Coffey — Recent Prehistoric Finds acquired bij the Academij. 85 



were those furnished with a socket. No moulds of any description had bee 

 found. In Britain, though the type without the socket has been found, it is 

 rare, and mostly confined to the western counties. On the Continent, the 

 sickles without the socket are the prevailing type, though a few socketed 

 examples have been found in the north-west of France. The Continental 

 sickles divide themselves into three types. The first has a raised button or 

 method of attachment, the second a tang generally furnished with rivets, and 

 the third a curved eml. In the Swiss lake-dwellings the flat type of bronze 

 sickle and moulds for casting it have been frequently found, as also the iron 

 type derived from it. The date of this mould has a very important bearing 

 upon the growing of corn in Ireland. Its date is fixed by that of the moulds 

 found with it, as the whole find may be assumed to be of the same period. 

 Looped socketed spear-heads of the type shown by the moulds may be assigned 

 to the fourth period of the Bronze Age as divided by Montelius,' and this may 

 be placed at from 1500 to 1000 B.C., or taking it in round numbers at about 

 1200 B.C. 



Spears of the type for the casting of which the moulds were used I have 

 placed before the leaf- shaped type with rivet-holes on each side of the socket. 

 The leaf-shaped spear is associated by form with the leaf-shaped swoi'd ; the 

 looped spear with the older types of weapons — the dagger and rapier forms. 

 The record of " finds " is incomplete, but the association of leaf-shaped spears 

 and swords to the exclusion of the looped form is in several instances sufficiently 

 marked to be noted. The evidence of the spear-head moulds further enforces 

 the separation of the two types. Of the known moulds for spear-heads nearly 

 all are of the looped type, and the few for the leaf-shaped type are small and 

 of an indeterminate character. The evidence indicates that with the intro- 

 duction of the leaf-shaped spear a new method of casting was introduced. 

 These moulds may perhaps be placed towards the end of the period when 

 stone moulds were still in use, and assigned to about 1500 to 1200 B.C. 



2. Amber Beads found at Coachfokd, Co. Coi;k. 



The Academy's collection contains a great number of amber beads, many of 

 which appear to be old. Unfortunately the early registers of the Academy's 

 purchases and acquisitions were somewhat loosely kept, and details as to how 

 the objects were found were in many cases not entered. A few years ago I went 

 into the evidence of the finding of amber in Ireland, with a view to determining 

 the age of some of the specimens — whether tliey belonged to the Bronze Age 

 or were earlier — or whether some might have come from the Mediterranean. 



1 " Arohaeologia," vol. Ixi, p. 97. 



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