A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



flint workers. On Bull Hill, near Bury, one measuring rj in. in length and 

 i in. across the barb was found in the vicinity of numerous flakes and chips 

 and small shaped flints. Others are recorded from Blackstone Edge, Foxton 

 Edge, Great Winning Gulf, Hunger Hill, Knoll Hill, Middle Hill, and 

 Walsden Moor. 



Barbed arrow-heads of similar workmanship have been found but rarely 

 elsewhere. Such cases are, therefore, the more interesting. One of these 

 comes from the hilly ground north of the Ribble, where a barbed flint arrow- 

 head, 1 1 in. in length and i-jj-in. across the barbs, was picked up on Long- 

 ridge Fell. 



A more notable instance is that found at Wavertree, near Liverpool, a 

 beautiful specimen, which was near to and apparently associated with some 

 cinerary urns and interments of the Bronze Age. The explanation of this as a 

 survival of flint usage among the population during the Bronze Age would be 

 possible ; but there is some suggestion of even earlier interments in the 

 vicinity, and while the sum of present evidence indicates only the one 

 moorland region as certainly inhabited during a neolithic age, that was not 

 necessarily the only area so occupied. Even on those moors and uplands, at 

 an average height of 1,300 ft. above the sea, the peat covers this * neolithic 

 floor' to an average depth of 4ft., which in some instances is much increased. 

 But on lower ground, in the great excavations made, for instance, for the Ribble 

 Docks and the Manchester Ship Canal, objects of bronze were found even 

 more than 20 ft. below the surface. Hence it is possible that the cultivated 

 tracts below still cover the traces of the earliest population. 



In Lancashire over Sands, though not apparently connected in any way 

 with the local settlements on the Pennine Hills of south-east Lancashire, there 

 seems to be indication of neolithic population, particularly in some remains 

 found high up in the indent between the boundaries of Cumberland on the 

 one hand and of Westmorland on the other. Here in the vicinity of lakes 

 and hills and wooded valleys was a region likely to attract early settlement. 

 At Hawkshead and at Torver, on either side of Coniston Water, have been 

 found remains of burial places associated with small objects and implements 

 of flint ; in the former case a ' beautifully-worked flint knife.' l As before, 

 the presence of stone implements alone is not a sufficient criterion in itself for 

 the determination of the date of the burials ; but in the same region other 

 signs of flint-working have been noticed. Southward, at Broughton-in- 

 Furness have been found flakes and cores, scrapers, small arrow-heads, and 

 the general indications of neolithic habitation, which is traced as far to the 

 south as Grange-over-Sands on the east and Kirkby Ireleth on the west. 



3. STONE CELTS 



Among the more interesting stone implements of the county must be 

 placed several great stone celts, of polished surface, two of them found in the 

 south of the county at Newton-le- Willows and Flixton respectively, and 

 other two on the hill slopes of Pendle. A fifth was found just over the 

 Yorkshire border at Saddleworth ; while a sixth of analogous character is 

 exhibited in the museum at Preston. 3 



1 See p. 245. 



* There is reason to doubt the accuracy of the label which states that this object was found at Longridge. 



216 



