EARLY MAN 



Charlestown ; x a bronze ring at Cardinham ; s a bronze dagger 6| in. long, 

 with two rivets, at Angrowse ; 3 a similar dagger with two rivets 4$ in. long, 

 at Harlyn. 4 These and a celt having the appearance of copper from one of 

 the barrows at Pelynt; 5 a metal spear head with two rivets which ' when cut 

 shone like brass' from another ; some bits of brass (?) 'supposed to be parts 

 of a helmet and the point of a brazen sword ' from Maen ; 8 and two bronze 

 bracelets from a barrow at Peninnis Head, St. Mary's, Scilly, 7 practically 

 complete the list. For although Mr. J. Couch mentions 8 that the remains of 

 a sword with the handle well preserved have been found ' in a tumulus in 

 Cornwall,' he does not mention either the time or place, and there is no 

 other record of any such discovery. 



Objects of stone are even more scarce, a few flint arrow-heads,' scrapers, 

 and chips ; a curious little perforated hammer of greenstone from one of the 

 Pelynt barrows, 10 and an equally curious axe of granite about 4 in. long from 

 Trevalga ; u a cement button from Boscreggan ; 12 a whetstone and some 

 stone celts from Tregeseal," are all the barrows have yielded of which records 

 have been kept, except the Roman coins, the presence of which affords 

 evidence of the time when the barrows were being made and used. 



Several discoveries of Roman coins in the barrows have been recorded 

 from time to time, 1 * but as the evidence was not altogether satisfactory they 

 were regarded with a certain degree of scepticism until the author of Naenia 

 Cornubiae opened the barrow on the south-west end of Morvah Hill in i863. 16 

 There, inside the kist vaen, Mr. W. C. Borlase found ' several Roman coins,' 

 one of them a ' middle brass ' of Constantine, and he states ' that from the 

 position of these coins, their distance from the surface, and the construction of 

 the kist itself, it is quite impossible that by any means they could have 

 reached the situation in which they were found after the covering stone had 

 been once set in its place.' In this barrow was an urn containing burnt bones, 

 placed in the usual type of kist vaen. Except for the fact that it was ' con- 

 structed of several layers of stones fitted together one over the other without 

 mortar, forming as it seemed a cone over the entire tumulus,' there was 

 nothing to distinguish the barrow from the general character of the majority. 



This find, recorded at the time and made by a man whose great experience 

 in opening Cornish barrows renders his account unquestionable, induces a 

 corresponding faith in the probability of the earlier and less authentic records, 

 one of which contained in a letter from Tonkin to Dr. Gibson, dated the 

 4 August, 1733, and quoted by Dr. Borlase, 16 is worth special mention as 



Borlase, Natn. Corn. 188. * Joura. Roy. ln$t. Cornw. iv (1875), 2I 4- 



Borlase, Naen. Corn. 236 ; Evans, Stone Imp. 314 ; Bronze Imp. 243, now in Truro Museum. 

 Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. x (1890), 206. 4 Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. (1845), 34. 



Borlase, Antiq. 237 ; Borlase, Naen. Corn. 79. 



Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. (1863), 50 ; Borlase, Naen. Corn. 162, now in Truro Museum. 

 Journ. Roy. Init. Cornio. (1845), 34. 



Tregiffian, Borlase, Naen. Corn. 107 ; Boscreggan, Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. vi (1879), 201 ; Pelynt, 

 Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. (1845), 34 ; Botrea, Tram. Penz. Nat. Hist, and Antiq. Sac. i, 234 ; Edmonds, The 

 Land's End District, 33 ; Borlase, Naen. Corn. 36, 134 ; Bosporthennis, Borlase, Naen. Corn. 286. 

 10 Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. (1845), 34. " Borlase, Naen. Corn. 87. 



" Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. vi (1879), IO1 > Evans, Stone Imp. 455. 



13 Borlase, Naen. Corn. 131 ; Trans. Penz. Nat. Hist, and Antiq. Soc. (1880-1), 20 ; Journ. Roy. Inst. 

 Cornw. vi (1879), 191 ; Evans, Stone Imp. 84, 269. Two small squared oblong whetstones were found with 

 the urn at Brane Common, Borlase, Naen. Corn. 213; one is now in Penzance Museum. 

 " Borlase, Antiq. 306 ; C. S. Gilbert, Hist. Survey, i, 193 ; Drew, Hist. i, 377. 

 15 Borlase, Naen. Corn. 247. 16 Borlase, Antiq. 300 ; Borlase, Naen. Corn. 268. 



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