COMPARATIVE ARCHZOLOGY. 175 
and what looks like stalks of withered grass. The entire relics. 
found in the knoll were 9 polished stone axes, 14 oval knives 
of differently coloured porphyrites, two masses of clay, ap- 
parently kneaded by hand, and fragments of charred 
faggots of wood, from 1 to 14 inches in diameter. 
With regard to the Modesty site and its relics there are 
a few points that claim special attention. 
(1) The urns would seem to pre-suppose burial, but noi 
necessarily, as they might have been used as vessels for 
domestic purposes. Hence, I suggest that the knoll was 
originally the site of a wooden habitation which had been 
destroyed by fire, thus accounting for the amount of peat 
ashes and the embers of the fallen roof, which consisted of 
rafters supporting a covering of turf. 
(2) All the knives in the group, though nowhere thicker 
than half-an-inch, have the appearance of being coarser than 
their analogues elsewhere. They have also the peculiarity in 
some cases of having a thicker edge on one side, forming a 
back from which the blade gets thinner to a cutting edge—a 
fact which brings them under the category of semi-lunar tools. 
Moreover, the cutting edges have the further peculiarity of 
being retouched by chipping on one side (Plate I., No. 2), 
with the exception of one, which is chipped on both sides, like 
some of the flint knives of the Neolithic period. 
(3) As to the antiquity of the Modesty knives, the evident 
conclusion to be derived from the association of so many with 
axes of Neolithic types is that they date back to the Stone Age, 
whatever the chronological horizon of that period may be in 
these northern latitudes. 
(4) The removai of the superincumbent peat from the 
surface of the knoil suggests that the habitation came to an 
end before the locality had been over-run with peat. 
CoNCLUDING RemMARKS.—The purpose for which these im- 
plements were originally intended is still a matter of conjec- 
ture, It is clear from their slender make and liability to break- 
age that they could only have been used for dividing soft 
material, such as skinning animals, etc. The practice common 
in Scandinavia during pre-historic times, of depositing imple- 
ments, weapons, and ornaments in lakes, bogs, and fields, as a 
