Page:Prehistoric Britain.djvu/161

 pendants, ear-rings, buttons, ornamented pins, fibulæ, etc. Most of these objects belong also to the early Iron Age, as personal ornaments were very scarce in the Bronze Age.

Art of the Bronze Age.—The elements of decoration used in the Bronze Age, as disclosed on objects of metal, bone, jet and pottery, consisted of a combination of incised or dotted lines arranged in herring-bone, chevron, saltire, cross and other rectilinear patterns, so as to produce a variety of geometrical figures. Circles, spirals and curved lines also occur, but they are generally confined to stone-work in the British Isles.

With regard to sepulchral pottery, it may be observed that in addition to incisions made in the soft clay by means of small bone instruments, impressions were often made by stamps. From an inspection of the decorated urns it will be observed that various kinds of stamps were used by the potters of the period, such as a piece of wood or bone worked into dots, small triangles, squares, etc., the teeth of a comb, twisted thread in two or three plies, the finger-nail, etc. The different patterns thus made were generally arranged in horizontal bands round the body of the vessel, especially on its upper and middle parts, in such a variety of ways that no two vessels precisely alike have ever been found. A few socketed celts have been recorded from several localities. These are decorated with concentric circles in relief, the incised pattern being in the mould. But otherwise neither