IvNowLES — Prehistonc Remains, Sandhills, Coast of Ireland. 381 



seems probable, many of these hammers or pounders were used for the 

 purpose of splitting bones so as to lay bare the marrow, we can under- 

 stand the necessity of roughening a portion of the greasy surface of the 

 stone to assist the hold."^ The fact that very few hammer-stones have 

 roughened spots on the sides, and that very few anvil-stones with the 

 roughened spots on the sides show marks of use as hammers on the 

 ends seem to me a great objection to this theory. There is a further 

 difficulty ; in many cases where stones are well roughened on the sides 

 they would be too heavy for use between the fingers and thumb. A 

 great number of anvil-stones are split through the centre into two or 

 more parts, an occurrence which would be likely enough to arise if the 

 pressure was all in the centre as would be the case when used as an 

 anvil, but not likely to happen if the stone is held by the fingers and 

 thumb in the hollow parts in order to hammer with the ends. See 

 example of a broken specimen from Panore, county Clare, found by 

 Dr. George Pogarty, e.n., in fig. 24, No. Y. Only about a fourth part 

 of the implement was found. Like many examples from other sand- 

 hills it is broken through the centre. 



I show a series of these stones in No. XIY. In fig. 115 I show 

 a specimen which I excavated from the prehistoric surface at White- 

 park Bay. The roughening on the sides is very slight, and it appears 

 to me that instead of the marks being made to give a better grip with 

 the finger and thumb, the stone was being used as an anvil, and not 

 remaining steady it caused the core or stone being operated on, to jerk 

 to the side, thus causing lines which run from the roughened surface 

 to the margin of the stone. In fig. 116 which was found atDundi'um, 

 county Down, the roughened ' part is broader than in the previous 

 specimens, but has not reached any perceptible depth below the 

 surface, and unlike the last specimen it has a roughened spot only on 

 one side of the stone. Another example from Dundrum is shown in 

 fig. 117. The roughened spots are of considerable depth on both sides 

 of this stone, but the sides and bottoms of the hollows remain in a 

 rough pecked state. In fig. 118, also from Dundrum, the deepened 

 cup-shaped hollows are smoothed in the bottom, though still showing 

 some of the original roughness round the margins. We see in fig. 119 

 an example having the hollows in the most perfect state of smoothness, 

 though they are not polished.^ The inside of the cup shows the same 



1 Evans " Stone Implements," 2nd ed., p. 243. 



- We must not mistake anvil-stones for stones with hollows in which a stone 

 pivot has run which was probably the end of an upright shaft of a corn mill. Holes 

 of this kind are much glazed, and show marks of the constant circular motion. 



2 E 2 



