This plain form with a square stop-ridge is found in France and in Western Germany.
A long chisel-like form of palstave is shown in Fig. 67, engraved from a specimen in my own collection found in Burwell Fen, Cambridge. It is ornamented with a semi-elliptical projecting ridge below the stop. The flanges at the sides of the recess have some notches running diagonally into them, so as to form a kind of barb, such as would prevent the blade from being drawn away from the handle when bound to it by a cord.
Fig. 68.—Thames. ½
Fig. 69.—Stibbard. ½
I have another nearly similar tool, also from the Cambridge Fens, but without any barbs. In a third, from the neighbourhood of Dorchester, Oxon, there are neither barbs at the sides nor any ornament below the stop-ridge. I have seen another of the same character (4½ inches) which was found at Wolsonbury, Sussex, and is in the collection of Mrs. Dickinson. Another (4¾ inches), found in the Thames at Kingston, Surrey, is in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries. I have seen another (6⅝ inches), found at Sutton, near Woodbridge, Suffolk, in which there was a tongue-shaped groove below the stop-ridge, like that on the socketed celt, Fig. 148, but single instead of double.
The Rev. James Beck, F.S.A.,[281] has a palstave of this kind 6 inches long and 1¼ inch wide at the edge, with a projecting rib below the stop-ridge and also in the recess above. It was found at Westburton Hill, near Bignor, Sussex. There are depressions on each side of the rib below the stop, forming an ornament like that on Fig. 81.
A narrow palstave, apparently of the same character, found at Windsor,[282] is engraved by Stukeley.
A very beautiful narrow palstave, found in the Thames, and now in the collection of General A. Pitt Rivers, F.R.S., is shown in Fig. 68. As will be seen, the angles are ornamented with a kind of milling, and the sides are also decorated with zigzag and chevron patterns.