A HISTORY OF ESSEX 



in manufacturing knives, scrapers, etc. 1 others carefully chipped at the 

 edge, suggesting their use as cutting or rasping instruments. 



Small circular or oval implements chipped to a sharp edge are 

 frequently found. It is generally thought that these were used as 

 scrapers in preparing the skins of animals for clothing, for shaping 

 wood for implements, etc. (fig. 5). 



In arrowheads our Essex collections are poor, though some have 

 been found (figs. 6, 7). To the legends and folklore gathered round 

 these ' fairy weapons ' space will not allow us to refer ; suffice it to say 

 that even to this day a certain or uncertain power of preservation from 

 evil is in some quarters attributed to them. The use of arrowheads 

 of flint and obsidian continued long after the neolithic period, and has 

 hardly yet died out in certain remote parts of the world. 



Longer pieces of flint, pointed and chipped to a cutting edge, served 

 as spearheads, or maybe were hafted to handles for use as daggers and 

 knives (figs. 8, 9, 10). 



Pestles for pounding or grinding corn and food are occasionally 

 found, but as their use extended to later days it is impossible to say 

 with certainty that all appertain to the neolithic age. From the sur- 

 roundings there can be no doubt that an example in Mr. Spalding's 

 collection belongs to the period, but a remarkable implement from 

 Epping Forest (Loughton parish) may have been fashioned by those 

 Late Celtic men who built the earthwork fort near. 



It is composed of hornblendic granite, or hornblendic gneiss, 

 12^ inches long, tapering from a diameter of 2 inches to if inches, 

 and has been pecked and partially ground into shape. It is fully 

 described by Mr. Worthington G. Smith in the Essex Naturalist 

 (1888, vol. ii.), and may be seen in the Forest Museum at Chingford. 



Occasionally, holed hammerheads, axes, or maces of hard stone are 

 found 3 (figs. 11, 12). A fine hammerhead, discovered at Epping, is 

 illustrated in the Essex Naturalist, viii. 1 64. 



The discovery of spindle-whorls indicates a knowledge of that 

 primitive method of spinning, while finds of weavers' weights show 

 that weaving was practised, at all events, in the later part of the period. 



Of neolithic pottery Essex has few or no recorded examples, 

 though doubtless in the recent dark ages of archaeology many an urn 

 may have been smashed by the plough or the spade. 3 



Though the advent of a people who understood the art of smelting 

 metals stopped the exclusive use of stone and bone for weapons, it must 

 be remembered that stone implements were used for a long period after 



1 In the shed of one of the present-day workers of gun flints at Brandon a bushel of such wasters 

 was heaped. 



2 Sir John Evans considers that perforated implements belong to the very late neolithic or early 

 bronze ages. An example in Saffron Walden Museum of basaltic stone has a clean-cut hole, apparently 

 bored with a metal tool. 



3 Near Birdbrook two tumuli were levelled to the ground, when, according to the testimony of an 

 agricultural labourer, ' some rubbishy pots were found instead of gold.' The tumuli may have been 

 Romano-British, but their shape was suggestive of the neolithic period. 



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