Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ixv. (192 1), No. 13 13 



groups of megaliths. On what geological formation are they 

 situated, and why are they on those formations ?* 



Apparently the need for flint to make implements led some 

 of the megalith-builders to settle on the chalk. Had they any 

 other domestic needs ? An examination of the classical work 

 of the late Sir John Evans on "Ancient Stone Implements," 

 shows that the people of the megalith-building age made 

 ornaments of jet, kimmeridge shale, amber, and perhaps even 

 of ivory and gold. They painted themselves with pigments 

 of ochre, haematite and ruddle ; they placed quartz and other 

 pebbles in their graves ; they used iron for pigments and for 

 firelighters ; they made implements of other stones than flint, 

 chiefly of basic rocks, quartzite, ironstone, greenstone, horn- 

 blende-schist, granite, mica-schist and so forth. Just as the 

 flints have been carried to parts of the country where the stone 

 does not occur, so all these substances are found far away 

 from their places of occurrence. For example, a celt has been 

 found at Xewton (Lanes.), made of a fawn-coloured slate like 

 that of the Snowdon region. Haematite from Lancashire or 

 Westmoreland has been found in a barrow in West Kintyre 

 (6, 26, 96, 118). Jet was widely used in those days. The 

 search for it will account for the stone circles near Whitby, 

 the most famous source of the substance in this country. It 

 is quite possible that the pearls of the Esk River also attracted 

 these people. If we examine the group of megaliths of 

 Oxford we find that they are on the margin of the Lias forma- 

 tion. There is also a close relationship between long barrows 

 and the Lias. Why should the long barrow people have 

 chosen this region ? In the case of the megaliths of Oxford 

 it is to be noted that they are just at the south end of a great 

 ironfield running up as far as the Clevelands. The Memoir 

 of the Geological Survey states that there are important 

 surface iron-workings in the Middle Lias formation of Oxford- 

 shire, generally of brown haematite, although it is said that 

 red haematite is found in certain spots, but the places are not 

 mentioned. These surface workings are mentioned at Fawler, 

 Adderbury, Hook Norton, Woodstock, Steeple Aston, Ban- 

 bury, all of them close to the megaliths. Again it is said that 



* Before developing this theme any more, it will be interesting to note that 

 Mr. Crawford has already published a map (Journ. Roy. Geographical Soc, 

 19 12, 40), which shows that certain finds of the early bronze age in this country 

 are closely confined in the Fen district to the margin of the chalk. This is a 

 case of a correlation between a geological formation and the distribution of an 

 element of human culture. 



