24 



Recent Excavations at Stonehenge. 



the pit explored by him the chalk had been excavated with deer's 

 horn picks, many of which were found closely resembling that 

 discovered at Stonehenge. As regards the age of the pits Canon 

 Greenwell is of the opinion that they are neolithic, or, at any rate, 

 not of the fully-developed Bronze Age, for the following reasons : — 

 " The quantity of flint that has been obtained from the pits at 

 Grime's Graves is so great, and the supply of material for imple- 

 ments was so very large, that it is difficult to understand how 

 operations on a scale so extensive could have been required when 

 the use of stone must have been to a great extent superseded by 

 metal. During the time when both metal and stone were in use, 

 flint was required more for smaller weapons, such as arrow points, 

 and for articles like scrapers, saws, and knives, than for larger 

 implements such as hatchets." 



The importance of this comparison of the implements found at 

 Stonehenge with those from the localities cited is obvious. It 

 tends to demonstrate, in my opinion, that the Stonehenge imple- 

 ments are not far removed in time from the others, and hence 

 belong to an age antecedent to the full development of the use of 

 bronze if not to the neolithic age itself. 



Class IV. — Hammerstones more or less rounded. These ham- 

 merstones, of which about thirty were found, require but little des- 

 cription. They almost all consist of large pebbles or small boulders 

 of the hard quartzite variety of sarsen although one or two are 

 pieces which have been detached from sarsen blocks. 



Some have been roughly broken into convenient forms for 

 holding in the hand, whilst a few have been rudely trimmed into 

 more regular shapes. They vary in weight from about a pound up 

 to six and a half pounds. 



These rude hammers were undoubtedly employed, as we shall 

 see later, in producing the fine pitted markings which the finished 

 surfaces of the sarsen stones present. 



Class V. — Mauls, a more remarkable kind of hammerstone than 

 those just enumerated. 



