Part 14

The method of hafting these implements, employed by savages, shows that they were used for a variety of purposes; in some, the edge is fastened at right angles to the handle, to be used as an adze, whilst in others the same tool is fastened with the blade in a line with the handle, to be used as a chopper or battle-axe. In some it is fastened with a withe, passed round the stone, as in the specimen from Australia (fig. 44, from this Institution) and some parts of North America; figure 45 is a stone axe from the Ojibbeway Indians, from my collection. At other times it is inserted in the side of a stick or club. A specimen in my collection from Ireland (fig. 46), one of the few that have ever been found with handles, shows that this was the method employed in that country.[143] Others are inserted in the end of a bent stick (fig. 47), a mode of hafting common in the Polynesian Islands, in Africa, Ancient Egypt, Mexico, North America, and New Caledonia; it is employed by the Kalmucks and others, and was used during the bronze age. Some of the Australian axes were fastened to their handles by a peculiar preparation of gum manufactured for that purpose.

Dr. Klemm, in his ‘Werkzeuge und Waffen’, supposes the first lessons in hafting to have been derived from nature, by observing the manner in which stones are often firmly grasped by the roots of trees growing round them, and he gives several woodcuts of specimens of Nature’s hafting, which he has collected from various sources; one of these, extracted from his work (l. c., p. 14), is represented in figure 48. I have placed upon the table, in illustration of this idea, an iron mediaeval axe-head (fig. 49), which has furnished itself with a handle in this manner, whilst buried beneath the surface; it is said to have been found in Glemham Park, Suffolk, eleven feet from the surface. Even to this day, when a peasant in Brittany discovers one of these stone celts upon the ground, he is in the habit of splitting the branch of a young tree and inserting the celt into the cleft; in the course of a year or two it becomes firmly fixed, and he then cuts off the branch, and uses the implement thus hafted by nature as a hammer for driving nails. In the ‘Antiquités Celtiques et Antédiluviennes,’ vol. i (Paris, 1847), p. 327, M. Boucher de Perthes mentions the discovery of two ancient stone hammer-heads, which appeared to have been furnished with handles by passing the hole over the bough of a tree and allowing it to fill up the aperture by its natural growth, until it became fixed as a handle.[144]

It might be interesting, if space permitted, to follow up the development of the stone axe-head through its various phases until, in the latest stages, when bronze had already come into general use for weapons, we find it furnished with a hole through the middle for the insertion of the handle. It may, I think, be safely said that--although nature furnishes numerous examples, in many classes of rocks, and especially in flints, of stones perforated with holes, and although they appear to have attracted the notice of the aborigines of many countries by the peculiar superstitious reverence which is often found to be attached to such stones when found in the soil--this mode of fastening stone implements in their handles did not come into use until late in the stone age, and that even in the bronze age it was but little employed.

_Transition from Oval to Rectangular Forms._

Whether the stone celts having a square or rectangular section (such as are found principally in Denmark, New Zealand, Mexico, and Pegu), were coeval, or of subsequent development, to those of the almond-shape type, may be a matter for conjecture; the small flint hatchets found in the Kitchenmiddens of Denmark appear to approach closely to the rectangular type. It is certain, that in the Swiss Lakes both forms are found fully developed, and it may be mentioned, as an instance of the constant tendency to variation that is everywhere observable in the weapons of the early races of mankind, that of the whole of the celts found at Nussdorf, in the Lake of Constance, though all might be traced to the same normal type as regards their general outline, no two were alike; and Dr. Keller gives sections, showing every conceivable gradation from the square and rectangular to the oval and circular section[145]. It may, however, be affirmed, that convex forms, as a general rule, preceded those having a rectangular or concave surface; it is so in the forms of nature; the habitations of animals are almost invariably convex. Dr. Livingstone mentions[146] that he found it impossible even to teach the natives of South Africa to build a square hut; when left to themselves for a few minutes, they invariably reverted to the circle. All the earliest habitations of prehistoric times are found to be circular or oval; even the sophisticated infant of modern civilization, when he plays with his bricks, will invariably build them in a circular form, until otherwise instructed.

