FLINT CHIPS.*

FRE-HISTORIC, or rather non-historic, archaeology has had many -difficulties to contend with, but it is in a fair way to surmount them all. For a long while its materials were either scanty or -suspicious, though its conclusions were large and dogmatic. No sooner was it shown that the arrow-heads, celts, and curiously- .worked stones preserved in many a museum might be made to tell an intelligible and connected story, than these venerable though somewhat dowdy curiosities became the starting-point for the wildest hypotheses. It seemed to be taken for granted that this branch of archaeology required but little learning or scientific -accuracy of thought. A few earnest workers, however, went on collecting, comparing, and reasoning, but their labour; even -where known, were often discredited. This result was due to the prevalence of fraud and forgery, and to the unfortunate impression produced by the rash conclusions of spurious archaeologists, a fungoid growth which the study of obscure antiquities has developed to an extraordinary extent. But at length, owing in great measure to the labours of a goodly band of really philosophic workers, Eng- lish and Continental, prehistoric archaeology is being rapidly con- solidated into a satisfactory structure. One of the most important recent steps in this direction was the foundation of the Blackmore Museum at Salisbury, another the production of a descriptive -catalogue of its contents. To this catalogue we now wish to direct the attention of our readers.

Flint Chips, though a volume of 600 pages, refers almost exclu-

sively to the Stone periods, and to the stone objects in the Blackmore Museum ; a second book relating to the Bronze period, and to the articles of " modern savagery," will complete the undertaking. The mode of treating his subject which our author adopts renders his volume a great deal mote useful as well as more interesting than a mere catalogue. Mr. Stevens duly enumerates and describes the specimens, but he provides his readers in addition with a .series of most instructive essays. So, for instance, the list of mammalian remains found associated with works of man is prefaced by a well-composed picture of the fauna of the Drift period. Again, before the individual specimens belonging to the -later Stone age are enumerated, a chapter on the methods of -drilling stone is given. In a similarly readable manner very full information is furnished us concerning lake-dwellings, shell- -mounds, the ancient cultivation of maize, the use of tobacco, the .animal-mounds of Wisconsin, and the tumuli of the Old World. From some of the chapters on these subjects we shall glean a few paragraphs, to show by samples the high quality and varied interest -of Mr. Stevens' book.

A strange scene is opened to our view in Dr. Blackmore's -account of the mammals of the Drift. During that period our English Downs were the home of herds of reindeer, of shaggy- -maned bisons, and of a race of small and hardy horses, not unlike the ponies of Exmoor. The mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the lemming, and the musk sheep, animals peculiarly adapted for exist- ence in an Arctic clime, were then living in this country, while -sheltering in the caverns or prowling in the forests were hyaenas, bears, and a species of lion larger than any of those now found in Asia or Africa. Many of these animals must have been extremely -abundant, evidence of the existence of more than two hundred individuals of the hyaena having been obtained from the Kirkdale -cave alone. Mammoth remains, too, have been frequently dis-

interred in nearly all parts of England ; still persons have not been wanting who ventured to attribute all these to the one elephant imported by Cazaar (p. 21). We may hero cite an instance of the -unexpected glimpses into the life of the past which the minute study of organic remains often affords. The second cervical -vertebra, or axis, as it is named, of a bison, in the Blackmore col- lection shows necrosis of a small part of the body of the vertebra, an injury which was most probably produced by a violent shock

Ito the animal in using its horns in a tilting-match with a brother son, and which resulted in its death. In France more especially

• Flint Chips. By E. T. Stevens. London : Bell and Daldy. 1810.

a kind of evidence has been obtained from the animal remains of caves and rock-shelters which is of the deepest interest and importance, for it proves the contemporaneity of man with many animals now extinct. Rude outlines of the mammoth cave-bear and of man himself have been found traced upon pieces of mam- moth ivory or fragments of reindeer antlers ; attempts at sculp- tural figures have also been discovered. We trust that the evi- dences of cannibalism which some of the caves of France and Scotland seem to furnish will be explained away ; still we fear that human bones carefully split for the extraction of the marrow show that the cave-dwellers' longing for marrow knew no bounds.

