Ancient Man in Britain

by Donald A. Mackenzie

FLINT LANCE-HEADS FROM IRELAND (British Museum)

Photo Oxford University Press

CHIPPED AND POLISHED ARTIFACTS FROM SOUTHERN ENGLAND (British Museum)

As we have seen when dealing with the "Red Man of Paviland", the earliest ornaments were shells, teeth of wild animals, coloured stones, ivory, &c. Shells were carried great distances. Then arose the habit of producing substitutes which were regarded as of great potency as the originals. The ancient Egyptians made use of gold to manufacture imitation shells, and before they worked copper they wore charms of malachite, which is an ore of copper. They probably used copper first for magical purposes just as they used gold. Pearls found in shells were regarded as depositories of supernatural influence, and so were coral and amber (see [Chapter XIII]). Like the Aryo-Indians, the Egyptians, Phœnicians, Greeks, and others connected precious metals, stones, pearls, &c., with their deities, and believed that these contained the influence of their deities, and were therefore "lucky". These and similar beliefs are of great antiquity in Europe and Asia and North Africa. It would be rash to assume that they were not known to the ancient mariners who reached our shores in vessels of Mediterranean type.

The colonists who were attracted to Britain at various periods settled in those districts most suitable for their modes of life. It was necessary that they should obtain an adequate supply of the materials from which their implements and weapons were manufactured. The distribution of the population must have been determined by the resources of the various districts.

At the present day the population of Britain is most dense in those areas in which coal and iron are found and where commerce is concentrated. In ancient times, before metals were used, it must have been densest in those areas where flint was found—that is, on the upper chalk formations. If worked flints are discovered in areas which do not have deposits of flint, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the flint was obtained by means of trade, just as Mediterranean shells were in Aurignacian and Magdalenian times obtained by hunters who settled in Central Europe. In Devon and Cornwall, for instance, large numbers of flint implements have been found, yet in these counties suitable flint was exceedingly scarce in ancient times, except in East Devon, where, however, the surface flint is of inferior character. In Wilts and Dorset, however, the finest quality of flint was found, and it was no doubt from these areas that the early settlers in Cornwall and Devon received their chief supplies of the raw material, if not of the manufactured articles.

In England, as on the Continent, the most abundant finds of the earliest flint implements have been made in those areas where the early hunters and fishermen could obtain their raw materials. River drift implements are discovered in largest numbers on the chalk formations of south-eastern England between the Wash and the estuary of the Thames.

The Neolithic peoples, who made less use of horn and bone than did the Azilians and Maglemosians, had many village settlements on the upper chalk in Dorset and Wiltshire, and especially at Avebury where there were veritable flint factories, and near the famous flint mines at Grimes Graves in the vicinity of Weeting in Norfolk and at Cissbury Camp not far from Worthing in Sussex. Implements were likewise made of basic rocks, including quartzite, ironstone, green-stone, hornblende schist, granite, mica-schist, &c.; while ornaments were made of jet, a hydrocarbon compound allied to cannel coal, which takes on a fine polish, Kimeridge shale and ivory. Withal, like the Aurignacians and Magdalenians, the Neolithic-industry people used body paint, which was made with pigments of ochre, hæmatite, an ore of iron, and ruddle, an earthy variety of iron ore.