_Development of Spear and Arrow-head Forms._

We must now turn to the development of the second great class of weapons--the spear and arrow. These may be classed together, the arrow being merely the diminutive of the spear; and it may be taken as a general rule, applicable to all the arts of prehistoric times, that when a given form has once been introduced, it will speedily be repeated in every possible size that can be applied to any of the various purposes for which such a form is capable of being used. Size, in the arts of the earliest ages, is no indication of progress. In the same way it may be said of the development of the animal or vegetable kingdom, size is no indication of improved organism.

In the same beds in which the drift-type implements are found, flakes, either struck off in the formation of such tools, or especially flaked off from a core in a particular manner, indicating that they were themselves intended for use as tools, are found in considerable numbers. No more useful tool could have been used during the stone age than the plain, untouched flint flake, which, from the sharpness of the edge, is capable of being used for a variety of purposes. Those, for example, formed of obsidian are so sharp that it is recorded, by the Spanish historians, that the Mexicans were in the habit of shaving themselves with such flakes. As my present subject has to deal exclusively with war weapons, I will not enter into a detailed description of these flakes, further than to observe that they are found, together with the cores from which they were struck off, in every quarter of the globe in which flint, obsidian, or any other suitable material has been found, and that everywhere the process of flaking appears to have been the same.

Now, the fracture of flint is very uncertain; by constant habit, the ancient flint-workers appear to have been able to command the fracture of the flint in a manner that cannot be imitated, even by the most skilful forgers of those implements in modern times; but, notwithstanding this, the varieties of the forms of the flakes thus struck off must have been very considerable, and these varieties must, from the very first, have suggested some of the different forms of tools that were made out of them.

I cannot, perhaps, explain this point better than by exhibiting a number of flakes, found by myself in the bed of the Bann at Toom, in Ireland, at the spot where that river flows out of Lough Neagh. This was a place originally discovered by Mr. Evans, where probably, in a habitation built upon the river, they formerly manufactured flint implements; and the bed of the river for the space of a hundred yards or more is covered with the flakes. It will be seen on examining these flakes, that some of them came off in a broad leaf-shaped form, and these, with a very little additional chipping, have been formed into spear-heads. Others longer and thicker have been chipped into something like picks, and others thinner and narrower than the two former, have been used probably as knives; others for scraping skins. We see from this that certain forms would naturally suggest themselves through the natural fracture of the flint, and this may to a certain extent account, though it does not, I think, entirely account, for the remarkable resemblance of form and unity of development observable in the spear and arrow heads, derived from localities so remote from each other as almost to preclude the possibility of their having ever been derived from a common source.

I have arranged in tabular form, on diagram No. 2 (= Plate XIII), representations of spear and arrow heads from all the different localities from which I have been able to obtain them in sufficient number to show fairly the numerous varieties which each country produces. On the top of the diagram, from left to right, the several forms are arranged in the order that appears most truly to indicate progression; but it must not be supposed that this arrangement is absolutely correct, for the several forms, such for example as the tang and the triangular form, were most probably derived from a common centre. The specimens from each locality ought therefore, in order to display their progression properly, to be arranged in the form of a tree, branching from a common stem. On the left of the diagram are written the different periods and localities, from which the specimens are derived. Commencing with the drift--the oldest of which we have any knowledge--which is coeval with the elephant and rhinoceros in Europe, we have the peculiar thick form already described. The examples of the drift period here shown, from their small size, must evidently have been used with a shaft, as they are scarcely large enough to have served as hand tools. None of the lozenge, tang, or triangular forms, have ever been found in the drift.

The next line represents specimens from the French caves of the reindeer period, which are taken from the _Reliquiae Aquitanicae_, chiefly from Dordogne.[147] It will be seen that in these caves the first rude indications of the lozenge and tang form are represented, but no perfect specimens of either class. No example of the triangular form has been discovered. The leaf-shape form, however, is well represented.

In the ancient habitations of the Swiss Lakes, which belong to a later period, all varieties, except those of the drift type, are represented, but none of them in their most fully developed form; the tangs, it will be seen, are long, and the barbs comparatively short; the triangular form, which I consider to be the latest in the order of development, is mentioned by Dr. Keller, from whose work these specimens are taken, as being extremely rare. The comparative rarity of flint implements in the Lakes may, however, in some measure be accounted for, by the absence of flint in the district, necessitating the importation of this material from a distance.