The remarkable pit-dwellings at Highfield, near Salisbury, are described (p. 57) as dome-shaped excavations in the chalk, possess- ing a strong resemblance to many pits existing in various parts of England and France. Pit-dwellings vary a good deal in size, some being five feet, others fourteen in diameter. Sometimes they are solitary, sometimes in groups, with under-ground communications. The circular form of these pits reminds one at once of the form always used by savages. The lodges and huts of many tribes both of North-American Indians and of the South-African races are round, and often sunk, partially at least, in the ground. All the earliest habitations of prehistoric times have been observed to be in like manner either circular or oval. Unfortunately for the credit of archaeology, numerous temporary shelters and cooking-places excavated on exposed hills and moors in this country have been set down as pit-dwellings of ancient date, when they were in reality the temporary contrivances of en- camping soldiers at no very remote historic period. As a rule, nothing is found in them but a fire-marked stone, a little wood charcoal, some burnt seeds, a button or two, and a good deal of dirt. Had they been houses long inhabited, they would have furnished, as those of Highfield and other localities have, a less meagre catalogue of remains. Genuine pit-dwellings belong to what is called the neolithic period, and show both by their con- struction and contents a decided advance upon the civilization of the palreolithic or cave period.

We turn now for a moment to the consideration of an ancient method of cooking of which early dwellings afford evidence, and which the customs of some modern savages serve to illustrate. This plan is called " stone-boiling " (p. 50). A hole is dug in the earth, dry wood is placed in it, and on that a number of stones. When the stones become red-hot the unconsumed fuel is removed, wet, green leaves placed upon the stones, and upon the leaves the food to be cooked. More leaves are placed on the food, and a mat over all. Then some water is poured on the mat, and finally earth as an outside coating ; thus the food is cooked by a combined baking and steaming process. But a simpler method of stone- boiling than this of the New Zealanders, was probably practised by the pit-dwellers. Stones made red-hot in the fire were thrown one after another into a vessel of water containing the food to be cooked. This is the plan still adopted by certain North-American Indians, and traces of it still survive even on the continent of Europe. One less pleasing use of stone-boiling is also described in Flint Chips. Some Ecuador Indians prepare their idol human heads by introducing a hot stone into the prepared head from which the skull has been removed ; drying proceeds regularly, and a miniature head, preserving all the features, is the disagreeable result.

As stone implements form the chief object of the Blackmore collection, so the description of the modes of working them, their various uses, and their peculiarities of shape and material occupy a very considerable proportion of Mr. Stevens' volume. We can- not pretend to give anything like a satisfactory account of our author's treatment of this part of his subject, yet we hope to be able to select from his pages ample proofs of the fact that a remarkable amount of human interest attaches itself to the worked stones which have strayed down to us from remote epochs. But we must here guard our readers against a common fallacy. The Stone age is often spoken of as a definite period, sharply defined both in time and space. Such statements are not borne out by the study of the contents of the Blackmore Museum. The stone age of one country need on no account be contemporary with that of another ; indeed, the Stone age lingers still in some parts of the world of to-day. Had this not been so, the stone remains of remote times, often the solitary records of past races, would have been far more difficult to interpret. The modern uses of tools of stone, shell, horn, and bone in many parts of the globe have enabled archaeo- logists to classify numerous obscure objects, as adzes, hammers, knives, scrapers, net-sinkers, &c. We indeed approach the study of many of these weapons and instruments under peculiar disadvantages. Doubtless, many of the stone tools were fixed in wooden handles, which have long since perished. Evidence that such was the case is afforded not only by the shape and markings of the objects themselves, but by modern examples of hafting adopted in the mounting of similar tools. The exact uses of many ancient stone implements remain, however, at pre- sent undiscovered ; we only know that they are human handiwork, and that they have such strong family likenesses that arrangement in groups is quite easy. Here we atop to point out the chief methods of classifying ancient implements of stone. The main bases of arrangement are form and finish. The unrubbed and un- polished specimens are, as a rule, older than the rubbed and polished ones. Full details on this point, and on the varieties of form in flint implements ; as to how they were flaked into shape, usually by percussion, sometimes by pressure as well ; all this, and much more, will be found in Mr. Stevens' volume. Especially in- teresting are the notes on the efficiency of the flint implements in ex- ecutingthe work for which it is presumed they were fashioned (p. 68); on the exquisite workmanship of some of the stemmed flint arrow- beads from Ireland (p. 85) ; on the primitive methods of drilling =stone (p. 96) ; and on the general distribution throughout the world of stone implements (p. 112). In point of fact, this last subject introduces a difficulty. The vast quantity of stone implements real or reputed has induced many persons to regard it as impossi- ble that they can be all human work. The still existent gun-flint works, to which we recently alluded in the Spectator, offer proofs of various kinds as to the authenticity of the ancient specimens. Besides the vast quantity of flint flakes thrown off by the hammer in breaking upend fashioning a native mass of flint, there are num- bers of abortive attempts and numbers of nearly finished pieces broken on the eve of completion. The modern productions and the modern waste-heaps of the workers in flint render perfectly intelligi- ble those of prehistoric times. Let us, for illustration, suppose for a moment an excavation made 1,000 years hence, on the site of the industrious town of Whitby. A doubt might easily arise as to whether the millions of fragments of jet there found were of arti- ficial origin. But we know that 1,200 workmen are engaged year -after year in fashioning this mineral into ornaments, just as the Romans 1,500 years ago worked the Kimmeridge shale about the Dorsetshire coast, and left abundant evidence of their manufac- tories in those waste cores of this material which have been ignorantly termed coal-money.

