EARLY MAN 



I 



BRACES of man in very early times, prior to the period of written 

 records, are by no means rare in Staffordshire, and although the 

 actual antiquities are now somewhat scattered, it is an interesting 

 fact that Dr. Robert Plot, in his well-known Natural History of 

 the county, was one of the first to record and figure prehistoric implements 

 of bronze and stone. The book was printed in 1686, and contains in the 

 tenth chapter ' Of Antiquities ' descriptions and copper-plate engravings of 

 several well-known types of Neolithic and Bronze Age weapons. The 

 fact that Dr. Plot assigns the bronze celts, etc., to a Roman origin excites no 

 wonder when it is remembered that the field of prehistoric archaeology was at 

 that time quite unexplored. One must be grateful, rather, for such an early 

 record of local antiquities. 



Of the earliest prehistoric period, the Palaeolithic Age, when man 

 shaped his flint tools merely by chipping and was ignorant of the art of 

 grinding them, Staffordshire affords no evidence. 



THE NEOLITHIC AGE 



The traces of man's presence in Staffordshire in the Neolithic Age are 

 neither numerous nor important, but, as will presently be shown, they are 

 really of considerable interest as showing the diffusion of what was probably 

 the earliest race to inhabit this part of Britain. 



A word or two may here be said as to the conditions of life at this 

 remote period. The Neolithic Age represents a phase of civilization ante- 

 cedent to the use of metal, yet not devoid of certain accomplishments. For 

 instance, Neolithic man was able to make his tools and weapons of stone and 

 flint not merely by chipping, but also by grinding, whereby regular smooth 

 edges were produced. He was able to till the soil, to construct dwellings 

 and to throw up earthworks as a defence against his enemies. He had also 

 acquired the art of making a rough kind of pottery. Altogether, considering 

 the very early period in which he lived, he had made substantial progress in 

 civilization, and it is practically certain that our inability to recognize his 

 proper place in the scale of human progress arises, not so much from the bar- 

 barity of the times, as from the fact that many traces of such a remote period 

 have necessarily perished by decay. 



Dwellings, and many of the appliances of Neolithic life, have to a very 

 large extent been swept away, and this gives a special value to the buried 

 sepulchral remains, both in the form of actual human remains and grave 

 furniture, such as pottery, flint implements, and many other objects which 

 were commonly interred with the dead. 



The stone implements found in Staffordshire, some of which evidently 

 belong to the Neolithic Age and some to the Bronze Age, present one or two 

 i 169 22 



