192 THE STONE AGE — PAST AND PRESENT. 



natural tools are often found in use^ being for the most part 

 slabs, water-worn pebbles, and other stones suited for hammers 

 and anvils, and their employment is no necessary proof of a 

 very low state of culture. Among the lower races, Dr. MUligan 

 gives a good instance of their use, in describing the sheU- 

 mounds left by the natives on the shores of Yan Diemen's 

 Land. In places where the shells found are univalves, round 

 stones of different sizes are met with ; one, the larger, on which 

 they broke the shells ; the other, and smaller, having served as 

 the hammer to break them with. But where the refuse-mounds 

 consist of oysters, mussels, cockles, and other bivalves, there 

 flint-knives, used to open them with, are generally found.^ Sir 

 George Grey's description of the sites of native encampments, 

 so frequently met with in Australia, will serve as another ex- 

 ample. The remains of such an encampment consist of a circle 

 of large flat stones arranged round the place where the fire has 

 been ; on each of the flat stones a smaller stone for breaking 

 shell-fish; beside each pair of stones a large shell used for a 

 cup, and, scattered all around, broken shells and bones of 

 kangaroos.^ 



Nor are cases hard to find of the use of these very low repre- 

 sentatives of the Stone Age carried up into higher levels of 

 civilization. Thus the tribes of Central and Southern Africa, 

 though often skilful in smith's work, have not come thoroughly 

 to the use of the iron hammer and anvil. Travellers describe 

 them as forging their weapons and tools with a stone of handy 

 shape and size, on a lump of rock which serves as an anvil ; 

 while sometimes an iron hammer is used to give the last finish.^ 

 The quantities of smooth rolled pebbles found in our ancient 

 English hill-forts were probably collected for shng-stones ; but 

 larger pebbles, very likely used as cracking-stones, are found 

 in early European graves.* At the present day, the inhabitants 

 of Heligoland and Riigen not only turn to account the natural 

 net-sinkers formed by chalk-flints, out of which the remains of a 



' Milligan, in Tr. Eth. Soc. ; London, 1863, vol. ii. p. 128. 

 ^ Grey, Journals, vol. i. pp. 71, 109. 



* Casalis, p. 131 ; Petherick, p. 395 ; Burton, Central Africa, vol. ii. p. 312 ; 

 Backhouse, Africa, p. 377. ■• Klemm, C. W., part ii. p. 87. 



