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BERKSHIRE.
€ h alk, 3,743 tons ; value ¿£205.
C hert and flint, 131 tons; value ¿ 1 7 .
Olay, 145,235 tons ; value ¿6,099.
Gravel and sand, 17,559 t° ns ; value ¿1,0 4 4 .
Persons employed (a) Underground, or inside quarries,
163 : (b) Above-ground, or outside quarries, 7. Total, 170.
P r e h i s t o r i c M a n . — O f those early dwellers in our
islands to whom the use of m etal was unknown, and who
made their tools chiefly out of lumps of flint, numerous
relics have been found in Berkshire. Bronze appears to
have been the first metal to have been used ; and there is
some probability that the Bronze Age began in Britain about
2 ,0 0 0 B .C . In the Stone Age which preceded the Bronze
Age— and which goes back through an unknown but doubt­
less v ery long period of tim e— we can distinguish two
main epochs or stages. F irst we have an older or Palteolith ic Stone Age, when the implements were principally
lum ps of flint, chipped into shape by means of blows struck
with another stone— never rubbed or polished. The tools
of this older Stone Age are also often called “ River-Drift
Im plem ents,” because they are m ostly found in the old
gravel-beds which occur along and upon the sides of the
existing valleys, at heights of from 40 to 60 or more feet
above the level of the existing streams. Old stone tools, or
p a l (eoliths, have been found in the river-gravels at Ruscom be, and at Cookham, near Maidenhead ; at Wallingford
and Cholsey; and at Grovelands and P ig’s Green, near
Reading ; many fine examples may be seen in the Reading
Museum.

N eolithic, or Newer Stone A ge.— Contained in the surface
soil, or sim ply lying upon the surface of the fields and
dow n s; or buried with the dead in the “ barrow s” or
burial mounds which stud the chalk-hills— we find the
stone tools of later and evidently more advanced prehistoric
tribes. These later flint implements or neoliths are more

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' skilfully fashioned than the palseoliths, and have often
been shaped or finished by means of rubbing or polishing :
they are assigned to the later or Neolithic Stone Age.
From a “ barrow,” or interment or burial-mound on Larnbourn Downs, a beautiful dagger of white flint was
obtained, which is now, with an arrow-head, a perforated
stone-hammer, a bronze knife, and other objects from the
same locality, iri the British Museum. Some beautifully
formed arrow-heads of the same material, a scraper prob­
ably used for preparing skins, celts or flint axe-heads, and
a nodule of iron pyrites are also recorded by Sir Jno.
Evans, in his “ Ancient Stone Implements of Great
B ritain ” (8vo., London; second edition, 1897), as having
been found on the Berkshire Downs. A flint arrow-head
was also found at Sutton Courtney. A large chipped but
unground celt, 8 inches long by 2 f broad, was found in the
peat at Thaloham, near Newbury ; and in the Geological
Museum, Jermyn street, London, there is a fragment of a
slender pointed flint “ pick,” which was picked up near
Maidenhead. A perforated stone hammer-head was found
at Sunninghill, and an oval flint blade near Long Wittenham. A triangular scraper of ochreous flint occurred in the
Thames near Windsor ; other scrapers have been found at
Cockmarsh, and in a barrow (burial mound) at Great Shefford. A polished flint celt or axe-head, 4^ inches long, is
recorded from Abingdon ; and a similar one from Cherburv
Camp, Pusey (near Faringdon) ; flint arrow-heads have also
been found at Abingdon, at Wallingford, and at Childrev,
and a flint flake at Wallingford. Probably m any more
such prehistoric objects would turn up if they were intelli­
gently searched for, and there is no better preparation for
the task than to endeavour with two flint nodules or a flint
and a hammer to produce similar specimens ; the task will
give us some idea of the dexterity, and acquaintance with
the properties of this refractory material, which must have
been possessed by our predecessors of the “ Stone Age ”
, who lived in Berkshire, up to say, 2,000 years ago.
W . J e r o m e H a r r is o n , f .g .s .

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