08 



On Some Uses of Mint Implements. 



at Upton Lovel, They are, however, more frequently found abroad 

 — in Denmark and Scandinavia, and other countries. Sometimes 

 there are three or four grooves in the same piece of sandstone, adapted 

 to the different sizes of the implements proposed to be made. 



The unpolished implements were probably the primitive forms, the 

 grinding and polishing being a later development. The sharpening of 

 the edge, too, being first adopted for convenience, and the complete 

 polishing of the whole being but a matter of degree. These celts 

 were devoted to many uses, both as warlike weapons and for domestic 

 uses. Some were made for hand tools. Others were used, as the 

 rough Australian tools have been, up to within a quite recent period, 

 hafted with gum in a piece of skin and thus used in the hand, and 

 many, especially of those that were ground at the edges, were 

 mounted in wooden shafts like axes or hatchets and adzes. To 

 prevent the wood from splitting, consequent upon the insertion o£ 

 the wedge-like celt, it was not uncommon to have a socket of stag's 

 horn, into which the stone was firmly imbedded, and the horn then 

 inserted in the wood. Many of these stag's horn sockets have been 

 discovered in the excavation of the lake-dwellings of Switzerland. 

 Another mode of hafting these implements was very probably one 

 similar to that in common use among blacksmiths for their chisels. 

 This is by twisting a withy round the instrument and securing the 

 handle by rings. A celt has been found by Mr. Brown, on the 

 Manor Farm, Pewsey, with a hollowing out on each side just below 

 the head, evidently adapted for such a mode of mounting. Some of 

 the North American tribes are known to have mounted their hatchets 

 in much the same manner. 



Hammer Stones. It is not uncommon to find pebbles or nearly 

 circular stones, that have had but little if any working or rubbing, 

 so battered on every face as to show evidence of considerable use. 

 • These have doubtless been originally used as hammers or pounders. 

 Some may, perhaps, have been used for fashioning other implements, 

 though their principal use must have been for pounding grain, roots, 

 and other substances of food, in the same manner as round pebbles 

 are still used by the native Australians, and by the native inhabitants 

 in Cyprus. The original mode appears to have been to pound the 



