The Evolution of Culture, and Other Essays

by Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers

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.

Plate XIII.