ARMSTRONG) — Associated Finds of Irish Neolithic Celts. 91 



2,000 axes from Glen Ballyemon and Tievebulliagh. In addition to these, 

 others were obtained by collectors who acquired flakes and celts after the 

 sites became known. Mr. Knowles, who presented a series of implements 

 from this important find to the National Collection, has described the 

 site, and illustrated the various types of implements he collected. 1 The 

 celts, &c, are made of black rock, probably an altered diorite, and are chipped, 

 not polished. As well as the celts, picks, discs, chopper-like implements 

 rounded hammer-stones of black rock, and larger ones made of quartzite 

 boulders, were discovered, together with thousands of flakes. Mr. Knowles 

 considers the celts to have been roughed out on this site, and then carried 

 away to other places to be ground and polished. The age of the implements 

 is not clear ; but Mr. Knowles 3 wrote : " The rude axes from Tievebulliagh 

 and Ballyemon being found below the peat, and even mixed with the clay on 

 which it rests, is, I think, satisfactory proof that they are of the earliest date 

 and belong to a very early stage in the neolithic period." 



Mr. R. A. Smith, F.S.A., who has devoted considerable study to Stone- Age 

 antiquities, refers in his paper On the Date of Grime's Graves and Cissbury 

 Flint-mines, 3 to the Cushendall implements, certain of which he compares to 

 those from Cissbury, while in others he recognizes the hand-axe of the Dril'c ; 

 the side-scraper of le Moustier; the edge-trimming of Aurignac ; and the 

 culture of Campigny. Mr. Smith considers that the culture represented by 

 the remains at Grime's Graves and Cissbury is contemporary with the 

 Palaeolithic Cave-period. If this be so, it would seem that the Cushendall 

 implements are also to be referred to the earlier Stone Age, and thus do not 

 come within the scope of the present discussion. 



A large number of stone celts have been found in the Shannon Fords. 

 Wilde 4 wrote in 1857 that "The Academy is indebted to a Commission 

 appointed for deepening and improving the navigation of the river Shannon, 

 for the acquisition of more than one-half of the stone celts in the Collection." 

 The celts mentioned by Wilde were presented to the Academy on behalf of the 

 Shannon Commissioners on 9 January, 18lo, 6 by Mr. Griffith, who stated 

 that the celts were found at the fords of Keelogue and Meelick on the 

 Shannon. These are the first points on the river passable except by boat 



1 Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, xxxiii, pp. 3C0-366 ; and Journal 



Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, xxxvi, pp. H83 M'.l-t. 



2 Journal Royal Anthropological Institute, xxxiii, p. lilili. 



3 Archaeologia, lxiii, p. 141. 



4 Op. tit., p. 48. 



s Proc. Royal Irish Academy, ii, pp. 312-316. 



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