48 On the Leaf-shaped Type of Flint Arrow-head, 



coincidence. It seems, indeed, to indicate the concurrence of the 

 earliest type of finished flint weapon with probably the earliest form 

 of sepulchral tumulus in this part of the world. The more 

 advanced and complex barbed flint arrow-heads, which are not un- 

 frequently found in the circular barrows of the age of bronze and 

 of burning the dead, have never been found in the long barrows. 

 It would be no objection to this view if leaf-shaped arrow-heads 

 were frequently met with in the round barrows. Indeed, we know 

 that the simpler and earlier varieties of all objects of utility fre- 

 quently continue in use long after the invention of the more 

 elaborate and costly forms. As regards the Wiltshire barrows, 

 however, it may be observed that Sir R. C. Hoare nowhere records 

 the discovery of a leaf-shaped flint arrow-head in any of the 

 numerous round barrows which he explored. In the Museum at 

 Stourhead there is only one such among many beautiful ones of 

 the barbed form.^ It is much thicker and clumsier than any of 

 those I have described above; measures 1^^^ inch in length, and 

 bears the number " 83." I have not been able to obtain access to 

 the Catalogue to which, no doubt, this number refers ; but possibly, 

 this is one of the " two rude arrow-heads of flint found near the 

 head " of a skeleton, in a circular ba^'row near Tytherington.^ It 

 may belong to a period when leaf-shaped arrow-heads were no 

 longer used by the chiefs, and when less pains were bestowed ou 

 their fabrication. 



The flint heads of missile weapons, when chipped into form at 

 all, were no doubt of a shape for which, in the first instance, the 

 foliage of some tree or plant supplied the ready type. This shape 



^ See the barbed arrow-heads foixnd in round barrows, described by Sir R. C. 

 Hoare, sometimes with the entire skeleton, "Ancient "Wilts," i., p. 211, pi. xxx., 

 p. 239, pi. xxxiv. (in the latter case with a fine bronze dagger blade); and 

 sometimes with burnt bones, "Ancient Wilts," i., 183, pi. xxii. In two or 

 three other instances, there is nothing to shew whether the arrow-heads were 

 of the barbed or simple leaf-shape. [Ibid, i., 104, 209, 242.] The examina- 

 tion of the Museum at Stourhead, makes it probable that they were of the 

 barbed form. 



» Ancient "Wilts, i., 104. 





