138 PERFORATED STONES. 



as a hammer by being held in the hand, or as a " knuckle-duster, or for 

 flinging', like a quoit, at small animals." Mr. Evans * mentions another 

 specimen from the central provinces of India, found in 1866, and recorded 

 in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for that year. 



At the sites of the ancient lake dwellings in Switzerland, numerous 

 perforated disks of stone, pottery, and horn have been obtained in connec- 

 tion with the many thousand relics which these old dwelling-sites have 

 yielded to Dr. Keller and the other archaeologists who have so carefully 

 investigated them. With these more or less flattened disks and, sometimes, 

 conical and bead-shaped articles of stone and pottery, there have been found 

 other perforated stones more like the majority of those of medium size from 

 California, which, like their American representatives, are generally made 

 of hard stones, often of circular pebbles, and highly polished. In general 

 terms, these disks and perforated pebbles from the Swiss lakes have been 

 called net-sinkers, spindle-whorls, and, occasionally, hammers. It can 

 hardly be doubted that many of the pottery disks and those made of 

 sandstone and other soft materials, which are generally flat and not very 

 thick, were spindle-whorls, whilst some of the irregularly-shaped exam- 

 ples of soft stone and of easily-perforated pebbles may have been used 

 for weights of various kinds and as net-sinkers ; but it is not likely that 

 perforated stones costing so much labor, as did many of these disks, 

 would have been made simply for net-sinkers, when any beach pebble 

 or piece of stone could have been easily notched so as to answer the 

 same purpose, as is clearly shown by figures in Keller's Lake Dwellings.f 

 I may also add that similar notched stones are very common at many stone- 

 age fishing-stations in the United States, and are generally classed as net- 

 sinkers. 



On Plate X, Figs. 2, 3, 4, 5 represent four of the thirty examples of 

 flat disks from the stations of St. Aubin and Concise, on Lake Neuchatel, 

 now in the Peabody Museum. These are of the form that seems best 

 adapted for use as a spindle-whorl. Fig. 5 may represent an unfinished 

 specimen, as it has the appearance of a stone that has been ground flat and 

 bored, but not yet finished on its edges. 



* Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain, p. 207. 

 t Plate xxiv, figs. 1 and 2, Lee's translation, 2d ed. 



