Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/76

54 3. That in the Neolithic or Surface Stone Period of Western Europe, other materials besides flint were largely used for the manufacture of hatchets; grinding at the edge and on the surface was generally practised, and the art of flaking flint by pressure from the edge was probably known. The stone axes, at least in Britain, were rarely perforated.

4. That in the Bronze Period such stone implements, with the exception of mere flakes and scrapers, as remained in use, were, as a rule, highly finished, many of the axes being perforated and of graceful form, and some of the flint arrow-heads evincing the highest degree of manual skill. The subsequent manufacture of stone implements in Roman and later times needs no further mention.

Having said thus much on the methods by which the stone implements of antiquity were manufactured, I pass on to the consideration of their different forms, commencing with those of the Neolithic Age, and with the form which is perhaps the best known in all countries—the celt.