ICnowj>es — Prehidorw Remains, Sandhills, Coast of Ireland. 383 



kind of smootliing that is seen on the ends of some hammer- stones 

 which, from the first use of hammering would appear to have been 

 changed into instruments for rubbing or grinding. Another anvil- 

 stone from Dundrum, part of a separate find, and hollowed on only- 

 one side, has already been mentioned. It is shown in fig. 8, I^o. II. 



Anvil-stones are called oval tool-stones by some authors, and 

 tilhuggersteins by Danish antiquaries. Some English authorities have 

 expressed doubts as to their belonging to the Stone Age. This idea 

 may have arisen fi'om the finding of such implements in association 

 with bronze or iron tools, but I think that their survival would only 

 show that, like many other useful articles, they were continued into 

 an age later than that in which they originated. They would appear 

 to have been in use in the later Palaeolithic Age, and to have descended 

 to a later period than the Neolithic Age. 



I believe there can be no doubt that such stones were used for the 

 purpose of a rest for the core or piece of flint while being operated on, 

 just as the blacksmith uses his anvil as a rest while striking the iron, 

 and therefore I have called them anvil-stones. I have drawn attention 

 to them for the last thirty years. 



In a Paper which I read before the Anthropological Institute 

 in June, 1876, which is published in vol. yi., page 485, of their 

 Journal, Sir John Evans, who was president for that year, in his 

 Anniversary Address, published in vol. vii., in referring to my Paper, 

 at p. 519 says : — " This paper is supplementary to one which was read 

 at the British Association at BeKast, giving an account of a large 

 number of stone implements and bones in the sand-hills, near the shore 

 at Londonderry. Among the objects found is one of the so-called oval 

 tool-stones which the author regards as being of the same age as the 

 flint implements found at Portstewart, and in the county adjoining, 

 and as having been used in their manufactui-e. He can hardly have 

 been aware that the same class of tool-stones is found in Scandinavia, 

 often associated with ii'on weapons and tools, as, for instance, in the 

 Thorsbgerg moss find." 



Again, at p. 523, he says, in reference to another Paper on my 

 finds near Ballintoy (Whitepark Bay): — "Like those from Port- 

 stewart, these objects are found near the sea-shore, but in this case 

 there appears to have been some traces of habitations, and possibly 

 old fioors ... In the wall of one of their dwelling-places a so-called 

 oval tool-stone was found which the author regards as belonging to the 

 Stone Age. As I have already observed, there can be no doubt of the 

 analogous form in Denmark belonging to the Early Iron Age. I can 



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