Among the other articles which seem to have been prized for magical or protective properties may be mentioned wolves’ teeth and boars’ tusks, perforated for suspension as charms[756]. Mention, too, must be made of a naturally perforated flint to which a fossil echinoderm (Micraster) was attached, found by Mr E. Lovett on the breast of a skeleton in a barrow on the Sussex Downs[757]. This last example leads us imperceptibly to our third group of funeral relics, wherein fossils occupy an important position. This third class includes articles primarily of an ornamental or decorative character. Reviewing the fossils first, we notice that primitive man had learned at an early period to collect and store up the flint echinoderms left among the residual drift of the surface over which he daily trod. We may pass by, with but a hasty glance, the fossil “sea-urchins” dug up in great numbers by Pitt-Rivers in the Romano-British villages at Rotherly (Wilts.) and Woodcuts (Dorset), since these echinoderms are believed to have served purely secular purposes, such as those of coinage[758]. In like manner the ammonites, pierced for spindle-whorls, unearthed at the Glastonbury lake-village, may be dismissed as not being graveyard specimens.
The most famous instance of the occurrence of echinoderms in burial-mounds is that recorded by Mr Worthington G. Smith from a round barrow on Dunstable Downs. The description of this discovery, which is not without pathos, is worthy of even greater renown than it has yet achieved. The barrow, on being opened, revealed the skeleton of a woman, clasping the almost perished relics of a child. One is tempted here to compare the later superstitious practice of burying an unbaptized child at the feet of an adult, to prevent the child-spirit from wandering around its former home. It has been suggested that the child may have been buried alive with its mother. Be this disquieting thought well based or not, the objects associated with the burial were of a striking nature. Besides celts and scrapers of flint, the excavators found a dozen fossil echinoderms. On extending the diggings, nearly 100 more specimens came to light, and after repeatedly shovelling and raking the soil which formed the tumulus, still more, to the number of over 200, were added to the spoils. Mr Smith, who was unfortunately not present at the first opening of the mound, concluded that the fossils had formed a border around the bodies. In his fascinating volume, Man the Primeval Savage, he has given us an interesting illustration of the grave as it was probably arranged before the mound was piled over it ([Fig. 59]). The fossils were of two species: the “Heart urchin” (Micraster cor-anguinum) and the “Fairy loaf” (Echinocorys ovatus, Leske = Ananchytes scutatus)[759]. A belief became somewhat generally current among archaeologists that these “urchins” had been directly obtained from the chalk. If that had been the case, the fossils would have been composed of unabraded flint, with a whitened surface, or the “tests” or outer coverings would have been of calcite, with an amorphous interior filling of chalk. But this opinion, confidently and frequently repeated, seemed to credit the Bronze Age man with much too great a familiarity with chalk fossils. It appeared strange that he should have extracted the fossils from the parent chalk by the aid of a deerhorn pick or a celt of flint or bronze. The presumption was more likely that the specimens were silicified “casts” which had been dissolved out of the chalk mass ages previously, and which, lying on, or near the surface, when the primitive settler tilled the downs for a livelihood, met with the approval of his keen eye. Accordingly, I wrote to Mr Smith, who, in a letter dated 3 May, 1909, stated that this supposition was correct—the fossils were of flint, and had been washed out of the Clay-with-Flints. In other words, they had not been derived immediately from the parent chalk.
It may be appositely remarked in this place that the fame of fossil echinoderms is well attested by the folk-name “Fairy loaf,” already given, not to speak of such genuine popular terms as “Shepherd’s crown” or “Shepherd’s helmet” (Echinocorys), and “Sugar loaf” (Conulus = Echincconus = Galerites). Concerning the Fairy loaf, the legend runs that whoso will keep a specimen in his house shall never lack bread.
Fig. 59. Skeletons of woman and child, surrounded by fossil echinoderms. The relics were found by Mr Worthington G. Smith in a round barrow on Dunstable Downs.
But the watchful eye of the barrow-builder saw other derelict fossils besides Micrasters and their allies. Man of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, though deficient in the artistic skill of his Palaeolithic predecessor, exhibited some selective taste even in matters of daily life. Often one lights upon an implement which has been made from a particular substance chosen for its natural beauty. Thus, one perforated hammer is of a green colour; another, of gneissose rock, is banded alternately black and white; a third, from a Wiltshire barrow, contains a mass of fossil serpulae (worm-tubes). Sir John Evans, who records the last-named example, leaves it an open question whether superstition or love of beauty determined the choice[760]. While, as already suggested, the detached fossil was probably regarded as a charm, the section of such a fossil, visible on the surface of a polished celt, or the delicately moulded impression of a shell on a flint flake, was carefully left untouched, mainly for artistic reasons. One occasionally sees an axe in which a fossil remains intact, yet the tool was meant for everyday use. Scrapers, too, are often deftly fashioned from portions of a banded flint, and many arrow-heads chipped from agate or chalcedony speak of beauty as well as utility. In the course of time such objects may indeed have appealed to their owners as talismans.
Endowed, then, with acute vision which was trained to a high degree along certain lines, and gifted with the first glimmerings of artistic taste, prehistoric man learned to appreciate any conspicuous and attractive-looking fossil. That very common chalk fossil, which seems to have settled down finally to the name of Porosphaera globularis, and which is by general consent now regarded as a sponge, was a special favourite with men of the Barrow period. This small, spherical fossil, unfortunately nameless among common folk, occurs somewhat plentifully as a flint “pebble” in drift gravels which have originally been eroded from the chalk. Sometimes the Porosphaera has a natural perforation, corresponding with one of its diameters, and thus the searcher could obtain a ready-made bead. By stringing together these fossils, a necklace was formed, and of these necklaces, the “threads” of which have perished, the number of flint “beads” found in the barrows supply convincing testimony. The salient fact is that, in several recorded instances,
