68 SIE DANIEL WILSON 



every fracture, adapt it for fashiouing the smaller kifives, lauce and arrow heads, in a way 

 no other material except obsidian equals. Hence flint appears to have been no less in 

 request among the ancient tool-makers than copper, tin, and iron in the later periods of 

 métallurgie art. 



The fact that tin is a metal of rare occurrence, though found in nearly inexhaustible 

 quantities in some regions, has given a peculiar significance to certain historical researches, 

 apart from the special interest involved in the j)rocesses of the primitive metallurgist, and 

 the widely diftused traces of workers in bronze. The comparative rarity of flint, and its total 

 absence in many localities, suggest a like enquiry into the probable sources of its supply 

 in regions remote from its native deposits. The flint lauce or arrow-head, thrown by an 

 enemy, or wrested from the grasp of a vanquished foe, would, as in the case of improved 

 weapons of war in many a later age, first introduce the prized material to the notice of 

 less favoured tribes. As the primitive tool-maker learned by experience the greater 

 adaptability of flint than of most other stones for the manufacture of his weapons and 

 implements, it may be assumed that it became an object of barter in localities remote 

 from those where it abounds ; and thus, by its diff'usion, it may have constituted a 

 recognized form of peainia ages before the barter of pastoral tribes gave rise to the 

 peculiar significance attached to that term. 



One piece of confirmatory evidence of trade in unwrought flint is the frequent 

 occurrence of numerous flint flakes among the prized gifts deposited with the dead. 

 Canon Greenwell describes, among the contents of a Yorkshire barrow in the parish of 

 G-anton, a deposit of flint flakes and chippings numbering one hundred and eighteen, 

 along with a few finished scrapers and arrow-heads ; ' and smaller deposits of like kind are 

 repeatedly noted by him. Still more, he describes their occurrence under circumstances 

 which suggest the probability of the scattering of flint flakes, like an offering of current 

 coin, by the mourners, as the primitive grave was covered in and the memorial mound 

 piled over the sacred spot. Flints and potsherds, he says, occur more constantly, and 

 even more abundantly than bones ; and this presents to his mind a difficult problem, in 

 considering which he refers to an analogous practice of a very diverse age. The maimed 

 rites at poor Ophelia's grave are familiar to the reader of " Hamlet." The priest replies 

 to the demand of Laertes for more ample ceremony at his sister's burial : — 



"... But that great command o'ersways the order 

 She should in ground uiisatictified have lodged 

 'Till the last trumpet; for charitable prayers, 

 Sliarda, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her." 



The flints and potsherds, Canon G-reenwell remarks, " occur at times in very large 

 quantities, the flints generally in the shape of mere chippings and waste pieces, but often 

 as manufactured articles, such as arrow points, knives, saws, drills and scrapers, etc." He 

 further notes that they are found distributed throughout the sepulchral mound, " in some 

 instances in such quantities as to suggest the idea that the persons who were engaged in 

 throwing up the barrow, scattered them from time to time during the process." Assuredly 

 whatever motive actuated those who contributed such objects while the sepulchral mound 



' British Barrows, p. 166- 



