POTTERY FOUND IN A SEPULCHRAL BARROW NEAR OLDBURV 

 CAMP, WARWICKSHIRE. 



EARLY MAN 



(2) A flat celt, 4^ inches long, with expanding edge and sharpened 

 at each end. 



(3) A fine palstave, 5! inches long, with one loop and well de- 

 veloped stop-ridge. 



(4) A palstave, 4^ inches long, broken at the smaller end. 



(5) A palstave, 4 inches long, similarly broken. 



(6) A palstave, \\ inches long, similarly broken. 



(7) A small socketed celt, 2 inches long, with one loop. 



(8) A celt-shaped piece of flat bronze, 4! inches long, probably a 

 modern forgery. 



The series of three palstaves (4, 5 and 6), all broken obliquely at 

 the top end, is of great interest on account of the evidence it affords of 



the uses to which bronze celts 

 and palstaves were put. Cer- 

 tain writers upon the question 

 have assumed, perhaps too 

 hastily, that they were all for 

 military purposes. Dugdale, 

 as we have seen, calls them 

 battle-axes ; but a careful ex- 

 amination of many specimens 

 has led the writer to the 

 opinion that many were car- 

 penters' tools, used for hewing timber and for cleaving and splitting 

 wood much in the same way as the rural maker of sheep-gates works. 



Of the numerous examples of bronze celts and palstaves now pre- 

 served in the Rugby School Museum none apparently were procured 

 from Warwickshire. 



A considerable advance in various branches of civilization is indi- 

 cated by the remains of the bronze age. The use of metal enabled 

 the husbandman to reap his 

 corn by means of metal sickles, 

 several of which have been 

 found in England. Oxen 

 were used for ploughing, and 

 several plants such as beans 

 and oats, not hitherto known, 

 were cultivated. The lathe 

 was used for turning stone 

 objects, and pottery of an im- 

 proved kind and ornamented by a series of impressed lines arranged in 

 zig-zag fashion was made. 



The graves or sepulchral barrows of the bronze age were circular 

 in plan, and used for the interment of the cremated remains of only one 

 person. The earlier long barrows of the neolithic age were sometimes 

 furnished with a central chamber or cist of stone, and generally more 

 than one interment was made in each barrow. 



219 



POTTERY FOUND IN A SEPULCHRAL BARROW AT BRANDON, 

 WARWICKSHIRE. 



