FLOOR.] 
BRITISH AND MEDIEVAL ROOM. 
133 
BRITISH ANTIQUITIES. 
The remains of the inhabitants of the British islands, pre- 
vious to the Roman invasion, embrace the Stone, Bronze, and 
a portion of the Iron period of Northern Antiquaries. They 
have, for convenience, been classed according to their materials, 
and in the order corresponding to that of the supposed intro- 
duction of such materials into this country. With them have 
been placed similar remains from other countries for the pur- 
pose of illustration. 
Cases 1-4. Middle Shelf (Case I, 2). Antiquities found in the 
Drift Beds of England and France, chiefly flint implements of a 
peculiar pear-shaped form. These have been found with the bones 
of the mammoth and other extinct animals, and are believed to be the 
oldest remains of human industry hitherto discovered. Other Shelves. 
Implements known as stone celts. They appear by analogous 
examples, still in use among nations in a savage state, to have been 
mounted in wooden handles, and bound round with leathern thongs, 
so as to form axes and adzes. These are from England, Scotland, and 
Ireland. 
Cases 5, 12. Upper Shelves. Early pottery found in tumuli. The 
larger urns have contained burnt ashes ; the smaller may have been 
used as vessels for food and drink at the funeral feast. One urn was 
found in a barrow on the banks of the river Alaw, Anglesea, and has 
been supposed to have contained the ashes of Bronwen the Fair, aunt to 
Caractacus, who died about a.d. 50, but is probably much older ; also 
urns found in Jersey, Ireland, and Scotland ; the Scotch and Irish are 
generally more elaborately ornamented than the English. Middle 
Shelves. Flint knives and arrow-heads, from England and Ireland ; 
among them a stone celt, with the remains of its original wooden handle. 
Lower Shelves. Early pottery from England. Stone implements from 
foreign countries — Italy, Portugal, Germany, Denmark, Sec. 
Cases 11,12. Various stone implements, viz.: — Stone hammers, 
or axe-heads, pierced to receive a wooden shaft; they have been 
occasionally found with bronze weapons, and appear to be of a later 
date than the stone celts. Oval pebbles, which may have been sling- 
stones. Small sharpening stones or hones, pierced at one end for 
suspension. Circular pierced disks, which have been used as beads, or 
as whorls for the spindle. 
Table Case A. A mass of breccia from the floor of a cave at Les 
Eyzies, Dordogne, containing flint and bone implements. 
Table Case B. In the central part is a large collection of imple- 
ments in reindeer-horn, flint, &c, from caves in the South of France, 
some of them from Bruniquel, near Montauban, others from Dordogne. 
In the Desks are placed a series of antiquities discovered on the sites 
