A STUDY OF PREHISTORIC ANTHROPOLOGY. 



645 



POLISHED STONE HATCHETS. 



These are sometimes called celts, from the Latin word chisel, but 

 they are not chisels, but chopping tools used as axes or hatchets. 

 The correctness of the Latin word has been assailed, and the name is 

 being gradually abandoned. They have been also called in the United 

 States (I think improperly) fleshers. They are the standard implement 

 representing the neolithic period, or polished-stone age. They were 

 often made of flint, but any hard, close-grained, and tough stone in the 

 locality would serve. They are substantially the same in form, size, 

 and, subject to the above suggestion, the same material in all parts of 

 the world. A series of these implements from the United States will 

 not differ essentially from a like series of any other country. They 

 were used as a hatchet, being inserted in a handle of wood ; occasion- 

 ally in a socket of deer-horn, which, in its turn, was inserted in a 

 wooden handle. Specimens made of hematite are, I believe, peculiar 

 to the United States. 



Fig. 20. 

 Polished Stone Hatchets (A). 



Fo. 56 represents a hematite hatchet from Ohio ; 57, greenstone from 

 Indiana; 58, syenite from Illinois; 59, greenstone, and 00, indurated 

 chlorite slate, from Tennessee ; 61 from Louisiana ; 62 rare, from North 

 Carolina. 