We have no space to do more than refer to the compact and most interesting account (p. 119) of the Swiss and Italian lake- dwellings, with the curious evidence of the mode of life of their inhabitants which has been brought to light of late years. Nor -can we linger amongst the shell-mounds of Denmark (p. 193), or the ancient and weird animal forms represented in the pottery of Peru, (p. 269), or the gold images from the Huacas of Chiriqui -.(p. 281). There is, however, a most interesting chapter on to- =bacco (p. 315), which will probably commend itself to some of our -readers, and will serve to introduce a brief notice of one of the most important and characteristic suites of specimens in the Blackmore collection, namely, the pipes from the Ohio burial- -mounds. However ancient the custom of smoking some weeds, if .not " the weed," may have been, it does not appear that tobacco was introduced into Europe until about 1560. We are told that Fairholt "considers the tradition of the Greek Church that Noah was intoxicated by tobacco to have sprung from the brain of some pious humourist." It is singular that the word tabaco ap- pears to have been the native Haytian name for the pipe used in smoking the plant, which itself was termed maitiz. We will now refer to the remarkable Ohio mounds and to the Ohio pipes, merely mentioning in passing that numerous subjects relating to -ancient North America will be found ably handled in the sections -devoted to maize and mealing-stones, Aztec mosaic work, and the pottery of Mexico.

The Ohio mounds seem to have been places of sacrifice and worship rather than of sepulture. The sacrifices offered may in- -deed have formed part of the burial-rites, but though evidences of -cremation are distinct, interments are rare, and occur in mounds destitute of the altars and other objects, probably offerings, which • characterize most of these earth-works.

In shape the Ohio mounds resemble some of our round barrows -and tumuli, but are occasionally on a very large scale. In

Mound City," on the left bank of the Scioto river, Ross county, Ohio, there are twenty-three mounds, the group being surrounded by a bank three or four feet high. One most singular point discovered in relation to the contents of the so-called altar- mounds was the occurrence of vast numbers of one sort of object in particular mounds. In one would be found two hundred pipes, in another numerous fragments of lead ore, in a third a collection

of spear-heads, and so on. This peculiarity has not yet been satisfactdrily explained. The pipes just mentioned are well re- presented in the Salisbury series. Very faithful engravings of the most characteristic amongst them will be found on pp. 423 to 436. They are worked out of four different rock or .mineral materials, none of them having been moulded or faahioned by pressure nor hardened by subsequent baking. In fact they are not pottery, though as such they are described by Sir J. Lubbock in his Prehistoric Man. Great skill has been shown in working the native materials into pipes, particularly in the case of those which have been made out of a peculiarly hard kind of slate, a sort of whetstone. The various specimens of pipes, though ex- hibiting considerable diversity in their ornamental detailsotre all formed on the same type of construction. The bowl of the pipe is situated on the middle of a curved, broad, and flattened piece, the extremities only of which touch the surface on which the pipe is placed. Through the middle of this broad stem a fine hole was drilled, by means of which the smoke was drawn from the central bowl. The chief artistic effort was reserved for the bowl. It usually represented an animal so placed as to face the smoker. These animals, whether frogs (p. 423), birds (pp. 424 to 427), squirrels, beavers, seals, and sea-cows (pp. 428, 429), cats, bears, or wolves, are sculptured with singular force and fidelity. Only a few representations of the human face occur, and these are not very successful.

We must pass by without notice the remaining chapters of Flint Chips. Abundant and trustworthy information concerning the tumuli of the Old World, tolmens and menhirs, and scores of other matters of cognate interest, is afforded by this catalogue of a collection of prehistoric remains which is inferior to none in the world. It is a happy circumstance for the beautiful city of Salisbury, that it should be able to reckon amongst its townsmen so enlightened and generous a benefactor as the founder of the Blackmore Museum, and so able and indefatigable an expositor of those remains of prehistoric times which it possesses, as the curator of the collection and the author of this book.