The specimens from Yorkshire, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, and Germany, may be considered to carry the development of these forms up to the latest period, viz. the late stone, and early bronze age; for there can be no doubt from the number of arrow-heads found in these countries, in connexion with implements of bronze, that they were used for missile purposes long after the _armes blanches_ had been constructed of metal.

In all these localities it will be seen that the various gradations of form are identical; but as I have been able to collect a much larger number of arrow-heads from Ireland than elsewhere, the development of form is more apparent in the specimens selected from that country.

From the leaf-shape, it will be observed, there is every link of transition into the perfect lozenge type, and the latter is as a general rule, both in Ireland and in Yorkshire, much rarer, and more carefully constructed, than the leaf-shaped type, showing that there is every probability of the lozenge having been an improved form.

The tang form is represented, at first, by a few rude chips on each side of the base of the original flake, narrowing that part in such a manner as to admit of its being inserted, into a handle or shaft, and bound round with a sinew. This is superseded by the gradual formation of barbs on each side, and these barbs are lengthened by degrees, until they reach to the line of the base of the tang; the tang subsequently shortens, leaving the barbs with a semicircular aperture between them, and thus approaching some of the forms represented in the triangular column. These latter barbed specimens are usually more finished, and chipped with greater care than the long-tanged ones, which are rougher, more time-worn, and probably of earlier date.

The triangular form is seen at first, with a straight base; gradually a semicircular aperture appears, and this deepens by degrees until, in some of the more carefully formed specimens, it approaches the form of a Norman arch. This last variety is especially well represented in Denmark.

Sir William Wilde’s arrangement, in his _Catalogue of the Royal Irish Academy_,[148] differs in some respects from this; he considers the triangular an early form, and he assigns the final perfection of the art of fabricating flint spear-heads, to the large lozenge-shape form; grounding his opinion on the circumstance of many of this form, of the larger size, having been found polished, whilst those of the leaf, triangular, and tang shape are not usually carried further than the preliminary process of chipping. But it is evident that these larger forms may have been used for spears, the lozenge shape being especially adapted for this purpose, as enabling the owner of it to withdraw it from the wound, after slaying his adversary; while those of the barbed and triangular form being lighter, and calculated to stick in the wound, would be better adapted for arrow-heads: and it is unlikely that the same amount of labour would be expended on a weapon intended to be cast from a bow, as upon one designed to be held in the hand. I consider the polishing of these particular weapons therefore to be no criterion of age, but merely to indicate that they were used as _armes d’hast_, and not as missiles.

It appears highly probable, however, that all the several varieties, if not developed simultaneously, were used at the same time; for we find amongst the Persians, the Esquimaux, and many other nations, that a great variety of arrow-heads are carried in the same quiver, and are used either indiscriminately or for different purposes[149].

In the eighth row from the top, I have arranged a series of similar forms from America, obtained chiefly from Pennsylvania, but they are also found in other parts of the continent, and some few of the illustrations here given (Plate XIII, figs. 131, 132, and 133) are from Tierra del Fuego. Their forms enable them to be arranged under precisely the same divisions as those from the continent of Europe, and in each division the same development is observable. The tang or barbed form, however, differs sufficiently from the European forms of the same class to show that they arose independently, and were not derived from a common source. The tang of the American arrow-heads, it will be seen, is broader, at least in the later forms, and it appears to have originated in a notch on the sides of the blade, intended to hold the sinew with which it is attached to the shaft or handle. This notch appears to have been constructed lower and lower on the sides of the blade, until at last it comes down quite into the base of the flint, and it then closely resembles the European in form; compare, for example, figures 94 and 136; except that the tang is broader, and has a lateral projection on each side, so as to render it firmer in the shaft when bound by the sinew.

Notches at the side of the blade are extremely rare in Ireland, but from Sweden Professor Nilsson gives a drawing of an arrow-head, which I have copied into my diagram (figure 96). It is precisely identical, in its peculiar form, to one here figured from America (figure 139), and they both have a concave base, in addition to the side notch; thus apparently representing a transition form between the tang and the triangular, which I have never noticed, except in the two specimens here referred to, and which must be regarded in Europe as extremely rare.

