ANCESTRAL MAN. 27 



It would seem, then, that for purposes of the chase, as well as for 

 war, those Britons who were not in Roman service may have been 

 compelled to use flint weapons. 



It is likely that of all the implements made of stone, arrow-heads 

 would be the last to drop out of use, as being well adapted to the 

 required end and formed of a material so abundant. Arrows are 

 very liable to be lost, and flint would be preferred to metal which 

 even when it could be obtained was scarce and costly. 



There is little doubt, says Mr. Evans, that in the poorer and 

 more inaccessible parts of Britain, stone continued in use for 

 many ordinary purposes long after iron was known in the richer 

 and more accessible districts. 



Some of the northern parts of this country must have been 

 very inaccessible ; and that they were poor is shown by the fact 

 that, with the exception of Liverpool, no British coins have ever 

 been found in Lancashire, Cumberland and Westmoreland. 



Moreover, it is possible that flint implements were used even 

 by some of the Celtic servants of the Saxons. Mr. Evans observes 

 that "in Saxon graves small nests of chipped flints are not 

 " infrequent." Mr. Bateman, a most careful explorer, opened a 

 number of Saxon barrows in Derbyshire, and in some of them 

 found stone weapons, and, respecting one case, he remarks — 

 " the discovery of instruments of flint with an interment of this 

 " comparatively modern description is by no means unprecedented." 



In a horned cairn, in Caithness, believed by Mr. Fergusson to 

 be a Viking's grave, and stated in Barry's History of Orkney to 

 have been occupied by the body of Laudver, son of Thorfin, was 

 found a cist containing pieces of pottery and flint chips. The 

 fight in which this chief was slain, took place not earlier 

 than A.D. 970. 



Still stranger, William of Poitiers says that at the Battle of 

 Hastings the Anglo-Saxons fought with weapons of stone — 

 " et lignis imposita saxa jactant" In this instance the probability 

 is that Harold, who had just suffered immense losses with the 

 Norsemen near York, and who was compelled to make forced 

 marches to the south to meet William of Normandy, was only too 

 glad to strengthen his thin ranks by any Celtic or other serfs he 

 could find, though clubs studded with sharp flints were their only 

 arms. 



As the use of stone implements continued longest in the poorer 

 and more inaccessible parts of Britain, and as it must have been 

 the dwellers there that longest resisted the second introduction of 

 Christianity, it is easy to understand how these two facts became 

 associated in the popular mind ; and how the placing of flints in 

 a grave became the symbol of pagan sepulture. This feeling 

 survived till the time of Shakespeare. 



