Macalistkk, &o. — Bronze- Age Cams on Carrowkeel. B.S?" 



slabs, about one foot in diameter (Plate XXV, fig. 1). No other pottery or 

 fragments or any objects were discovered in this cist. 



Description of the Implements. — No objects of metal were found in any of 

 the earns, and the implements recovered, with the exception of the finely 

 pointed object made from hard slate, and the sandstone pebble, consisted of 

 worked animal bones. The absence of metal may be due to economy, for, 

 though the earns as a whole may be dated well into the Bronze Age, metal, 

 even in the advanced Bronze Age, may have been too valuable to be placed 

 with the dead. 



Dr. E. F. ScharfF, Keeper of the Natural History Collections in the National 

 Museum, has kindly examined the bone implements, and named those that 

 could be identified. 



They are very interesting, and are therefore all illustrated. The figures 

 are reproduced to the scale of one-half. One of the larger implements is 

 an exceedingly well-made object (Plate XXIV, fig. 11). It is formed out of 

 the tibia of a Eed Deer, which has been much reduced. It measures six and 

 five-eighths inches in length. Hard bones of this kind make very good imple- 

 ments, and this object may have been used for boring skins. Another tool 

 has its point broken (Plate XXIV, fig 10). It is made from the fibula of a 

 Bear, and Dr. Scharff informs us that it is of much interest, as it is only the 

 second specimen of remains of Bear being found with early man in Ireland, the 

 other instance known being the finding of a worked Bear's tooth with human 

 remains in Co. Clare.' This bone measures at present five and a quarter inches 

 long. A third implement is broken at the point, and also higher up, and 

 it is impossible to say what its original length was ; it measures at present 

 3^ inches in length (Plate XXIV, fig. 8). It may also be made from the bone 

 of a Bear, but it is not possible to be certain on this point. All these objects 

 were found in Carn G. 



Another well-shaped pointed implement was found in Carn K. It measures 

 7 inches in length, and greatly resembles the large implement found in 

 Carn G. It is considerably flattened at the point, and may have been used for 

 smoothing skins. It is made from the leg bone of an ox {Bos longifrons) 

 (Plate XXIV, fig. 3). 



The bones of Bos lotigifrom are common in the lake dwellings of Switzer- 

 land, which date from Neolithic times, and were abundant in Grime's Graves 

 (England), also of Neolithic date. Bos longifrons appears to ha\e been the ox 



'Trans. K.I. A., vol. xxxiii, Sect. B, pp. IS iind 19. 



[46*] 