To illustrate the mode of fixing these instruments in their shafts, I have here figured several examples from my collection; two of these (figures 163 and 164) were derived from the Esquimaux, between Icy Cape and Point Barrow, the person from whom I purchased them having brought them himself from that locality. Figures 165, 166, and 167, are from California.

Burton says that the Indians between the Mississippi and the Pacific use the barbed form only for war[150]; and Schoolcraft, in the _Archives of the Aborigines of America_,[151] gives illustrations of two methods of fastening, one for war and the other for the chase, the former being loosely tied on, so as to come off when inserted in the wound.

But, in addition to their use as arrow-points, we have reason to suppose that they were used also as knives. I have represented in the diagram (figures 168 and 169) two short-handled instruments from Peru, which are now in the British Museum, into which similar arrow-points are inserted. These, from the shortness and peculiar shape of their shafts, could hardly have been used as darts. The only weapon peculiar to those regions from which such an instrument could have been projected, is the blow-pipe, and they are entirely different from the darts used with the blow-pipe either in South America, the Malay Peninsula, or Ceylon, in which countries the blow-pipe is used. There is reason to believe, from the manner in which they are placed in the graves, unaccompanied by any bow or other weapon from which they could have been projected[152], that they were employed as knives, and this is confirmed by the fact, already mentioned, of the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego using their arrow-points for knives. The great numbers in which they are found in Ireland, in Yorkshire, and other localities appertaining to the late stone age, in which places they form the greater part of the relics collected, and are always the most highly finished implements discovered--the other stone implements associated with them being either celts, flint-discs, picks, or rough or partially worked flakes, that are capable of being wrought into arrows--the fact that the peculiar modification of form observable at the base of these implements appears to have been designed rather to facilitate the attachment of them to their wooden shafts or handles, than for the special purposes of war; and the frequent marks of use, as if by rubbing, that are found on the points of many of them, especially in the specimens from Ireland; all these circumstances favour the supposition that in Europe, as well as in America, these arrow-head forms were used for many other purposes besides war and the chase; and that, like the assegai of the Kaffir, and the many other examples of tool-weapons already enumerated, we may regard them as having served to our primaeval ancestors the general purposes of a small tool available for carving, cutting, and for all those works for which a fine edge and point was required. On the other hand the celt undoubtedly provided them with a large tool capable of being applied to all the rougher purposes, whether peaceful or warlike, for which it was adapted in the simple arts of an uncivilized people.

In the ninth row I have arranged, under their respective classes, the whole of the specimens of flint arrow-heads that are given in Siebold’s atlas of Japanese weapons.[153] It will be seen that they present the same variety of form as those already described. A similar collection of flint arrow-heads has lately been added to the British Museum by Mr. Franks, and described by him. They formed part of a Japanese collection of curiosities, and are labelled in the Japanese character, showing that this remote country not only passed through the same stone period as ourselves, but that, as their culture improved and expanded, they, like ourselves, have at last begun to make collections of objects to illustrate the arts of remote antiquity.

_Implements composed of Perishable Materials._

It is now time that I should say a few words respecting weapons constructed of more perishable materials; for it is not to be assumed that, because we find nothing in the drift-gravels but weapons of flint and stone, the aborigines of that age did not also employ wood and other materials capable of being more easily worked. If man was at that time, as he is now, a beast of prey, he must also have become familiar, in the very first stages of his existence, with the uses of bone as a material for fabricating into weapons. In the French caves, a large number of bone implements have been found, and their resemblance, amounting almost to identity, with those found in Sweden, amongst the Esquimaux, and the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, has been noticed by Sir John Lubbock, Professor Nilsson, and others.

But, in dealing with the subject of continuity and development, it is necessary to confine our remarks to those countries from which we have had an opportunity of collecting large varieties of the same class of implement; we must therefore have recourse to the Australian, the New Zealander, and those nations with which we are more frequently brought in contact.

_Transition from Celt to Paddle, Spear, and Sword Forms._