294 FOOTPRINTS or VANISHED RACES IN CORNWALL. 



tattooed, and similar markings, representing birds and animals, 

 appear on his arms and legs. His dark eye is quick and restless, 

 and lie advances witli an agile and graceful step, like a panther 

 prepai-ing for a sjjring. Such was the ancient Cornish Ivernian, 

 the fiercest fighter of the Neolithic Age.^*'" The great chiefs 

 were probably mounted, as the horse was domesticated by them, 

 and it has even been supposed that their dogs accompanied them 

 to battle. 



The Ivernians were farmers and agi'iculturists. They had 

 domestic animals, such as the pig, horse, ox, and dog,^®^ and the 

 bones found so plentifully at Harlyn, probably belong to these 

 animals. They also tilled the ground, and the mealing-stones or 

 hand-mills, found in Cornwall,^'^ may probably have been used 

 in Ivernian times. The stone spindle-whorls, called in Cornwall 

 " Piskey Grinding-Stones,'"^*^ uiay also belong to the same period. 

 It is singular, that in Ireland, as Sir William Wilde informs us,^®* 

 they are called "Fairy Mills," which shows that, at all events, 

 their use hegan amongst a jorimitive under-sized race. A caution, 

 however, is necessary, as these implements, although originating 

 amongst a vanished and dwarfish race, may have been used down 

 to comparatively recent times, as has been shown by Sir Arthur 

 Mitchell.^'^ The hut circles on our moors have been thought to 

 be relics of the Neolithic Period, and often the work of the Iver- 

 nians.^"^ Others, again, have referred them to the ancient Tinners, 

 and it is very likely that, in many places, the Tinners built and 

 inhabited them. But all cannot be thus accounted for. On our 

 Cornish moors groups of hut-circles often occur on the tops of 

 the hills, and on the northern slopes of the watershed, far away 



i6o. See the description given of the Niani Niam warrior by Sweinlurth,in his 

 Heart of Africa, vol. ii., pp 28, 32, for a parallel to the agility and ferocity of the 

 Ivernian. 



161. A full list of these domestic animals is given by M. de Mortillet in Le 

 Prehistoriqiie, Antiquite de V Homme, pp. 570—577. 



162. Mr. C Spence Bate describes the bones of these animals, found in Kitchen- 

 Midden, at Harlyn Transactions of the Devonshire Associatio7i, vol i., 1867. 



163. Nccnia Cornnbice, p. 221, Archirologia Camhrensis, vol. iii., p. 356 A full 

 account of the general nature of these implements is given by Sir John Evans in 

 Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain, pp. 250—256. 



164. Ancient Stone rmplements of Great Britain, p. 437. 



165. Catalogue of the Antiquities in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, 

 p. 116. 



166. In his valuable vcork— The Past in the Present. 



167 Early Man in Britain, by Professor Boyd Dawkins, p. 266. 



