igneous rocks ; as well as from cj^uartzite, agate, jasper, serpentine and slate. Some 

 of those materials were specially favored by the neolithic workmen for certain classes of 

 their carefully finished weapons and implements, such as perforated hammers, large axes, 

 gouges and chisels. But the natural cleavage of the flint, and the sharp edge exposed by 



