RECENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES IN CORNWALL. 207 



It is If inches long. 



And about |-in. or less, thick. 



Thurnam in describing such objects has remarked : — " The 

 majority are from 1 to 2 inches in length."* 



(P). The deposit of burnt bones (the main object of all these 

 surroundings), has not crumbled into very minute fragments, 

 like those in the other urns described by me ; but amongst them 

 I observe vertebrae, ribs, knobs of joints, pieces of bone from 2 

 to 3£ inches in length, also portions of skull, and a tooth. They 

 evidently represent an adult. The sex I have not yet been able 

 to ascertain. 



(Q-) . Of stones which may have been used as tools, one is 

 a piece of yellowish catacluse, something like a clumsy celt, 6£- 

 inches long ; the other is of slate, and resembles a two-edged 

 knife, 3^-inches long by 1 -inch wide. It is very smooth, and 

 seems to have been sharpened purposely, or else through having 

 been used as a hone. A neatly-made spindle-whorl was found 

 afterwards at or near the spot. It is flat and rounded, and was 

 pierced from its two opposite faces till the hole was bored. Size 

 of whorl: — 1|- in. diameter, ^ in. thick, ^ in. diameter of hole. 



Having now given a detailed account of the latest discover- 

 ies in Harlyn Bay, &c, I will only add that, with regard to age, 

 these Gelto-British or perhaps Romano-British relics belong to 

 the 3rd period given in Sir John Lubbock's undermentioned 

 classification of ancient remains, viz. — 



1. Drift Period, Palaeolithic, — stray skeletons. 



2. Polished stone, Neolithic, — contracted interments. 



3. Bronze age, — cremated burials. 



4. Iron ,, — extended ,, 



He gives the date of the continental transition from the 

 Bronze age to the Iron, as about the time of the Trojan war, (i.e. 

 circa 1184,f B.C.) but Bronze, as the almost exclusively popular 

 metal, was continued amongst the Britons and others, to a far 

 later time, and Mr. Borlase would regard these urns and weapons 

 as of the Pomano-British period. The Harlyn relics are clearly 

 of pre-christian age. Let those, then, who best know how to do 

 so, decide as to their antiquity. It seems, that they may be at 

 least 2,000 years old. 



*Idem, p. 465. 



•{•Haydn; or 1316-07, B.C., Gladstone. 



